This blog is discontinued.

The Doubtful Aesthetics of Young Ponytails

 The ponytail. Add one to a little girl to make her cute, to a grown up girl to look casual and to a guy to look like a hippie.

My proudest ponytail achievement is convincing my mother to let me go to preschool with three ponytails. Yes, read that again, my dear: not one, not two, but three glorious ponytails.

But I want to talk about the dark side of ponytails. Today, I’ll tell you why the ponytail is evil. At least, that was my firm belief as a four year old youngster with a superior sense of aesthetics.

Let’s first look at untied hair: it swings, it shines, it springs waves of joy.

The ponytail? Restricted, strangled with a hair band. A complete lack of life.

Of course, us little kids jumping all around the place made those ponytails bounce up and down, But did that bouncing show us the elegance of waving hair? Did the ponytail curl around our head in the slight summer breeze? No, it didn’t.

A ponytail is just a fat body strangled at the top, slowly tapering into a handful of miserable hair strands.

It's like some dead critter dangling off your head. Bounce, bounce.

I devised a plan.

Obviously the problem was the dangling dead part. That caused the strangled critter look and prevented the hair from being shiny and lively and swinging around.

The plan was simple. All I needed was a pair of scissors and some cooperation.

I'd bring remove the deady part and bring back life to your hair style. I’d make the world a better place, starting right here and now. Do you want to be saved?

Every girl in kindergarten agreed. After all, who doesn’t want to look pretty?

I left a trail of ponytails in my wake. But just as I had started the salvation of my sister, my mother walked in. And that was the end of my good work as a hair style crusader.

...I regret nothing.

Yellow, Red and Green Foods: The Japanese Food Pyramid

Do you recognize this picture?

The Western Food Pyramid

Public Domain Image from Wikimedia

We've all been there on the school banks, look at that weird triangle with bread at the bottom and candy at the top – maybe you were like me, hoping that candy would find its way to the base of the pyramid. At least the one in my textbook still mentioned candy. The food pyramids I found on Wikimedia completely ignore this significant part of my diet.

The food pyramid is used all over the world – also in Japan. All they did here was replacing the types of food. Let's play spot the difference with this food pyramid picture.

Candy courtesy of Iris Hoppenbrouwers

  Guess what we got instead of bread? Yup, that's right, rice! All the categories show different kind of foods to better reflect the Japanese diet. Traditional Japanese food has a large emphasis on rice and fish. Even the vegetables are slightly different. Did you know that the Japanese radish is huge?

Seriously, it should be on the list of dangerous weapons.

There is one more difference. A single creative addition to our standard food pyramid... They added colours! Yay, now the pyramid has nice green, red and yellow colours. What do you think, does it look nice? 

 

Wait, why did they do this? Was the standard pyramid boring? Oh, there is a purpose to pimping the pyramid.
In order to simplify healthy eating guidelines, the different food types were divided into three categories.

Red: stuff that makes you grow and keeps you strong

Green: stuff that keeps you healthy

Yellow: stuff that makes your body move

Makes sense?

The next part is a quick rehash of basic nutrition and biology. Skip it to read more about Japanese eating guidelines ^_^

Your body cells use glycogen as energy, which is derived from the food you eat.

Carbohydrates are the easiest source for your body to produce glycogen from. Protein and fat can be used to, but require longer for the body to process.

This is why food types with a lot of carbohydrates, like rice and bread, are put in the yellow category “makes your body move”.

Image from Wikimedia

For building muscle, making red blood cells and generally maintaining your body, you mainly need proteins. Iron and calcium are important too.

You find the perfect combination of these nutrients in animal product such as meat, fish and eggs. Vegans and vegetarians can combine specific plant sources to create a meal that provides the right nutrients. This takes some research and meal planning, but is doable. Tofu is an example of a plant product in the red category, so it gets much love from vegans.

For the green category, just think about vitamins and minerals, which you find lots of in vegetables and fruits.

So how does this apply to a healthy diet? The food guide in three colours let's you pick the right amount from each category.

For this, points were devised. 80 calories are one point and your goal is to acquire 16 points from yellow food, 6 points from red food and 3 points from green food. This will put you at a total of 2000 calories, with just the right balance of nutrients. If you don't cheat and count hamburgers as good food, that is...

As a guy you might want to shoot for 2500 calories, or 6-7 points extra. (note: some Japanese sources quote 2200-2600 for men and 1600-2000 for women. In the low bracket, women would consume 11 yellow food points.)
Using this easy to understand point system, it greatly simplifies creating your own healthy eating plan. So you can follow a healthy diet just counting colours!

Let's look at the system in practice.

In the cafeteria of Tottori University, the total calories and the food point of your meal are printed on your ticket.

Here's an example of mine:

Yellow points, red points, green points and a belly
filled with delicious school food.

The only option not included is the salad bar, since that dish varies a whole lot depending on whether you load up on pasta salad or broccoli.

However, outside the cafeteria the system falls apart.
Points are not written on packages. So when you eat something, you first have to determine what category the food belongs too. Yellow, red or green? It ain't mentioned anywhere. How do you know? Sure, there are a lot of examples in the food pyramid pictures, so you can kinda guess that all rice products will belong to the yellow category. But what about sushi? It has both rice and fish ingredients...

It doesn't end there. Next, you also need to calculate how many points your food is worth by dividing the total calories by 80.

So this chocolate chip cookie would be 3.8 points, if I would feel the need to pull out a calculator and do the math. I'd still be clueless about the colour category.

Let's get this straight: no one does this. It is impossible to spend so much mental energy on converting food package information to a food guide point system... for every single meal and snack... and then check the totals of the day...

Heck, we even have difficulties keeping track whether we get our five servings of veggies and fruit a day. This is insane!

Look, this system could provide for healthy eating habits. But the theory and the application are far apart. As a result, the whole method is ineffective.

I love the idea, but there is literally only one place where I can use it. If you want this system to work, the yellow, red and green points should be printed on all food packaging. If this was a standard on food packages, it would make a great tool for getting healthy eating habits.

In short: Great Idea, Poor Execution.

What do you think of this system? Would mentioning points on packages help to eat healthier?

Many thanks to professor Takeda of Tottori University, for answering all my questions about Japanese food education. 

Spiders, bugs... why not mice and rattlesnakes too?

Let it be... It catches bugs!
I see... You want an indoor ecosystem!

Say whatever you want, keeping spiders inside doesn't make your house look any cleaner.

APRIL 1ST: 7 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Worry About Global Climate Warming

Didn't it go awfully quiet on that big topic of climate change and drowning polar bears? The media doesn't seem to care anymore about global warming and melting polar ice. Well, neither should you.

I think Al Gore gave us all a big scare and then we were like “Meh, it's not that bad”. So I'm gonna tell you why there's no reason to worry about this carbon-dioxide stuff.

1. You'll die an ordinary death anyhow

When you're an old grandpa or grandma, guess how you'll leave this earth? Diabetes or heart attack, that's how. Nothing to do with global warming.

You ain't gonna get killed by huge hail rains in a tropical storm or by the sting of a monstrous malaria mosquito roaming the temperate climates. Where's the drama?

2. We'll run out of fossil fuels soon

Ain't us burning coal and oil the cause of this global warming thing? But we'll run out of those in a few decades, so then the problem will fix itself. Remember how the ozone layer fixed itself?

3. We got polar bears in zoos

Bummer.

Polar caps melting means polar bears drowning, but that's actually not a big deal. We got them in zoos, so it's not like they will go extinct. 

I just saw pictures of the cutest twin polar bear cubs ever, born in some zoo somewhere. How many polar bears on the Arctic have their cuteness uploaded to the internet? They couldn't be less relevant to everyday life. 

4. If it was really that serious, somebody would do something about it

But instead, everyone kinda forgets that we got an issue here, so it's probably not that threatening. Or urgent.

5. We still got the government

If it looks like we're gonna drown, the government will simply build a sea dike with our taxpayers' money. If it looks like we're melting in extreme heat, or freezing because the polar vortex falls apart (or because we're not used to chilly weather anymore), then they can distribute cooling fans or heaters respectively!

6. You can always move

What if the government fails to do so? Still no problem. 

It's not like you're Bill Gates, but you are still well off enough to just move away when the climate starts to bother you. Village getting flooded every week? Move higher up. Crazy storms and tornadoes? The neighbouring country will do.

You are safe no matter what happens.

7. Global WARMING? Great, you never liked the cold!

Global warming sounds like more bikinis to me! Seriously, a summer short is way more comfortable than a ski jacket. And soon we can get our tan during Christmas break, at home! 

No more dying butterflies when winter comes around, it's gonna be an eternity of sunshine and rose petals! What's the downside again?

In short: don't worry, be happy!

10 Things You Didn't Know About Me

1. I take a cold shower once or twice a day, right after my regular shower.
2. If I say "yeah, it was expensive...", then the correct response is "Ouch, I'm so sorry for you."
3. My favourite food is the pomegranate, but I haven't eaten one in two years.
4. I've dreamed to be a freerunner since I was a kid, but I've never practiced.
5. I make New Year resolutions every Monday.
6. My lowest weight ever (i.e. at current height of 178cm) and my highest weight ever happened happened within the course of six months.
7. I regularly forget my own age.
8. To this day, I feel guilty about killing an innocent worm at age 4.
9. One of the most amazing things about humans is that we don' topple over when we do stuff. You know, like moving an arm. I marvel at our ability to keep our balance.
10. The most important quality to me is Honesty. I believe honesty is interlinked with courage.

As a closing note, air is pretty disgusting. You know that greasy chap you dislike so much? The air you are breathing has passed through his lungs already. Enjoy your oxygen.

Things with Feathers & Things with Antennae

Do you like fluffy puppies? What about birds, gliding through the air? And bugs, with their creepy six little legs and their pinpoint dots of eyes?
As you have read before, I love the forests and the mountains here. (Will I ever be happy in a big city after living here?)

Since I also enjoyed the animals around here, I'm going to introduce those today. Three stand out. The title hints at it already: one is a bird, the other an insect and the last one is a spider.

Praying Mantis

First, Japan's praying mantis. What's special about it? Eh... Nothing. We just don't have them in Belgium.
Here you can pick them up from the streets at will. Well, not anymore since the winter weather has arrived now...

They always look grumpy to me. When you try to pick them up, they'll not move an inch, but they will clasp the ground or wall as tightly as possible with their tiny claws.

And when you then do pick them up (a tiny claw is no match for a human biceps, not even when you got six of them), they'll start flexing like "Hey, look at me, what ya got, huh, huh?! What ya looking at, huh?!"

Imma big green mothafucka hell yeeeeah

I just think they're pretty awesome, okay? Just look at this mean big boy:

Black Kite
The next animal in the spotlight: the black kite. This bird is everywhere, from the beach to the mountains. When I leave for school, I can greet them on the telephone lines.

Black kite aka Milvus migrans lineatus

One Sunday morning, I saw the most amazing scene - pure National Geographic material. Three of these were sitting on the telephone line, when one of them dove down and snatched a chick.
Jealous of the delicious snack, the other two started chasing him, making him drop the chick. And then in turn, he'd chase them trying to recover his snack.
As soon as the murder of crows nearby saw that, they started to play chase too.
And there you suddenly got three birds of prey and five crows chasing and bugging and pestering each other, with one dead little bird changing claws every ten seconds.

 

Jorō Spider

They come in one size ("big") and various colours, but I love the ones that carry the colours of the Belgian flag. It was like a little, special welcome: picking the single animal I've got a phobia for and putting my countries on it. I appreciate the gesture, Mother Nature.

Not to mention that I bumped my head into one and panicked and when I rubbed it off, its legs got stuck in my tangly hair and it fell down but lost it legs so I walked around with spider legs in my hair and the effect of a mini heart attack. Yeah, never mind that.

But eh, yeah, they just sit there doing spider stuff. Like this:

Nephila clavata

Just like the praying mantis, they're now slowly dying by the approaching winter.

 

Just chilling.

I'm going to end this post with just a few more pictures. Feel free to point your finger and say things like "Yuck!" or "Awwww...". :)

Shrooms!

Plants!

 

Antennae thingies!

 

Non-Antennae thingies! 

Water thingies!

 

I did it! 50 000 words in 30 days, NANOWRIMO WINNER!

Just a quick update: NaNoWriMo was a success!
I've been neglecting this blog a little bit, haven't I? Didn't I promise you some pictures of cute animals or something like that?

Anyway, I'm now looking for a 7-day and a 24-hours challenge. If you have any ideas, tell me in the comments!

Click the image if you have trouble reading the text.

One-month challenges seem perfect for me though. :)

2013 My First NaNoWriMo: Plunging into Chaos

November is coming. That soul-crushing writing challenge, NaNoWriMo, is upon us. But before that...

Let's start this post with a confession: I totally butchered my 100 day challenge. I didn't make it beyond day 25. Obviously, I entered it half-heartedly. It gets a small mention at the end of the post, and seems quite impulsive in hindsight.
So what happened exactly? The challenge was: “Paint a portrait every day for 100 days”.
It didn't take long before I started to postpone the portrait to right before bed when I'd go “Oooh, still have to do that.” and rush it. Then one day – day 26 – it was one o'clock and I said to myself:
“Well, I can just paint two tomorrow.”
And then I just never did. That was the end of my 100 day challenge.


In positive news, check out the difference between day one and my personal favourites, day 20-21-22!

Day 1

Day 20-21-22

But anyhow, the 100 days are over. Up next: NaNoWriMo. "National Novel Writing Month" is held in November each year, and the challenge is to find a 50,000 word novel by the last day of November.

Okay. Is NaNoWriMo going to be different? I hope so.
To begin with, my alarm is set at 4:50 now.


Yup, 4:50 every morning. The plan: get up, eat a little, write 1667 words and then start my day. Tomorrow is an extra day for practice. :P
In other words, avoid NaNoWriMo interfering with daily life, which could provide excuses to give up!


To keep myself accountable, I also decided to post my daily writings. I had no idea how the NaNoWriMo posting system works, so got looking for a different site to post my updates.
I had two requirements: 1. Free to use 2. Non-users can read & comment.
Note: I made a subdomain, but deleted it after NaNoWriMo was over. Many thanks to you who read my daily writing updates!

Whew.


Now, if you look at the title, you see I don't expect things to go smoothly. I already encountered one difficulty: since I have no plan whatsoever, it was quite difficult to come up with a title... I went for “Golden Fields, Black Snow” because it doesn't mean anything.


By the way, you can sponsor me on NaNoWriMo. If you do, my avatar will get a shiny halo.

A Forest Health Check in Tottori: Pictures of Leaves and Blurry Insects

Last time I made a post about the scenery near my home. I've also visited a forest in Wakasa – about 35 kilometers away from here.


Why a mountain forest in Wakasa?
Well... Let's have a look at lumber production in Japan.
A lot of mountain forests in Tottori are not natural, but planted for lumber. So the forest mainly consist of a single, fast-growing pine species. In the case of the forest visited, this was the sugi (杉) species.
The cycle of cutting and planting actually allowed for rich forest diversity. This practice of nature existing in coexistence – and partially thanks to – human influence, is a concept called “satoyama”. Which I am writing a paper about, actually...

But here's the problem: lumber prices dropped. Business being no longer lucrative, the pines don't get cut anymore. And so they grow bigger and bigger. Planted in tight rows, the growing trees loot all the sunlight from the poor starving weeds below.
Undergrowth perishes, animals go on a pine-bark diet and the forest's nature deteriorates.

Recently, an activity was organized to keep track of the forest's health: a yearly forest health check-up.

And I participated. :) Professor Nagamatsu introduced me to the event, and allowed me to participate – even though the application date was over already. *round of grateful applause*
This year there were a little over 40 participants. Guess the event is not well-known yet...

Quite a long intro, isn't it? So... Let's move on to the pictures. The first forest was planted on top of ancient paddy fields.
I found it difficult to imagine that these were once sunny rice terraces... With croaking frogs and butterflies...

I think I saw a deer here, but I'm not certain. It was big, brown and fast. That's all I know. Does seeing a flying brown blob even count as deer sighting? Actually no, it doesn't.


The second forest was quite different... For one, it was STEEP.
Littered with rocks, too. Rocks, and tree roots on top of the rocks. That made climbing quite a challenge - feet getting twisted, rocks stumbling down... The first time a rock came crashing down, I had a mini-heart attack! I thought one of the volunteers was rolling to his death!

Now, what did we do exactly? Measuring. Tree circumference, number of weed species present, slope angle... Especially measuring a tree's height was difficult! No, we didn't climb them. We used some tools and calculations, but the problem was that to calculate correctly, you needed plain view of the tree from top to bottom. And as you read in the introduction: these are fast-growing trees, planted closely together and their planned cutting is long overdue.

 

And at last, after completing the check-up, we left a little wooden board saying we carried out the forest health check, with our names at the back.

The rope and wood we used won't pollute the forest.
It'll get slowly digested by the ecosystem ;)

Sadly, in both forests we visited, the conclusion was the same: too many fat trees binging on sunlight. The forest needs some maintenance... Luckily, as you saw in the pictures, it's not yet too late: there's still some undergrowth and specks of light coming through.

Let's end with a few more pictures from the "Forest Health Check" adventure. :)

 

The next post will be about some plants and animals I encountered. For now, let's just say that I regret not bringing a macro lens to Japan...

Actually, maybe I'll post three times this week. There's also an update needed for my older post "How About Doing Something? Challenges: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly ": the 100 day challenge has ended, and I want to try a month-challenge.

Note: some images were edited (cropped or contrast upped).