What Have I Been up to Lately? Being a Bookworm!

Hello! I hope you all are having a great summer! Or winter, depending on where you live... So the summer vacation has begun! This one will be my last summer vacation I can have while I'm still a student, and I want to make it a good one, but so far, I haven't done anything summery this summer! Oh, I've had lots of beer, so maybe that counts as something summery. lol But I'm a true fan of beer, so I drink lots of beer even in winter! 

Anyways, stay safe and healthy, everyone! Drink lots of, lots of water, and stay hydrated! Drinking water is very important! My mom would always say that you have to drink water even before you feel you're thirsty. Feeling thirsty means that your body is already dehydrated, which is not a favorable thing to happen to your body. So you should make sure that you take in some water periodically, as well as when you're thirsty. 

And you that also applies when you are in an air-conditioned room. When you're outside, it's easy to remind yourself that you should drink lots of water, because it's hot outside, and you sweat a lot. But when you're in a comfortable, air-conditioned room, because of the comfortableness, it's easy to forget about keeping yourself hydrated. Actually, the air that air conditioners blows out is very dry, so it can make your body, and also skin dry. So, DRINK WATER! 

Lately, I've started to do something new: selling my English skills. No, that doesn't mean that I've been teaching English, if that was your guess. Actually, I've been working as an amateur translator! "Coconala" is the name of the app that I've been using, and you can use the app for both selling and buying skills. And there are many kinds of skills; it doesn't have to be just language skills. Some people sell their computer skills, and help people develop their webpages. Some people sell their skills to help people lose weight. Some people are good at graphic design, and create icons and logos for their customers. And of course, these skills aren't the only ones you can sell and buy. If you're interested, you should try the app! But I'm not sure if you can use or even download the app from overseas. If you live in Japan, you should be able to download and use the app, and if you live outside of Japan, you should check if you can use the app or not first. (Sorry!) 

As I've said, I'm selling my English skills, and since I started the app, I've got some customers who wanted their documents (e.g., contract, instruction, statement, thesis, etc.) written in English to be translated into Japanese, or vice versa. Translation is fun, but it can also be tough. When I'm reading English, I'm thinking with an English brain; when I'm reading Japanese, I'm thinking with a Japanese brain. This means that the ability to comprehend English sentences, and the ability to translate what I have understood in English into Japanese are distinct. If my task was just to read the document and understand the contents, it would me much easier and quicker, than having to translate it into another language. Translation takes a lot of time. But I'm not complaining. It's true that translation is very time-consuming, it can be hard sometimes, but overall, I like it. I am currently working on a long thesis (28 pages in total! ), and I won't take another order until I've finished it, but I'll start taking new orders from next month, so if you have any problems, go to my page at coconala! My name in coconala is: yesimyuki. 

I've been reading a lot of books this year, and here, I will list up some of the books I finished reading recently. 

• Poor Folk by Dostoevsky
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 
• The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh 
• Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky 

All of these aren't too long, so go pick of one, some, or even all of these at your local bookstore or library, if you're interested! 

"The Loved One" is the shortest one of the 4, and if you're looking for a good laugh (i.e., a sarcastic laugh! lol), that should be your first pick. The book was published in 1948, and the story is filled with irony on how America (at that time, from the view of the author) turns everything, like even funeral, into business, a man who is brilliant at work, but dominated by his mom at home where he lives with her, a poet who takes poems from books, and send them to the woman he likes as if he was the author of those poems, etc. I can't say too much here, can I? I don't want to disappoint you by giving out too much information. 

Other ones are awesome too, even though I'm not talking about their stories and stuff here. If you are skeptical about the idea that development in science and human rationality will bring a bright future, and that these 2 things are what we need to aim for, you would love the books. If you think modern humans should worship human bonds more, and if you have or still want to have hope in humanity, you should read them. If you think that struggles, suffering, and hardships are what make us stronger and human, go read the books to find out that you are not the only one to think so. 

I was especially impressed by "Notes from Underground" by Dostoevsky. It was published in 1864, but the message is terribly new. I was quite shocked by how well and accurately Dostoevsky foresaw the future (which is now present). You can also see this from reading Part 1. It is not a fun, cheerful book as you may have already guessed, but there's an extremely important message we all need to see in this book, and I highly recommend reading this book. 

The book I'm currently reading is called "Reveries of a Solitary Walker" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and it is also very interesting. I'm having lots of fun reading it. This is the first time for me to read a work by the famous French philosopher, Rousseau, and I'm hoping to get to know a little bit about him from this book. 

Alright, that's all for today's post! I need to go now to continues translating the thesis for my customer. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you guys soon in my next post! 

So Long, Twitter and Instagram...

Hi, everyone! I hope you're all having a great summer! It's been very hot and humid here in Japan. I mean this is how summer is supposed to be in Japan, but every time the season comes in, I always think, "Jeez! This is the hottest summer I've ever had!" lol I've been trying not to used the AC so often to save money, and I always use a fan. But when it's too hot, that doesn't really help, because it's just a fan; it just blows out air, not a cool air, so it's still hot. During winter when it's cold, you can bundle yourself up with clothes. But when it's hot, you can't just do the opposite. Well, you can take off your coat, jacket, cardigan, etc., but you cannot take off everything. You cannot just walk out of your door without wearing anything. You still have to wear something. 

Oh, the problem is not just about the heat. Ok, so when you go outside during summer, you don't want to wear a lot. It's deadly hot outside, so just a T-shirt and short pants are more than enough. You walk to school, and yes, it's this temperature, so just a casual 15 to 20 minutes of walk makes you sweat like you've become a waterfall. You enter to the classroom, and you feel like you've come to the heaven, because it's an air-conditioned space, and you don't have to sweat anymore. But nothing is permanent, and the heaven does not last forever either. Now you start to feel cold. You feel cold because you are wearing the same clothes which you chose to wear for the hot temperature outside. And that outfit is not suited for sitting in an air-conditioned classroom for 90 minutes. After the class is over, you get out of the classroom, and the building; you feel even good to go into a much higher temperature. But then again, nothing lasts forever, and you eventually start to feel like you're dying because of the heat. This happens anywhere! When you get on a train, when you go into the library, when you are shopping at a mall, etc., you feel so comfortable at first, but then you start to have goose bumps on your arms. Oh, there's an exception: when I get home. It's really hot in my apartment, so when I get home, I don't feel comfortable at all. lol 

I wonder how it's like to live in the south hemisphere, where it's actually winter during the time when it's summer here. It's like, "What?! It's winter in your place when it hits the highest temperature of the year here, and you're sweating during the Christmas season?!" Actually, I've been to Australia once when I was little, but because I was little, I don't remember anything about the trip. How sad! I saw kangaroos, tried to feed them, but then I got scared when the kangaroos approached me to get food, and I started to cry. This is the story my parents tell. Oh, and because I was crying, my dad came to rescue me. But because he was in such a hurry, he accidentally stepped on one of the kangaroo's tail! Luckily, the kangaroo didn't care, and my dad wasn't hurt. 

Alright, so I am starting a whole new topic from here. I've deleted my Twitter and Instagram accounts. I don't have Snapchat, and what I have now is just this blog and Facebook. Why I deleted them? Because I knew that I didn't really need them, and I knew they weren't really beneficial for me. And they weren't making me happy. Well, in addition, I wanted to have lesser screen time. 

Modern people are so addicted to phones (or screens in general), that most of us pick up our phones when we don't really have any purpose to do so. It's not because your phone rang to let you know that you've got a message. It's not because you remembered that you had to send an e-mail to somebody. We do pick up our phones with a purpose in our minds, but there are so many times when we open our phones without any particular purpose. 

Why do we do this? I think we do so because our phones have got something, always. Think about Twitter and Instagram; they always show something new every time you open those apps. It doesn't how to be only about those apps. Any social media outlets, news feeds, online bulletin boards, etc., offer new stuff. Also, note that all those things are bottomless. You can just scroll down, and there is no point where you can no longer scroll down. That's why it's so easy to forget about time, and spend like an hour on the Internet. 

Even when we open our phones with a purpose on our minds, we tend to open social media apps after finishing our tasks, and before putting down our phones. It's almost an automatic behavior. 

And what do we get? Well, yes, we get information from those social media outlets. Those posts are information, those pictures are information, and those videos are information, too. But is it always good or fun to get new information? Are you even interested in all those information? More simply, are you having fun with what you're doing? 

I'm not hating the Internet and social media services altogether. What they can do is fascinating, and I know how they can be fun. But it is also true that we don't have to be connected all the time. When you scroll through your Twitter feeds or Instagram feeds, are you smiling? Or are you facing the screen with rather emotionless face? Some posts do actually make you have facial expressions, but I feel that most of the times, people are staring at their phones with a deadpan. 

People nowadays are distracted easily, and we are so impatient. We cannot wait even just for a minute. We loved to be stimulated. And smartphones offer anything so that we are always distracted and stimulated. 

Because of the Internet, we don't have to worry about time and space anymore. Thanks to the Internet, we can connect whenever we want, and from wherever you are. In this sense, we live in  a virtual. But isn't it also important to be aware of the present moment? Right here, and right now. Time is a pile of moments, and I want to live each moment with awareness. 

Alright, I'm off to dinner now. My sister called me while I was writing this post, so it took me longer than I had expected to finish up. I don't wanted to write and talk at the same time, since I cannot pay my full attention to both of the activities. I didn't want my sister to think that I wasn't really interested in having a conversation with her, and that I wasn't paying attention. So, we talked for about 90 minutes, and I got back to finish this up. My plan was to have dinner after I uploaded this post, and the dinner time is going to be later than I had originally planned, but that's just fine. I'm glad that she called me. 

Ok, so thank you for reading my post! I hope to you in my next post! Bye! 

Assessing the First Half of 2017! Have I Been Good?

Hi everyone! I just came here because I felt like writing some random things, even though I don't know what I wanted to write about. Well, but before we start, let me talk about how fast time flies! It's already July, which means that the first half of this year has already gone!

So many people make New Year's resolutions at the beginning of each year, but I feel like so many people don't even remember what their resolutions were by this time of the year. lol To be honest, I'm that kind of person. I remember thinking what I wanted to set as my goals of 2017 at the end of 2016, and I remember I did set my goals. But I don't remember what they were... So naturally, I have know clue whether I have been doing good or not, and I have no way to assess how far I've come, and set new smaller goals to achieve the resolutions. What about you? Do you remember your New Year's resolutions? Are you on a right track? Do you think you can achieve the goals? Or have you forgotten your resolutions like me? Or are you pretending like you've forgotten them? lol

Actually, I think I wrote my resolutions on Facebook. Haha, I know, I'm just an average person who writes "Happy New Year!" on Facebook, and continues to write what I'm looking forward to for the new year, and some resolutions. So, okay, I'll go check my Facebook, and see if I really wrote my resolutions for 2017 or not. ... Nope, I didn't write anything regarding goals for 2017. But I did remember right now that I wrote my resolutions on this very blog of mine! What?! How could I ever forget that?! Jeez, I am so bad! lol

Ok, so I just went back, and read the one of my old posts... I wrote an article titled, "New Year's Resolution!" on the 3rd of January this year. Yes, loud and clear; "New Year's Resolution!" lol And basically my goals for this year was (Note that I'm using the past tense, "was"!): to read more books that the year before, to get a job because I'm graduating next March, to study Eastern philosophy, and to help people be more confident of themselves.

Oh, alright... Okay. Now I can't pretend that I've forgotten all my resolutions, and therefore I don't have to work hard. lol Well, despite the fact that I have forgotten the goals that I set in January, I will look back on the past 6 months, and see if I'm doing good or not.

The first one: read more books that the previous year. Yay! I can say with a proud that I have been doing good on this one! Yes, I've read more than 10 books this year (about 15?), and will continue to keep reading more books, so it's easy to read more than I did last year. I didn't read many books last year, to be honest; I read about 10 books or so. I don't really know the exact number but definitely a little more than 10, but less than 15. By See? It's crystal clear that I will definitely break the record. By the way, the reason why I cannot give you the exact number is that I am not a good record keeper. I have a little note to keep the record of books I've read. But sometimes, I forget to renew it. So there should be some books I've read, but do not appear on my book journal.

I've been reading 3 books currently, which are "Magnetism" by F. Scott. Fitzgerald, "The Crime and Punishment" (vol. 3) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and "Naked Man: Digital's Invisible Dictatorship" by Marc Dugain and Christophe Labbé. The first one is a collection of some short love stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The second one is... you know? It's famous. I've already read vol. 1&2, so I've moved on to read vol. 3 which is the last one. The third one is originally written in French. Oh no, I do not speak French. I am reading the Japanese translated version. I don't know if there's an English version of the book, so let me know if you know.

The next goal: get a job! Oops, nope, I have't accomplished this one yet. I'm still working on it.

The third one: study Eastern Philosophy. Oh, surprisingly, I can say, "Check!" on this one. I am taking a Zen class this semester, and learning about Buddhism and Zen. When I applied for this class in April, I had already forgotten about the resolution. But guess I'm lucky! lol And yes, I'm glad I took this class. I've learned things I didn't know, and it's the same as being able to look at a painting more deeply, or with different perspectives if you know some knowledge about the painter and the historical background of that period when the painter worked on the painting; now I have a little knowledge about Buddhism and Zen, and I can visit temples, and get more information out of it.

In the Zen class, we always practice meditation because meditation is the main emphasis on Zen school of Buddhism. You should not look for the enlightenment outside of your body; you should look within yourself. To go deeper and deeper in your mind, you meditate. Meditation is actually really hard. I mean if it was easy, everyone would be Buddhas. Making your mind empty is quite difficult. Try it for yourself. You'll soon know it's hard because your thoughts bubble up and float around on your mind constantly. Even thought the class will end this month, I will continue meditating, and perhaps I'll improve and learn something.

The last one: help people be more confident about themselves. Ouch. Well, even though I've made some positive comments about self-esteem on social media, but I have not made any systematic action towards this goal. As wrote in the "New Year's Resolution!" post, self-esteem is my personal issue as well. There are days when I think that I'm the ugliest, fattest, dumbest, etc., person on this whole planet. I see pictures of pretty girls on Instagram, and hate myself for not looking like them. But there are also days when I feel good about myself; I be me, and I enjoy it. I need to have more of this, and I want people to feel more of this as well. If we can stop comparing ourselves, we can be more confident. If we can learn that we don't have to be like other people, and we don't have to do or to be able to do the same things as other people, we can feel more comfortable with ourselves.

It's actually hard not to compare myself with people around me when we're all doing the job hunting. There are students who have finished job hunting already, which means that they've already got a job. Some students are still looking for a job even though they've got offers from different companies. Some students haven't got any offers, and still working on. We tend to have this equation on our minds that people who got a job early are winners of life, and people who haven't are losers. But you wouldn't know if you're the winner or the loser until the end of your life. Remember that.

It takes time to change how you see the world, and the change cannot be represented by numbers. So it's hard to evaluate how well I've done or how far I've reached. I do not know a perfect way to help people be more confident yet, but I need to try to do what I can do. I can write about it more on, for example, social media. I can treat people with positive attitudes, and compliment them as much as I can. You don't really talk so much about what you have on the deep place of your heart with random people or with your acquaintances, do you? I want to be a person whom people feel ok talking about those things to. I always wish that I had all the solutions for every problem people have. But I do not, and I just got to be kind and patient.

Ok, so that's all for today! Thank you for reading my post, even though this was a really personal one. I hope you all have the wonderful second half of 2017! See you till the next post!

On Love and Tolerance, and on Hating the Vice, Not the Person...

Hi, everyone! I submitted my midterm paper for a philosophy class that I'm taking this semester today, and now I can say that I'm done with all the midterm stuff! Yes! And that is why I can have a time to sit down, and face my laptop like this right now. I don't have to feel like I need to study, and I don't have to feel guilty for not studying, and not banging my head again books and notebooks. Oh, I do love reading books, though. lol

So today, I am going to write about things that have been sitting on my mind for a while. It is about love and tolerance. Why have I come to think about these 2 things lately? Well, it's because I watched a YouTube video by Jeffree Star (I hope I spelled the name correctly!), and that made me think. I love watching his videos, and his works of art; I love watching him talking, and being who he is. I am subscribed to his channel, and have enjoyed following him on the Internet. I think he is so beautiful, and I also love his personality from what I can see through his videos. I have never met him in person, so obviously, I can't say I know everything about him, but at least to me, he seems to be really open-minded, honest, and nice.

Recently, he uploaded a video which is titled "racism" on his channel. In that video, Jeffree talks about his past and the mistakes that he has made along the way. He says that he had always struggled to find his place in the world, and that he had always harbored rage and anger because he couldn't find peace in his mind back in time. People would say the nastiest things to him, because he didn't look like most of us. And he acknowledges that there were times when he fought back with nasty words as well. He then continues to admit that it is wrong to fight back nasty words with a bunch other nasty words, but back in time, he knew nothing better. He says he wish he could erase and fix all those mistakes, but as you know, nobody can do anything about what has already happened. Although he had made mistakes, and flashed offensive remarks in the past, those things does not represent who he is now. He is very sorry for firing those words to people, and attacked people back. And he added that it's sad for him to see those clips from the past, and see people still use them to mock him, and to try to degrade him. Nobody's perfect, and we're all just a small human being at the end of the day, and he says that he knows that, and he's a person who tries to be better just like us. And he isn't the same person as he was 10 years ago, and he sends out a message that he wants to set an example, and wants people to learn from his mistakes.

So, that was what was said on his video, but what you read isn't what Jeffree exactly said. You got some bits of information about the video through my words, and that's not exactly the same as watching the video yourself. So go watch the video. It's always better to check out the source when you can.

Alright, so from this paragraph, I'll write about what I thought after watching the video. Here we go. You know, it's easy to love what you love. Love is easy when you are fond of the person, of the object, or even the idea. It's so easy to love the things that look pretty and beautiful in your eyes. But you cannot say that you know the truly meaning of love when you can only love things that you love. The true meaning of love lies in loving and showing respect to even the things you don't like. There are so many things, people, ideas, etc., in this world. And you don't have to like every single one of them. Of course, you can have your opinions. A thing is not for everyone. I always try to be open-minded as much as possible, but I cannot promise you that I am going to love everything. I can't agree with every opinion from every single person. It's okay to have an opinion, and dislike things. But things get pretty messy when you try to exclude things you don't like.

Sometimes you may bump into a person, an object, or an an idea that goes beyond your comprehension. I think LGBT or boys wearing makeup can be classified in this category (for some people). Please keep in mind that I love seeing boys wearing makeup, and I do follow male makeup artists on social media to see their amazing works. And although I am a straight girl who dates a boy, I am a supporter of the LGBT community. Nobody should be ashamed of who they are, and nobody should be judged by their sexuality. LGBT people aren't abnormal, and they're not sinners either. They're human beings who celebrate love like anyone else. In recent years, more and more people have become aware of the need to break boundaries, and we've witnessed some amazing progress. But things were not always like this in the past. The backlash against the LGBT community must have been much more severe. I think that it was hard (or even impossible) for people to understand the concept of LGBT back then, when all people were supposed to be heterosexual. But you need to know before hand that sometimes things that are beyond your comprehension happen or exist, and that's okay. It's easy to get scared of things you don't really understand. People feel uneasy when they cannot find a category for an object; people do not like uncertainty.

But even if you don't like a person, an object, or an idea, that person, that object, and that idea have a reason to exist. You may hate a particular person for some particular reasons. But you don't need to treat the person accordingly at all. You can still treat the person with respect, and acknowledge him/her as one of the members of the society, and as the same human being. And that's the definition of tolerance, isn't it? No, it's different from faking your emotion. If you think tolerance is about faking your emotions, and having to say that you like them when you feel the opposite, you haven't learned what tolerance actually is. Tolerance is about being okay with things you aren't really familiar with, accepting them, and acknowledge their full right to be there. Tolerance is not an emotion; it's a choice, and it is a will. Love can be the same too. Love is not just about loving the ones you love. Love is not just about loving the lovable aspects of a person, it's also about loving the person as a whole, including the flaws. Love is not just about loving a person when you want to; it's about keep working hard to strengthen the love and the bond between you and that person even during the hardest time. Love is not an emotion either; it is a will.

Ok, now let's talk about this: hate not the person but the vice. The next time you feel like trying to degrade and disgrace Jeffree, or any other people because of what they did in the past, try to think about this: do you want to do so because you hate the action, or because you hate the person? It should be hard initially, to draw the line between these, especially when you're the very person who was attacked and offended by the person in question. But eventually, you'll need to move on. It may be tough to hear this, but you cannot get satisfied by continuously blaming the person. I know it's not easy, but you need to try to blame the action instead, especially when the person is apologizing to you, and learning the lesson. You can't justify the act of firing racist words, but I think Jeffree should be also allowed to explain his circumstances, and defend himself. It's not fair to take out a bit of information without examining the whole context, and just blame him. And to all those people (most of whom do not even know Jeffree personally, I guess...) who talk and write shit about Jeffree, you do so not because you want to inform people, and to bring justice, but because you simply hate him, and you love humiliating him. You just love finding fault with him.

I love memes. They're mostly funny and enjoyable. But some of them are rather nasty and mean. When I first saw the meme that says something like, "If Donald Trump is drowning, would you save him?" I was shocked. I saw so many people commenting that they would not save him. This is disgusting. Some may say that they were saying no as a joke, but that joke is not funny at all. Well, I do not agree with what he says, and I'm not a hands-down Trump supporter. But if he was actually drowning, I would make an action to save him. Even if we may not agree with each other on different topics, he's a human being just like me. I mean, it doesn't have to be President Trump; it can be anyone. Those then-kids who bullied me...Yeah, I would save them. Why? Because I don't hate them anymore. I just hate what they did to me. It's impossible to forget how hurt I was back then, and what I had gone through in the past. I will never forget the pain and the loneliness that they made me feel. But that doesn't make me go and revenge on them. I won't justify their action, but I know how bullying works. I confess that it took a while to come to the state of mind where I am now. But eventually, I learned not to hate them but to hate the action. You should try to do the same. Hate not the person bu the vice.

So there you have it. This is what I have been thinking about lately. Oh, yes, I know. Nobody asked me to write these things, and like I said, I've never met Jeffree personally. And making this kind of post can be taken as interfering and nosy. But I love writing and writing helps my thoughts to be clearer and more organized than they're just floating around inside my head. And I just didn't like keeping my mouth shut when I have some words to say. I just didn't like to remain silent when I can see those mean tweets or comments directed to him. You can decide for yourself whether you like this post or not. Even if you dislike what I wrote, there's nothing I can do. I can offer, but I can't force you. And that's how things go. If you happened to stay with me till this moment, thank you for reading my post. English is my second language, so it must have been hard sometimes to make sense of what I wrote. lol Lastly, I want to thank Jeffree for letting us explore the world of makeup with you through your videos. And thank you for being honest and trying to be as open as possible to us. You are strong, and you will keep shining by being you. I will always be excited to get to know more about you, and hearing your words.

Let's Exile Physical Punishment!

Hi, everyone! It's already the middle of June! The first half of 2017 is about to fly away! How's everyone been doing? As some of you might know, the rainy season has started in Japan. In Japan, June = the rainy season. But we haven't had much rain as far as I can remember! How weird is that?! lol Moreover, it is repeated again and again on the weather channels that the air is so dry! We're in the rainy season, but the air is dry? Like winter? How can this kind of thing even happen? I almost have no knowledge about the science of weather, so this is very mysterious to me. If anyone can explain what is going on, please do!

So, in this article, I am going to write about my past... My not-so-fun side of my past. And it is about my home that I grew up in. This can be a very personal post, and if you're not interested, I do understand that. But if you find this article worth reading somehow, then please keep reading! Thank you. 

My mom was (and perhaps still is?) very strict. Very strict. Yes, I understand why she had to be strict. Parents are not friends. And raising a child is not always easy, and can be pretty tough. You need your child to do things by themselves. The child needs to be able to live by his/herself in the future. The child needs to be a decent adult, and know what's right and wrong. The child needs to have self-discipline. The kid needs to study and learn things. Sometimes, the child has to go through hard times so that they can learn that working hard and being patient pay off. Yes, I understand all of these. 

But, kids, too, need a break from time to time. I wrote that parents aren't the friends of their kids. But sometimes, they need to be their friends. Well, I wished that my parents had been willing to be my friends sometimes, at least. They never were my friends. Even worse, I have never really trusted my parents. Yes, my parents did raise my up, and they are the ones who paid for all of the things I needed in my life, such as education. They fed me, secured a house that I can live in, worked hard to earn money so that I can go to school, etc. I know she has always wanted to do her best to raise me up, and wanted me to be the best that I can be. She was a perfectionist. Well, it's not totally a bad thing to be a perfectionist. But sometimes it can be a bad thing, especially when you're rubbing your version of perfection on your kids face, ignoring what they feel inside. 

When you're raising a child, you cannot just keep smiling all the time. You need to expose your scariest face sometimes, in order to let your child know that he/she is not supposed to do what they are doing. You need to scold your child sometimes, you know? Again, your child need to be a decent adult, and be independent in the future. And spoiling your child is not good for him/her. I mean, once in a while, you can spoil your child. Kids need that sometimes. Not just kids, we all need some treats after a hard work, right? Ok, so my point is, you shouldn't spoil your child too much because you don't want your child to be a spoiled child and a spoiled adult in the future. 

Scolding your child is necessary when your raising a child. But how you scold your child is very important. Long story short, this is where my mom failed. I was yelled at a lot by my mom. And there were many times when she beat me when I did something wrong (or when what I did didn't turned out as what she expected?). I was slapped, I was beaten, I was kicked, and the list goes long if I were to mention with what she beat me. I simply cannot write down all the reasons why she had to beat me because there are just so many. So... let me give you just one example. I remember it so clearly. My mom was really enthusiastic about education. How well her kids did in school really matter to her. Some parents do not even know what their kids' homework look like. But my mom wasn't satisfied by merely completing schoolwork and doing homework. So at home, I had to complete another curriculum at home. One of the things I had to do was the weekly kanji test. My mom would read out a sentence at a time, and what I had to do was to write the kanji in question. For me, confessing that I cannot write the correct kanji because I could not remember it was so scary. Why? Because she would get angry. And when she was in a bad temper, things got catastrophic. The memory starts with a scene where I am standing in a room in an apartment where I used to live when I was in elementary school, with my nose bleeding because my mom beat me. And I am crying so hard because it hurt a lot, not just physically, but also mentally. She got outrageous, and beat me that hard because I was doing good enough in the kanji test that day. Some blood dripped down from my nose to the tatami floor. My mom yelled again because I wasn't supposed to make a mess in the house. I was crying, and my nose was bleeding, and I covered my nose, hoping that it prevented the blood from dripping down to the floor, which didn't really help. I was nothing but the definition of miserable. I didn't know what to do or what I was supposed to do. And once again, my mom shouted, saying, "Go wash your face!" So I went to wash my face in the bathroom, put some tissues in my nose to stop the nosebleed, and went back to the room where my mom awaited. My notebook had got crumpled up because of my tears, and moreover, because my mom had beaten me with it. 

This is what I remember. And there are lots of episodes like this. Oh my gosh, I was beaten with so many things. We humans use tools, right? lol Anyways, seriously speaking, I never want any kids to go through such experiences like I had to go through. I am against physical punishment. No exception. It took a while until I realized and fully acknowledge that my mom was abusive. I had always avoid that the word "abusive," and chosen to say that my mom was strict. But being strict and being abusive are very different. Being strict doesn't mean you can beat your child in the name of education. My mom would always say, "If you can't understand it by hearing it, you have to be beaten;" "If you can't understand it by words, you're less than human; you're the same as farm animals;" "If I have to beat you to make you understand, then you're the same as a cattle or a pig!" And by saying so, she justified her violence towards me, until I started to think that I deserved to be beaten because I was a bad child.

Some of you may think and say, "Well, if your mom is abusive, why don't you tell somebody, and ask for help, then?" Like I said, I thought my mom had reasons to beat me, even though I did know at the same time that she was doing too much. To me, talking about it is almost the same thing as notifying people that I was a bad kid. And I didn't want to do that, of course, because obviously, that's embarrassing. Plus, I knew talking about the issue to other people wouldn't help. I knew my mom wouldn't change for other people's opinions. She has always believed that physical punishment is necessary. It's not like she loves and enjoys beating children, but she had to sometimes. She thinks physical punishment is unavoidable sometimes. And honestly, she has a tendency to get too emotional and overreact sometimes. I guess she was just not good at controlling her emotions, which still doesn't count as an excuse to beat her kids, though.

She has never apologized for hitting her kids. Not a single time. I have apologized to her so many times when she was hitting me. I just kept saying, and screaming, "I'm sorry." But that didn't stop her from beating me. She stopped beating me when she was done. It was like you can't control the weather. I had to wait until the storm goes away. And I know she never will apologize. She doesn't see any reason to apologize for.

Unfortunately, my mom is not the only one. There are still a constant number of people (mostly older generations) who thinks that physical punishment is sometimes necessary. In the old days in Japan, physical punishment were much more common. Even if you were slapped by your teacher at school during class, that was not really a surprise back then. The coach in a sports team would hit the members of the team in the name of coaching, and making the team stronger. Nowadays, younger generations do not like those "You can achieve anything if you have a tough spirit!" kind of beliefs, but the atmosphere of this belief was used to be stronger. Japanese education has changed, and nowadays, teachers do not hit their students. More and more people believe physical punishment is wrong and unethical. But what is sad is that there are still some teachers, sports team coaches, or educator in a broader sense, who are accused of using violence towards their students. From time to time, you see news about those sad events through media. But I think violence at home is less transparent from the outside than violence at school or workplace. And I believe that there are still many children who suffers from violence from their parents.

Violence at any place is bad, and need to be excluded. Violence does not teach any good lessons. Violence really gets in the way of building a trust-based relationship. My mom has been my mom for more than 24 years, but I still cannot trust her, and be open to her. I tend to hide my feelings in front of her. When a person was confronted with violence, fear dominates him/her, and he/she can no longer think. The person will learn he/she is not supposed to do certain things, not because it is a wrong thing to do, but because he/she will get punished. This is really important, and you'll see why by looking at this example: you shouldn't kill anybody because killing is bad, not because you'll be thrown into a jail if you kill somebody. Well, it doesn't have to be killing; it can be stealing, cheating, or any bad things. Thus, when fear dominates you, you stop learning things properly. Moreover, fear brings helplessness, and it suppress spontaneity. Spontaneity is what so special especially about children. Not only children, but also adults learn best when they are allowed to think freely. Interesting ideas come from spontaneity. When there is fear, we start to watcher over our actions and speeches. We start to behave based on fear. We refrain from speaking up, and try not to cause any "trouble" so that we don't have to be punished. This is what will happen to children surrounded by violence. They'll think they're bad children even if it's not true, and limit their actions in fear of punishment for a very long time.

As I said, it took a while until I acknowledge that my mom was abusive. I didn't talk about this issue to my friends or other adults, except for my boyfriend. He is the only person whom I have allowed to touch the deepest place in my heart. I told him my secret, and how I have been raised up in my family. His eyes were filled with tears, and he said, "I am very sorry for all those things you had to come through." And he also added that what my mom had done is wrong, and that I should never think myself as a bad kid. My mom wasn't being strict; she was being abusive.

I don't want anyone to experience that same thing as I did. I do not believe in physical punishment. And now that I have recognized that my mom was abusive, and that I was never a bad kid who deserved to be beaten, I have been able to be more vocal about my childhood. Never justify violence. Physical wounds may disappear, but mental wounds will never disappear; they'll stay as nasty scars forever. Let's put an end to physical punishment.