Dream Catcher

Now that I have insurance coverage and my name stamp,  it makes me feel like I should stay for a while at this work.  Well, it’s not like I hate it, but it’s also not like I love it.  It low pay, it’s nothing relating to music, and It’s not something I am interested in.  But it fits my style of working: the repetition, visual accomplishment, and gratitude.  I think I am doing better than I thought I would at this work.  I got used to the atmosphere, picking up calls, and handling tasks.  I can see myself developing and growing as I work at this workplace.  

But, I know this won’t be something I want to do for the whole life.  ”Then what? Music?”  I thought.  Career in music sounds wonderful, but my ideal career in music is performance, and preferably in Japan.  But that might be more difficult than trying to become singer here.  If that is the case, I would rather do performances on the side as main interest, and do something different for career.  ”So… what is it?”  That was the long-term question I had in my mind.  

I have had lots of interest in several career: nurse, police, teacher, animator…. but I tend to stop my train of thought right as I start thinking, “that’s tough…”  I know I am killing my possibility by doing that.  But I just never find the path to overcome that feeling.  ”I’m not capable, I can’t do it, I can’t accomplish…”  all it comes to this.  

After Taka’s advise,  I realized that things I want to be is always something that make people happy, give joy, or relaxation.  ”Thank you” with a smile is something that motivated me all the time.  Other’s smile make me smile,  other’s joy make me joy.  What I want in my life is happiness, and I want more people to be happy in life.  

Then as I started thinking about those stuff, one career came to my attention: therapist.  I had interest in that field since I watched this Japanese Drama called “Orange Days”.  Supporting and helping the disabled people or state of mind.  It sparked on me when I recalled this occupation.  I want to support and bring back smiles that they once had, or bring in the smile they may never had.  

I Know I have gone through several thoughts like this throughout the past year or two, but now I am clear.  I can do this.  I want to become this, with passion.  I know, this is what I want to do. 

I will go ahead and look for community college offering classes I need to take in order to make the first step.

I am starting to think I should go back to school in a year or two to discover something different.  Here is what caught my eye looking at Degree listing on SJSU website:

BA- Linguistics (which leads to MA Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

BM- Music Education

BFA- Animation/illustration

BS Occupational Therapy

I am interested in International Business, but it is only available in Minor.  

So far is the list I have looking at it for 15 min.  A quick check I’d say.  I would really want to perform, but I know it can’t be my main career.  I like singing and performing, but I think I like it as a side activity.  BM-Vocal Performance was my major, and I will keep that alive within me.  But as a main career, I am trying to keep my options open and try to figure out what fits me, what I like, and what I can do with it.

I just needed to get this on word so I have a strong support of my feelings.  Tomorrow is a new day. It’s always a new day.  It’s going to be a BRAND new day.  I am going to be a BRAND new me.  I read a part of a book which titles The Discovery of Yourself (Japanese book).  As I read the first few pages, It made me think.  It made me think who I am.  Do I really know myself? Do I know myself more than anyone else?  I might be the least one to know about myself.  I always have had difficulty knowing what I want to do when I do something weird or crazy.  I sometimes get myself into a self-hating zone where tears rise and wonder why I am so stupid or why am I like “this”.  Then reading this book, I re-think: what is “this”? What does it mean by “this”?  stupid? unreliable? selfish?

I realized that I am always thinking negative about myself.  I rarely think very positive about myself.  I almost don’t have confidence, and I lack believing myself most times.  I think this is one of the reason why I don’t know myself. I don’t know myself because I am afraid to know myself.  I am afraid that I might reveal myself that I am stupid, or selfish, or unreliable.  I was avoiding to know myself by myself.  I was just pretending to know who I am.  But pretending doesn’t reveal anything. So I get less confident, regret a lot, and can’t believe myself.

I might not making sense to the public readers, but it’s okay. I am just writing what just comes up to my mind.  The bottom line is that to know about myself, I have to like myself.  Just like making friends.  I have to like the person before I start to want to know about that person.  Usually people don’t want to know about people if they don’t like the person.  

So from now, I have to be positive about myself, and be happy of who I am so I can like myself and get to know myself better.  I don’t know what physically needs to be done, but I know that my mindset have changed since I started writing this thought down on here.  

the order is not know yourself, love yourself; it is LOVE YOURSELF, KNOW YOURSELF.

I think I got the clear vision of what to do, thanks to UCSC extension.

I will want to get Accounting Certification through UCSC, and get job with accounting related.

Then few years later after I get married, I will get back to music in some shape, most likely teaching private. 

Music Therapy is still a choice in my mind, but as of now, it is not the main thing I am thinking.

It might change after few month or few years, but right now, I am clear of what I want to do for the next 2-3 years.

Many times, I get diarrhea after eating dinner, sometimes lunch. I always thought it comes from some allergy reaction to something that I don’t know. But it’s not always the same thing I eat, and i get bad diarrhea. 

Recently I started to feel that my stomach is weak. It is easily upset. And because of that, I thought I am originally a light eater. I guess my stomach cannot take in too much food.

Then I wondered: why do I eat so much? 

The answer came right away. It is because I used to do sports. I did Cross Country for two years and Tennis one year and Track and Field 4 years throughout my high school years. Therefore, physically I was very active and my body was physically wanting more nutrition/food in the body. Then as I advanced to college, I stopped running so I didn’t need to eat as much. But i mentally couldn’t eat less and unintentionally thought to myself that I have to eat as much as I have eaten. I guess I didn’t want to believe I have to eat less now that I don’t run like in High School. 

Today, I adjusted my intake by stop eating when I fell it’s a little less. Then I noticed that I only ate maybe half or a little more than half as I eat usually, but still I felt fullness in my stomach. For dinner, I didn’t eat as much as usual and I was a little too full I had diarrhea (though it was not as bad as usual).

So I noticed I really don’t need to eat that much in order to be satisfied and that I was eating too much for my stomach. I guess from now when I go out to eat, it will be enough for me to eat about half of the plate. Maybe it’s better for me to share if that’s the case. Let’s see if this assumption is right.

On Facebook, I posted that there is 4 options I have, but actually, there is more.

1. Go to Grad school for MBA concentration in Accounting at Santa Clara University

This is if I want a good income career.

2. Go to Grad school for Masters in Accounting at some University.

This is if I aim for CPA and do some performances on the side.

3. Go to Grad school for Music Therapy Certificate at University of Pacific

This is for pursuing a career in Music serving the community.

4. Go to Grad School for MBA and Music Therapy Certificate at University of Pacific.

This is if I want to kill myself (lol)

5. Find a full-time job as a administration and learn Accounting on the way.

This is if I give up going to Grad School, or go to school for accounting as I do full time job for better position.

6. Go to Grad school for Masters in Music

This is if I go serious with music as career and life.

So far this is the option for the next 3-4 years of my life. I am looking at first 3 mainly, but I just don’t know what is good for me. I want to try Music Therapy, but it’s not that demanding around here (unless I decide to go out of State). I want to do Accounting for good status in life and income, but most private universities only have MBA, which I am a little scared about. I still have the mind of doing Masters in Music vocal performance, but I don’t feel secure of what to do after that.

I got BM in Vocal Performance, but I notice myself not that serious about pursuing performance as a career. There is no doubt I like performing and I love to be on stage, but it is competitive, and I am not that tough to keep up with it. If I can perform at a local production, I am happy.

Later in life (meaning few years after I get married), I want to do private voice lessons. Especially after I have kids.

Can someone help me out by stating what you think? Or if you have any info about good programs, please tell me!

I started different way of weightwatching recently.

I found the site that says that having the idea of “working for weightloss” is a bad idea. When you tell yourself “work for it,” you are putting a negative thought into the word without noticing it. work -> I have to work for it -> it is a lot of work to loose weight -> I might NOT be able to do it. See? So I am trying to break out from the stereotype of diet and doing a whole new way to thinking. “Diet is fun, Diet is easy.” 

So there are lots of habits I should break out from in order to take in the diet as my daily routine. One main thing is the eating habit. Though not like reducing my intake while I still want it or don’t eat when I am wanting it. Simply said, “When you want it you eat it, when you don’t want it you don’t eat it.” This sounds opposite from the normal idea of diet, huh? But this is true. So there are two types of appetite: mental and physical. Mental appetite is the fake appetite where you are wanting it because it smells good or from stress or you just feel like it. The Physical appetite is the real appetite where you are hungry and your body is signalizing to eat. So in other words, you want to obey to the body’s want. Limiting the food intake means you are limiting as a whole (both physical and mental appetite) which gives a warning sign to the body that you are not eating enough; which the body signals you to eat more than you have to. 

So knowing that, the next step is to know when to stop eating. The feeling of “I’m full” is the key. Let’s compare the eating habit of a person who is overweight, and person who is not. The person who is overweight eats until they are physically full and the person who is not eats until they are satisfied. See the difference? There are broadly two different types of borderline: Satisfaction and full. Satisfaction line is where your stomach is not full, but your blood pressure is high that you feel satisfied. Full line is where you can no longer fit anything in the stomach, that you ate till you feel a little pain.  Therefore, in order to loose weight and be stress-free, you should break the habit of eating until full. This is me. I tend to eat until full, mostly because I feel bad leaving food on the plate. This is a cultural thing and I should learn how to “eat till satisfied”. This way, you are satisfied and still you won’t gain extra weight from it. So since our stomach is about the size of our fist, as you can see it is not that big. So that means theoretically, you can’t eat that much in the first place. So I have to be satisfied fast.

So to do that, I should first start eating with that I like. I used to eat something I like at the end so I end with satisfaction. But then if I think like what I said above, I should eat what I like in the beginning to get 100% satisfaction in the early stage. Also, since the signal from the brain of fullness is very weak, you have to be relaxed when you are eating. So calming down before eating is another key to eat. And also to eat with a good posture. Slouching down on the desk or tucking in your stomach as you eat makes it hard to feel the fullness. Also, eat slowly and enjoying each bite is also the key. This is well-known fact.

It might be hard to believe, but sweets at the end are actually good for diet. Of course, eating after you are already satisfied is not good but to fulfill it, sweets are your great friend. Not only it fulfills your appetite, it also releases any stress you get from diet. Limiting or banning sweets is a big no-no. This builds up stress and when you notice, you will be eating like a pig from “mental appetite” as I talked about earlier. 

So the big Keyword for this is: “80% full, 100% satisfaction”

That being said, I have to break out of my habit of eating till full. I tend to do that a lot. Let’s try catching the signal of satisfaction from my body. The Key is “Communication with my body”.

So not that long ago, I had a plan of going to UoP for Music Therapy. I thought I would like to get into the field of cure and heal through music. However, I also started to feel insecure about finding good job opportunities and the “reality” thoughts.

Then I went to look for different options. I looked at MA in Voice. My teacher recommended University of Colorado for music. So I looked into that, thinking it might be good status for teaching in the future. However, I also thought that I would want to teach private, and not in public schools, so degree won’t matter that much. 

If I think this way, then the problem is the real job. I want to do private voice lessons in the future, but that won’t get me anywhere if I start now. So I need some solid job. The most demanding and something that I always had in the corner of my mind was Accounting. So I discussed with Taka and my Dad, and I looked into Santa Clara University. However, they seem to only have MBA for gradschool. Other private around here is UoP. It can be public, but private is much better in terms of quality. 

So to clear out my future plan, it’s like this:

Fall 2012- Go to gradschool with Accounting

Spring 2014/Fall 2015 Graduate with MA Accounting

(somewhere around there, I will get engaged ^^)

After that, work as accountant for few years as I do performances on side.

Teach voice after we stabilize.

So, give me some ideas for good grad school for accounting!!  

total, I went from 140lbs to 133lbs. -7lbs! And the initial goal for this diet was to have friends tell me I got thinner, which I have accomplished today. 

With this and things that I have discussed with my friends today, I have decided my next goal, to not gain more than 134lbs anymore. In Japanese, we call it Rebound, so I will say “No more rebound”. And without limiting my intake like I used to, I will burn more calories by exercise. I have walked at least 5 days a week recently for at least 30 min a day. I am thinking to raise that to 1 hour 6 days a week. Walk 7-8am. before walking I will eat banana, and do some warming up by stretching and stuff so my body can be more burnable (?).

I want to clarify my ultimate goal. I emphasize weight a lot, but it all comes down to my excessive fat instead of muscles on my leg. So I want to be more fit. I want to size down on my leg, that is my ultimate goal.

Please keep supporting!