Eat, Work, Love

So many small but interesting things happened during the week that I am having difficulty remembering them. I have been amazed that sometimes, a week went by and I felt like I have lived so much. When I was in Santa Barbara, I had a good life and it was easy to remember what happened. I was in a very familiar bubble with the same people I know for a while. Here, I see new faces all the time. I think I talk to about 100 students each week. I am still on sensory overload with my surroundings. Not that I am complaining here but I wish there is an easy way for me to remember it all because I feel like I am just swallowing my experiences and haven't had the time to digest.

Well, before I forget another interesting episode, I should just take this opportunity to record it. It's my first day of the weekend today. I woke up at 1pm because I stayed up too late to talk to my sister. Then my dad called after I woke up so I stayed in bed and spoke with him until 2pm. It was a nice outside, cold but sunny day so I decided to go explore the other side of town across the river. I found a big Asahi Beer factory and discovered how close it was to bike to all the popular destinations in Fukuoka. My bike is like my car and I am getting a work out from it too! Yay! So after roaming around in my bike, I was starving so I decided to treat myself to a nice meal. I choose a Japanese pasta restaurant. The only Italian thing about the place was that they used spaghetti. Even if they use cream and cheese for their sauces, the pasta tasted nothing Italian. Craving something that tasted like home, I settled for a meat sauce dish which comes with an raw an on top. It's like the red version of a spaghetti cabonara. It was really delicious but I wish I didn't have to eat it with disposable chopsticks. And there was no bread to scoope up the sauce! After dinner, I went to Starbucks to study Japanese. I was weening off Starbucks back in the US but here, it's better than going to Seattle's Best. (I so wish Coffee Bean will open one here. I have no doubt they will do really well.) An hour later, the girl I bought the bike from, Olinka and her roommate, Amanda joined me to hang out. Olinka is a strong, spiritual Mexican woman, around the same age as me. We hit it off right away when she sold me the bike. As we shared about our lives, I learned that she came to Japan after having done ayahuasca. I have only heard of ayahusca once on a TV show but in just one night, I met Olinka and this other Japanese guy whom we met randomly at a restaurant and did it while he was in an ashram in India. They were both so excited and enthusiastic talking about their experiences which made me wondered if I will want to do it in the future. Anyway, all of this coincidence happened because I was craving for Mexican food so Olinka took me to one in town and it was good! The Japanese owner spent 2 years in Guadalajara to perfect his skills and recreated a fairly authentic Mexican restaurant in the middle of a Japanese metropolis. Oh, all the tortillas were homemade. Ola!

Other than this interesting night with Olinka, I also had a really good week at work. As I am starting to get to know more of my students and getting more comfortable with the materials I have to teach, I realized I have some amazingly smart students - old and young. For example, one students used her best English in class to describe a show she saw on TV where you can trick your brain when you feel hungry by doing 10 seconds of quick steps and how it worked for her. Another student compared the rest of the Japanese with the Okinawans when paying respect to the dead. Many students are more than happy to offer me information about Japan and share their knowledge with me and their classmates. Like I said before, I wish I can just remember them all!

Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned this week is about letting go. Breaking up is hard enough itself but what I realized is that I am also losing my bestest friend - someone whom I have confided in with almost everything and whom I adore but I can no longer just tell him what I am thinking or how I feel. I now have to process these information on my own and figure it out. It is not that I wasn't able to do it on my own before but I enjoyed having his opinion and sometimes, simply to have someone to listen to and he was a great listener. He had allowed me bounce things off him and offered nothing but a few nods of acknowledgements. I know our breakup doesn't come any easier for him and maybe even harder in some ways so I wanted to respect his time and space. But, I feel so sad at times because as Tom Petty sings it "Good Love is Hard to Find".

Siging off with a deep breathe. Namaste.