Cooking

I love cooking.

I realized more and more just how awesome cooking is. Well, more than that, I realized how much I really really like cooking. Then, of course I started to think about making a career out of it, and I decided there's no way I want to make a career out of cooking.

But I would like to devote this entry to the awesome-ness of cooking and why I like it.

1. No rules, just guidelines. Unlike a lot of the world and society, I can break all the rules if I want to. I don't have to follow the recipe to the T and it usually still comes out okay. I try to use some kind of logic but the cool thing is, it doesn't matter if I'm a little off or if I add a little extra salt or basil because usually it doesn't ruin the recipe (though honestly, I feel like if you add too much cinnamon or any strong herb, it kills it - I tried to make rosemary lemon chicken once and completely failed because I didn't know how much rosemary to add - I didn't use a recipe that time though.) Basically, the beauty about cooking is that there's a lot of room for creativity, but there are boundaries (with the help of recipes) so that you won't completely screw up. If I want to make something I like, I usually look up several recipes for the same thing and see where the recipes differ - what ingredients are the same, how much is required, etc. Since they usually differ a little, I can start to see where I have the freedom to mess around and make it my own.

2. No pressure. I'm not cooking for anyone but myself. If I screw up, I'm the only one who has to deal with the consequences (and eat the nasty thing - thankfully that rosemary lemon chicken was really the only utter failure. The stuff I make usually isn't terrible. Oh, I made this awesome smelling chicken vegetable stew that turned out pretty bland but even that with a little hot sauce was okay. :P)

3. Relaxing, yet productive. I can de-stress and not feel like I'm wasting my day away (which is how I feel when I play Tetris Battle for like an hour). I can spend hours in the kitchen and be completely at ease about it - I know some people hate being in the kitchen for long periods of time but I find the kitchen to be an agreeable place for me.

I realized how much I like cooking here because it's actually incredibly inconvenient to cook since I'm at a hotel and at the center the cooking situation is not ideal.

Basically, all I have is a skillet-type thing and a pot-type thing (it's not very deep either so making pasta was a little tricky). I don't have a spatula and I have to take all my dishes downstairs if I want to do the dishes. I also have take all my vegetables and fruit downstairs to wash them. Or I use a big water bottle and a bowl as a makeshift sink. Oh, but the microwave is a grill/oven/microwave all in one. It's kind of cool (I made toast using it!). So yeah. I like cooking. ^_^

I mean I took some pictures (below) and none of it looks very good and in terms of taste, it's usually a "meh! not bad" instead of  a "wow, this is really good, I'm going to make this again!" but it doesn't change the fact that I like cooking.

(and of course I'll only choose the pictures that actually make my cooking look half decent - hehe!)

^ so above is a spinach omelette I made. without a spatula (that's why it's all broken and what not!). Anyway, it came out pretty decent! Spinach is too troublesome to wash though. Oh and if you look closely, I cooked the eggs for too long. I'm still trying to get that down.

^ I fried some veggies (with oil, salt, pepper, basil, a little sugar and tabasco) and then they had something called hamburg steak and I think they already added some kind of sauce or something (Worcestershire sauce?) so the meat itself was really soft and flavorful. I added salt, pepper, olive oil and as can be seen (slightly burnt ^^;;) onions and garlic. I forgot how much oil comes out of meat... I added butter to the pan before I cooked the patties so they were swimming in oil. -_- It came out pretty decent though! :)

Things in Japan

Hm. I don't know why but I feel like I should update so I am.

I like it here. The people here are nice, the food is agreeable, and the weather has been getting better and better.

I lucked out and am staying at a very nice hotel for 9 days (switching in like 2 or 3 days though). The hotels are hard to come by here apparently because many people commute from somewhere else (or something). Not sure. Eh. I'm not complaining - my room is a washitsu for like 5 people (meaning it's pretty big). My bathroom isn't the size of a tiny closet and the toilet is in a separate room (which is very typical of Japanese homes apparently). So yeah. It's nice. :) This would be a near perfect apartment if it had a kitchen (though I don't like sitting on the floor when I want to use the computer... X.x).

I think this is kind of what it feels like to live alone! I really really like it. I think I'm still kind of afraid of the dark, rapists and serial killers (I read too many horror novels when I was young -_-;;) but in the end, I really like this living alone thing. Hm. I'd have to really live alone for a while to see how it goes, but I think I'm going to stick with this kind of living for a while! ^^

Cooked Japanese curry and it was delicious. The microwave they have at the center is also a grill and oven so I used it to heat up my curry and rice and I cracked an egg in the middle. It was wonderful. :D

Hm. Otherwise, not much else going on. Been ridiculously busy for some reason still and I'm really looking forward to the other volunteer coming in two weeks. ^^

Self

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't recognize my own reflection. Is that weird?

I don't know if it's a lack of ever being able to recognize myself (I don't like look at my reflection for too long... I don't know why but it makes me feel vain so I stop staring) or if it's me unable to recognize myself aging.

It's an odd feeling really. I don't know why I feel so detached from myself at times. I don't feel like I'm living life. Is that depression? Eh. I don't think so.

On a completely different note, I'm in Japan!

I'm going to start a blog specifically for the things I'm doing in Japan (it's for the churches that are following) so hopefully I'll be able to update that pretty regularly! :)

How do you know?

How do you know he's going to do that?
How did you know she was going to do that?

"I just know."

Could that be considered faith? Just because you know that someone is going to do something doesn't mean you're a prophet of any sort. It doesn't mean anything, really, right? Basically it means that you believe you know someone well enough to be able to know what they're going to do at a certain point in time. You just know.

I think faith works the same way. You just know. It isn't easy to explain - I mean I feel like that's what the past 2000 years have been about. Try to explain this unseen thing and deconstructing it in a way that makes sense. That's why there's so many explanations and that's why only some people understand those explanations. It's like explaining an experience to someone who's never experienced it before. People who've been through that experience understand, but someone who hasn't will never be able to fully understand what it is like until they've experienced it themselves. I feel like adulthood kind of works that way. You explain to kids that being an adult means being responsible and paying bills and doing boring stuff. However, I know plenty of adults that do all that that aren't really adults. So then you talk about maturity. Being an adult means acting mature in certain types of situations. But then again, that isn't quite the case either, is it? There are so many petty people in the world. Then, the explanation becomes "Well it's complicated. You won't understand until you become one."

I think Christian faith is also a gift. When people talk about being Christian and about believing that a stange man who had some strange ideas came, lived a perfect life in the eyes of God, died and was resurrected is honestly one that's hard to believe. People understand the concept behind Christianity - that it's based off of love, that these strange people sometimes will try to make you believe in what they believe in, yet I sometimes feel like they don't really know. There's so much more to the religion than just fluffy things about love and saving others. There are some beautiful nuances and resonances that make it what it is and for me, that make it a truth that even if I wanted to, I can't deny.

I find aetheists fascinating precisely for that reason. Why does science exist if we believe that everything just sort of happened by chance? Why do we seek to find how things work? Isn't that try to find order? If there really is no order, shouldn't chaos reign? Why do things work? Doesn't the fact that order exists (a seed must be put in soil and watered in order for it to grow) that negates the idea of chaos?

Eh. Again, I've overgeneralized, but I suppose that's just where I stand.

Immaturity

The more I write my graduate school applications, the more I realize how immature I am.

I feel like Korea as made me go back about 5 years - to the mindset I had in college. I feel like I have plenty of time, yet know that I don't. I feel younger than I really am. I still live with my parents and I don't want to move out because I no longer care to have the responsibility of being an adult.

I used to be so ready to move out, to take on the world - to cook my own food, make my own money and take care of all those "adult" things. I feel like I've been backsliding, ever since I've moved back with my parents. I feel like I'm trying to swim and keep my head afloat as an "adult" when really, I'm just drowning in my parents' care.

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate how much my parents have done for me. Honestly, I hate that I still have to rely on them for a lot of things. Especially right now because I don't have a steady income. At the same time, there's a certain amount of comfort in being able to rely on them and lean on them for such things. It's fine to ask people for help, but it's rude when you're inconveniencing them.

I realize that I hate inconveniencing people and I hate being inconvenienced.

And of course, I've done it again.  I apply the principles I have for myself and I try to impose them on others. Then I marvel at how rude those people are. That's probably one of the hardest things to get used to - accepting the way people operate because they're simply different. I can accept some random random things that others find to be irritating, but I find myself just as intolerant of other things. I wonder what it is.

I suppose in the end, it really just comes down to accepting a person for who they are, to the fullest extent. Let them be them. One can share ideas and opinions but if they differ, they differ. Our society is obsessed with the idea of a "right" answer and sometimes, there really isn't one. I can say there is but if someone else disagrees and there's no one to say that one is right and the other is wrong, it all just comes down to popular opinion.

For example, who in the world made that stupid rule that brown and black don't match? That's ridiculous. Brown and black exist together everywhere in nature and you never see someone going "Ew, that brown tree bark and black soil just doesn't go together." And nowadays, all those "rules" are being broken.

For a lot of people, absolutes don't exist. For me, they do. Ironically though, I don't see things in black and white. I prefer to see things in a rainbow (and not those cheesy kindergarten rainbows with seven colors). I guess I have absolutes for myself but for others, I see the color. If I don't, I try to see it (but slowly I feel that my world is turning an ugly, ugly gray).

I think I feel so immature because I haven't found a place to stand. I don't want to. Once you find a place to stand, you start planting roots. Then they become your motto or ideal. How things are supposed to be. I've seen and read too many philosophies and "roots" that are flawed. I'm not saying the place I stand has to be perfect. That doesn't matter. It's the aftermath of those roots. The intolerance for things that are "wrong" because they're different. I'm not talking about the obvious - racism, sexism, or any other kind of -ism. I'm talking about the daily clashes that people have with each other because people operate differently. Once you understand that, it honestly becomes hard to stay angry at people. People who get easily irritated at others for doing something stupid say that precisely because they feel that the way they say and do things is right. They surround themselves with people that think the same, solidifying their philosophy. That suddenly becomes a society of people. And now you have a culture.

Personal space.

Standing in line.

Being polite.

Doing a good job on a project.

Things like this are somewhat of a given for me. I hate it when people break these "rules" that I have - yes they are constructed by the societies that I've been surrounded by, but honestly, it's exactly that - a societal construct.

I don't know why I struggle with it so much. I don't agree with the idea of society constructs at all. I like honesty. I wish we could all just be honest. I just feel like as I get older, there are so many games (in the dating world), politics (in the rest of the parts of the adult life) and so many hidden agendas. Why does it have to be like that? It's dumb. I feel like it's this big game of manipulation. How many people can you get on your side so you can be "right" or "popular" or the "next big thing"? Seriously.

I feel like building a self-sustaining mansion in the mountains somewhere and never coming out again.

I've decided for the most part, I don't like people. All people. Even the people I like, I don't like. I don't like them because I like them so much (sorry readers - though honestly, it's really only future me that'll be reading this, I think).

Eh. What a pointless rant. I think I'm just tired, stressed from the mountains of things I have to do and depressed because I feel constricted again. Such is the life of an adult.

Hunger (update)

I woke up with a stomachache. T.T

Okay, so it wasn't necessarily because I ate late at night (I made sure to sleep in a relatively upright position so as to prevent acid reflux!) but it seems to be some kind of bile build-up from all the grease I've been eating. Or something. I'm actually not quite sure what it is (I forget what the doctor said... X.x). So I'm on medication again.

I don't have to eat rice porridge anymore and I can even eat spicy! Though I suppose I should take it easy since I just got over this other stomach thing... But the thing is, I can't eat anything greasy, egg yolks or milk.

And of course that makes me want to eat it all the more. Especially milk. How the heck am I supposed to have my cereal in the morning?!

So I finally opened the jar of blackberry jam (Knotts) that I bought from the States and it's really good! It has no fat and I think it's okay for me to eat toast so that's what I've been having. :D I have to back to the doctor's again on Thursday though. *sigh*

Oh, why does this have to happen right before I leave? That means I can't eat so many things.......

Hunger

I rarely have problems sleeping. Usually if I'm really stressed out, my thoughts will keep me awake. This has happened a couple times in my life though I can only distinctly remember the why for one period of time I had difficulty sleeping. It was before I was about to take the SATs and I thought I would fail at life if I didn't do well in them. And then I realized that I needed to sleep to perform optimally. So it passed.

Today, I couldn't sleep not because of all the work I have to do, the packing I have to do, the grad school apps I need to look over again or the miscellaneous other things I need to take care of.

I was hungry. Really really hungry.

To preface this, I got food poisoning on Friday night. And for some reason I thought that this meant that I would be stuck eating 죽 (juk - Korean rice porridge) until I got better. I guess I assume that food poisoning was the same as 배탈 (bae-tal), which is pretty much an upset stomach due to some kind of indigestion or something. I don't really know what causes 배탈 that makes it different from food poisoning but I thought that the food poisoning I got was of the same variety and thought I would be stuck eating rice porridge for several days and then slowly weaning myself off it to solid foods.

So in other words, I half starved myself. Not by choice - I had places to go, things to take care of and I packed my rice porridge when I could. So today was the last day of my medication and I had eaten what I thought to be a decent dinner (eating as slowly as I could and chewing as much as I could remember to).

I have an early morning tomorrow. It's past midnight. I was planning on sleeping before midnight. Nothing occupies my mind as I lay in bed, staring at the semi-dark ceiling, partially illuminated by the city lights. As hunger occupies my stomach, I think to myself, Ah, now I understand what those kids are talking about when they talk about not being able to sleep because they're too hungry in those books...

So what did I do?

The truth behind my mom's words suddenly hit me. "You don't need to only eat 죽 (juk). If you feel better, you can eat whatever you want, just don't overdo it."

Without further ado, I climbed out of bed and grabbed whatever seemed to be easy to digest in my mind for an odd smorgasbord midnight snack: cherry tomatoes, this salted meat thing (장조림), walnuts and laver (dried seaweed). A little too much salt probably, the meat probably wasn't the best idea, and I'm not sure if tomatoes are easy to digest (ironically the first time I got food poisoning was from some bad cherry tomatoes...).

Oh well. I'm happy. My stomach's happy.

And now I can finally go to bed.