According to my best friend (laptop), aka the included dictionary from Macintosh, a kernel is:

• a softer, usually edible part of a nut, seed, or fruit stone contained within its hard shell.
• [ in sing. ] the central or most important part of something: this is the kernel of the argument.

So I thought it’d be cute to name the list of things I love currently,

HAPPY KERNELS!

Here we go:

• Getting into the habit of dancing regularly again. I dance around in my room, probably causing the people on the floor below to slowly turn into Mr. Heckles, but I don’t care. I’m far too happy hopping around, racing my heart beat, dancing to the music… Aaaahhhh. You should be daaaaaaaanciiiiin’- yeaaaaah!
• Throwback to the nineties: Rewatching episodes of Miami 7, LA 7, Hollywood 7, etc 7 and laughing along with the super silly humor and innocent jokes.
• Yoga: Doing a simplified version of the sun salutation, customized to fit my own body and its limitations (PH) and feeling great during the whole session. I feel like I connect spiritually and tune into a more peaceful state of being.
• Meditating: I did a special session last Sunday and it gave me much peace and charged me of wholesome energy to go through a week of foreign language lessons (sometimes being in front of a class and trying your best to teach them the language when their heads are like rock, can be a bit draining, but thanks to that meditation I felt very relaxed and equanimous).
• Music acquisition spree: Weeeeeeeee. New music. Please feel free to make it rain iTunes cards this way.
• More dancing. YES MOAR. Learning dance steps to songs like a teenager for the dance festival. It’s so much fun.
• New role models: See, I was starting to feel frustrated when watching interviews with actors and actresses I like, realizing upon listening to them talk, that the charm I’d built about them in my mind had vanished, to give room to a very imperfect and ego-trippy person who just didn’t inspire me much in my own human development. And then I watched the buddhist lama Tony Karam talk about how Buddhism changed his life. His way of speaking is so clear and rich, yet concise that it was instantly clear in my mind what kind of role models I am looking to get my inspiration from: human beings who are genuine and authentic and who do just the exact amount of ‘thing’, no more, no less, but just exactly the right amount, and thus come across as so real and my respect for them is naturally instant. Afterwards, I rewatched Adam Lambert performing Marry The Night on Glee, reliving the enjoyment from the first time I saw the episode, and noticing his charisma. I didn’t know much about him, so I watched interviews of him on youtube and found out how down-to-earth he seems to be, how charming and genuine, and real, and I thought “yes, I’ll take this one, too.” Then! Watching his performance on the Graham Norton Show lead me to watching the entire episode featuring Will.I.Am and Miriam Margolyes, and it was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen all month. Turns out Miriam Margolyes is very funny and also ballsy, and Will.I.Am is selfless and chill and looks cute when he laughs, just like a kid, man. So there you have it, a small list of my current Role Models/Human Inspirations.

Thanks for reading. And I hope your life gets more beautiful this week, little thing by little thing, because together they make a mammoth sack of Happy Kernels.

Yay!

Ale