We generally don’t observe Halloween. Although we were considering volunteering at a Halloween event at a community center where we train in karate, tonight’s weather isn’t exactly conducive to outdoor activities. Instead, we’re home, vegging in front of our respective computers, I’m sipping mugs of hot water, trying to ward off what appears to be the beginning of a cold.

Last year, we bought some candy to pass out, but only one child came by. I gave the kid two heaping handfuls of sugary goodness. The rest of the candy went straight to my hips. We didn’t even bother buying candy this year. Trust me, my hips don’t need the extra baggage.

It’s 9:05 pm and the gleeful chorus of “trick-or-treat!” did not pierce the night even once. The evening is eerily silent, but that’s to be expected with such scary weather outside. I suppose even little ghouls and goblins prefer to stay dry.

I hope you had a safe and fun Halloween, how ever you decided to spend it.

Happy 76th birthday, Mom!, originally uploaded by Champuru.

Mom’s birthday is today, so we celebrated with a mint-choco ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. She made it clear that dinner tonight or tomorrow night is out of the question. It interferes with her University of Hawaii sports-viewing calendar. She’s a big fan, but prefers to watch on television instead of going to the event itself. Although it’s exciting once in a while, she finds the play-by-play commentary by the sportscasters and replays of televised games much more enjoyable.

She did say that she can fit us into her schedule for lunch, however. So that’s our plan!

Happy birthday, Mom! You’re the best! I love you!

It looks like we may actually be able to play tennis tonight. The skies are clear overhead and it looks like it will be a beautiful evening to hit some fuzzy yellow balls around the court.

Let’s hope so, anyway. My body is hurting for some physical activity.

One of the life’s joys is being able to find beauty in the ordinary, to relish in the simple, and to be thankful for another day of life. When I lose the ability to do that, I start feeling like I’m digging myself into a rut. Lately, it seems like this ditch is getting pretty deep.

The summer was magical and we always had plans for the weekend as long as there was a bon dance somewhere on the island. Now we’re slipped into fall (sounds painful, doesn’t it?) and the gaiety of those careless summer evenings under the chochin lanterns seem like a distant memory. Dancing, eating, and making merry with friends was the perfect remedy to a stressful week and worries simply melted away like strawberry shave ice on a humid summer night. Sadly, we’ve retreated into our own routines and haven’t seen most of the Champuru Bon Dance Posse since obon season ended. The Champuru vlog is hurting for content and even the blog stands silent more often than usual. With all of the summer excitement, I seem to have forgotten how to blog/vlog about anything else… about normal things, like life in general.

October has swallowed me up in work-related activity and I won’t get a reprieve until October 31. I am liable to get dressed up as the creepy Burger King guy and go to Waikiki with the rest of the weirdos on Halloween to celebrate surviving the hectic month and to just do something different for a change. But, knowing me, I won’t. I’m boring like that.

Although the desire to do something new and amazing is there, the energy level just isn’t. Trying to stave off burn out usually requires being in a state of vegetation whenever possible. These days, it’s lying in front of the TV and watching episodes of Anthony Bordain’s “No Reservations” and “Sell this House!” on my DVR with Hubby. But even those moments are few and far between with the schedule I’ve been keeping lately.

However, all the stuff that I’m going through is nothing compared to what my dear friend is experiencing right now with the failing health of her father. When tragedies like this occur, it puts everything in perspective and the trivial annoyances of the daily grind don’t seem so earth-shattering anymore. The mountains we made out of molehills flatten out in a hurry and we begin to realize what’s truly important in our lives. As I pray for her and her family throughout the day, it also makes me think about our mortality and that of our parents. I’m just not ready to deal with that yet. I don’t know if I ever will be. It makes me thankful for every day that we have with our loved ones, every day of health, of laughter and love.

I spent the better part of my childhood afternoons at a Japanese language class at the neighborhood Buddhist temple. Japanese School was the after school program of my generation, a place where parents sent their kids to keep them out of their hair for a couple of hours. If you learned a little bit of Japanese, well, that was just a a bonus. Even after attending classes an hour a day, five days a week for eight years, most Japanese School graduates are not fluent, but have a rudimentary knowledge of the language. Now, decades later, the use-it-or-lose it principle certainly applies. While I’m still fluent at reading and writing hiragana and katakana and recognizing a handful of common kanji, I am very hesitant to attempt to carry on a conversation in Japanese. On countless occasions, I have wished that I had continued in my studies of nihongo (the Japanese language) and lamented over my lack of conversational skills. So, when I discovered Mango Languages, it gave me a renewed interest in picking up Japanese again.

Mango Languages is a free Internet course that offers 100 lessons for various languages such as Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Greek. I am on lesson 4 (of 101) and have found it to be a good refresher. There are over 100 slides per lesson, but a lot of it is redundant information to help you review and check your knowledge of what you just learned. Especially helpful is the way the words are color-coded for easier translation, written in both English and Japanese hiragana. If you don’t read hiragana, hover your mouse over the characters and a pop-up box of the romanization appears. Each lessons starts with a short dialog and the slides explain the translations and grammatical elements to give you a good understanding of why the sentence is structured as it is. The dialog features native speakers, so that you can hear the proper pronunciation and practice emulating it.

Peeking ahead to the last lesson, I realized that Mango will provide a good foundation, but I’d like to continue to develop my skills beyond that level, so I started looking for more resources. In iTunes, you’ll find a ton of free podcasts you can subscribe to on virtually any topic you can imagine. In the search bar, I typed, “learn Japanese” and got a list of 46 podcasts. Surely not all of them will be gems, but keeping a keen eye on the “popularity” rating will generally give you an idea of who’s hot and who’s not. The most popular podcast listed was called JapanesePod101.com. I navigated to their website and found that it’s a company that backs the free podcast, offering free and paid subscriptions to their service. I immediately signed up for the free 7-day trial and will tour around and let you know what I find. If the resources are as comprehensive as they say, it may be worth the $8/month to subscribe. They also have a “premium” service which is $25/month. Of course, discounts are offered if you pay for the year up front, so I may opt to do that if I choose to subscribe.

Have you heard of JapanesePod101.com or tried the service? If so, tell me what you think!

If the service can keep me engaged and interested in learning Japanese, it will be a good investment indeed. Will keep you posted…

This is a cross-post from the champuru Health & Fitness blog:

On October 1, I returned to karate after a forced hiatus due to my IVF doctor’s orders. Since I’m in waiting mode, I figure it’s a good time to get my body back in shape to get ready for the embryo transfer in January. Yesterday was our 2-hour combined training and I am certainly feeling the effects of the intense workout. Months of inactivity can make your muscles forget what they were meant to do and it’s usually a painful endeavor to refresh their memory. This was no exception. Nevertheless, despite the pain, it’s good to be back at karate. I missed a belt test, so I guess I’ll need to wait 6 months before I can test again. At least it’ll give me time to perfect my Heian Godan and Tekki Shodan.

Notably, Shari and Joni also joined karate on October 1! It’s been fun having them in the class!

I’ve also been trying to eat better — although I haven’t committed to a strict diet. I have been back on my salads-for-lunch diet at work, allowing for the occasional Oreo cookie when I need a pick-me-up at the office. I’ve also been eating a lot of champuru: mostly goya champuru and zucchini miso champuru (since I can’t seem to find hechima anywhere). Okinawans are known for their longevity, so I’m getting back to my roots. Hopefully, it’ll prove not only healthy for me, but also for Hubby who is also trying to turn over a new leaf in healthy eating.

6:30 p.m. - Tonight, if the weather holds out, will be my first tennis lesson with Joyce. The past two weeks were postponed due to one reason or another, so I’m hoping that we will actually be able to start today. Last week, we showed up for our lesson, not realizing it had been canceled due to rain. So, instead, we found ourselves at McDonald’s, conversing over hot fudge sundaes about girl stuff.

Dark rain clouds are looming overhead, so I’m wondering if we’ll get rained out again.

Last night, I returned to karate after taking a (very long) break for my in vitro egg retrieval procedure. Prior to that, I had been doing so well, training semi-consistently and preparing for my belt exam. However, once I get derailed, I find it very hard to get back on track. This time, it’s taken me nearly three months to stage my comeback. With scheduled activities like karate and tennis, I hope to improve my health for my upcoming embryo transfer in January. I’m praying that the innards are healing nicely and will make a nice, comfy home to grow a healthy, happy baby.

** UPDATE **
8:37 p.m. - We got rained out. Joyce and I took the opportunity to hit Starbucks tonight. Sipping a steaming cup of white tea (venti!) and chatting with Joyce while watching the rain outside made for a nice evening in spite of facing our third class cancellation in a row.