Run, Write, and Bento

I opened this blog on 8/12/2007 to report my Princeton days and I went back to Japan in March 2009. I've abandoned it for almost a year. To restart the blog, I change the title from "matsutake: living in america" to "living in Tokyo."

It took some time to readjust myself to the life and work in Tokyo, but now I'm OK because I've established the rhythm of run, write, and bento.

I keep running and the distance I've run so far is 726 mi, I even tried a half marathon in February. The time was 2 hr 2 min but my wife ran at 1 hr 54 min. I'll beat her in the half in April!

I also keep writing a book, papers, abstracts for conferences, and grant applications. I found that writing was very similar to running as Haruki Murakami wrote in his wonderful book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Now in spring vacation (for students, not for faculties) I try to write four thousands characters a day. It's not easy but setting daily goals is the best way to achieve the big thing, which is same with running. Also, to my happiness, teaching, as well as writing, is a lot of fun!

I started to make bento (lunch box) everyday since January. It's very fun and need some intelligence and creativity to make beautiful and healthy bento box. The photo is today's bento. I always uploads the photos to Facebook. Some friends like them and that is a big motivation to keep making!

Running + Bento = losing weight and getting healthier, which create academic productivity. I'm happy about it and try my best to keep the rhythm!