Many of you may have heard about the solar eclipse in America. I will be able to see the partial eclipse tomorrow morning at 10:38 am here in Arizona.

Yesterday on Saturday, I felt dizzy and got extremely sleepy. I could not do anything except for laying down on the bed in the afternoon. I fall asleep around 3 pm until this morning 6 am. So I had slept for 15 hours.

Today on Sunday, all day long, I felt a vibration shift in my right ear. I kept on hearing popping sound in my right ear.  It was as if I was in the deep inside of ocean and suddenly being pulled up to the air. Something like a sudden energy shift. My daughter felt the same way as I did in her ears.

I know this is one of the influence from the solar eclipse. I look forward to being here on the Earth at this special time.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

As one of my morning ritual, I enjoyed reading the newsletter from Japanese publisher. Today, the newsletter writer introduced us the prayer that she used to say at her school. Probably she went to the Christian school. I never heard of this prayer until now. Here it comes.

The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr

O God, give us

serenity to accept what cannot be changed,

courage to change what should be changed,

and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

It resonates with me so well. I tend to try to change others, which I cannot change. I cannot change any outer conditions such as environment neither. Changing others or outer conditions are not my responsibility, and I have to accept that.

I am responsible for constantly changing myself to a better direction, and it is the only thing that I can change. Staying at the same place or same situation makes me feel comfortable and safe. So, in order to change something about myself such as my habits or way of thinking, I need courage.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today my daughter came back with excitement. Her class had a special guest speaker. The speaker is a female Caucasian who had lived in People’s Republic of Bangladesh, and shared some information about this country. The speaker wore the local outfit which was totally new to the American students. Amoung all, the most shocking information for them was about their custom of using hands. They eat with their right hand and clean themselves with their left hand and water after going to the toilet.

My daughter said it was fun to know the different culture. All the students enjoyed this guest speaker’s presentation. Everybody was so curious to a new culture, and they had so many questions to ask.

I was happy to hear that. Learning different culture, especially in younger years, is helpful to learn to be flexible. Young kids are still pure and they don’t have any prejudice toward foreigners. As we age, we all accumulate certain belief that only our culture and our way of living are right, and others are wrong. However, that kind of thinking is wrong. We all have different culture and belief, and that is good to make our world diverse and unique. The important thing is to respect one another and never deny others just because they are different from us.

One of these days, I will volunteer to my daughter’s school to be a guest speaker and share Japanese culture and the way of life.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter’s teacher of this year sent out an announcement to parents. She is having a hard time in teaching because her students excessively talk during the class. According to my daughter, most students don’t listen to the teacher, simply because it is not fun that much.

On the other hand, the teacher of last year seemed to be good at teaching. My daughter often told me the teacher taught in a unique way, so that it was easy for them to understand. Also, the teacher taught in a funny way, so that everybody in the class laughed a lot. The students seldom disturbed the teacher because they didn’t want to miss any fun parts.

I can easily imagine the teacher often made the students laugh. I have chatted with my daughter’s teacher of last year. She told me she always thought about the unique teaching way so that her students would not get bored. Her eyes are always shining just like kids. She is full of curiosity. And it is her curiosity that makes her way of explaining things unique and funny.

When it comes to communicating with others, we need to keep getting the audience’s attention. In order to make it happen, instead of throwing a fast ball all the times, we sometimes have to change to a curve ball or a slow ball unexpectedly. The teacher needs to use some technique to keep students’ attention by throwing a variety types of throwing balls.

This can be applied to other things in our daily life. Sometimes it might be fun to detour instead of keep going to the fixed route. We might find something new unexpectedly. Life should be fun, right? 

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I reconnected with one of my good friends. We haven’t contacted each other for a while. Actually we haven’t talked for more than 9 years. However, once we started talking on Skype, our time blank was filled quickly We didn’t noticed one hour passed while we were chatting and catching up with each other’s recent life. It was so great to reconnect with him. And I realized how lucky I am to have such a great friend in my life.

Human connection is like the rise and fall of the tide. Even if the connection with somebody seems to be faded away for a while, the nature will bring us back and reconnect together at the best timing, in case the two persons have strong spiritual connection.

I appreciate this friendship with him. Today I learned I should do my best to keep in touch with my precious friends.

So, today, I would like to suggest you to contact with your friend whom you haven’t contacted for a while. Just send a quick note to tell the person how is the person doing and you miss the person. You might be able to reconnect with somebody special in your life.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I am currently taking an online class to be a successful public speaker. In one of the lecture, the instructor shared his 150 favorite quotes.

My favorite one is definitely this.

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” By Winston Churchill

Mark Twain has similar one. “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

I love these quotes because it is universal to many people. This applied to me as I had lived my younger days like that. I had a tendency to worry a lot even for things that have not happened to me yet.

I cannot spot where I got this habit from. Most likely it came from one of the social life in schools or work places. Maybe it is a habit that urges us to prepare in advance for something emergency or unexpected accidents.

Nowadays though, I don’t live like that anymore. I worry less than before. When I stop worrying, I started receiving benefits. Such benefits are falling asleep right away, waking up comfortably, or feeling lighter on my shoulder.

I owe a lot to my family for my improvement of not to worry too much. After I started living my life together with my family, I have started thinking about being surrounded by my ally. No matter what happens to me or us, I don’t need to fight alone anymore. I have at least two more strong souls to fight with me. I can handle anything with my family. I don’t need to worry in advance. I will think about it once it happens.

It applies to everybody. Even if you live alone, or if you are single, you are never alone. Technically speaking, you are surrounded by your family spirits 24/7. When something happens, they will think with you and for you, about what to do for that. So, don’t worry, stay happy.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I have a Native American shamanic drum. It is made by elk hide. When I met this drum at the gem show, I fall in love with the sound. It had deep and profound vibrations that I felt somewhat familiar with it.

This morning when I played my drum, it sounded dull. I quickly recognized the reason. It is because I accidentally kept my drum in the box inside the closet. Now I remember my Navajo friend once told me not to keep a Native American drum in the place where it is humid. So, I let my drum dry under the gentle breeze from a ceiling fan. By the end of the day, the drum sounded much better than this morning.

That reminded me of humidity in our house. We are in the midst of monsoon. During the monsoon season, all the doors get tighter and hard to be shut all the way. So, during monsoon season, most of our doors stay being half open.

In Arizona where I live, we have humidity only three months during monsoon season in a year. I enjoy this rainy season. Humidity is good for my skin and hair.

When I think of humid air and dry air, it makes me think of the environmental difference between the place where I had lived and the current place where I live. When I lived in japan, I longed for dry air. Now I live in Arizona, I miss humid air.

From these experiences, I learned I should enjoy whatever I am provided at this moment. I had enjoyed humid air for 40 years, so perhaps, it is time for me to enjoy dry air for the latter half of my life. It might be good to stop missing what we don’t have, but to start appreciating what we have been provided right now.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My Japanese friend asked me what I wanted to do during my visit in Japan. I have thought about it. Most of the things will be done during my visit. There is one thing that I want to do in japan. It is to receive a palm line reading.

A hand analysis is available in America. I had attended a presentation lecture from a professional hand analysis reader. She is an American woman. She mentioned the western hand analysis and the traditional palm reading are two different things.

According to her, the western hand analyst is based on the scientific research and data. On the other hand, the traditional (possibly Asian) palm line reading is based on hands on; the information and knowledge is passed down from a parent to a child, just like an heirloom. She focused on the accuracy of the western hand analysis.

I personally prefer the Japanese traditional palm line reading. Everybody is different and unique. Even twin sisters or brothers, who have almost same birth place, time, and year along with the growing up environment, have different lives. All in all, we are all unique souls. I don’t think nobody will perfectly fit in the hand analysis textbook.

From this reason, I want to have my palm line reading in the Japanese traditional methods.

At this time, I don’t have anybody whom I can ask for my palm line reading. I wish my grandfather or my aunt were still alive, as they were pretty knowledgeable in many ways including palm line reading.

I let my family spirits take care of this. If I need to receive one, it will naturally be arranged during my visit in Japan.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I watched the TED talk of Jamie Oliver. He is an English man. I was wondering why he came here in America to teach the importance of changing the current diet to a healthier one.

He answered to my questions in my mind at the ending of his speech. The first reason is that he is a dad and he wants to improve children’s health by improving the diet. And the second reason is that he believes America is the leader of the world. If America changes the long lasted habit in wrong diet, the other countries will follow.

I agree with him. I profoundly believe the real revolution comes from inside to outside.

What does it mean? It means the real revolution does not happen in one day by one leader. Instead, the real revolution comes from people’s mind. As Jamie mentions in his speech, if one person is educated about the healthy cooking with real food and shares it with three other people. Then the three people do the same, and if that continues, it will eventually become a great power to educate the entire country.

It applies to our daily efforts. Our daily effort might be small, but when it accumulates, it will be a great power. Let’s keep on doing whatever we feel it right. And let’s share it with our family and friends. Our daily efforts will never be useless in the long run.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today, my husband wanted to eat at the restaurant. I tried to go with them, but my intuition said no. I didn’t feel like eating at the restaurant. So I asked my husband and daughter to go without me. After they left, I prayed for them so that they could have good time with kind waiter/waitress at the restaurant. After they came back, they told me they didn’t meet anybody rude at the restaurant. I got relieved to hear that.

Why I am writing this? I know it might sound ridiculous to you. But there is a solid reason for me to worry about eating at the restaurant.

I am not a big fan of eating at the restaurant in America. The main reason is on the waiters/waitresses. Based on my personal experiences, I hardly never ever had a great experience from waiters/waitresses at the restaurant in America.

Whenever I was in the middle of important conversation with my friends, they came to our table interrupting our conversation and asked if everything was okay. Then, whenever we needed their assistance, they were gone somewhere. When I asked for assistance to other waiter/waitress, they always responded “I would look for him/her for you.” According to American friends, waiters/waitresses have their own territory to earn tips, so the customers are not supposed to ask other waiter/waitress. And we ended up for waiting our waiter/waitress for a bill for a long time.

Here is my recent experience. My friend invited me to the restaurant. I was reluctant at eating at the restaurant, but I wanted to be social. I simply wanted to have a good time with her. So I accepted her invitation.

Right after I started eating, I found a white long hair in my egg. It was obvious that the hair came into my food when the cook was cooking the food. I didn’t want to lose my friend’s appetite while she was eating. So I didn’t say anything. I just stopped eating my food.

After my friend finished eating, I mentioned that to my friend. She strongly suggested that I should report our waitress about that for them. My friend called the waitress, and I told the truth. The waitress raised her voice and nudged me why I did not tell her right away. The waitress never apologized to me. She said it might have come from the cook who prepared this food. She said she would tell it to her (the restaurant owner or the cook, I don’t know). As you can imagine, the waitress never came back to our table, nor the restaurant owner or the cook. I didn’t get any apologies from anybody.

This story didn’t end here. I have one more thing to share with you. At the payment, my friend wanted to treat me, so I respectfully accepted her offer. I took a look of the amount on the bill. She added 30% tip from the total amount. I was stunned. I didn’t understand why she gave such a big amount of tip to the rude waitress. 

Some days later, I mentioned it to another American friends. According to them, normally people don’t want to show themselves as stingy in tipping, so they leave a big portion of tips no matter what their servers do. And, since tipping is an American custom that has continued for many years, they have to follow regardless of their likes or dislikes.

I have seen some news about the no-tipping movement. I am glad to know at least there are some more people who feel the same way as I do. I hope they will change the tipping system eventually. Until then, I will avoid eating at the resultant in America as much as I can. It is not a big deal for me. Eating food equals to in-taking energy. I would like to intake good energy from what I eat. 

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪