Research Methodology

To find out what we need to know, we will interview students, teachers, and also staffs that work at cafeteria during lunchtime. [prepare your research plan] First, we will interview students. From…

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The Hot Mess in All of Us

Mr. Tillman | what ifs | sake

Music

Sometimes we don’t make the best choices for ourselves. We don’t always live our optimum lives.

We can be tempted by that extra drink, skipping on a full night’s sleep, deciding to challenge our gas tank to the final mile even though the fuel light has been on and we just passed a gas station.

From little idiocies to big mistakes, we’re not always shining.

Father John Misty’s song, Mr. Tillman tells a story of just this sort of seat-of-his-pants man, soaring through life in uninhibited denial.

Mr Tillman humorously embodies the broken nature which all of us face at one time or another.

And yet from deep within his mess, he’s adamant that he’s doing just great…

Sometimes, even though it’s painfully clear to others, we can’t see just how hazardous our life has become.

When I was freshly grieving my mother’s death, there were some pretty bleak moments. Some of my choices weren’t wonderfully thought through and it took a few head-firsts into rock bottom before I could push myself back up again.

Most of the time, things roll along moderately smoothly. Then there are the losses in life: of jobs, relationships, lives. It’s uncomfortable but ultimately good to reflect on those times when the world comes crashing down around us and we pick up our weapon of choice and join right in. On the other side of the pain, maybe we can even laugh about it.

Mr. Tillman serves as a friendly reminder to keep a sense of humor about those points in our lives. To forgive that aspect of ourselves. To know that it may resurface on occasion in all its messy glory and that’s okay. Hopefully we can muster up the insight to learn from it and to grow into the kind of person we wish to be.

Yoga

Lily Tomlin has a wonderful quote that goes:

I think that is true forgiveness. When you not only forgive others and your life’s scenarios, but you ultimately can forgive yourself.

Regret doesn’t have to be a way of life. That niggling feeling weighs a lot of us down, though — that something went wrong: a situation, someone else or we just managed to fuck up somehow and life didn’t go as planned.

We all have them: those nagging thoughts that keep us up at night. The last time they arose for me, I decided, to hell with it and dove in. Instead of avoiding those thoughts or trying to push them down back to their depths, I invited all of the accusatory voices and victimizing stories to surface as I lay in bed.

And I took it a step further: I played out every path not taken as if I’d taken it. That role on the West End I’d nearly gotten but didn’t because of my own foolishness. I imagined what my life would be like if I’d been cast. If I’d stayed in England. If I’d let myself fall in love with that boy who loved me in college. All of those what ifs branching out in all different directions, I let them play out in my mind — so detailed, it was as if I were really living them.

I let the night pale into morning as I lived these parallel lives because something beautiful was happening: through this exploration, I was healing old-held regrets. Many of these lives were wonderful. Some tragic. Some of them ended up exactly where I am now. And this exercise taught me that it really doesn’t matter which road I’d taken; they all hold as much meaning as I assign to them. And this chosen path is no better or worse, unless I decide it is.

There’s nothing wrong with imagining all of the paths that we could have taken. Personally, I’d shied away from daring to think about the what ifs for so long, they became taboo and even seemed dangerous. But in opening up to them, I lived dozens of lives in a single night and was able to release most, if not all of the regret I’d been lugging around.

There is no changing our past. So how do we cope with it and any regrets that we carry? By forgiving ourselves — and everyone else for all of the ‘mistakes.’ And to remember to take it all a little less seriously.

Booze

Sis for Sake

Sake is one of those dangerous alcoholic beverages that takes you by surprise. The kind of intoxication where you think you’re sober but the next day you wake up and realize, wow I was drunk!

The affect is so delicate yet intoxicating, and the flavors are so pure and floral, in my opinion, sake is one of the best uses for rice.

Sake is a Japanese beverage made of fermented rice. The ingredients include:

In short, it’s a delicious blend of rice, water, yeast and fungus (yum!), famous for being one of the only alcoholic drinks served hot.

The generalization is that only the cheap stuff is meant to be served hot and that quality sake is always chilled to bring out the more delicate aromatics. It is true that heating is used to mask a lower grade sake, but a dry, premium sake can be also wonderful when heated — it comes down to personal preference. And there’s nothing quite like sipping hot sake. It’s akin to mulled wine in winter without the rich sweetness, or to a hot toddy without the prerequisite of being ill.

How do you differentiate between quality sake and not? By the ingredients as well as the degree of polishing the rice grain has undergone to remove the bran. The rule is: the more polished the rice, the more delicate and fragrant the flavors.

The thing about polishing rice is that you’re literally diminishing your yield the more you mill, reducing the grain to half its size in some cases; so the cost of produciton inevitably rises.

I often look for a Junmai-Ginjo grade: it’s pure sake, 40% milled and usually a good price for the quality.

Sake is often called a rice wine, but it’s actually more closely related to beer through how its produced. Where wine is made by converting sugars into alcohol, sake is a two step process of first converting rice starches into sugar and then the sugar into alcohol.

The result is a clear, aromatic liquid with varying degrees of sweetness and high levels of alcohol. However when unfiltered, known as Nigori the liquid is cloudy and should be shaken before serving.

Not only is the drink itself pleasurable, but the ceremony around sake is fun.

Traditionally, sake is poured into small cups, and if you’re a stickler for convention, your portion is always poured by someone else at the table. No one serves themselves. This makes drinking sake a communal experience, where each sip is savored in company and conversation.

With 15–20% alcohol, there’s often a bit of a burn with sake, unless drinking Nigori which can have sweeter notes and a smoother palate. For this reason, it can sneak up on you.

In one of my messiest moments in life, sake played a small part… When I was studying in England, I got very ill and broke one of my ribs by coughing. Yep, you read that right. When I realized I was in such bad shape that I needed to fly home and would have to repeat a year of uni when I was well enough, I took to day drinking that afternoon.

My poison of choice: sake, of course.

I was low. Hollywood Noir film, drinking alone by day: low.

I’ll never forget how the waiters looked at me with a mix of pity and disdain as I sat, sipping sake by myself, refusing any food.

Tip: when day drinking your woes away, best to choose a bar or pub, where they’re used to that sort of thing. Japanese restaurant staff in small UK towns aren’t down for it. They even threw me out! I was sitting there, quietly depressed, injured and ill, and that was too much for them. It wasn’t a high point for me. The black and white tones coating my life’s movie got darker.

I will say that their shaming of me acted as a deterrent, and I went home to wallow in private and never day-drank alone in self-pity again. So, bonus?

For the most part, I’ve enjoyed sake in celebration. When out with friends, on dates — savoring the spicy perfume of it burning pleasantly with each sip.

The best part about sake is that it pairs wonderfully with the most amazing cuisine on the planet: sushi! Where, because of the use of chopsticks, you earn every bite. So go with friends, order a large carafe to share along with a variety of the freshest sushi on the menu (my mouth is literally watering). And be sure to pace yourself: the sake high is higher than you think.

NEXT WEEK:

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Research Methodology

The Hot Mess in All of Us

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