|
2 . 2 8 . 0 0 Went to Chicago this weekend. got to go to a concert at a coffeeshop in Wrigleyville by an upcoming artist Kevin So, a very energetic and talented folk/blues singer. I think the first reason why we ended up going to see him because he happened to be Asian-American, but since I like the kind of bluesy music, it was a treat for me as well. You really should give this guy a listen, he is definitly talented enough to make it big, one has to wonder if the fact that he's asian holds him back. He sings about a lot of "american" topics, life on the road, soulful sounds, and a little political/cultural commentary. Ended up buying a CD from him and getting it signed. Afterward we went to this club on Division street right in the middle of the projects called the "Dragon room". It was pretty crazy, there was this one floor full of house music, and the basement was a hip-hop room. There was a sushi bar/bar inside as well, and a VIP room up on top. The whole place was kind of an oriental-fetish looking place with dragons and lanterns all over the place, and posters with kanji written on them and what not. Pretty cool, I get the feeling that it was one of those upper scale clubs--lots of glitzy fashions and struttin females. Chicago is a neat place, we were riding down by the lakeshore drive, along Michigan ave AKA the 'magnificent mile' looking at the lights of the city that never go out. Along the park--there were so many street lights that it looked like the trees were on fire. I need to either attend an open meeting to write up my response paper on therapy, or actually attend a closed one for personal reasons. I'm thinking that it might not hurt, even though I'm not in any sort of crisis at the moment. call it preventive-counseling? Before we headed back to the Mad city, we stopped by in Chinatown to eat some dim sum and look around a bit. It dawned on the divisons between people on the mainland--Quan and Fu were trying to order things in cantonese to some young waitresses that were a little more "chinese" then they were. I could feel some tension--subtle, but along the lines of "you think you're so asian? why cant you speak your mother language?" kind of a fucked up question.....my "mother language" is 4 generations away from me.....but I still know a fair amount--does that make up for anything? Just another reaffirmation that your race does not determine anything about your culture, or who you are--identity is ultimately self-assigned. Sure, if you look a certain way, born certain race, people may assign certain stereotypes and social scripts onto you, but how you respond to those, and either assimilate or counter these forms of socialization have more of a lasting definition of identity. As for myself, since I've been in Madison the answers to my own questions are still undecided. I recall back to Aunty Marie's statement of transplanted Hawaiians and Hawaiians at Heart--in terms of roots..... I looked up this girl I used to know who is in Chicago now, I figured maybe I'd call her--not really to talk to her, but hopefully to get her answering machine to hear her voice again. Before we left for the Mad towne this afternoon, I remembered and got out 35 to call her. Actually, if I had called and she happend to answer, i would've hung up anyway. some things aren't worth explaining. I lost the paper. Karma? Fate? 2 . 2 3 . 0 0 This past weekend 54 people got arrested for peacefully occupying the chancellor's office, its a big mess of broken promises, shouting, protests, sweatshops, corporate greed culminating in a shameless scare tactic ordered by the chancellor in the form of riot police full clad with gasmasks and chemical agents. All this for 54 hippies singing "we shall overcome". The whole mess is kind of complicated, i'm sure, you can read about it in the student newspapers, for once both the Daily Cardinal and the Badger Herald (UW-Madison's student papers) hold the same stance on student's activism which is usually snubbed off as some hippie bullshit of a tulmultous yesteryear. Kind of interesting really, how it all started off a couple years ago with some contact signed between UW and reebok, some coalition formed against sweatshop labor, and after a 96 hour sit-in last year that resulted in a year of corporate procastination and administrative apathy, it isn't an issue of a few smelly hippies protesting like they think its the 60s. Instead it seems to becoming a statement of the gap in understanding between students and administrations on not only this college campus, but i'm sure all over. We are a generation of apathetic, prozac-ridden, cynical pricks, with nothing to strive for, nothing to die for, nothing to really get excited over. and it shows--violence at the hands of the police hired to protect, ordered by the administators that are supposed to educate and serve as role models for a better tomarrow? and people don't seem to give a crap. I'm not really expecting much to come of this incident, although as part of the silent but vocal majority, who are without a cause to rally behind, i would welcome the enthusiasm. maybe i'll get myself involved if this becomes a bigger, global cause. Class is a little tedious, but interesting i suppose. Today we touched on the attitudes and opinions of behavior--in the terms of whether or not you can change them. The professor argues that you cannot change your behaviors, because they are what happened in the past, you can't do anything about them. can you change your behaviors in the future? no. why? because they havent' happened. yet silly. What you CAN do, taking this attitude is to change your perspectives and problem-solving skills when faced with situations where your behavior is given a comprimising choice. I spent most of Tues evening after class taking part of the democratic process--at least in terms of a student organization-setting. The AASU is having some internal changes, restructuring, and i spent about 5 hours with other board members drafting and ammending a new constitution/purpose of existance. Kind of weird, finding myself in another position of responsibility. maybe I haven't gotten that cynical and apathetic yet. or maybe so. Something is up this semester, i'm really dragging my feet so far. not to mention email. I haven't written a single soul back not in Madison. shame on me. but hey, thats what this journal is for right? hehe Alohaz....4 2 . 2 0 . 0 0 So I guess Ochem wasn't all that bad. Don't get me wrong, I could've done a lot better, but I could've done a lot worse. The thing about this class is that the Lab is taking up more of my time than the lecture, sort of a double dose I suppose. Thoughts on the course and happenings, I got a hard body check from some drunk haole boy walking down state street, he grunted something about "getting out of the way", but he didn't even look back at me to start a fight or anything, its scary to think of what might've happened if I was in a bad mood. Soc 211 The prof brought in one of the people he wrote about in his book Sidewalk, he was a really animated speaker, with lots of life lessons and opinions. not very often you actually get to meet the people that are depicted in studies in person. Thursday night I went sledding at elver park with the psycho-kitty, will, rolly, tom and alice. Pretty unreal, you go pretty fast on these target sleds that look like garbage can lids. I convinced rolly to go down the hill once with me without shirts on. So we went down bare-chested wearing beanies and gloves. Afterward there was this salsa/marenge/dancehall party thing at the Cardinal bar by the capitol, it was snowing so much outside it looked like cake frosting--another note for the AODA class, there was a bunch of girls who wanted to get into some kind of a fight or something, one of whom I've seen around campus before, who is really quiet and mellow usually. It was a little weird to see her so loud and pissed off. Some internal problems with the AASU have made things a little hard at work. Organization is pretty bad, and i quote my friend "effectiveness" of communication hasn't been the best lately. I saw that movie "Pitch Black" with Serena yesterday, its a pretty cool sci fi flick I think sponsered by the Sci Fi channel, but it was one of the better productions. after that we went on the lake to look at the new snow on the ground--it was like being on the frozen tundra or something, with snow up to your ankles, fresh and unmarked, and if you dig, you hit ice. Later we went to this really neat Indian resturant on State St. and had some eggplant curry. yum. 2 . 1 6 . 0 0 So I'm trying to keep up with the journal. we're supposed to be keeping track of our behaviors, and thoughts on classes, revalations what not. Yesterday in class we saw a film documentary about the stories behind both drunk driving victims, as well as the drunk drivers. all of the stories were tragic, and moving, but most of all was the fact that the newsreporter himself was involved in a drunk driving accident, in which he killed the other driver on impact. I just got back from my first Ochem test of the semester, it wasn't too hot....in the sense that theres been a lot of shit happening to me this past week, not to cop-out, but I really wasn't into preparing for this exam, and I think the grade will show. funny now, how a certain part of me really doesn't give a shit, grades are so fucking superficial. I got the best grades of my college career last semester, taking a full 18 cr load, and honestly I can't say I learned even a 4th much I did my frosh year where I got academic probation. Life's lessons are never in the classroom, why are we wasting our time in the ivory tower? I've always prided going to class for the true value of learning, not for the grade, BSing my way through it, but it seems like the system is sqeezing it's vice on me, and i'm starting to fall asleep to what is still important. honestly, I think i'm a lot more laid back then the average prick out there aspiring to be a high and mighty doctor. I guess its the goal of academia to breed high strung full of shit medical professionals....god I hope i'm wrong. hehe. pardon the language, its been a rough past 2 weeks. Final thought: People talk a lot. A lot of shit that is....and a lot of them like to think they know more about your life then you do. final thought #2: I miss the payphones in Hawaii. 2 . 1 4 . 0 0 Happy V-Day everyone! I guess its another day come by gone by my standards, nothing really special today besides a few little valentines here and there from friends. Come to think of it its been a while since I've actually had something to do on this o so special day. heh. This alcohol and drug abuse class is pretty interesting. Sometimes it doesn't even seem like a class, more like a seminar on life--what i expected college was supposed to be? Anyway, back to V-day....I spent the majority of today in class, and in ochem lab, where i got to chart out nmr scans on a piece of graph paper, and shoot an infared laser through a film of unknown 703 placed between 2 NaCl plates. how romantic. then I had a nighttime seminar, and then i went to the library to do some research and write a soc paper, which is where i am right now. so much for a hot date tonight. Some of my friends (actually most of them) are having relationship problems right now, and i've been either the sounding board, or the outside-party-appointed shrink--not a very good influence for the already love-cynical, I must admit. It seems like its so much more complicated in college than in HS, the dating scene, sometimes you want something pretty bad, you get lonely, and next thing you know it, you're so busy with school, work, world problems, and other issues that you're thankfull thankfulll that you don't have a ball and chain. maybe its not the right time....I hear though from a pretty reliable source, that it gets worse in grad school/the job-world. For all my boyz an garlz out there who know the old K9/Kano, I just thought I should mention that Kano has options, always had, always will, even up here in cheese country, but he's not exactly as happy go lucky as he used to be back in Hawaii. The definition of 'viable option' has changed a lot since the old 'option' def. maybe its the cold weather, or maybe its the lack of sleep that comes with academic life, or maybe its just another lame cop-out. standards change, priorities alter, players reform, dogs get neutered..... 2 . 1 1 . 0 0 Well so much for keeping up with the daily journal....its been hell with the time commitments this past week. AASU stuff, Na Hoa, Ochem Labs, housing for next year, Global village stuff, glob fest, Spring break, checking balances, textbooks, ochem labs, and not to mention this shit that comes around the 14th of feb. My computer crashed a couple of days ago, the stupid happy99.worm virus hit it, and of course i opened it cuz i wasnt' thinking, i had my mind on a billion other things. so basically, it wasn't all too bad, i got rid of the virus, but my virus scanner accidently deleted the wsock32.dll file, which provides connection to the internet, so now i can't access my email from home. I think i have about 80 msgs waiting for me on the wisco server, i've been accessing them via zipdisk from the computer labs while i work on this problem. Kind of neat, since i've been researching my com problem, i've actually learned a bit of dos and unix-stuff, its a little addicting how logical and common-sense computers are, a monkey could do trouble shooting really, it is frustrating though, when things don't work like they're supposed to. Went to the SERF again with the psycho-kitty last night. I'm supposed to train her for a mud-wrestling match against a rival sorority in april. should be fun, i think it might be AXO or something familiar like that. should be fun. I already taught her the basic quarter stances, some arm-drags and positioning. hope she kicks some haole ass. we went running on the indoor track on the 5th floor. It feels good to be getting into some sort of shape, even if it is momentary, and not nearly what i've been at in the past. I repped about 195, which isn't too bad. Theres this site zoomculture.comthat contacted me a while back asking if the AASU would be interested in participating in some sort of nation-wide project online dealing with documenting and taping the activities of various student organizations on large college campuses. I'm supposed to get a package in the mail with more details, but we're supposed to get access to some digital equipment to make some movies and pictures to post on their website. Got a call last night from someone from the FBI doing a background check for somebody....ahem.....who is seeking some kind of clearance to work in ahem.....someplace that requires ahem......clearance....hehe. I got a kick out of it, after he was done asking questions, i ended up asking him about how to become an agent--he gave me some helpful pointers about the field, and job oppurtunities....anyone see me as in the FBI? 2 . 2 . 0 0 A week of school, crazy crazy weekend. For my alcohol drug class i wrote down on thursday I wrote down observed behaviors of the Madison bar scene from the previous weekend. fun. I keep getting carded. Its kind of funny now, I actually WANT to look younger now that I don't have to worry about fakes anymore. On Saturday I went to this mediterranian/middleeastern resturant by the capital, they had these little booths that you sit cross-legged in, you take your shoes off. They also had these huge hookah things with orange smoking paste. Went to the SERF yesterday,trying to get back into shape more or less. I put up 225 3X, which isn't too bad considering all i've been doing lately is surfing for exercise. I'm supposed to go to the late-night hours tomarrow with Doris, maybe get some running in. The goal of the semester is 'endurance' i'm pau working for strength and bulk. Ochem lab is kind of interesting, honestly. If it weren't for the grades, and the competitive nature of the class (you can just feel it in the air with all these Pre-Meds!) I think it wouldn't be all too bad. the labs are kinda long though. today I just finished separating and purifying some kind of organic substance into acid, amine, and neutral compounds. my schedule itself is busy busy i'm realizing, tonight i have end at 9PM, if it werent for me getting out of lab early, i probably wouldn't be writing this right now. The night class is really cool too, its 211 sociology, an intro course, but the professor seems pretty awesome. he told us to buy his book online at amazon.com since it was 10 bucks cheaper. it came in two days later all right. neat this technology stuff, especially since my expenditures on books this semester is getting close to 400....time to get to the red gym, gotta get some hours in to make some $$ |