time to turn to face the sun

I've been busy trying to make changes to my diet and eating habits (partly to lose some weight). One of the things I've been dabbling in is in thinking about calorie density, satiety, and shifting towards having a more pescetarian diet. It was mind blowing to see various websites put different foods with different caloric densities next to each other, with amounts shown for the same amount of calories per different foods. I feel empowered understanding the actual trade-off I'm making when I eat snacks instead of throwing veggies into the microwave for a proper meal/mini meal. I'd be thinking, "I could be eating more for the same number of calories!" and then would proceed to have at least some fruit or tea instead or something. 

I'm also playing around with recipes involving legumes and vegetables (specifically middle-eastern food and salads). Recent wins are buying tahini, making hummus from scratch (! delicious), and pairing this hummus with a simple slice of toast and some veggies for a power-packed, satisfying meal. Sesame is one of my most favourite foods and with tahini I get great flavour in everything I put it into; I got to make a sesame-dressed hiyashi chuka ramen the other day and it was great!! Might try putting some in eggs for an omelette and see how that goes. 

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I've been consuming a little bit of non-fictional media regarding food and the cultural shifts in time that inform the way food is made and produced. This has been an interesting exercise in learning how to consume non-fiction and the benefits that come from that. One nice thing about reading and consuming non-fiction, I've found, is that you are absolutely not required to finish everything in a sequential manner. Most times you are able to skip chapters, skim them, and, in the case of videos, play them at 2x speed to save you time (especially if subtitles are included and you can speed-read). I completed the Great Courses series on Cooking Through the Ages this way, and am on my way to completing a book on food culture in my home country. 

(Just a side thought: just how great is it when non-fiction is written like a conversation with the reader?? Add to that an enthusiasm and interest in the phenomena being studied and you get great non-fiction. Possibly one of the most underrated joys of reading you can find today.) 

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( recent spiritual woo stuff )

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School-wise, I'll not be taking Korean for my last semester of my degree--I think I'll get a much better learning experience (and more fun) with the language in a non-assessed mode of education, at my own pace. I'm almost all done learning Hangeul already! 

I used to keep the habit of making year-end reflection posts about 5 years ago but as of late the years have seemed to have smooshed and blurred into one another, so here's one for the pack of 10 years since I left pre-university and jumped straight into the rest of the world. 

Overall it seems that the overarching themes of my life this decade generally have to do with interfacing with the social world and finding my own path/way through it: 

• How to be a decent person in circumstances where it is complicated and unclear as to what this means. 
• How to love someone when it is not necessarily clear as to what this means. 
• Inhaling and exhaling things that instill a baseline level of good moral standards around me, especially when there are people involved. 
• Being a kind person is very complicated thing to pursue. Let people languish in ignorance? Be cruel to be kind? Things like that. 

Overall I've been busy: 

• Learning that good relationships involve trust, communication, and respect. 
• Fighting for the right direction when it comes to a career path and making a boatload of mistakes. 

It's been a good run, I think, considering how much there was to take on in terms of growth and development. Looking back, I think haven't done too badly, if badly at all. 

I spent today dealing with bills, the new rental lease and setting up digital purchase methods for my phone. It's been a nice reminder of my being able to care for myself and actually get adulting things done with almost no fuss at all. I'm still handicapped by the side effects of my schizophrenia medication in that going out for walks accumulates a lot of fuss, so as of late I have ended up feeling like a little kid restricted to travelling for school (or at least mentally adjusting for it) and staying at home. It was nice spending some time setting things into order and I gained a lot of peace from simply sitting at a table and getting the necessary done. Made for a nice day. 

Ambivalence is pondering on those students who escape from Architecture school into Urban Planning.

On one hand--great! I'm all for people getting excited about the subject and it's cool to see a wider variety of people take it up! I agree that it's got a more humane culture and a better set of workload expectations around it, and it's a great way to stay invested in the built environment and peoples' relationship to it. But on the other hand, some come in with this peculiar sense of refugeeism and disillusionment with university that stops them from investing in the course and some drop off the radar during groupwork crunch-time. Others actually carry on the toxicity that they (probably?) picked up during their time in Architecture and are really tough to work with because they don't know when to say they've reached their limits. 

Hmm... ambivalent indeed. 

I made some really cool bean stew yesterday! It's pretty much a soupier version of a refried bean recipe--I have never eaten refried beans before but what I ended up with was amazing! One more recipe to go into the household recipe book. Very happy--I now have a legitimately delicious bean recipe. I can tick that off the list of things to do now. 

The semester is coming to an end now, and I don't really know how I feel about that. I've got a few assignments and an examination left, but other than that the formal teaching portion of the semester ends this week. I feel somewhat murderous from running thin mentally, but other than that I feel a bit nostalgic already, what with the ups and downs of groupwork, meeting personable tutors and learning more about architectural history and how to do the work that Real Life urban planners do. I'm listening to the OST of Hospital Playlist to cope, ahah. 

After graduation I think I'm pretty set on finishing my Masters before going out into the workforce--being able to get accredited would be fantastic and something I really want to work towards. 

And the world was full of love for you
you just never saw it 
running from who you were to who you became,
loveliness at eye level and shook-off rain. 

Sometimes you get mixed days like the one I've been having today--I had some very encouraging words of support from the temple, operating as it can during this time of social distancing and limited temple activities. I also had a moment of reflection about jealousy as well--about the others from my cohort as having lives that easily fit the image of moderate success in life--people who find that their different aspects of life fall into place, people who don't have health problems, who aren't ill or sick, those whose passions were easy to decode for life decisions, generally. 

Some people just have it good, you know? Meanwhile I've been recovering from mental illnesses almost one in succession of the other, got fat from the medicine making me hungry, have a urinary problem that has cut nice long walks out of my daily programming. I'm glad that there's medication that I can actually take to help with my mental illness issues, but holy hell I'm just as ready to say goodbye to them. I need to go back to exploring the surroundings and getting really rooted into where I am physically as well as mentally. 

I need my normalcy back--sooner, preferably. 

Exciting ruminations! Witchcraft! Changes to my polytheistic practice! Whoo! And woo in general! 

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I've been mulling over my relative lack of poem-writing these few years, but more and more I think of my poem-writing days as being the products of being given a gift with which to survive what I was stuck in the middle of--a way to stay sane in the midst of transitional chaos, and as a way to put to bed the grief of not having what others did. Something to believe in myself with. I recognise this and fill myself with gratitude for being given a gift, even if temporary. 

This is one of the ruminations I've had on part of being what I think is a stage of being handed over to different spiritual authorities than those I started out my polytheistic practice with. I recognise and honour the gifts I have received from the gods I grew up with, and anticipate a new road going forward in my practice and belief system. Turning to face the sun, rather than looking down at myself trapped by my circumstances. It's a fresh feeling. I have a better feel for what's ahead and what's to come, which is always nice. 

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Re: witchcraft--all of my stuff is in my home country! I live with people who are uncomfortable with witchcraftery! What do I do?? I'm thinking of exploring covert practice with as minimal a need for instruments and a permanent set-up--it'd be a good way to capitalise my current circumstances to try and keep practicing without drawing too much attention. 

That's all for now!