Fujiko Suda / Reflection

Everybody is different

Everybody is different. Yeah, yeah, we hear it all the time. But only by having 3 kids, have I really understood what that means.

This morning, I've asked my 6 year old and 9 year old boys to go on a bicycle ride with me and my husband. The 6 year old dashed out, eager for fun, and 9 year old complained and sulked because he preferred to play with his friends. It isn't the age thing. They have such personalities. Most of the time, the younger one is enthusiastic, ready for adventure, the older one preferring to sit back, observe, regarding any matter carefully, disliking unknown adventure. He will join the fun without much fuss sometimes, but most of the time, he fusses.

Up until recently, I was so unhappy with the way the older one is. If he could come along, he could have so much fun, learn so much! But I was thinking in terms of what I considered fun and learning. In order for something to be fun or learning, HE has to think so. His terms are different from mine. After so much frustration, I understood. Everybody is different, even someone carrying some of my DNA.

The 6 year old had so much fun with us today. But I know the 9 year old had just as much fun, if not more.

Short memory, but it does come back

I've been walking quite a bit for the past 6 months or so. I was wondering why I didn't walk much before that. Was it because getting sweaty in hot weather was not enjoyable? But then why didn't I walk during not-so-hot season, which is 9 months out of a year?

Then it dawned on me. For a long time, my knees were doing badly. My knees went bad 10 years ago, after I gave birth to the second son, when I was working my butt off 2 months after I gave birth. When the second son was 4 months old, my knees were both doing so badly, water collected around both knees, very painful even just to walk. I couldn't face another operation anywhere else on my body after having experienced appendix removal, back surgery, mouth surgery, 2 ceasarian births, so I had acupuncuture treatment to alleviated the problem. For a year after that, if I walked for more than 5 minutes, my knees would begin to ache. If I ignored the pain and kept on walking, it ended up huring badly for days, that I couldn't even stand for a few minutes. Even after that year, I still couldn't go for a long hike without having problems. It was devastating to me. Not only did I have to give up walking long distance, playing any kind of sports was now out of question.

So how did I get to where I am now, that I can walk on asphalt road from Akasaka to Hiroo (maybe 3 miles) without any problem, thoroughly enjoying the walk? Scientists say a human body renews each and every cells in the body completely in 9 years. Is that what happened? I discovered bicycling 5 years ago, and it was fantastic to be able to feel the heart beat so fast, to feel my lungs working so hard. Gradually I built up the bicycle ride distance, riding twice a week. And to do my body a favor, about 6 years ago, I started to do a stretching excercise 15 minutes a day. I have a good massage at least 3 times a week. Are these the reasons?

Whatever the reasons they are, everybody who took part in helping me get over the knee pain, thank you! Thank you! What joy, pure joy I have in life because I can walk the cities and outdoors all I want. It is amazing that I already forgot the pain. But the memory did comeback, giving me so much satisfaction, making me wonder about this world, about the body I have been given to live in.

The tempest

The tempest. Yesterday in Tokyo area, the wind gushed, rain whipping with the wind. Sky turning dark, gradation of silver and gray. The great storm caught all of us by surprise. We have become used to the weather forecast being right, often by days ahead, but nothing of sort was in the forecast.

As strong as typhoon wind, it ripped away signs off from loose hinge, busted weak walls, young leaves and tender flowers and buds torn off along with the weaker treebranches, and they went for a wild ride to far off places. The wind tasted sweet, rain not so cold. If I was walking through the streets and was at the right place at the right time, I could have become a victim, injured by various flying debris, big and small.

I had to fold the umbrella, because it was about to bust. Walking through wildly dancing rain mixed with colorful spring buds, flowers, and young leaves, experiencing the mother nature's work, I felt gleeful, that here is a proof that humans can’t be 100 percent right, even in things thought to be so scientific, so predictable through technology by now. For such dramatic weather, one would think it was predictable. Where did this sudden force come from?

We live day by day, thinking we are prepared for the stormy weather. But we are never 100 percent. And regardless of how negligible a chance something may happen, it will still happen. For me, that’s what makes everyday worthwhile. I love the unpredicted storm, the tempest, the majestic power, .the challenge to make me feel alive.

Utilizing outside talents

I have attended a company wide annual meeting of a US based Japanese company the other day. It was very revealing. In a panel discussion among their partner company representatives from Japan, one thing that echoed and vibrated within me is one of the panelist's comment:

In major companies in Japan, just about everything is done inhouse. It is very, very difficult to work with independent contractors. In creative fields, there are some awsome talents out there working independently, and they bring in so much value to projects. After we broke away and became subsidiary company, we became free to bring in these greatly talented people to work with us. This has been perhaps the best thing about being a subsidiary company.

Of course, in small businesses, working with independent contractors or partnering with other small companies should have been the norm. But in the past, it seems small companies have obligations towards their major clients, and part of obligation is to accept people from these major companies as managers or executives. Long time ago, this system worked, but not since the business bubble era bursted in the 90's. Majority of people coming in as executives to these small companies have not had overall experience needed to be quick on their feet in doing anything, which is vital to the survival of small businesses.

Happiness in eating Indian food

I had vegetarian thalli at Mandala, an Indian restaurant in Jimbocho, Tokyo. It was so, very good!! Something I have been longing for for nearly a year, since I had visited Bangalore last July.

Amazing, how food can satisfy me so much. Of course, I enjoyed my husband's company during the meal, but ndian food positively makes me happy. I like both northern and southern Indian cooking. I just wish I could be having this kind of food all the time. Seriously, I need to learn how to cook Indian food.

Control

The power I feel each time I am able to do tedious matters so easily! I just completed the change of mobile phone usage plan via mobile phone internet. I first viewed my mobile phone company site pricing information via laptop, spent some time thinking of which plan would be the best for me, after failing to enter into my account via my laptop because I forgot my user ID, but I just connected to my mobile phone company site via my mobile phone, entered my password, selected the new plan, and that was it. From the beginning to the end, the process took me less than 20 minutes of my time, and out of that, 15 minutes was spent on making up my mind about the plan selection.

I feel the power, the control I have because I have been conditioned in the past that such change would take lots of physical efforts in Japan like going to the telephone company branch, waiting in line, taking care of the matter at the counter, then going home. This process used to take me at least 1.5 hours. I could have tried to do this via telephone, but then the company would send me a form to fill out and I would fill it out and send it back to them. This process would have taken at least 4 days.

Life is getting easier and easier, and we have more control of daily living because of technology. All started with Ben Franklin flying a kite in the storm, I guess.

But this morning, somehow I remembered that this is just an illusion. I start to think I have control, but in reality, I am pitifully powerless. Technology fails more often than I would like. Like mobile phone not connecting because of access problem. It happened earlier this week. Like subway train that stops in the middle of nowhere in a dark tunnel because point problem. It happened just yesterday. I was panicking, because with my tendency for claustrophobia, I just could not bare standing in semi-crowded train that did not move for a few minutes, no way to get out (unless I crawled out of the window which I had the urge to do). If someone decided to gas the subway train, like it happened a few years back even in Tokyo, I have no control.

It's good that I am feeling this way. Because in work, when I do my best yet things don't go quite the way I expect, I will be able to continue knowing that's life. Because when my three boys come home from school today, each with their joy and frustration from their day, I would not try to control, but just be there for them.

Sweeping me off my feet

If any man ever gazed into my eyes and said such thing to me, only to me, he would have found I was an easy catch.

Hawaii's the best place on Earth. I've been to 2/3 of E. Asia and to the West Coast of the US but none compare to the island(s) I call home. One day, if I ever meet her, I'd like to say that home is wherever you are. Utasha

Unfortunately, I'll never have such a thrill, since, well, I am now happily married.

Intimidation

What we say and what we do is are different things. For people who are reading this and who never met me, let me say that I have been told time and time again that I look and act absolutely confident. But I don't feel like that at all. Quite the contrary. All I remember about my reaction to people and things are that I am in awe of them, that I am intimidated by them. Dazzling resumes intimidate me. If I read an impressive resume before meeting him/her, I tend to back off. Unless I have to, I don't want to meet that person. It's probably an inferiority complex because in my own expectation, I have never finished anything significant.

I am wondering how you react to reading a dazzling resume, for instance on "About Me" page of a blog. Does impressive resume makes you want to get to know that person? Does it validate the contents of their writing?

I am finding that I can't help stop discriminating a person when I read the "About Me" page. Whatever their background is, I find myself reading that person's background into their writings.