LIVING THE LIFE TO THE FULLEST

Today, I would like to renew my sincere condolences to the bereaved and families and friends of those who passed on that horrible day. September 11th. Not just those in the States were the ones who suffered; all in the globe got hurt.

And as I recall that day from the other side of the globe,　I renew my commitment that we have to live our lives with full of happiness and hopes even after that disaster. We gotta go through life all the while we load ourselves with those griefs and sadness, sorrows upon our shoulders. Yet we have a responsibility to make that painful experience changed into a hope, happiness and bright future.

From death to a living hope. Opportunity. Chance. Goodness in the faith, loving life and living it to the fullest. We have to shift our sad world into a new world of joy and full of hopes.

In Japan,terrorism of that scale hasn't happened yet. But we now know that we are never able to live on without our friends and neighbors' support. We, in Japan, got to know what it means to be supported from foreign lands; they were so helpful after the big earthquake.

You never know when you encounter the big something which you may lose your life. You never know when you are chosen to be leaving this world. For that time, we need to live the life to the fullest. At the end of the day we need to look back and think, it was a good day, because we need to realize today will never come back to us. Just as the Bible says, "Don't end the day without soothing the relationships back when you have a big argument".

It is a 9/11 anniversary and I'm watching a lot of anniversary specials on CNN. I often see those who are being interviewed bout that day and get upset. I am crying with them because I can feel their pains. I saw through those sad eyes what had all of us hurt, lost our confidence and our self-esteems, and what had brought upon our shoulders.

What should we do now, what we should correct, what we should mind... those things are not just upon the shouders of the politicians. We all have to mind ourselves to the surroundings, our own safeties and securities.

And, yes, world peace . Peace be with us in God's good name. We all have to seek world peace. We all owe it to the lost lives on that day.

My DREAM Wedding...

A girlfriend of mine has gotten married to her long-time fiance finally. She fell for an American man, so it took a long time for her and him to complete the loving relationship to the final page of this great wedding day.

I was not really invited to the ceremony because I was not really her best buddy or anything like that, but I am very happy for her, as I knew she had a long wait over this day. On a Japanese SNS called mixi, she and I are as friendly as we are on FACEBOOK and she reported that she finally got married. All her buddies including myself got happy for her. It was a nice news.

What shall I do for my own? If I do fall for a man... Well, I have already fallen for one but he is not really interested in marrying anybody yet. I guess he is not for me just yet. I kinda thought about marrying a guy who is my dream date of some kind, and if and when I marry, what shall I do and all that in my mind. Chuckle, chuckle.

My dream wedding ceremony should be both Japanese and American/Westernized. Japanese wedding ceremony is necessary due to my parents who prefer their beloved daughter getting married in a Japanese kimono. I guess the wedding dress gowns of our dream in Japan will be a beautiful white gown that we all can wear on the day. Pearl white and the inside is RED, the color of passion. It means that although the beautiful bide keeps her chastity and virginity this much in white kimono, the inside of her heart [which is the inside of the kimono] is as RED as the passionate heart that is beating in her heart.

The white gowns in Japanese kimono also means the sincerity of the bride to her new master of the house, the groom. With the red, passionate heart, she swears to die her white gown with her love for her man, and she makes an oath also to give her heart and soul for her man. Isn't that romantic???

Although giving out heart and soul sounds as though the bride has sold her heart to her man instead of GOD Almighty, in my mind it is necessary for me to make such a strong statement to the groom that I am making a huge commitment for him so that he also needs to know that he is responsible for the commitment that he will have made [meaning "so he better be serious!"].

The guy whom I adore said to me once that he cannot undertake such a huge responsibility of marrying a woman and take care of her and his own children. And he also told me he is not in need of children at all, to which I told him he would regret what he had just said to me on the phone, because most men would miss being a father to a child or two in their later life. He still fought with the sense of such a strong commitment level. But I guess he will make a good decision when he meets a right woman. I never know if I am a right person for him, but I am so far very attracted by the man.

He and I often discussed our dream marriage. So I guess he was interested in me at that time. We believed that we should live in a very nurturing space for both of us, where we could see natural assortments of potted flowers and beautiful furniture with lots of nice food. He loves green colors in a white room, he said, because he feels at ease with flowers and grasses around him. He is a swinger but is not player at all, and I liked what he told me then.

My dream marriage is to be able to undertake any obstacles if and when I am with the husband. With the dream husband and me together in deep love and relationship that is continuous for ever, we will be able to take any hardship and change it into a new stimulating event for both of us. I just dream about my romance with a man who asks me to marry him someday. With GOD observing me and him together in eternal love, we should be able to live long.

Ah, my dream...

WHEN THINGS DON'T GO WELL WITH YOU (DON'T GIVE UP by TAKE 6/PETER GABRIEL)

DON'T GIVE UP is the song that Peter Gabriel had written years ago. It became a king of the encouraging song list in karaoke center worldwide.

When things do go well with your life, your best buddies and friends will sing this song for you to encourage you. Real friends are there for you, the song is saying.

I hear Gabriel wrote this song based upon what he had experienced. One day, things would stop making it for him and he got really depressed, downcast. But he sings,
"Even if you are tired like this, even if you are downcast and nothing seems right for you, your life still has a good turn to make. You have that force and power given by the LORD. It is all timing and GOD will give you the chance."

One day, a man gets exhausted by his life. All around him, he sees troubles and problems and he cannot feel happy at all. He thinks of dying. Then an angel comes. He has rather a familiar face of his best friend. He says:
"Okay, you are tired. Lay down. I will give you rest."
He still feels he is tired. Death comes and goes in his mind, and then the angel comes again.
"Okay, you are tired. But don't give it up. Don't forget your have a friend here. I have a faith in you and I know you will make it."

One day he goes home; after all, he had lost everything and all he got was his car to drive home. He saw his home having been crushed down and trees are all turned down on the earth. Despair comes creepking back.
Death says:
"Jump. It is now that you can die."

Then the angel comes again for the third time. He says:
"Don't give up on your faith in life. You have a friend here whom you don't want to destroy with your early death."

This song let me know about a family and friends. I have no other families than my parents, since I am an only child and my parents are getting older. I feel I get to be alone in this world after their death. There is a friend, though, my friends say. So, importance and magnitude of having friends meant a lot through this song and I was moved.

My male friend seems extremely tired lately and hangs on his feet and walks slowly with bad posture. He looks as though he were an old man. That much he got tired. I was worried but could not say anything. I guess I should have given him this song.

I love the version with TAKE 6. The Christian acapela group gives it a great thumb-up in this song with best chorus and I love the ad-libs.

Well, I hope my male buddy also listens to this song now that I published the lyrics simultaneously in my Japanese blog site.
;)



DON'T GIVE UP
(PETER GABRIEL/LYRICS & MUSIC ARRANGED by TAKE 6/TRANSLATED by KYOKO/2010)


HMM...
(DON'T GIVE UP,
WE GOTTA KEEP OUR FAITH, KID
COME ON...)

IN THIS PROUD LAND WE GREW UP STRONG
WE WERE WANTED ALL ALONG
I WAS TAUGHT TO FIGHT, AND I WAS TAUGHT TO WIN
I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD FAIL...

NO FIGHT LEFT OR SO IT SEEMS
I AM A MAN WHOSE DREAMS HAVE ALL DESERTED
I TRIED TO CHANGE MY FACE N' CHANGE MY NAME
BUT NO ONE WANTS YOU WHEN YOU LOSE...

OH, WOO...DON'T GIVE UP
'CAUSE YOU HAVE A FRIEND
(I GOTTA HOLD ON)
DON'T GIVE UP
YOU ARE NOT BEATEN YET
(WOO, YEAH)
DON'T GIVE UP
'CAUSE I KNOW YOU CAN MAKE IT
IF YOU DON'T GIVE UP....

THOUGH I SAW IT ALL AROUND
I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD BE AFFECTED
THOUGHT THAT WE'D BE THE LAST TO GO
IT IS SO STRANGE THE WAY THINGS TURN
(STRANGE...)

DROVE THE NIGHT TOWARD MY HOME
ALL THE PLACE THAT I WAS BORN, BY THE LAKESIDE
AS DAYLIGHT BROKE, I SAW THE EARTH
THE TREES HAD BURNT DOWN TO THE GROUND

DON'T GIVE UP
YOU STILL HAVE A FRIEND
DON'T GIVE UP
('CAUSE I HAVE A FAITH)
YOU'RE NOT BEATEN UP YET
DON'T GIVE UP
'CAUSE I KNOW YOU CAN MAKE IT

*AD-LIBS:
IF YOU DON'T GIVE UP, WHOO
REST YOUR HEAD
YOU WORRY TOO MUCH
JOJO NEVER WORRY ABOUT A THING, NAH
THINGS'RE GONNA BE ALRIGHT
SURE ENOUGH YOU ARE GONNA BE ALRIGHT
WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH,
YOU CAN FALL ON US
JUST REST YOURSELF
DON'T GIVE UP
I WON'T GIVE UP NO
DON'T GIVE UP
NO, NO, NO
I WON'T GIVE UP YEAH, YEAH
'CAUSE YOU HAVE A FRIEND HERE
'CAUSE I KNOW I HAVE A FRIEND
IT'S TRUTH
I KNOW I CAN MAKE IT
I KNOW I WILL NOT MAKE IT UP
I WON'T GIVE IT UP
WE CAN ONLY MAKE IT GOOD
THIS I CAN MAKE IT
WHATEVER THE COST I WILL GIVE OUT FOR YOU
YEAH, YEAH, WHOO YEAH
DA, DA, DA...

Loving Voice

I have this man who cares for me a lot. He and I had stuff going on in between us. I discussed about his lonesomeness once in this blog a long time ago. He somehow has this traumatic something going on within himself that leads him to stay alone and behind all that is going on in the dating scenes.

At first I thought he was a player. You know, I kinda thought he was a swinging bachelor who is playing around. It seems he loves taking holidays and having breaks and going out to have fun in marine sport or rock climbing of some sorts, but he never goes out with others --girls nor is he being homosexual that he is not really dating anyone --men or women-- currently, thank GOD. He goes out alone. Recently he went to Hokkaido alone with his bike --sounds like he goes out there alone every year-- and brought back some souvenirs for co-working employees including me. Now I feel like the reason why he is keeping himself alone and lonesome seems like he himself is being a believer of some sort. He has a family member who is Christian, so it is no big wonder if he is himself. But he once told me he had a love affair going on, so lying like that made me feel like he was never appropriately a believer. For him I may say that he had a very complex, extremely traumatic family life at very early age it sounded like and seems to be extremely lonesome and loves staying with himself.

Well, it is very difficult with him being shy and introverted and liking being alone, but we somehow got along with one another. He didn't mind talking with me all the time and he loves listening to me, it seems like. He relaxes and talks to me and doesn't mind me rambling all the time to him. He in fact loves my voice, it appears. He currently began teaching me how to speak more slowly and appropriately in our user support job when my quality assessment test got really low average. His boss agreed that he would teach me and care for me while I am in weekly lesson with the lady teacher who is not really a big fan of myself. In order for me to keep up with the fairness of what the teacher here lacks in lessons for me, he joined and took my own current senior supervisor.

My man is no longer a boss to me and is no longer belonging to the department that I am a part of, but he is somehow allowed to attend the quality assessment lessons and monthly meeting with the lady teacher whenever he feels like. Seems like he speaks for me and he takes part in where no body understands me but he himself knows me in person. I was extremely afraid that things get really uptight with my call center manager joining the session one day to let me know that he set a date to set me apart from other crowds if I keep on having lower average of quality assessment tests. QA test is being done by listening to the past tapes, so we never know what kind of tapes this lady teacher makes use of. Sometimes she looks for a worse one to point out what the problems that I face up to, but because my man joins me and her in sessions to have eyes clearer than both of us to see what is going on in between the two ladies --me and her--, he is clearly trying to make do with letting me have a better score. It seems as though he is trying to protect me by covering my whole body from the outside force by hugging me from the back. It feels like he is trying to cover me all the time. Obvious relationship that he and I had really made impacts to those who joined our department later, and now we have less and less original members.

I am hoping he is not leaving. He is a very sufficiently educated, sufficiently fills in his own requirements in his supervising position, and he is very able. I pine for him also.

He is not quite my boyfriend yet, not in an American sense. He may be a good friend for me, but is not yet a closer friend with me. He is trying not to become closer to me when I try to come closer. But it seems he welcomes me to his own, so I feel welcomed enough that we are able to talk.

I love hearing his voice. He has a nice tenor and light pitch of bass. He is not having a very heavy bass tone, but his voice is definitely one of those that was trained on the job. He has a nice voice. I love his voice.

He has a loving voice that I adore so much. He seems to like my voice also in return. We adore our own voices one another. And I thank the LORD for the necessary whatever to have myself prepare our lives to come across.

May the LORD protect the man. He often coughs but LORD, please protect him from germs and let me be kind to him. He is sick. He needs someone who cares for him. Let me see if he would like to stay closer with me. The guy has been nothing but always encouraging and never stopping supporter of mine. It makes me feel bad enough to have him suffer physically. Let him get over the illness if he has one. In the Precious Name of Christ, Amen.

Look Back (Medical Feedback)

So now it is August! Time flies. I am so amazed how many things fell upon my lap and how they had turned out to be.

January:
I was announced by the family physician that I had a giant cyst. It is so large that it did not fit the size of normal ultrasound graphical areas. The doctor set the timetable of June this year to be the latest to have it cut off my body or else: Meaning, my other organs will be affected.

In January the work went well, although I had a long time off in December and had a pay cut due to the time loss with hospitalization.

February:
I was unable to focus on one good clinic to cut off my cyst although the condition went on worse. My urinary tracts were pushed down by the heavy cyst and had a hard time holding off frequent urination and my digestive tracts also got thinner and I had a lot of problem with whole process of excretion.

March:
Taking in all the info from both Internet and paper works that I gathered from many hospitals, I was finally able to set out the clinic. This one is metropolitan area's major medical hospital for women. At first I was thinking I could get the reservation fast enough, it turned out that it took me a month to reserve a very initial med. appointment. Painful waiting moments went on.

Symptoms got really worse and I had a heavy back by 4 'o clock every day at work. Couldn't get up to go to bathroom.

April:
Had a few appts. and doctors all agreed that I had needed a surgery big-time. The MRI revealed I had eight major cysts along with the huge, 10lbs. cyst in the center. Doctors said that the surgery will resolve my painful urination and excretion processes.
Had a room available in mid-May and lo and behold, GOD made it perfectly clear that HE led me to May surgery, which made it in the deadline that the other doctor gave me the other day in January.

May:
Hospitalized and cut off the cysts completely and which made my body weight lighter, feel better. Doctors took photos and videos of my surgery so that it will be the main topic of the next study tour they make in the US. It is rare to see this big cyst and they did feel it was a great instance for any physician to see this case.

Cost me 1,320,000 yen, which comes to USD12300, which my Dad agreed to pay for with all the output money he saved and his buddies had saved, but the money has been quite an amount and we have been having problems with payments.

June through August:
Back to work on June 10th. Had been working out since release from hospital, but every month the menstruation has been making me quite a tough time with all the leaking accidents and sudden bleeding. My doctor repeats that the bleeding should be getting lighter in time and has been working hard to check out the situation but it has been repeating itself every single month.

In the mean time, I have lost 40 lbs. since release from hospital. My weight change has been so sudden that my doctor says it may fluctuate the menstruation cycle. I need to watch out myself, she says.

I am due to meet with her in mid-September to inform her how things get to go. May GOD protect me for the best of all. Amen...