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3 . 2 7 . 0 0 Crazy weekend in the mad city. Unranked Wisconsin Badger Basketball shocked the nation by beating yet another ranked and favored team in the NCAA tourney.........and what do you know, The Badgers are in the Final Four?? Its pretty chaotic in Madison lately, we've been called the shittiest team to be called cinderella, beating out Gonzaga's run to the elite eight last year. It feels like football season all over again. Went to State street brats on thursday to watch the LSU game, I saw the second half of the Purdue game from the village, as soon as the one minute mark hit, about 5 cop cars sped by dayton towards state street, prepaing for a riot I guess.. So that was a side note I guess. things are winding up on other parts of the life, school is starting to kick my ass, its the post-spring break fun that we all know about. I say if it was up to me I'd ban spring break in favor of an extra week for winter break. who needs a week in the middle of a semester anyway? just to get all out of synch and unfocused? As for the journal, i've been slacking a bit, lets just say that nothing really has changed drastically as far as patterns, I had one blast over break, I guess its to be expected. other then that, its been pretty mellow. AA month is here, that is Asian American Month here in Madison, I am the happy author of the website for it too, I tried to duplicate the poster best I could. not a bad job eh? Went to the film festival and saw some cool flicks, the one with Takeshi Kaneshiro was pretty decent. The short films were pretty cool too. a couple of them were based in SF, one on the BART train, another in the Tenderloin district. which reminds me I'm listening to this tape I made over spring break. kind of random and nostalgic honestly. I must've seemed a little weird taping things, I can't help it, sometimes I think i can be over-perceptive; the aura and influence of certain moments and places in time silence you into a haunting memory that you barely trust your own memory to cherish for the rest of your life. sounds and voices from a city far away, souls whom I will not likely see again. Street musicians, traffic, panhandlers, the silence of the train station interrupted by the incoming train. most people in cities these days are too busy to notice, let alone care. 3 . 2 3 . 0 0 The Supreme court ruling on the Southworth case came out, at least some people on capitol hill have their priorities together, strict constitutionalism is supposed to be protecting the liberties of the citizens of this country, its about time they ruled on something so definite yet contraversial. If the link at the top doesn't work, try This site which is a little more permenant-looking. For those who haven't followed the case so much, it has to deal with the use of segregated fees in public universities to be used in supporting student organizations that are known for voicing opinions and political agendas that might be a little contraversial, a little different. Southworth sued the University on the grounds that they were violating his 1st amendment right by supporting groups whose opinions he personally disagreed with. Specifically, Gay & Lesbian groups, minority groups, environmentalist groups, as well as some non-conservative political organizations. This has got to be the shittiest week of me entire collegiate career. well maybe not the worse, but its pretty bad. non-stop since monday, and it won't be looking much better until 9:30 tonight. At least I don't have any more assignments due, pretty much I've accepted the consequences for not laying my time into certain areas of my academic life in favor of more personal and global issues. For some reason this semester I don't have a single class that I find stimulating at all, which really is a frustration being that I've been very pleased with the quality of education I've received so far here in Madison. The funny part is that I really don't care. And it isn't one of these "coping method" or "defense mechanism" bullshits that I've been learning about in my clinical psych class, it really is honest to god, true to the bone apathy. The very fact that this court case was upheld in Wisconsin siding with Southworth is testimomy to the attitudes of some college students now--they see no value in hearing opinions of conflict, differences in perspective as opposed to their own. How can you say you've become educated if you receive a degree marking 4 years of being unchallenged intellectually and conceptually? Brings to light the metaphor of the college university as an assembly line for mindless, superfical regurgitating drones is becoming more and more of a reality. I can vouch for the validity in this statement as I see the mentalities coming in my own perspective, like a nagging little voice in my head.......that sounds so familiar... 9-0 Supreme court decision in favor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a state with no death penalty, known with a history of progressive liberalism, but still considered a hick-towne in the middle of the midwest. University of California-Berkeley, recently shot down affirmative action with prop 209, in a state with the highest national rate of death row inmates and supermax prison facilities, known for conservative liberalism, and the appeal of racial diversity. 3 . 2 0 . 0 0 Back in the Madtowne, big change from the bay area. Fresh snow on the ground, I made a snowman tonight, it was about knee high, and had a lot of leaves and sticks stuck on him. It was more like a snow midget really. not enough snow around to make a really big one. On the plane I was thinking about all the places I've been, and how fate seems to have brought me to different places, meeting different people, different experiences. I still hold that a lot of happiness comes with perspective. Some people hate where they are, while others would be hitting themselves on the head to be in their shoes. Something to the effect of grass being browner on the other side of the chicken wire because of all self-wallowing in the shit. Some people are never happy, no matter what situation they are in. Its that nagging little voice in your head that whines "what if?" over and over again who you'd like to bludgeon with the nearest available object if it wasn't internalized. I'd be apt to say that the kind of people who are actual slaves of this voice really piss me off, mainly because it speaks to everyone in general. And most often, the ones who whine the most are the have the most priviledge and advantages of anyone. poor little rich girl. Sometimes I wonder if life is really nothing more then a struggle of supressing voices of doubt, conformity or even the pathetic cries of anti-conformity. brings to mind of us all as lost children in a cold world longing for the simple warmth of another soul, a feeling that someone else out there just understands you, more importantly, what you are feeling. And then there's people who seem to be clueless that any of this is even happening. Is ignorance really bliss? Went to TGIF last night with psycho kitty, rolley, will and quirky, good seeing them after a week. Nothing like a big slab of dead cow to get me back into the midwest feel of things. My fridge is an empty coffin right now anyway, besides a jar of mayo, mustard and some butter. Kinda realized that in about 6 weeks school is pau. I think in general Spring semester drags a little bit more mainly because of spring break. You get all stressed out, then go for a vacation and then have to endure the warming weather and sunshine and still be expected to study? 3 . 1 7 . 0 0 Still in SF until late tomarrow night. Met up with Scott the other day at Berkeley, haven't seen him in ages. Apparently he got published in some chemical journal, he's the second name on the credits. pretty good resume material. Kind of makes me wonder what it would've been like if I had ended up in California for school, definitly I would've kept better contact with some ppl, but then again recalling how pissed I was becoming a proud Punahou Alumn, maybe not. Went to Silicon-e valley esterday to see Jase's place of employment. it was a pretty interesting trip, the entire area used to be pretty much flat land, with no development at all, but in recent years the tech companies have developed a lot of basicly "cubicle farms". Office buildings full of internet companies and tech-firms. Thing about the valley was that it seems like the "ideal" workplace for our generation--there are no timesheets, no dress code, no lunchbreaks (you take youre own), everything is based on productivity as opposed to time. Also the area is built up pretty nice, with fountains, riverbanks, trails for running/rollerblading, daycare centers for kids, and gourmet cafeterias for the employees serving tandori and jerk chicken. Something about catering to employee quality of workplace increases productivity and morale. So I caught the train to Palo Alto to visit the losers of this past Rose Bowl. I was walking back from the student union to make a phone call when i ran into an old classmate from HS. She almost fell off her bike--obviously didn't expect to see me of all people on campus. I honestly haven't seen her since graduation. She gave me a brief tour of the grounds, departments, much of the University is built in an old Mission-style architecture, reminds me of the old spanish-american art you read about in textbooks. They even have a Catholic church in the middle of the administration quad. But the coolest thing i saw was these numbered blocks in the cement along the hallway. At first i was like "oo, you wiseasses can COUNT". heh. My friend told me that they were time capsules back from 1889. every graduating class puts together another one and plants it there for a future date. something that Berkeley dont got. It was really neat talking to her, really random, but fortunate. It's refreshing to hear someone who likes their school for a change--especially at such a competitive school. Or maybe it was the fact that I ran into someone who is just as sick of school as I am. hehe. I've gotten pretty used to riding the trains here, the BART is a pretty efficient mode of trans, I used the Caltrain yesterday to go south, on the way back the ticket guy never asked me for my ticket. Watching the world go by at a fast pace through a scratched window can make you sleepy if you're not paying attention. 3 . 1 3 . 0 0 So I'm in the wonderful city of San Fran for the week, I got in Friday night, met up with Jase at SFO and took a $25 cab to his place on Mission. Pretty neat place, personally I like it. its a 15 minute walk to the BART station, which pretty makes the most of the bay area accesible. The community itself is kind of an immigrant locale, in a sense it feels like home, especially with the warm weather, it feels like kapahulu. There was even this plate lunch stand-like thing called "Hawaiian Drive-In". The Katsu looked pretty authentic, but the curry was kind of gross. They had Hawaiian Sun Guava juice though, so I was happy. Couple things i've noticed about SF in general from the couple days i've been here: SF, actually I'm thinking California in general is kind of superficial and materialistic. It makes a lot of sense with the booming tech industries here, but at the same time its a little overwhelming how much image matters here. Never seen so many well-dressed ppl before, decked out in name brand clothes, italian suits, shoes, and damn makeup caked on yobo-style. I guess its to be expected to see a lot of Cali-azians as well since it is california and all. Everything here is so expensive and overpriced too, stores are bigger bigger and flashier, I think a lot of my friends back in Madison would be pretty pissed off at the size and frequencies of certain stores on every other block. I've never seen so many homeless people all spread out in every part of the city, especially in the middle of the financial districts and by the banks and hotels. Its a little irking the fact that you see these huge department stores and billboards, every aspect of materialism and capitalist ventures and you see dozens of homeless panhandling and sleeping in the street. A bunch of them were selling this pamphlet newspaper comosed by some former street people, it was a little amazing how many ppl walk by and don't even acknowledge their existance. I gave one guy a dollar for the publication and he said "Thank you" about 5 times. Makes you think about how many ppl just walk by, desensitized to another "broken window" of urban sprawl. I mean I'm just a college student, who really shouldn't be shelling out $1 for some newspaper about a societal problem that I have little or no chance of resolving or changing, and yet there are hundreds and thousands of filthy rich business execs in armani suits walking by, fat ass wallets and 6 figure salaries but dont even want to give a homeless guy a glance let alone a dollar. Berkeley was pretty neat, it is hands down a sister area to Madison. I haven't had a chance to check out the campus too much, but the areas around telegraph ave totally reminded me of State Street. book stores, coffee shops, juice bars, neo-hippies, street vendors, bong stores, and a lot of freeks freeks and collge students. The biggest difference i saw was that the fact that california is a hell of a lot warmer 12 mo of the year, meaning that theres a lot more activity i'm sure. So my Spring break so far has gotten off to a decent start, got in touch with Sara, gave Hirokane a call, still gotta figure out whats up with Queen B and Nahoko, if I'm meeting up with them or not. I hung out with Berkeley the other day by Union Square, went shopping with her a bit. afterwards I hung out with some of the street musicians playing some blues. Overall its a great city, exciting, large, fast-paced, and relatively clean I think, the BART is a lot cleaner than the El train in Chicago, something interesting about cleanliness relating to the feeling of safety and security. on a surface level I suppose. pretty much its a great place to be if you have the money to live here. I guess thats true about anywhere though. final thought: in the BART station on the way back to Mission, I saw something that made me think about something, maybe i'll post later it on the random thoughts page. 3 . 5 . 0 0 one week from spring break, and its crazy as hell in the mad city. its been a wild week as it turned out, especially a wild past two days. thursday night i went out to bullfeathers and angelics with some of the village people and i got the psycho kitty an id to use, since she was really into hitting the bars that night. pretty crazy, there was a live band and some guys promoting lucky strike cigarettes, me and kitty ended up walking off with a bunch of free cancer sticks even though we don't smoke. watching people's bar actions brings to mind the lack of inhibitions in words and in behaviors while under the influence, as being the lowered levels of seratonin/inhibitory nuerotransmitter in the brain in a sense portray a more honest image who or what you really are. kind of scary thought, walking down state street on a friday night, if this is really what people are hiding inside them in everyday life. a wave of cooped up emotions and angers, issues, myself no exception. got to hang with the budmonkey on friday for a pretty chill poundage session at nick's, its good to have a good spat session with someone who has the brains and insight to discuss things to the point, not caught up with all that ill-conceived superficial state of mind that the average college student finds themselves in. or some shit. just true, honest opinion. kind of forgot what it was like to have connection of ideas while having a good time. maybe in the sense the same lowered inhibitions also make for intense conversations.....we ended up scrounging for spare change to buy a late night snack and i was down to 2 cents by the time i came back to the village. made some phone calls today, setting some stuff up for next week. Terri, Jase, Reg, i'm looking forward to visiting the bay area. berkeley is calling me. had a random talk with someone i havn't chilled with in ages, we don't really hang out, but when we run into each other the convo gets really deep, i mean really really deep. come to think of it, i've probably vented a lot of things to her that i've barely come to terms with myself--refreshing really that there are people in this world who understand you, or at least a part of you--to the point that you can pick up anywhere in this movie screening of life and still read the words and still hear the music. well sort of. dont find too many people like that nowadays, maybe i really should call her sometime. 3 . 2 . 0 0 So the radio show was fun. really ad-lib, and kind of silly if you all heard it, but it was still fun. I think amber was a lot more nervous then i had expected though. heh. We played some Iz, some fiji, Na Leo, and "Punani Patrol". Heidi was all like "what's punani patrol?" Mahalos for Val for emailing the station, and props to Reg for calling long distance....I feel loved. It's the Quirkstah's Birthday today, so taking full advantage of her new legal standing, i took her out last night after midnight to get a drink. the first place didn't even card her. she didn't seem to happy about that, i guess its the novelty of being 21. And they wouldn't put her name up on the board at the nitty gritty since they were closing up, so I'm gonna meet her in about an hour there for lunch. crazy crazy. Which brings to mind my class. I went to BW3s on Tusday after the radio show with the whole radio crew (fu, vi, heidi, marita,)its this pretty neat place that specialized in buffalo wings, and i discovered that there are guys that DON'T like Heineken! I haven't met anyone who doens't like it. thats from being local i guess. so then i had A beer on tuesday....and well last night was someone's 21st, so i matched her. :-) thoughts on the class, well its dragging now, not much really interesting going on during class besides the few deep comments by the prof, but i was thinking the other day that I understand the tendencies for alcoholism and other substance abuse to develop in people's lifestyles today, especialy working class people who have very busy and strenous workdays. Nothing like a cold one after a long day of hard work, helps you sleep......the trick is of course is not to overdo it, and not to limit yourself to just that as one's only means of stress relief. Punahou did well in States this year, I got the report from Kathie and from other people, I'm pretty proud of them, since this graduating senior class was the last one i knew personally, they were frosh when i was fucking around and up as a senior. I'm realizing that i have to take my GRE/MCAT/LSAT whataver the hell SAT pretty soon. the deadline for the one in April is coming up tomarrow i think, just another thing to worry about. I don't know if its worth it, being so soon. |
