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1 2 . 3 0 . 9 9 Its been a week back home already, time flies when you're in warm weather and high humidity. The adjustment period between Wisco and Hawaii gets shorter and shorter every time I come home. Makes me wonder about the experience and acclimation both on a climate and personal level. I had a 3 hour layover in SFO so my friend Terri met me for some good quality airport food and convo. I'd say I like airports after traveling so much, but I realized what a difference it is travelling alone, then with someone to cruise with during all those stupid layovers. she got me a cal bear-beenie baby, his name is osky? Xmas was pretty cool, I ended up waiting in the baggage claim area waiting for my dad while listening to Don Ho and various other hawaii artist singing Xmas songs with the Hawaiian style to it. Kind of sad really....I walked in the door wearing my boots and my coat to see the entire Kaneshiro clan waiting in the living room. I was kinda jetlagged and only stayed up to about 11, but not before filling up on some poki and sashimi. Went to the Iolani dual meet tournement yesterday, the team is looking pretty damn solid, they shutout two decent teams, one from maui and moanalua, and then they beat the returning state champions Kamehameha pretty bad. Theres a new level of aggression and technique that I see with the boys, something different, I'm excited for this upcoming year. Saw Oney, Jimmy, Jack, Kathy, Jake, Kena, and all the other Alums, Iso, Mizue, Yobota, big John, Mickney, Aoki, Nabs, brought back some memories of 3-4 years past. Theres this place called todais that just opened down in Waiks, its some seafood buffet chain that specializes in sushi and crab legs and local grinds....went to Genki sushi and this Sakura Kaiten robot sushi place too. I'm all about raw fish right now, gotta fill up with all the good stuff while I'm here, sure beats Wasabi and ton tons and all that overpriced stuff back in Madison. We set up a rose bowl party at All Star cafe in Waikiki to watch Wisconsin dismantle Stanford. I went to the college fair at Punahou and talked some smack to the Stanford kids, so far I've been inviting everyone I see to come and watch Ron Dayne run, we'll see how many actually show up. Y2K is coming around the corner, my mom is stocking up on some bottled water and food--that will double for hurricane prepareness of course, but its kind of funny. I don't know how much of a threat this whole thing is, I haven't really given it all too much thought to tell you the truth. I still say the stock market is gonna crash, or SOMETHING will happen. Ah well, if this is my last entry then i guess bye bye. its been fun. 1 2 . 2 3 . 9 9 Pau with finals! I actually survived my 18 cr load this semester, and honestly I don't know if I want to do this again. I'm seriously thinking about continuing Ochem next semester, 2 4 hour labs on top of a 3 cr lecture doesn't sound very good right now. In any case, it depends on how good (or how bad) I did this semester, the final was pretty brutal, and I've been through that before with gen chem....Otherwise, I pretty much kicked some ass on my other classes. Stats, Soc methods, Social Psych, comp lit, pretty solid. my schedule right now for next semester minus ochem is looking like no class on mon and fri, hard tues thurs, and easy wed. we'll see. I'm just glad this semester is over. I spent last night cruizing with the Global villagers, which I haven't done in ages due to all this school and work and crap. It was really neat--actually I just realized that I'm the only "domestic" "american" left on the floor, as everyone went home for break. I wonder sometimes if they consider me american? Afterwards I went to the Karaoke kid with Fu, Khampian, Tim, and met up with Louis, Diana, and a whole bunch of other people--I noticed that the karaoke culture is different here than back home, and I would argue different then over in Japan. makes me think about Ogawa's class over the summer--differences in the Hawaii paradigm between Asia and the US. There's this guy Joe that hangs at the MSC that is into all this reggae/dancehall stuff, we ended up at their house last night after and he was busting his mixes. Not many people up here like that kind of stuff, it was good to hear the island sounds a bit, makes me long for home. Lately I found out that KCCN broadcasts on the web, its pretty cool hearing the surf report and the hot 5 at 5 all the way up here in the mad city. ROse bowl is coming up on the first, you know who'll be crying when the beatings are over...but thats another story that can wait for another journal entry....The temps here are pretty unreal too, I actually had to wear my parka for the 3rd time since I've been up here. last night it went 5 below, with wind chill I'd say brr....last week it got to -37 with the wind, my hanabada froze when I breathed. It feels weird actually, looking at all these entries over the semester, as its gone by so fast....scary really, that I'm a semester away from the 'real world', and how it kind of just came up that way--in my pursuit for more info and understanding, hey, I can get a nice diploma a year early, and really haven't learned all that much, in fact in many ways have just become more confused... 24 hours and I'll be airborne..... 1 2 . 1 8 . 9 9 Finals for me start tomarrow with a huge ass organic final. I hope I'm ready. I got today to touch up on things, and deal with my big mofo stack of flash cards. I'm officially finished with 8/18 credits, with take home finals and projects. I was up at my new friend Doris's place until 6AM, she had a Psych 202 exam at 7:45, so I kept her company studying my chem. We were talking about online friendships/relationships during a study break among other things. I was on Hoi Yee Horizon's internet radio show this past tuesday night, did anyone catch it? I sent out an email tuesday morning, since the broadcast was over the internet. got to play some IZ and some Fiji, open the student listener population to some Island music. It was a lot of fun being in the studio, promoting the magazine, or whatever really, the last time I was in a radio station was with Ho Chi Mihn's Pride playing some reggae funk for KTUH. It's pretty fucking cold now. temps dropped down to the teens, which is normal for this time of year. last night coming back from Doris's dorm it was about 3 degrees. At least I know that in about a week I should be back in warm Hawaii nei. Over a Souvlaki I had a pretty deep conversation with one of my two adopted 'sisters' up here over one of the articles in the Paradox magazine about religion. I kind of realized that my set of beliefs, even if not set in stone can come across as kind of bizarre. An interesting thought: In many ways the Athiest is more religious than the hard core theist--his/her DISbelief in a god is parrallel to blind faith in a God. Also, I thought I was agnostic, but according to her agnostics tend to not think about these things, kind of like 'apatheticists'. heh. 6 days..... 1 2 . 1 3 . 9 9 The first snowfall of the year in Madison came in the form of flurries on frosted ground. This is really strange being that it's already mid december and finals are around the corner, usually its all icy and white by halloween. The sight of snow never fails to amaze me, I don't know if i'll ever really get used to it. I found myself playing with the dust on the trees. It really is a sight to see, the frost on the trees, makes me think of the 'winterwonderland' that is mystified, but that none of us Hawaii people ever experience or comprehend growing up in the tropics. Theres three days of class left, and then its finals finals finals....4 to be exact. I hope i'm ready for the final push, I can't help but think of it like training, "3rd period"..."overtime", "sudden death", coach used to say...the other day I went to the SERF to work out, I biked for 20 minutes on one of those hill trainers, and I was cagging. There have been some incidents at the MSC here on campus with sexual harrassment between different ethnic minority groups here on campus. I attended some of the meetings with the AASU men and women on Asian American gender stereotypes--lots of conflicts. It was kind of frustrating with all the outside factors involved--racism, sexism, situations, individual beliefs, religion, assumptions, personality types, it was a mess. goes to show you how delicate issues are, and how confonded they are by so many of the human conflicts we find in reality. What it comes down to I see, is personal preferences. You have to make an effort to see other people as PEOPLE, not as races, genders, ethnicities, and to deal with things with an open heart. Pretty much take every single assumption, stereotype, TV commercial, music video, pornographic image, cariacture, ego trip you might have about the person in front of you and check them at the door. We're all badasses here in college thinking that we know everything, especially at such a liberal college, we think we're all hyper liberal and understanding of everyone's pain and suffering when in reality we don't know shit. Everyone has the ability to be a bigot, to be racist, to be sexist, being a minority doesn't render you innocent of being a racist, just as being a woman doens't exempt you from being sexist. people are people, we're all more or less the same in that extent of interpersonal ignorance. The Hawaii club had a gathering at the Lorenz's house, kind of our annual end of semester thing, the one event that we've been pretty consistant about. I made some more mochiko chicken, and it was a hit more or less. Katonk-girl, Nicey, will and rolly stopped by as well as Fu, Amber, Chris, and Ray. I'm so ready for home now, I hope matt still has that longboard, knowing his slow okole, he probably still hasn't sold it yet. Dawn patrol this Xmas, for real, even if its solo. 11 days..... 1 2 . 6 . 9 9 I'm writing this entry from the DOit lab in the comp sci building at about 2:21AM on a Monday morning. Basically i'm working on a soc project that counts for choke of my grade, and i got a little distracted this weekend. Not good. I also went back to that evil establishment from the pac NW that contributes to the overbearing social and global injustices of child labor and capitalist exploitation.....yeah yeah. starbucks...oooo. I forgot how strong their coffee was, I think i'll be up for another good 2 hours. As it turns out, theres only 2 weeks of school left, and soon i'll be back home with all mah boiz an garlz chillin in da 808....represent!! heh. Caffine give me a sarcastic wise-ass attitude. seriously its appealing thinking about being in the water again, hopefully i'll stick to my plans of going on the dawn patrol this time, I gotta check with matt if he's still selling his longboard. Organic chem was pretty brutal, but we'll see how it goes. I'm setting up my internship over the summer, hopefully all will work out and i'll be able to work at Halawa....well i htink i should get back to finishing this project, its surprising how many p[eople are here spending the night at the computers. well so much for a deep and informative journal entry. better luck next time for my brain perhaps. A huis.... 18 to Manoa Valley..... 1 2 . 2 . 9 9 Right now in Seattle there are some seriously fucked up things going on. Understanding that violent protests and riots are not acceptable, what is being ignored is the fact that the voice of the American people is being silenced right now in the streets of the maritime city based on the justification of 'keeping the peace'. It is an insult to the basic freedoms that we all take for granted, and are obviously in danger of losing. The decisions being made right now by the WTO are ones that will effect people from all backgrounds, but their voices will not be heard. Of course, nobody really cares. I myself, am no exception, bogged down by the responsibilites and pressures of obtaining that 'higher education' at an institution such as the University, becoming more and more apathetic as the semesters drag by. This is not to say that I'm sitting here longing to be in the middle of activist central, yelling 'the whole world is watching' or singing some wannabee hippie ass song from a dead protest era of American activism, smelling tear gas for my utopian claim of a lovey society, but it irks me that I find myself more often nowadays turning on the TV, reading an article about something important, something global, and then turning away because I need to study something personally meaningless and empty, (like about statistical variance, or SN2 Halide Rxns). Put things into perspective, look at the world around us today, big business and big brother is becoming bigger and stronger by the day. The world's wealth lies in the hands of the few, and most of them are Americans, while the rest of the world, especially non-western nations are languishing in money-influcenced political, economic, and cultural turmoil, plaugued with AIDs, famine and war. There is a lot of fucked up shit going on, and we are all being kept in the dark, due to selective reporting of a money-biased media-opoly, of course none of us really know to what extent these things are happening,based on the scary fact taht all we know is what is seen on the local news, CNN, or the newspaper--all owned by 1 of 6 media giants, saying the same message, just with different faces. There are very few unbiased, closer-to-true reporting voices still around, Michael Moore, so far is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. I'm far from the extreme bleeding heart liberal, but these things do piss me off. And now its back to the books for me. 22 days to da rock..... |