Category: musings

Weekend Stories: The usual |16

Posted on by Hanna

It’s funny how I started this ‘Weekend Stories’ series here with the plan to make the most of my weekends living in New York City. Now that I’m close to my fourth year living in this country, nothing really felt novel, nothing felt like it was worth trekking outside of the house for because I’d knew what to expect.
I wanted to change that and, instead, appreciate what the City had to offer or to simply find novelty by paying attention to the seemingly mundane with a different perspective.

Yet, alas, here we all are. There is a saying in Korean that says “피할수없으면 즐겨라” (loosely translated: if it cannot be avoided, then try to enjoy it).
And to that, I did. I tried. I established a wholesome morning routine which I am proud to say I am being consistent with. I have a workout app that I am following. I have this blog/”online journal” to take photos and write.

We are now entering the seventh week of quarantine and I can’t help but feel the days and weeks are feeling monotonous. I’m sure we are all feeling this way. But to combine the two aforementioned approaches, I will try to enjoy what cannot be avoided by being fully present when I am reading an interesting book, when I listen to the music from the piano keys I am playing or when N creates an upgraded pancake recipe that we get to have for breakfast on Saturday. It might even be the morning light I see cascading across the coffee table, the smell of the home-made cinnamon bun roll with a cup of coffee, the sound of birds chirping to indicate the start of Spring on my short walks or the feeling of my mind and body feeling refreshed after a 10-minute yoga session in the morning sunlight.

So although my Weekend Stories may not be about the latest restaurant or event I went to in NYC, or the overseas trip I went on over the long weekend, I’ll use this space to capture the simple joys in these unprecedented times and also enjoy the process of writing my self-indulgent musings on this blog.

To end, here are some photos I took on our walk around DUMBO (with our face masks on) on a warm Sunday afternoon.

My morning routine

Posted on by Hanna

Before the lockdown, I began waking up early at around 6.30 or 7am to enjoy a morning routine before work. Now that we are able to work from home, these mornings have become vital to setting up a structured and productive day.

In the first week of working from home, I was sleeping late and waking up without a morning routine. I’d roll out of bed, wash my face and hit the desk, straight to work. At the end of that week I felt so tired and lethargic. That’s when I realised I needed a more structured day with a morning routine to start off with.

My morning routine look likes this:

1. Wake up and wash face with cold water, then make tea or coffee
2. Yoga for 10-15 minutes (a recent addition, it wakes up my body and I love the feeling afterwards)
3. Study Anki deck cards (alternate between grammar and vocab) with my hot drink
[Update 4/23: Study Japanese (Anki decks – daily vocab quiz – daily grammar chapter – write daily 100-word diary in Japanese and past on lang-8.com)]
4. Read my manga books (look up words using the Daum dictionary)
5. Read my book on the sofa next to the window sill (the best way to end the morning routine)

I would say each task takes around 15 minutes each. So all up, my routine takes 1.5hrs (6.30 to 8am). I am thinking if I wake up earlier at 6am, I’d be done by 7.30am, leaving me with an hour of free time before work!
I can choose whatever I want to do with that extra hour of “me” time.
That can mean going for a walk, read more, study something extra, play the piano, edit my photos, journal, blog, exercise indoors or simply do nothing – it’s whatever I feel like doing. The only thing is to avoid is social media and Netflix. After dinner, I also have some spare time where I will work on anything I feel like. So it would be nice to do this in the morning too!

Who would have though I’d become a morning person?

On the last weekend of February 2020

Posted on by Hanna

Snippets of my week working from home and social distancing.

The usual breakfast of vegemite and avocado toast.

Time to work.

The left-hand side view from my desk. It was a gloomy, cloudy week.

Homemade pizza by N for dinner!

Finished this manga book. Onto my next Masuda Miri book. I like her contemplative simplicity in her drawings and writing. I try to read 4 pages every morning as my Japanese study routine. Any words I don’t know, I search on the Daum dictionary app and pencil it in.

Garlic clam pasta with white wine by N, of course. My favorite!

After a walk around Fort Greene Park to get some fresh air, N made cookies and we watched ‘Sweeney Todd’ to end our Friday.

Weekend Stories: In the time of Covid-19 in NYC|11

Posted on by Hanna

March 14-15 2020

So began the weekend after our first week of working from home due to the coronavirus outbreak in NYC.

Saturday breakfast recipe that can never go wrong.
After eating and lazing around watching some rabbit movie N had on Netflix,
I decided to go on a walk to DUMBO by myself whilst listening to Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday podcast with Eckhart Tolle as the guest.

Here are some photos I took during my walk.
It was exciting to see hints of Spring!

You know you’ve been living in the city for too long when you get nostalgic and giddy standing and smelling the fresh cut grass in a park.
I walked a good 8.5km for three hours on a beautiful sunny day.
It was much needed exercise after days sitting and working from home.

N made french toast for breakfast on Sunday morning. It was so good.
The hint of cinnamon with maple syrup and cream was heavenly.

He also baked fresh bread in the morning. How did I get so lucky?

These three photos from Sunday are from my Ricoh GRII without any edits. My past blogs are from my iPhone 11, all edited. I might start using photos my Ricoh more on this blog.

After a decadent breakfast, N and I walked to Wegman’s where I popped by yesterday during my loner walk. I told him about this expansive supermarket near us and he wanted to check it out too. We bought groceries (and found toilet paper!) for the week as we were both going to be working from home.

The numerous tags we saw on the shelves at Wegman’s. Crazy times.

Afterwards, we sat outside the food market eating pizza and soaked up some sun. People, including ourselves, were religiously sanitizing their hands and some with industry-strength masks on.

It was announced that on Tuesday all restaurants and bars would be closed in NYC.
Sh*t is escalating here in this city.

Weekend Stories|10

Posted on by Hanna

Saturday was spent all day at home – yet again.
This has become a pattern where I stay home all day
on one day of the weekend and go out on the other.
N made the perfect crepes on Sunday morning.

Few hours after breakfast, I went out to get some life admin done.
N wanted to join and we ended up going to White Noise Coffee.
They have most reliable wifi. It was productive, except
I deferred doing my taxes to another weekend.

We walked through the Dekalb shops and came across a
pleasant surprise – McNally Jackson bookstore opened!
I refrained from buying any books or stationery.
The bookstore is a lot more expansive than it look from the outside.
There is a reading nook with a large table upstairs.
I made myself comfortable and finished “A New Earth”
I have been reading for past few weeks.

It was ten years ago when I read Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”.
During that time I was going through some typical twenties crises
and this book helped me to manage my thoughts and emotions,
to separate the situation and my thoughts. It was so powerful I
purchased copies to give out to my friends.
Fast forward ten years, having experienced much more of life’s lessens,
this book enlightened me to a whole new perspective of how to, in essence,
live day-by-day and navigate this life with my consciousness and
with humans that I will interact with in various situations.
I loved it. I don’t think I’ve highlighted so furiously on my kindle before.

Life becomes stressful and anxious when my mind is dwelling on the past,
or trying to live in the future when that obviously cannot happen.
Being frustrated, offended or feeling any negative emotions towards a person
no longer needs to linger internally. All I have to do is identify the ego that is talking,
observe why it’s reacting in such manner (most likely because it’s in reaction to the
other person’s ego) and to just be aware and conscious of it and let it go.
If you no longer identify yourself as the ego, that is when you are in complete
consciousness.
Growing up at church I remember the sermons about being humble,
that “the last shall be first and the first last” and how we should follow in Jesus’
steps. It’s one of those things that you know it’s “good” to be humble, but you don’t truly no why. In the Bible it says “Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth”. In the older version the word was “meek” instead of “humble”.
So who are the meek or humble? It is those who are ego-less.
When you let go of the ego and the form, stop behaving from the conditioned mind, I can instead live a life of peace that’s true to myself.

There is a chapter on life’s purpose and that was transformative for me.
By living in consciousness, i.e., ego-less, it will begin to flow into what you do,
and in the modalities of awakened doing – acceptance, enjoyment, enthusiasm.
That’s it. That’s the purpose of being. It’s a new earth of freedom and peace.

So yes, that was the book I finished over the weekend.
You know what else I finished over the weekend?

A K-drama called “Crash Landing on You” that’s on Netflix.
It’s so cheesy but cute.
It works because of Hyunbin.

Know thyself, be thyself

Posted on by Hanna

“Authenticity (philosophy)”
– from Wikipedia

In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which an individual’s actions are congruent with their beliefs and desires, despite external pressures; the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures, and influences which are very different from, and other than, itself.

A lack of authenticity is considered in existentialism to be bad faith.
The call of authenticity resonates with the famous instruction by the Oracle of Delphi, “Know thyself.”

But authenticity extends this message: “Don’t merely know thyself – be thyself.”

Going into 2020, this is what I want to focus on, a personal goal, for the next decade.