Yesterday was such a rare day for me, I felt like writing about it. For the first time in a long time, I only had one morning meeting: conference call with Paris. Outside of that, I had very little activity. In fact, I decided to take a walk and go buy a some green tea at Longs drugs. It’s so rare that I get a chance to do this!

When I told my sensei this, she was also very surprised. The consultants return to their countries at the end of the month and I think we are all looking forward to that.

I just returned from California late last night. I’m very happy to be back in Hawaii! I traveled to California for my brother’s wedding party for the weekend. The wedding was in Stanford, California. Roughly 100 guests were present. The wedding and reception were all outdoors and the food was good. I also met the bride’s family and they are very nice people. Most of them are from the midwest (Michigan). Even though I took vacation from my job, I had to work so much while I was home!

Since I was little, my mother has always made me drink tea for any occasion. When I was sick, I drank tea. When I was happy, I drank tea. It’s interesting because during my college years, I began drinking coffee and stopped drinking tea. When my mother found this out she was very upset and I went back to drinking nothing but tea. In particular, I will only drink Japanese green tea and occasionally, I will drink other tea.

I enjoy genmai-cha (this is my favorite). My brother drinks a lot of Oolong-Tea whereas my mother enjoys regular green tea and hoji-cha. My father on the other hand is a coffee drinker so he is different than us. Having witnessed the tea ceremony many times myself, I appreciate tea so much more.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has done ikebana. She says it helps her relax her mind and gives her a way to be an artistic person. Every time I see her she is so happy doing her flower arranging! Often, she has a teacher that comes to our home to teach her who is Japanese. Personally, I find ikebana to be very beautiful and is something I wouldn’t mind trying some day myself. There is a large ikebana association in California which I believe my mother is apart of. They have an office in San Francisco’s Japantown but I can’t remember what it’s called. Every time I walk past the office though, the arrangements are very pretty.

This past weekend, I had to work for a couple hours on Sunday and Monday. It was not as restful as I would have thought but right now, everyone on my time is working on weekends. When I think about it though, this is not much different from my student life. In college and graduate school, I did much work on the weekend. This week will not be any different from the last few weeks but hopefully my meetings will end sooner! One a cooking note, I made a lot of Hawaiian style food this weekend that I’m eager to cook for my friends!

For the most part, I grew up on a combination of foods, ranging from Filipino food, Japanese food and a lot of Italian food.  Quite a various mix to say the least.  However, starting in college, I really developed a taste for Japanese food which is currently all I eat nowadays! This started because as a freshman, my mother gave me a cookbook of Japanese recipes.  At the time, I could not read or write which is why the book is in English.  Even today I use that book.

Every weekend, I would buy the ingredients and just try new things cooking.   Sometimes, they would not be so good and otehr times, the flavor was just right! I want to try working with Ayu next time (sweet fish) and I found fresh Ayu at Marukai Market.  Hopefully, I can make something tasty.

In the next two weeks, I have to prepare for a speech that I will present for my older brother’s wedding.  My older brother, Andy, is getting married in early September.  Of course, I will fly back to California for this occassion.  This week, I have to go and buy the wedding gift for him and his fiance.  I have been asked to be the Best Man, something that I have never done before and am excited about doing.  More than that, I’m very happy for my brother who is getting married. 

It’s been a few days since I last posted so there’s a lot to catch up on.  The past few days I have been ill and spent most of my time in bed with medicine.  However, I feel much better after a few days of rest and I will be ready to go to work tomorrow.  I think working long hours and the stress of my job explains partly why I’m sick.  Truthfully, I should take better care of myself when I’m at work and try to relax more.  That’s what all of my mothers say too!

 My full name is Alex Reiji Tellez and as you can see, my first name is very common among American people.  However, my middle name is my given Japanese name and is derived from my aunt.  My aunt’s name is Reiko and so when I was born, my mother wanted to use my aunt’s name with my name. Hence, I was called Reiji.  The first character, Rei, means respect; the second character, Ji, means boy or child of.  Combined, you get –> Boy of Respect.

Lately, many of my past posts have focused on my job. It is the fact that I’m focused on my job but I’d like to write about something new with this post. That topic has to do with marriage. This year, I’ll be turning 24 years old (very old). At my age, I believe there is no one in my position at my bank. It is an extremely rare honor for which I am thankful. My office mothers are also aware of this fact and think it would be in my best interest to marry next year. At first, this may seem unbelievable, but many pro athletes are encouraged to get married. The reason has to do with settling down. My office mothers think that if I get married early, I will not do bad things and jeopardize my future. Because of that, they believe that marrying early will settle my mind and keep me from doing such things. For example, I will not go out as much, drink with friends as much, etc. I think that this may be the wishes of my company too, although I’m not sure!