I was just reading the February 2010 edition of Reader's Digest magazine. (Apparently we only received this issue recently, which is odd. I mean, it's long past February now. I guess they forgot to send it to us before.) This time the magazine had a focus on ways to lose weight and the attitudes of people in various countries about being fat.

Regarding France, many families eat together every night, much more than the percentage in the USA out of people surveyed. And the meals in France are quite long. My French teacher told us that the lunchtime at French schools is about two hours long, so school ends late, like 5:00 pm or so. It's such a long lunch that you might even be able to go home and take a nap (just as long as you got up in time to return to school).

Actually, the longer the meal, the less you eat, given that you talk to someone while eating. If you're holding a conversation while eating, then you don't eat as quickly, compared to when you're focused on eating (as I tend to be). That pretty much explains why eating lunch or dinner seems to take so much longer when my parents are eating with their friends.

In this way, you end up not eating as much even though you supposedly would be spending more time talking. By talking, you have to slow down your eating (unless you eat and talk at the same time, which is disgusting and can also result in choking or food coming out). It's a good strategy, but it does take up time, which is a valuable resource that is impossible to replace.

But the opposite - that less is more - is also true, when it comes to swimming pools. Blackberry Farm, a place of recreation in my town, has its pool open during the warmer months. There's a discount on Sunday evenings (after 5:00 pm), I believe, so my mother and I went to the pool.

My mom had thought it wouldn't be crowded because she figured not many people would know about the pool, but she turned out to be wrong. It was quite crowded. Still, we figured that since we bothered to come we should go and swim. I suppose that less money needed to go swimming means more people flock to the pool.

The deepest section, 6 feet deep, was the one with the least amount of people. (This is an instance of "more is less" - the deeper the water, the smaller the amount of people in it.) The shallower sections were mostly occupied by parents teaching their children to swim.

It brought back my memories of the time when I was still struggling with swimming. My mom and I would go to the YMCA pool because we used to have a membership there. My mom would tell me to do four paces of Freestyle or something like that. It had been difficult for me then. Sometimes I choked on water and became very upset. I used to resent swimming. I feared water. Even showering was something I disliked because I might get water in my eyes. Now I don't fear the pool anymore. I guess the toils and trouble turned out to be worth it.

Labels: conversation, deep, fear, fight, france, lunch, magazine, meal, pool, readers digest, shower, struggle, swimming, time, trick, water, weight, YMCA

There's this song that goes something like "I left my heart in San Francisco" (which I guess I can understand, because I think San Francisco is a nice city, despite apparently having a history of being notorious place). And I thought it was suitable considering what I was thinking about earlier.

The common belief is that being homesick will make a vacation miserable for a person. But I don't think that's necessarily the case. It's true, during the first one or two days of Yosemite, I was trying hard not to burst into desperate sobs, because I was unaccustomed to the rush of Yosemite, the horrible-smelling bathtubs, the thin walls of the tent (meaning that you could hear any loud noise being made elsewhere), and the lack of sympathy from much of the other people (judging from their excited attitudes, since I try to avoid pouring out my heart and soul to people I do not know well).

As is the unusual case here, after a few days, I realized that I would be going home soon, and with this thought in my mind, I acquired a much more positive attitude toward the Yosemite trip. Isn't it funny how wanting to go home can become your motivation? I kind of figured that if I had fun the time would pass faster and I could go home and sleep in my nice old bed and get to take a warm shower (the showers were so cold, it was warmer when you weren't showering than when you were showering...). And in this way I was able to enjoy the trip after all, despite being very paranoid for much of the time. I was very fearful during the hiking when we had to clamber up rocks (how precarious! One false move and you would fall all the way to the valley floor) and also when exploring caves (you could slip and break your bones or bang your head on the ceiling! Or you would at least end up with really dirty pants and gloves). But at the same time feeling the adrenaline rush was a good thing since it made me feel adventurous. For much of my life I had been craving something exciting. This is very contradictory considering that I'm a person that likes normality and regular comforting rhythms in their life.

Just the other night, I closed my eyes. I began to imagine that I was back in Yosemite again. I could imagine the covers on my bed turning into the top of the sleeping bag, and the quiet of the room turning into the annoying dripping and banging of the heater... For some reason this gave me a kind of comfort while also making me feel very nostalgic. I wonder if perhaps the reason why I keep waking up really early, like 7:00 am, when I don't need to get up until 7:45, is that my mind thinks, "Oh no! I am so late for the breakfast at Yosemite!" but that's not the case at all.

My parents said that maybe some other time, like in 2011, we could go to Yosemite again. I'd like to go back to Yosemite, but I feel like if I went back there, I wouldn't want to leave. I'd like my days to pass in a national park, the way some people spend a lot of time in Yellowstone, watching the wolves with their binoculars. I'd like to be somewhere where I can see the stars as clear as day and where the trees make the air delightfully fresh. And as dear as home is to me, that place is not here.

Labels: adrenaline, adventure, breakfast, danger, excitement, homesick, late, memories, morning, national park, nostalgia, shower, sleeping bag, song, sounds, surprise, trip, yellowstone, yosemite

That kind of rhymes, considering the way that Yosemite is pronounced.

I've been wondering for a while now why Yosemite is pronounced the way it is. It's pronounced like "Yo-seh-mi-tee". I think that's rather misleading. On the lost and found sign for the Yosemite trip, Yosemite was misspelled "Yosemity". So wouldn't it make more sense to pronounce the name "Yo-seh-mee-teh"? But I suppose what makes sense isn't necessary how things work out.

While I was at Yosemite, I led a very different lifestyle from what I live at home. I spent much more time outside moving around. I almost always wore multiple layers to keep myself warm (except for the times that I became hot from hiking and skiing). I had to get used to having a heavy backpack on my back (I know you're not supposed to pack a lot, but I brought anything I thought I might need, like extra socks, a rain poncho, and gaiters - I never even used the gaiters), since usually I use a roller backpack. I had to adjust to having little sleep and to constantly having dry skin. (But some of my skin problems weren't as bad at Yosemite. My mom says it was because I took short, cold showers, which is better for your health, not like the warm, long ones I take at home)

And all this exercise was a good thing. It helped me build more strength, and I was surprised at how long I lasted, even if I wasn't a fast hiker. It's weird, but I had a different sort of appetite at Yosemite than I have back home. At home I get hungry quite often and I end up eating too much (better keep me away from the almond crunch!), but at Yosemite I sometimes lose my appetite, while at other times I am just moderately hungry, and don't eat very much, but it's enough. And I had to eat celery, which I never ate back home (it's not too bad, I guess, I always thought it must be terrible since people eat it with PEANUT BUTTER and I'm allergic to that). All this exercise made me lose some weight and made me feel better about myself since I could eat more and know I would burn it off, so I wouldn't have to worry about rationing myself (which I've been doing unsuccessfully, I always end up with too much food in one way or another. Eating is something of comfort, after all).

When I got back home, I realized how little exercise I do in comparison. In Yosemite, we might stop once in a while, but other than that we spend a lot of time standing or walking or climbing up something. At home, I am indoors a lot, sitting down, doing some work that requires me to stare closely at something, rather than getting natural light, which is better for my retina or something like that (I can't say I know the specifics about eyes, so don't ask me). And I actually eat more at home, or at least it feels like that. I wish I could always live the kind of lifestyle I had in Yosemite, being active, and being in the outdoors. That's where we are all supposed to be, but us humans have built walls around ourselves, put roofs over our heads, surrounded ourselves with technology to make our lives easier. In some ways this is good and in others it is quite saddening.

I hope that I never forget the experiences I had at Yosemite. I think it may have been one of the only times I ever really got close to nature. One day, when we were hiking at nighttime, a chaperone told us all to turn off our flashlights, be quiet, and stand still. We looked up at the sky, and it was amazing. The sky was really dark, and it was speckled with beautiful white stars. I have never seen so many stars at one time in my life, because in the town where I live, you can't see so many of them (unless you go out late at night, which I don't; in Yosemite it was only maybe 9 pm when you could see all those stars). Humans have affected the world so much that it becomes harder to see stars, but at least now I know there are still havens, still precious places where you can see night the way it is supposed to be seen.

I'd like to get a telescope. With one, I could take a much closer look at the night skies. I have heard that there are times when you can see other planets, such as Venus, and I want to try that. And there's eclipses, too; I didn't pay all much attention to them in the past. But now I think I'd like to see one sometime.

There are so many marvelous spectacles I have yet to witness in the world. I wonder if I will ever get the chance to see them all. I once heard that there were two people who were hospitalized because of problems with their noses. One had his/her problem fixed, and left the hospital. The other had some sort of terminal illness, so he/she traveled and did things that the other person didn't do (and probably never would). Sometimes you have to realize how little time you really have left on the Earth to make full use of it.

Labels: appetite, backpack, change, eating, health, humans, indoor, life, lifestyle, nature, night, outdoor, pronunciation, shower, skin, sky, stars, time, weight, yosemite

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