cerebrating ilya's b-day

Today was my day off yes!!!
I went out last nite and had a fabulous time with Nozomi and people that I became friends with.
Everyone was sharing such great vibes with me, and I had such a blast!!

Anyway, I came home around 4am and went to bed like 5am, so I did not wake up until afternoon. LOL But after working for 6 days straight, I really needed the sleep and relaxation in my bed. LOL

I went to take care of some errands and got a delicious looking chocolate cake from my neighbor bakery cafe that is very popular among posh looking young and old ladies. Well, they do sell some fancy desserts (not cheap), and I have tried some of their tarts and shortbread cookies, and I must say that I do love their fine elegant tasting sweets. So I decided to get a cake for my roommate, Ilya's b-day from that shop. I said "we deserve to try something much fancy from the shop! LOL".

Then my roommate and I had a cup of tea and shared a tart. It was delicious. My god, I should have taken a photo of the tart. It was a fig tart, and it looked soo pretty too! Anyway, it was a perfect tasting dessert for my day off. :)

I then went to a nearest postal office to get my percel from my sister who was recently back in Japan and brought some of my winter clothings for me.

The percel was HUMONGUS. I am very thankful for my family for their support in sending me my winter gear. Anyway, while the postal officer went in the back to get my stuff, this old gentleman who bought over 100 dollar worth of postal related products stuffed some of the stamps arranged on the counter into his bag (stealing).

So when the office returned, I was like: "Excuse me, sir (to the officer). Is this thing for sale? Cause I saw this gentleman putting a couple of that into his bag while you went to get my percel".

The officer looked at the gentleman sharply and proceeded to check his bag that was on the counter.

"You have not paid for this yet, so would you like to make a payment right now?"
The gentleman: "Urm, well, not at this time". and he just disappeared.

"What a loser. I mean, you were showing off your bills from your wallet, and you decide not to pay for a thing when you fail to get it for free? Give me a fucking break". I thought. (haha, I sound such a bitch). LOL

I just thought it is such a pity how there are people who try to get everything that they maybe able to, in a given scenario like that. Speaking of this, this incidence just reminded me of the hurricane Katrina hitting Texas and causing a major flood in the city, because I saw some young kids stealing things from the department stores etc. on one of the internet news.

When I saw that, I felt: "Wow, these kids who were left behind in the city unable to leave must have had no chance to actually own anything like that before...yeah, let them touch those things at least one time in their life time"....

And this thought hit me: "am I being such a racist by having different kind of opinions and reactions towards people from different class??" Yes, I think so. And I felt guilty for realizing my own false (rich shall not steal, but poor a'right, cause they have no choice!??).
I just wanted to post a note about it.

Anyway, I then went to buy a few things at the mall, went to the gym and did my 1 hour cardio, bought some grocery and came home to make a special dinner for my roommate who has a b-day on Oct 24th (tomorrow).

Since I would be stuck at work until late at nite, I had decided to make a great dinner for him tonite. Plus, it was my day off, so I thought I deserve to do something I truly enjoy as well.

:)

So here we go, these are a few photos of things that I prepared. Since we had a late dinner (my roommate did not come home until late, as I never told him abou the dinner), we had only two dishes, but it was just very fulfilling in many ways. :)

Horseladish Crusted Salmon:


It was absolutely delicious!
I will make it again! The bedding for salmon is dilled cucumber and carrot, which actually matched with the salmon very much. I made Grain Mustard Sauce (lemon juice, butter, olive oil, sour cream, dijion mastard, dill, chive, salt, black pepper and sugar) and it was just perfect. Something light but just right. I was very pleased with this dish as it brightened the flavour of each ingredients that I used, and they all played a magic in a plate. I felt that this was such a magical dish, and it was just perfect for my roommate's b-day (pre-) cerebration.

I also made butter-mushroom-rice, rosemary potatoes and sauteed broccoli and carrot. The photo is kinda blurry, but they tasted fine too :)


We had a shot of Russian Liquor along with our supper, and shared a fig tart that I had purchased from the fancy cafe. I bought my favorite, Aveda tea (comforting) in the late afternoon, so we had a cup of its tea with the tart.

Tonight I truly spoiled myself by spending time doing things that I truly enjoy (cooking and making someone feel happy and special), and fulfilling myself with the colorful and flavourful meal. I really hope that one day, I can bring my cooking skills one step higher than where it stands right now. Although I used to and am still interested in having my own restaurant in future, for now, I just hope to have more personal time to manifest my own creativity and passion in cooking by hosting friends for nice meals like this in near future :)


Thank you for reading!

Music of the evening: "Can you feel it?" by Larry Heard

http://www.soulmanifesto.net/audio/Mr. Fingers (Larry Heard) - Can U Feel It (Robert Owens Voca.mp3

I love this song the best in all the songs that I adore.

Just the best.

Because the sound and lyrics just reflect the person ME.

The energy in this music is something I feel INSIDE of ME when I do something very passionate, feeling high running, dancing or making love to someone you dearly love.

Just drives you crazy inside, you know? Like crazy energy explodes inside you!!!

HOT SHITEEEEEEE

Cordell Johnson

Please listen to Cordell Johnson, an amazing DJ from Chicago: http://dhpmixes.com/mixes/0905cordell.mp3

This mix made me want to move to Chicago once again.
Music like his keeps me inspired. and maybe that is what I need to stay true to whom I want to be.
I love the intensity of his mix sooo much.

Listening to his mix helps me let go of my negative emotions, dance my ass off expressing my feelings I gain from music and feel super great afterwords (I love feeling the moment where I am manifesting my true self thru my actions).

Seeing other people doing their things professionally, I really gotta do something about my LIFE too!

Mad respect goes to CORDELL JOHNSON.
I sooo wish to one day dance to your music set LIVE.
I know I will in near future. :)

and I am excited for such future :) :) :)

LIFE

I have had such a drama-week.
Where to begin? I do not know.
But it is very important for me to let my thoughts out of my mind to better understand myself, so I am typing having my lap top on my lap as I lean over the wall by my bed.

[WORK]
I continue to cover long hour labour, working 10-12 hours/day and 60 hrs and more/week.
I get a half day off and it is rare for me to get a full day off without doing any activity related to work right now.
Managerial role means more responsibility, but do I enjoy taking care of work inquiries via my mobile even during your time off?? Well, you know my answer: not really. LOL

I tend to spend my off physically recovering.
Taking care of my personal errands. Grocery shopping and buying things that I need to take good care of myself.
I barely have time to do inspirational things anymore.
But I try to engage in activities that I enjoy even during such busy schedule to bring me a sense of joy and happiness that I know I deserve. Change in my given life style is also healthy too, you know?

I find my current job situation quite challenging, because things are very very disorganized.
At first I found it very interesting how things were getting organized with my hard work, but I am physically and mentally getting burnt out that I am losing flexibility to accept the sudden challenge in the most positive manner. I get frustrated and gain negative emotions like anger sometime, and I do not like it, because I do not define negative emotions as something to identify my character.

I am trying to create a good structure and systems installed in this organization.
But the person I work closely with continues to sort of create problems, sort of destroying the established systems. I guess I can say that it is a test-run period right now to see how the systems that I have established work well with others, but the bottom line is that as long as he does not change the way he handles the incoming work inquiries, I know, I will be expected to work such crazy hours due to an unproductive way of coordinating things.

The other day, I slipped on the floor (slippery and wet floor) on my way to deliver a beautifully arranged sushi tray to a client.
I hit my elbow and my head badly. For a moment, I zoned out and did not know what had just happened because of the shock.
People came up to me to help me stand up and realized what just happened.

People asked me to help me get to the area where I could receive medical treatment right away. But as I saw the smashed sushi on the tray, and myself knowing I got injured, I got so angry.
Although people were worried about my physical condition, I was more curious to talk to the person who was in charge of the floor cleanliness maintenance.

"who is responsible for maintaining this floor?"
"let me talk to the person right now".

I must have scared off some people because of my intensity asking for someone in authority when I had to worry about my physical health too.

I was taken to the customer service area where I reported the accident and received some medical treatment right away.

As soon as I shared my concern (what if this happened to some fans or my staff??), I felt so sad and had some tears fall off my cheeks. Finally I came to worry about my physical health and settled down emotionally.

Now that I think of this incidence, I wonder if this has something to do with my previous life threatening experience where I got physically damaged. Because otherwise, how would you explain my instant anger towards such a thing happening to me?

Since experiencing the accident, I have been feeling quite down. Kind of depressed.

It seems as though my past experience shaped me not to tolerate any physical harm that one does not deserve.

But I now know that I can not blame someone for some accident happening like this. It was not intentional afterall.

Anyway, now, my neck is hurting and my elbow is a little swollen and bruised.
But the positive aspect of this accident is that I had my pony tail on my upper part of my head, cause it helped me not hit my head too bad, you know???

I still have the healthy brain to write out what happened. so I feel I am lucky....

[LIFE]
I continue to ask what I want to do in my life.
I wonder if I could turn my personal interests into a career.
I day dream of having a serious dance lessons to better express myself.
But as long as I continue to work such crazy long hour work, I do not get to have time to do things that I am interested in neither.
So then, what is it that I want in my life?????

I want to feel that I belong to things that I feel passionate about.
I want to express my SELF to friends and family that I care.
I want to have the time to work out daily, time to welcome guests for tasty meals.
I want to have the time to engage in the deephousemusic scene more. I am super interested in the housedancing scene.
I want to feel I belong to the things that I feel passionate about.

So what do I want?
TIME AND ABILITY TO APPLY MY CREATIVITY.

Although I must look aftermyself financially having a decent paying job, I need to find solutions for my current job situation so that I will get to have the TIME and ABILITY to APPLY MY CREATIVITY MORE.

Gotta take some actions NOW.

Off to do my thing shaking my bootie on the dance floor. See you later LOVE :)

Kumi

When people reveals their true motives and personality...

and they turned out to be superficial and materialistic,

It sucks, and I lose my modest personality and become less cooperative and understanding, because I do not agree with such human behavour and it makes me feel angry when I noticed myself being taken advantage of (rant rant ran rant swearing rant)!!!

You know, I can keep my patience and ability to accept other people for who they are, but if they intentionally take advantage of others, my feminist part of me kicks in: middle finger YOU!! LOL

I came home at 2am yesterday.
I was going to leave the office by 12am, so that I would still have the time to party up and do my thing shaking my bootie on the dance floor showering myself with great deephouse tunes and what not.

Well, I did not, why?

Cause someone does not better use their time productively that I ended up wasting my time to do a simple work that can be done in a couple minutes only if a clear instruction was given at first.

Yes, you must have felt it. I am loaded with negative emotions right now, so you better not irritate me, cause I will burn you with my anger right now.

......

Sigh.

You know, I fucking need to go to the gym to get rid of my negative emotions, but after 4 hours of sleep and still having some work to do before heading down to a venue for an event this early afternoon, I have no idea how I will deal with this situation in a long term, cause I am turning into a bitter person.......

HELP needed. Tonite, I will go and dance, no sleep and go to work for a meeting and come home and take care of my personal needs. that will make me at least a bit happier...

*determined* Kumi

How do you pronounce "ISAC"

Today was a hell busy day, but we worked really well as a team, and I am very glad with the turn out, although we had three new staff in our team and I was too busy instructing key points while supervising overall production.

Here is a funny story of the nite.

There is a staff (Chinese oriented) whose name is ISAC.
Whenever I call him: "I-zac", he corrects me: "I-suck".

One of the Japanese staff asked me what his name was, so I told him how he always corrects me and wants me to call him: "I-suck", then I burst into a loud laugh, because, well you know. LOL

The supervisor who was at the center checking us out started laugh with me, while two Japanese female staff did not get the joke until I explained it to them.

LOL

Oh man oh man. I will have red cheeks whenever I call his name from now and on. LOL
dirty girl-you may think I am, well, I am a perv. LOL :D

sunday!

Today, I woke up feeling rather fatigued.
Must be the stress/pressure that I dealt with working at our new kitchen at ACC (air canada center).

Yesterday, we were in a situation where we might end up losing the spot if we did not meet the standard by those executives of ACC, so my boss and I were somewhat tensed (nervous) making sure everything was taken care of smoothly, while there were endless of items to control and manage. The current situation is that all of us are NEW, so we work and learn new things once at a time. So far I am very blessed with good staff that have positive and flexible attitude and ability to provide me some good feedback and perspectives. But a couple staff that were hired recently by the company did rather create issues that I prefer not to even deal with (disappearing and not showing up at work and provided phone number going out of service), so it was quite stressful for me. sigh.

Wednesday is going to be a big nite for us. The start of the hockey season, so it will be mega busy!!! and I have a lot of work to take care of. I really *hope* that we can take care of staffing before then though..so people, please wish me good luck :) hehe

Hey, the other nite, the executive chef, Ryo-san prepared such amazing course menu for our valued customers. Please enjoy the presentation and beauty of his dishes as below:

I am truly blessed that I get to be inspired and stimulated seeing amazing creations as these though! Thanks very much, Ryo-san!