the pursuit of happyness healthiness

i love that movie.

now that i've finally become an adult (i.e., finished school and started a full-time job), i'm not allowed to make any more excuses regarding not having enough time to do the things and live the way i want. when i was a student, i would tell myself that school is a never-ending time commitment, and that a full-time job will provide me with tons of free time to do what i want. haha, well, apparently that's not quite true. i still wish to do way more than what i actually do. my week days are often not too action-packed, but the schedule seems to still fill up quickly. typically:

• wake up at 7am-something
• make a 1-liter morning shake by throwing ~7 of the following items into blender:
  • 2 cups of milk
    
  • 2 cups of oats
  • 5+ strawberries
  • handfuls of blueberries
  • 1 apple
  • 1 plum
  • 1 nectarine
  • 1 kiwi fruit
  • limes
  • 1 banana
  • 40g strawberry whey protein
• commute to work (35-45 minute drive)
• work 8 hours
• gym for 1 hour
• commute home (40-50 minute drive)
• cook dinner
• do misc chores (i.e., dishes, laundry)
• talk with sheley
  

BAM, it's 10pm already!

on the days that i go out or have some errand to run, something from the list above gets dropped.

i wish i made enough time to:

• learn to play guitar
• learn to play piano
• learn mandarin
• play basketball
  
• play baseball on a team
• jog regularly
• paint
  
• take more random photography walks
• work on a AI-side project
• do volunteer work
  
• read
  

these things have been on my to-do list for a long time, and there have been like 10 books on my to-read list for the last few years. i'm finally making the time to do some of these, but i definitely have a long way to go.

i don't like making excuses, and i hate the idea of one not being in his peak. well, it's sad when people reminisce about how they were so much better at sport-whatever or skill-whatever "back in the day." well, i'm starting to ramble/stray. i guess i'll just say that i hate slacking, and i fear (1) not taking the time to do the activities i enjoy, and (2) becoming worse at them than what i once was.

specifically, art and baseball used to be my biggest passions until i went off to college. i was pretty good at drawing and painting, but i haven't painted since like 2004. i never produced earth-shattering work, but i was good, and most importantly, i enjoyed it. as for baseball, i definitely wasn't on the level of being able to receive a college scholarship for it, but i was pretty good. many of the best times of my life are from playing baseball with friends, and i still dream about it at night every few weeks. i took time to play on ucla's intramural softball team, but the season was short, and i still crave it all the time.

so yea, i'm trying to have a healthy balance of fitting in everything that i enjoy; i'm trying not to desert my interests, leaving them to become merely faded memories. recently, i've been exercising:

• my heart by reading some about religions and going to church every week for over a year now -- i had never been before then
  
• my mind by working at mit lincoln lab
• my body by going to the gym 5 days a week

regarding that last note, well, i counted calories one day recently and realized i consume about 3,000 - 4,000 calories a day. so, maybe i'm not living so healthy after all. haha.

purple berry in the making:



kiwi berry in the making:



pink berry, ready: