self reflection

sometime, i want to stay in my room and just cry.
i have not updated my blog and website for so long.
it is partially because i dedicate most of my time for my work responsibility.
but also because i choose not to reflect my personal thoughts in my web space.

in the beginning of this year, i felt as if someone violated my true emotions that I share on my website. because of that, i shut down my site for a few days, but realized that i should not let someone stop me from being me.

today, somehow my true emotions are acknowledged and accepted by me. no more control over my own feelings.

I guess it is the hurtful feelings that stop me from feeling in a way I truthfully feel. Because I do not want to have negative emotions within me. So my automatic response is to shut them off.
But I guess it does not help me from healing at all.

All of us live with any sort of negative feelings: sadness, anger, upset, irritation, frustration etc.
But I guess as long as one continues to shut such energy off, instead of questioning the origin of such energy, the energy will haunt you back again at a later time, and would become a bigger issue.

But ignorance does not help me from dealing with my own personal truth.

Today, I want to make a commitment to deal with my own negativity by acknowledging and accepting it and questioning the origin of such energy and finding out a way to turn it into positive in my life.

I am glad of my realization tonite. I think I will make some serious notes in the upcoming entries which is a little different from my optimistic and silly past entries, but I really need to reflect on my self right now.

Thank you for the strengh and love. I am blessed with my life. Peace, Kumi

A happy new year!!

Hello-thank you for reading my lame-not so frequently updated blog :(

I have had a bit of down time that I was in a shell spending a lot of my energy to look after myself.

Now that it is 2006 and thanks to my friend, Tomomi's encouragement and inspiration, I have been mentally doing better (stable, and the mild weather has been helping me a lot too), so I have decided to update my blog.

I was going to let my soulmanifesto.net website, as I have been terrible with the update, but I realize that I have given out my email address to some important people that I want to always keep in touch with, so I think I am going to keep it (unless I will change my mind in the last minute).

Well, I have so much to share, but as it is really the time for me to get some sleep, I am going to post some photos for you to enjoy :)

Sending you much positive energy and love on your way. May you have a blessing and fulfilling year in 2006.

In love and light,

Kumi

NYE at my friend's place-alcohol making my face so red in effect: lol



















Doing whtat I enjoy doing so much: dancing! woo hoo! :)



















Jan-1-2006 dinner-sushi party at Kumi's place with friends :)



















more to come...

with immense appreciation for my co-workers

I hate to update my journal when so much time has gone by, but I just wanted to extend my sincere appreciation for my co-workers who gave me thoughtful Christmas gifts and making me feel special :)

I really liked the gifts very much, Jeannie, Lana and Jin :)

With love and respect :)

Kumi

Written later :P

Kumi's sushi @work

Soo it has been way too long since I last updated my page.
i have returned from my succssful business trip to Japan and have spent 1 weekand a bit preparing myself for the holiday season.

i have been starving for the bestest food of Japan, so I bought the finest ingredients that I can find to make sushi one weekend, and here are a few photos of the sushi I made :)














Look how shiny each grain of rice is :)














salmon nigiri :)













smoked salmon and mango pureed mayo sauce with dill













dynamite roll and california roll with real crab meat :)

i brought some sushi (i also made philly roll with cooked tuna steak with philly cream cheese addition to these) for lunch the next day to work and shared some of my food with my co-workers. it seems as though everyone enjoyed it.

I hope to do this again :)

Snow on Japanese Garden is definitely pretty :)

sooo I have arrived in Japan on Sun evening Japan time after 13 hr of flight eating not so pleasant flight meals, sammich snack (you had a choice of sammich or cup noodles) and ice cream. LOL

I am enjoying seeing my parents, my grandma and Brian, the silly dog here, but I continue to spend some time for work. Indeed, I am reminded that my job requires me to have good time management and organizational skills covering overseas travel and meeting arrangements for the executives.

But I must say that I am blessed with great team and people who can support us. :)

Yesterday, I woke up, made hotel arrangements, did a bit of translation work, then had a relative coming to visit, so it was nice to see him and watch my childhood video clips which my dad recently converted onto dvd. Then in the afternoon, my folks and I went to the cemetary to visit the gravestones where my ancestors and little brother rest in peace. My mom and I then went to a temple to burn incents for my grandma on my mom's side. I felt as though my grandma was smiling and giving me such warm and positive energy when I made the visit. The memory of her great smile that she always shared with me whenever I returned to Japan and visited her came to my mind and I felt so warm and united with her invisible soul. I told her that I would continue working hard not only for the company but for my people. I also thanked her for protecting us and providing a sense of peace and comfort in our lives.

Then my mom and I went to the hair salon, and I got a hair cut. I just stylized a bit, so that I can have my hair down if I want to. I am amazed to see how the perm that I got early this May is still there giving my hair different shape than having a flat straight hair. LOL

Then we went to a book store and some shops (drug store etc).

We came home, I was very exhausted as I had about 3-4 hrs of sleep (but stayed awake to fix my jetlag and do some work), so I fell into sleep in the living room, woken up to a fabulous dinner, ate a little (my digestive system is a bit weird from long journey) and then went to bed by like 9-10pm. I woke up early this morning 5am to do some work :)

The executives are arriving at the Airport today, so I have to have some work done before meeting with them.

:) Peace and love, Kumi

Who do you think people mistake me for??

Sooo after spending my whole afternoon trying to arrange flight tickets for the management staff for the company that I work for the Japan trip that is coming up in a week, all getting frustrated by a few complications that I encountered and all, a phone rung and it solved my day: my good friend, Tom called me offering me to go to his travel agent office to look after some of the problems that I was facing with. Thank God, he called me, because I was hesitated to contact him on a Saturday asking him for work related help that no one needs to deal with on the weekend, you know?

Anyway, I was able to leave for the gym to do some exercise to relieve my tensed up self and returned home with a great thai take out food for my roommate and myself (I was screaming in the flat and caused some negative emotions on him, which totally wasn't fair...I am sorry! :( :( ).

Anyhow, we ate good food, and I planned out my Sunday (busy day coming up!) and making sure that I will get to cover all that I need to do (work and personal) before my leave for Japan.

I am leaving for Japan on Saturday afternoon, so I plan on checking out this Joe Claussell party on Friday nite, party all nite and then come home, take shower and pack myself for the airport :) hehehehe (I like to do this as it is a great way to adjust my body clock 180 degree).

Anyway, I was debating whether to go and check out this Ron Trent party at 99 Sudbury that was re-opened yesterday! I was like: well, I gotta wake up early tomorrow, and I must do this and that. I wanted to go to my work to arrange some flowers, but I decided to leave that for Monday morning to give myself more time to cover all that I need to do tomorrow.

So I decided to go and check out Ron Trent, who is one of my fav producers, and whom I have never heard live before.

The party was FUN! A lot of familiar faces. Sweet music lovers unite! :) I love dancing with people who appreciate and love the same deep house music that I dig :)

After 3 hours of straight dancing, I decided it was time for me to come home, so I came home, took a nice bath, and decided to update my blog.

Overall, I am feeling much much better than 12 hours ago, and I think that doing things that I love absolutely put me back on the right mind set that I ideally stay no matter how difficult circumstances I may face in my life...

Ron Trent was great. He played *RON TRENT* type of music, nature sounding, organic and african. I absolutely dancing to his music. It felt like my spirits were lifted higher as I dance to his tunes. I am so very glad that I made it. I, however, concluded that he is a good producer (and not much of a DJ). Nevertheless, it was a bless to meet a soul that touched so many other souls in this planet with his amazing production work, you know??

By the way, in the past couple of weeks, a lot of people mistake me for Spanish. I asked all of them why, and they said it is because of my facial structure and feature. Interesting. I always thought I absolutely look Japanese. One person mentioned it is because of the way I dance. Interesting. Anyway, it will be interesting to see myself videotaped just like my childhood video clips that I have posted in my previous entry (a couple back I think), but it will just embarass me to see myself. Because I know I am such a sillyyyyy person. But I enjoy being pure me. Go pure Kumi GO :)

Gotta catch up some sleep. You all have a wonderful and productive Sunday!

Peace and love :)

Roy Davis Jr-No Show, David Morales-sucks ass

I did not get to do much dancing on Sat nite, because the DJs that were opening up for the Roy Davis Jr just did not do it for me (too energetic urban house whose body language sort of reminded me of the DJ Super stah Greg.

Then a DJ who came up to me to introduce himself told me that Roy cancelled 2 hours ago, and wasn't gonna show, so my friends were out of this cheesy venue on Richmond street (clubby-clubb district).

Then when I was trying to get back to my friends, one guy stopped on my way out leaving the first club by grabbing my palms and said: "I was waiting for you. I saw you dance, and I just wanted to talk to you badly, but I lost you, so I was looking for you for the past 20 minutes.
What's your name??" LOL and that sort of made my day, cause it was mad funny (like he was mad serious and all).

Unfortunately, since I do not take people I meet at the clubs too seriously (unless I bump into them frequently at events that I participate) and I was in a hurry to get my crew out of the stupid club (LOL), I told him that I have to get going, but I appreciated his kind words and left him there.

I hope that he did not have any high expectations by courageously saying hi to me, cause althogh I may interact with them on a friendly level, I am not open to share too much of my personal info with strangers unless they make me feel homie, if you know what I mean...

Anyway, we went to the old BOA to check out David Morales with a bunch of people, but when we got there around 3:30am, David Morales wasn't even on the deck, and the guy who was opening for the show was playing some progressive stuff, which usually turns me off....so Nozomi and I were getting more and more tired by not really and fully enjoying our evening out. And even when David came on the DJ deck, he was playing some cheesy clubby music,that just did not do a magic to me. So Nozomi and I left the club leaving the rest of crew (LOL) there.

Although we indeed wasted a lot of our money by making stupid decisions without much investigations on the background of the events etc, I absolutely had a wonderful time with friends, especially with Nozomi. Yes, she rules :) and I am very grateful that I became friends with her. :)

Peace-