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What I also learned from plants:

One thing I struggled with a lot, was what people thought about me. I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that no matter what you do or say, haters are going to hate and that’s ok. That it’s ok to let go of people who aren’t who you thought they were.. or to acknowledge that deep down they are exactly who you knew they were, you just tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it’s better to cut your losses and move on.

@hoyaeverafter

I am glad that I’m not the only “crazy”one, I guess this is just a normal thing to happen.

I am also getting very sick of this coronalife…I want to be back at the dojo all the time and actually doing things. I’ve never had my body feel this out of shape before–however, it was interesting to see all of the subtle and small muscles naginata makes stronger, and see why we take them for granted.

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Finding myself again

Recently bought orchids, thinking about buying another rabbit. It’s funny, these were ‘old things’ that I did (also doing it under pressures of being broke), and it’s been a long while. While I have learned new things and I guess have made the new things part of me during the ‘changing process’/losing myself, I guess COVID-19 prevented myself from derailing further and made me find myself again. I feel better, and I think I’ll come back more powerful and knowledgeable than before.

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Siddhartha

So for some reason, I have real good timing with plant investments. Not with the rest of the things in my life, though lol.

I decided to take a risk and just go for this opportunity in getting, “the unicorn plant.” Hopefully, everything will go well and it’ll arrive here ok.

I decided to do a little experiment with investing in both my savings, ROTH IRA, stocks, and plants, just to how the cash flow changes over time within these 4 categories. I also want to see why people, whom choose these particular financial paths, just stick with one path and what benefits they experience with it. I just need to equally match the investment amounts to make it fair. Bleh.

I’ll be with nothing, and I need to go back to my original frugal lifestyle pre-promotion (yeah, I did fall for that “lifestyle inflation” trap), but perhaps I just needed this “reset button” in order to really start over with my finances. I think I’m in a different place than before, and now with quarantine, I can just live super frugally compared to before and see how the finances play out.

Hopefully, my vendor will approve and my unicorn plant will arrive ok. If not, I do have another backup but we’ll see.

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It was my Sensei’s bday last Wednesday.

Happy Belated Bday, Sensei. It’s hard to believe that the dojo has now been open for 1 year, without you being here to see it. Although it is essential to train under different teachers and different people as a way to develop one’s own Naginata (and to make up for any gaps in some teachers’ teachings), it just isn’t the same thing as having a primary Sensei to go to as your main source of knowledge—-it’s like, “coming home” from college to your parents, sleeping in your cozy, familiar bed, and feeling like you can, “be loose.” The main Sensei is who you check-in with to double check outside critiques, since they are the ones who have seen you from the very beginning and saw your Naginata grow and develop from that initial starting point.

I honestly thought that you would see me through my kodansha shinsas and see your lineage through my students. Never, in a million years, would I have expected you to abruptly get a brain aneurysm at the age of 52 and never seeing how much Naginata grew because of you.

It is very interesting now to talk about my Sensei to my students; I can only use certain examples of things she said, or maybe just compare her to other familiar people or fictional characters (e.g. Pokemon), yet, this doesn’t quite get everything about the true essence of who she was—-it is merely a fraction of who she was as a whole. I do admit, whenever someone mentions something about you, like when my 12-year old student guessed that, “Sensei’s senseiiiiii!!!!” was going to be the strictest judge on the shinsa panel, something in me smiled in nostalgia because I did remember how harsh you were about your promotion exam standards and because I guess people who have never met you before, still was able to capture that little accurate piece of you through my stories. In some ways, I was hoping that your spirit would have been there to hear that, but a part of me also really wished that you were alive to hear it in physical form. I still get sad whenever I realize that you actually aren’t here anymore and I do enjoy talking about your stories to my students as a way to keep you alive.

I am still grateful to you for shaping me into the person that I am today. You have made me goal-oriented and taught me so much.   有難う。