Day 4: Embracing Fear

Day4

Standing at the top of a mountain and strapped to a 1/2-cm thick piece of plastic, I remembered that I'm risk-adverse. I decided where to live after college based on where I had family. I make friends through book clubs because it's easy to talk about books. I converse about food at parties because everyone eats. So, how did I end up at the top of a mountain even though I fear heights?

Having grown up in the Midwest, I miss the snow and the cold winters. Years pass strangely in California with its lack of seasons. For years, friends suggested I take advantage of California's mountains and go ski in winter. It's the joy of winter without the required daily work. I never went. Being afraid to sled hills, I could not imagine myself careening down a mountain on slim pieces of plastic.  Then last year, I started doing small things that scare me such as talking to strangers at parties or looking stupid while learning how to swim. I realized that once I could acknowledge what I was afraid of, I can move on from it. Last year also introduced me to a new friend who's fanatical about snowboarding. I have always loved doing things with people who are passionate about that thing. Enthusiasm is infectious. So when he invited me to go snowboarding, I said yes.

That day, I was regretting my yes. It was not my first day, but it was the highest. After we unloaded from the lift, he took me to a sheer drop-off and told me to go down it. I was utterly terrified. In fact, I was hyperventilating. I wanted to jump back on the lift and retreat to the nice, warm, safe lodge. Instead I sat in the snow for 5 minutes, gathered my fear and panic, and squished them into a manageable ball. Then I flung myself off the side.

I went nowhere. It was a powder day and there was so much snow that I sunk immediately. My fears of careening wildly out of control down a mountain, injuring myself, and killing others turned out to be irrational. It was an accomplishment to snowboard two feet without sinking.

Fear can be debilitating. In small doses fear can be useful. It can focus attention: "Oh crap, there's a tree. I need to steer away from it." However, in large doses fear can prevent us from experiencing life. If fear had prevailed, I would have missed out three things I love: being outdoors, being active, and being in snow. Acknowledge your fears, then ignore them. Fear will be always present, but its purpose and influence on your life can be changed.


What fear have you conquered lately?

Day 3: Get Up

Day 3

I learned how to snowboard this year. I heard this a lot.

When I snowboard alone, I tend to sit after falls. When I'm with my friend, I am told, "Get up. What are you sitting for? Get up." On my own, I practiced falling leaf; it is easy to control but very tiring. It is a tool to teach beginners how to find an edge. Under my friend's guidance and constant reminders to get up, I learned to turn. Turns are the key move to snowboarding. They take more skill but less energy than falling leaf. The breakthrough came when I finally understood what it means to pick a lead foot and only turn on that side. Completing the first successful turn was exhilarating and made me so glad I kept snowboarding despite weeks of failure.

New endeavors often require a large amount of energy and result in what seems to be constant failure at first. As much as I always want to sit after falling, getting up leads to success quicker.  As skills develop with practice, results will improve while taking less energy.  While resting after a fall can be prudent, getting up is more useful. That said, the actual act of getting up while strapped to a snowboard is difficult. I can empathize with upside turtles now. Successfully snowboarding down a mountain makes the effort worthwhile.

Have you pursued any activity despite constant failure? What led to your first breakthrough?

Day 2: Chasing Buses

Day 2

Inspired by this Bold Italic article : "Why the Chinese Chase the Bus" by Christy Chan. It appeared in my facebook feed today; if you think about it, Facebook is scary in its targeted advertising. The writer muses over how Chinese people tend to strive for goals that seem impossible. She explores how that tendency helped her become an artist: "And since you’ve never been told you have natural talent, looks, or gifts, you just have to honestly, unflinchingly believe in yourself. Faith is reason enough to chase the bus you choose."  I love the article and I highly suggest reading it for inspiration. The epilogue is funny too; it has happened to my friends.

This poster is also my personal metaphor for goal-setting. When I first started going to the gym 7 years ago, it was with a small, silly, and sincere goal: to be able to run after the bus.  Acheiving that small goal propelled me into 10ks, half-marathons, running down mountains, and snow-boarding over the years. I was the inactive bookish kid who couldn't run a mile in grade school and hated being outdoors. I never thought of myself as an active person who loves the outdoors until I took up running. It exposed me to nature, helped me meet people, and boosts my mood. None of these things would have happened if I had not made the silly goal one day to chase after a bus. Now, I'm making another silly goal of pursing design. I hope that this turns out as well as running.

What bus are you currently chasing? Has a stranger ever demanded a ride from you.

Day 1: A New Direction

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

In lieu of making a decision, I often ask others for advice. I do this in restaurants, with travel plans, at the movie theater. A positive result of this habit is I experience things I would not on my own. Take the Burren in Ireland as an example. My travel partner suggested it. Even today, the pictures make me think, "Cracked rock, how boring." Surprisingly, I loved it. It is a surreal landscape and created strange feelings in a good way. I experienced this place because I said yes to my travel partner's suggestion despite my own feelings.

However, asking for advice is not always a good thing. For the past years since college ended, I have been struggling with a decision. More precisely, I have been struggling with a lack of decision. Each new year, I make a resolution that I will work on building my career: I will create goals, make plans, FIGURE OUT THE REST OF MY LIFE. I never did. I work in billing (as I put it, not real accounting) and the most I did was completing an accounting certificate last year. I thought about continuing coursework towards a CPA but decided to take a break. It was a wonderful year in which I developed my social skills, made new friends, and learned more about who I was. This year, I decided I should go back to school because I feel lazy outside of it. Also, I do love learning. I thought about diving back into accounting courses but decided on a graphic design course instead.

So in the past few months, I've been talking with people about which direction to go: accounting or design. Some advised me to stick in accounting and work towards a CPA so I would get paid more doing what I currently do. One person counseled me, "I have a friend who does design. She is talented, went to all the art schools, and has all the skills. She sells bras for a living. I was in your place 15 years ago. MBA, CPA, and I wanted to go build houses instead. Someone else gave me the advice I am giving you: go do what you want outside of work. But stick with accounting. You will always get a job as an accountant." This spoke to the practical side of me. I like a 9-5, a 401k, vacation time, job security, etc. And what chance do I have of being successful in design when I have no art education or technical skills? I do not want to sell bras.

Other people said they could imagine me being a designer. I always loved to doodle, making posters for events, and creating cute signs for dinner parties. One reason I've been thinking about getting a CPA is because I already spent 6 years in the field without a plan. May as well get a CPA along the way. However, someone else gave me a different perspective: "Yes, you spent 6 years here. But you have another 20 years ahead. Go be a designer."

Then I went to a design conference this week and I heard these two talks: Maria Popova, "The Science of Productivity and the Art of Presence" and Lisa Congdon, "Embrace the Abyss & Other Lessons". They made me say,"Forget my fears. I'm going to try to be a graphic designer." I am keeping my job but I am going to focus my outside hours on design now. No more mental energy spent debating what classes to take, no more beating myself up for not being practical, no more seeking advice for what I really want to do.

The first part of this journey will be attempting a 30-day challenge. Yes, I really took Lisa's advice to heart. The general plan is to paint a poster about something that inspires me. I like making posters and it's an easy task. The timing of this idea is a challenge as I'm going out of the country May 1-15. I do not use the internet on vacation. So I plan to sketch/doodle on the road and then post them on my return.

I don't have the technical skills. I have no art school education. I don't know how to use the software. But I keep telling myself: it's like running. You start small. You start kinda crappy. But you keep doing it until it becomes a habit. Then you refine. You improve. Skills don't develop overnight. (I know my design class is already changing me because this font is kinda driving me crazy now. I thought it was so cute when I initially picked it. Now, I find the way it has no baseline to be irritating. It jumps up and down. I will change it in the future.)

Simple 30-day challenge rules:
1. Create something every day. Anything. Even a doodle on toilet paper counts.
2. Take a picture of it.
3. Write a blog post explaining its meaning. (Keep it short, because I need more sleep.)
4. Post it within the 30 days, April 14-May 14.

"Ask for advice. Follow what resonants." (Yes, spelling error. Because I was paranoid and spell-checked. I was right without it.)

I still believe in asking for advice. What is important is not what people tell you but how you feel about what you are told. If a part of you is reluctant to follow the advice, then examine why you feel that emotion. Is it untrue to who you are or are you afraid to be what is possible?

Advice which is good for you will not always appear to be good advice. In my head, my decision to choose design is like saying, "I choose to pick the unstable, uncertain, possible path to complete failure and abject poverty rather than a steady, stable, certain middle-class future with early retirement." However, the talks from strangers felt more right to me than all the practical advice I received from people who have known me for years. Design will make me happier than what I've been doing for the past 6 years. I know it will stress me out as I have stressed every week over the assignments but it will also make me happy. And if it does not work out, it will be okay. At least, I will have tried and have the stories to tell.

What are you like as a decision-maker? Is your decision-making process the same in all situations?

Daikon Pork Soup: a Taste of Home

There are endless dishes to eat at a Chinese restaurant: deep-fried, stir-fried, savory, sweet, noodles, meat, vegetables. My favorite dish is none of the above; it is the complimentary plain broth at the beginning of the meal.  I am disproportionally excited for this broth because it reminds me of my parents' cooking. All the Chinese foods that were rare and thus special as a child growing up in the Midwest have become commonplace as an adult living in San Francisco. Conversely, the everyday foods of my childhood have become rare.

What most probably consider as a boring, bland broth is a nostalgic food for me. Do not feel slighted if you have not encountered this broth as not all restaurants serve this. Whenever it does make an appearance at a restaurant, I savor it. Sometimes it comes with a few pieces of daikon or if you're lucky, a chuck of pork. In the past, I have haphazardly cobbled together ingredients to make it but the attempts resulted only in boiled water and inedible chucks of meat.

Then, I stumbled onto this pork rib soup recipe while looking for a lotus root recipe (my current vegetable obsession). It was relegated to my to-try-someday list.  On the same day, I stumbled across the honey dates at the Asian supermarket. Since the honey dates are absolutely essential to the recipe, I decided the universe was telling me to make the soup. That and I did not have dinner plans.

Honey dates and red dates

I purchased a half-rack of baby back ribs, cut into thirds lengthwise across the bones. At home, I further cut the ribs into 2 rib chucks. I used daikon instead of lotus root since it was a fraction of the price and added a carrot. I also parboiled the ribs.

And then boil. With love, of course.

The hardest part of this recipe was resisting the urge to adulterate it. I’m glad I resisted as the recipe yielded a wonderful, light broth that instantly reminded me of my parents’ soup. Cooking does not need to be complex to be meaningful.

Chinese New Year’s cake is another home-cooked food that I was surprised and happy to learn how simple it was to make. Happy Lunar New Year to all those who celebrate.

What simple dish reminds you of home and have you learned how to recreate it? Do you celebrate the Lunar New Year and what are your plans?

My Favorite Gadget and Soap

While soap is not food, this project does involve the kitchen and my favorite piece of kitchen equipment.

I discovered this project on pinterest a while ago. I like the idea of making your own liquid soap so you don’t need to pay for what is essentially water. More importantly, this project uses glycerin which had been sitting unused on my shelf. I had purchased a bottle with the misconception that glycerin makes substances more liquid and thus would be useful in making cake pops. Fact: it does the opposite. It turns melted chocolate back into unmelted chocolate. One could say that a lesson can be learned about researching before making purchases. However, that person would miss out on projects such as this.

First, grate a bar of soap. This is the third reason why I wanted to do this project. Any excuse to use my favorite piece of  kitchen equipment:

I am amazing. Use me!

I call this a food mill but I have friends who call it a ricer. I immediately wanted one after borrowing it from a roommate. It took me about a year to find this one (at the Oakland Museum White Elephant sale). Online searches yields fancier and larger models, but I prefer the simplicity of this design. Prop up the legs, insert a grating disk and the handle, and then turn! Grate piles of carrots, hunks of cheese, and bars of soap in minutes. There is less chance of injury since the food does not need to be held against the blades. Instead, place the food on top, put down the metal arm and turn the handle. Plus, the folding legs occupy less space than a box grater which also means less chance of finger injury when rummaging through a messy cupboard. Have I convinced you yet?

Anyway, changing a bar of soap to liquid soap is very easy. Mix the grated soap, water, and liquid glycerin in a pot.

The soap from Trader Joe's gets a pretty pattern from grating; the resulting big pile of pasta, um, soap that goes plop, plop into the water

Bring the mixture to a boil. Boil until the soap is dissolved.  Allow it to sit until it has solidified.  Do not panic if the soap remains liquid for the first few hours. I was very excited when it started solidifying:

The instructions say to let it sit for 12 hours. I didn't have time to work on it again until after 36 hours. If it seems too solid, first try to blend it. I blended mine and it turned out fine.

Smooth at first, break it down with a beater, to get the final product

Yes, the soap looks a bit disgusting but that's the fun. Apparently this soap is not sudsy but I'm ok with that. Also, Dove soap does not work well with this project but I may try it in the future.  This easy project made me feel ridiculously accomplished.

I hope you have a cheerful and clean 2013.

What is your favorite kitchen equipment, and why? Have you crossed any pinterest projects off your list recently?

Belated Thanksgiving

Being as I created a blog rather than tumblr, I resisted the urge to induate you with pictures of everything I've read (mainly textbooks), ate (and saw Alton Brown, yes, I'm totally bragging), and drew in October and November (landscapes and a persimmon). Instead, I will present 3 pictures only.

First, I washed these and other vegetables... 

Daylight: making every picture look more professional

...and made this vegetable tray. I discovered the recipe last year and I absolutely love it. It is fun to bring to a party, healthy, and involves cutting vegetables. I left out the celery legs this year because I can never use up celery. I use raisins for the eyes because I'm more likely to have that laying around than olives or two black beans.

As a side note, the leftover cucumbers weren't good enough to eat raw this year (they were more to prop up the head than to eat). I remembered the sodium-free sauerkraut I made before so I decided to marinate the leftover cucumber in apple cider vinegar, caraway seeds, and red pepper flakes. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. Try it if you have too many cucumbers. It may be too sour for some and not salty enough (at all) for others, but I loved it. Mix in whatever proportions and soak for as long as you desire. My first batch marinated for 1 day in the fridge. For my second batch, I added garlic cloves, diluted with 50% water and allowed it to sit for 3 days while I was out of town for Thanksgiving.

Sorry for my lack of posts. I hope you (my American readers) had a lovely Thanksgiving. Maybe you could make this veggie tray next year to balance out the candied yams, creamy mashed potatoes, and buttery rolls?

Gobble, gobble!

 What's your favorite dish to bring to a party and how did you find/create the recipe?