Udon

Today is Friday, Twenty-First, January, Two Thousand and Eleven.

Hiroshima City is cold. Not teeth-clattering cold, but cold. Actually it is seven degree Celcius outside and what can be more soothing than slurping a bowl of hot beef Udon on an afternoon like this, huh?

I've been tied up -- ladies and gentlemen -- with work, books (one of which is As Always, Julia) and other epicurean distractions.

Did I mention I have less than a year to wrap up the course and head home for good?

Yes. Just slightly more than eight months away. And I have to churn out more results so that I can graduate on time and LIFE has never felt this fulfilling for quite a while now.

I am not sure if it is because of aging or New Year or because the earth's alignment has changed, but I seem to have come to terms with this world and myself. A lot, and rapidly. For example, I wouldn't have said, "Life has never felt this fulfilling" in the past.(Are you nuts?!) Instead, I'd have whined endlessly. I'd have complained bitterly how my lunch was late because of the long experiment protocol, and then I'd have said I detested my work because I had had late lunch, and then I'd just go rambling on, and on, and on.

[Don't believe it? Go read my previous posts! (Smart eh?! To trick people into reading what I've written so far.)]

There has been a lot changes in me of late. I feel them in me. I am aware of them. I observe them. I hear them. I talk to them. In short, I've understood myself better. And this self-understanding, or insight, could have been a breakthrough moment, had I been in a therapy. Psychologists believe it is the surefire ticket to happiness. Here is an interesting article about it.

However, word of caution from the author: insight alone can backfire sometimes. It can, instead of bringing on the happiness, add on to the misery.  Makes you feel more depressed. And the only way to get out of its way and on to that yellow brick road of happiness is to work at it -- at happiness and perhaps, as the author wrote, self-esteem. And that is where I am today -- at work. Slogging hard at work, on my self-esteem and more importantly, like one of the author's patients, enjoying harder what I like best -- EAT!