littlewonderlog

It’s been a while since I baked bread.

Today, as usual, I baked 30% whole wheat basil bread using Korean “Golden” wheat.

There’s a sensory joy in baking.

There are the subtle smells of dried basil and oregano, and the aroma of flour during fermentation, the elastic texture of dough that I can feel at my fingertips, the cute bubbles in the dough, and the soft yet fluffy inside of well-baked bread.

The joy of baking, that I can feel with my eyes, nose, and fingertips.

Although I am still not eating wheat products and therefore don’t have the privilege of enjoying the joy of eating bread, I still enjoy baking.

Profoundly, at my fingertips.

When there are words that I don’t know while reading English books, I look them up in a dictionary. At times, I skip those words that I can guess the meaning of from the context for the sake of uninterrupted reading rhythm. Other times, I look them up in the dictionary, which is not much of a hassle since it only takes a long press on the word to see the meaning in an eBook.

Sometimes, I reread some important parts of the book. It can be only the highlighted parts or the parts that left a good impression on me or made me a bit confused about the contents.

The interesting thing is that even while rereading those parts, the words that I didn’t know the meaning of the first time usually remain unknown to me (again!) It’s almost always the case. How amazing.

As a person with a strange memory, ‘How could you forget the word so soon?’ is a cliche of my English reading life. Yet, since I understand that this is a process of building vocabulary, I don’t get as surprised or frustrated as I used to.

This is how I build vocabulary.
One by one, I stack up the words I understand.

Of course, it can be annoying sometimes. I mean, how could you forget it so soon?

It’s simple to anticipate someone’s future.

You can see how they spends their time.

What they spend their time reading, what they spend their time learnig, and what they spend their time producing.

That will shape their future in 5 years, and 10 years.

Right now, the future is being created.

There are two butcher’s shops that I often go to.

While I am always welcomed by two different people with big smiles in both stores, one of them makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.

Why does he make me uncomfortable? Both of them give me a big smile. It’s not a fake smile with only the lips moving, but with the muscles around the eyes moving as well. Yet, there is something uncomfortable about his smile.

It’s probably because his smile, for some reason, seems to be fake. Fabricated, maybe? I don’t know what it is about this smile that makes me feel that way, but I know that it does.

And there is one thing I know for sure from experience.

Although I can’t pinpoint the exact point of his smile that causes this feeling or a reason, there’s always a reason when something makes me uncomfortable.

I may be wrong from time to time, and yet I would rather follow my heart when something doesn’t seem right.

Ultimately, the power that enables me to move forward is a mindset that remembers two things: “What goes in, comes out” and “Repetition leads to freedom.”

It’s not that we don’t know them. We do. We actually do. Yet, we forget them while hustling through our daily lives, so it’s almost as if we don’t know them

The power that enables me to move forward comes from reminding myself of those principles.

What goes in, comes out.

And repetition leads to freedom.

Having no answers means you are alive. It means you are in for a challenge, you are growing, and you are moving forward. Considering having no answers as part of a vibrant life helps the journey toward finding them.

And when I don’t have an answer, I tell myself this:

If you don’t know something, learn.
If you don’t know something even after learning about it, learn more.
Learn until you know.
Learn until you know even if you don’t try to know.

If something doesn’t work, work at it more.
Do it until you make it work.
If you keep trying, it will happen.

Finally, I clicked the purchase button after going back and forth. The book that I somehow always type “haruki running book” into the search bar to find. Since the Korean translation left a good impression on me, it was quite natural for me to choose the book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” by Haruki Murakami.

I have intentionally avoided reading Japanese kanji (Chinese characters) so far – and the feeling is likely mutual, so it is almost impossible for me to read books in Japanese. Still, if I listen to it as an audiobook, I can pick up the meaning from time to time. It’s been some time since I added it to my Audible wishlist, and now I surrender to the urge to have my first Japanese book experience.

Of course, I can’t just listen to the audiobook without a translation, so I purchased the English translation as well. Although the Korean translation would be much easier for parallel reading due to the similar sentence structures of Korean and Japanese, I ended up choosing the English version because I don’t have much trouble reading it and I can improve my English along the way. So I am thinking of reading the English translation first and then listening to the Japanese audiobook (maybe a few sentences at a time).

As I tried the first few pages, I found the narrator’s voice very calm and smooth, while my brain was nowhere near as calm, but rather a in chaos.

I think it is gonna be a very interesting reading (and language-learning experience).

So exciting.

It may mean something different to everyone, but to me, a foreign language is a tool.

It is a tool for thinking, communicating, and creating.

I learn foreign languages in order to think more deeply, communicate more broadly, and create more authentically.

Therefore, I imagine what this tool can do for me and how I can sharpen my skills to use it.

Oh, and one more thing.

It is a tool for pleasure.

It is a tool for pure pleasure that can be felt during the learning process, even before the language has any practical value.

This tool can be such a jerk from time to time, but I will carry it with me for the rest of my life.

As part of my routine to improve my English, I have been listening to English TV shows while cooking, and my recent choice is “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Although understanding unfamiliar legal terms can be a challenge, I have been pretty satisfied with it since the overall conversations are rather clear and easy to follow. And then something clicked.

Wait, I know this voice!

Usually, I only listen to the show with the phone screen off, but this time I looked at the screen to see if she was who I thought she was.

And, yes! I was right.

It was the actress, LisaGay Hamilton, from “The Practice”. Although, I could see that time had passed for her since “The Practice” years, her voice still sounds the same. Even though I don’t know her in person, there is that little excitement you feel when you see someone after a long time.

This is one of the little joys of listening to English TV shows.

Just a little excitement.

I just finished watching the first season of the Culinary Class Wars with Japanese audio.

My husband initially joined me, but he couldn’t sit through it after a couple of episodes. Apparently, he couldn’t handle any more Japanese-dubbed content. When I told him about certain contestants or dishes on the show, however, he got curious and looked them up online.

As he was watching some short-form videos next to me, I had this reaction: “Is that the voice of Edward Lee?”, “Is that the voice of Sung Jae Ahn?”, or “Is that the voice of Jong Won Baek?”

I must have gotten used to the dubbed voices during those roughly 13 hours of runtime. Despite knowing that it was dubbed, the Japanese voices felt like theirs. I was even already familiar with Jong Won Baek’s voice since I’ve watched some Youtube clips, but it felt different, especially with his regional dialect.

I think, overall, the Japanese-dubbed voices tend to be lower and calmer than the original voices. It’s amazing to see how voices change people’s personal images. I will be surprised again when I listen to the original Korean voices of other contestants.

“Is that his original voice?”