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7 . 3 1 . 0 0 I don't believe. at least not in the conventional senses. too bad its not good enough for some people. I guess thats life. this trial by fire thing is getting old. Happy August.... 7 . 2 7 . 0 0 My internship at Public Safety is coming to a close. I have to say its been a very interesting and successful 10 weeks in my eyes, gathered some pretty valuable administrative, personel, political and clinical skills, at least I think I have. My perspective and outlook is a little different now, life is a learning experience as always. we'll see how I am once I get back up to the Mad City. Which reminds me, I pushed my flight back a week and a half to hopefully finish up a preliminary report of the research for this summer, it also give me an excuse to stick around in Hawaii nei for a bit more. where I will be in about 12 months is up in the air, I might as well enjoy home a bit more. This Okinawa thing is sounding very appealing to me, maybe I will actually spend some time in Okinawa learning Japanese with the JET program, or with this CCCC thing. Also hoping to search for some of my roots, made up a family tree the other night from the info I got from all the aunties and grandma jessie at the Oroku picnic. I'm wondering how this summer has gone so far, as far as an insightful and meaningful one, kind of like last year with Glen Grant's class. Maybe I'm just thinking about how weird its gonna be having a semester or none left to spend in College. gotta get ready for this APAC thing. I got a call last night on my cell from another cell someplace in Waianae, something of the conversation over the static had a cooling effect to me, something that I haven't felt in a long time. We'll see how this all turns out. I have been known to have zero expectations in life and especially in people, but always I have had infinite hopes and wishes. 7 . 2 3 . 0 0 Mellow weekend for me, following a very eventful week. Tuesday met up with McCubbin in the Plaza in back of the Mission homes to introduce him to Christine. The estate office is pretty impressive to say the least, I've never seen so much Koa utilized in office supplies. It was good seeing him, although the meeting must've been a lot less structured as he is used to now. Spent a lot of time with Hawaii Paroling Authority this week, went to Halawa for parole revokation hearings, and made a bunch of field visits out in Wahiawa and Waipahu. Both the areas we visited were pretty how you say shady? not the best environment for a recent parolee to get his/her life back on track, too much temptation in the surroundings. Iso left tonight for the academy, thursday we took him to Ocean's and saw a whole mess of people. Some busty chick got up on the bar and started dancing, pulled her pants down a bit and showed everyone her red thong. I wonder who's girlfriend she was. Went to Coco Curry House tonight with the Queen B, I think all the yellow colors gave her a headache. Hic came back a couple days ago, we went on a wild chase for some jinro souchu or something yobo-sounding lidat, then found it at one of the old liquor stores we used to go to when we were underage. A little ironic I guess. Earlier this week I also went night swimming at the Moana Surfrider, they have a spotlight affixed to one of the side buildings, you can go out a good 50 yards into the ocean where its still shallow, the water was so warm it felt like bath water. Or maybe it was the company.... 7 . 1 6 . 0 0 Fun night last night. I went to go hit some golf balls at the driving range, planing on going to get a couple of drinks at Pipeline cafe, but instead of getting turned down a the door we went down the street to someplace else. pretty interesting, cept it was about 5 bucks/drink, and the girls were a little agressive, and somewhat nasty. I just think its a little odd walking into a strip bar and having an old classmate from HS calling your name. Last week sometime I also went to Ryan's in the Ward Centre/Warehouse, I never remember which one is which. Met up with Iso, Matt, Kyu, Eric, Reeber, Mahe, and some friends from work. Drinks were small kine expensive there, but at least the food was alright. I even got carded. Afterward Iso and I ended up hanging out with Jess at Zippy's in Kaneohe, it was a pretty cool contrast, Ryan's to Zippy's, I have to say the conversation was much better in a less formal environment. Then later I hung out with a random friend at the Wailana cafe, funny how fluid and open a conversation you can have with someone you hardly know, let alone someone whom you have just met. We ended up wandering around Waikiki after Midnite in search of a Piano of all things. I'm still waiting to hear her play. Today was the Oroku picnic, one of the cultural traditions and events that I've partaked in over the years, lots of memories of the Okinawan clan gatherings. Specifically for me this year since the year 2000 is the 100th aniversary of Uchinanchu in Hawaii. There is a boat of students from the city of Kin in Okinawa here on an exchange, about 400 I think. One of the translators with the group came with a message from the CCCC institute that has been emailing me from time to time about studying in Okinawa. interesting to note was that I spent some time gathering some information on family history and what not, learning about the names of grandparents and great great grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunties. I'm thinking about making a family tree eventually, and maybe even spend some time at the archives downtown. 7 . 1 0 . 0 0 And so week 8 starts of summer, and of the internship. Finally finished coding 12 years of inmates paroled, now I'm working on data entry, and next some calculation and number crunching. Who ever thought that statistics would be so fun and interesting? maybe I should've chosen the CAR route in Sociology afterall. Iso is back in town, had a sweet poundage session at Steck's last night, discount pitchers of Heiniken, and some pupus. Good catching up with Iso, Air Force and the CIA have been treating him pretty well, even though his work is classified in the application, so I didn't get much insight to what he's been up to. Also ran into Matt Ramsey, haven't seen him in ages, back in the T35 days. Also last night was a party for one of my dad's cousins visiting from the mainland. We went to one of the Aunties house in Nuuanu and had an old fashioned gathering, lots of food, local, japanese, and okinawan, lots of pork. I was talking to Aunty Mitsu about the pictures on the wall, got to see pictures of great great grandpa and great great great grandpa, his wife, and some of the distant relatives who came to Hawaii from way way back. At the same time I've been researching a bit on the side about Okinawa, part of me is searching for a sense of history in my roots, there is a long history that goes back with us, not unlike any other family, if this CCCC thing goes through maybe It'll be an ongoing project of mine. Apparently Oroku is the name of the old city that became Naha, which is the name of our ken group that gathers at Ala Moana park every year in the summertime. Oroku picnic is coming up this weekend, I'm going to bring some materials to record some family history, should be interesting. Last week I finished reading a book on Jungian Psychology, the funny thing is that a lot of it has had some immediate application to real life and some of my real life "counseling" experiences. Something to watch out for, the "Damsel" in distress and the "Hero Quest". Maintenence of purity is required of any noble quest, even if in thine eyes chivalry is dead. So I've been acting quite unprofessional in that area to say the least. That is if I had my license, I'd probably be barred. But I don't, so fuck it. 7 . 6 . 0 0 Had an eventful weekend, two grad parties, and the 4th of July at the beach. Talked a bit about Ty's party at HCC last entry, Jess's party was at their house, real laid back local style. They had a Hawaiian clam bake catering, and a couple kegs of Heineken, pretty chill. Didn't pound as much beer as I did crab, a bunch of us made a shell pile on the tables outside. it got pretty big. Also got a kick out of assmptions that family can make when you come to family gatherings, i brought the Queen B to Ty's grad party and everyone assumed that she was my g/f, I bring Christine to Jess's and a good number of ppl assume that she's my g/f. I guess I got a kick out of bringing an unknown Iolani grad to an Mang grad party, and then an unknown Kamehameha grad to a Kam grad party. And so I'm working on this journal online for my internship but i realized that it isn't very informative or in depth to the extent of my gained knowledge working in corrections for the State of Hawaii. I decided to commit it to writing instead of online in digital form after all. Something about a dimple in the thumb and sore fingers gives a sense of accomplishment the old fashioned way. or not. Spent about 5 hours back at that blood coffee place catching up on my journal entries and readings. Theres a lot of work that is involved with this internship afterall. Spent the 4th at Ala Moana with the CMC gang, they grilled a lot of meat, beach was packed! Queen B came with, fell asleep on the beach for a bit and got a little darker. Then I came home and cooked some dead cow on the hibachi with a couple of cold asahis. good way to spend the 4th if you ask me. kanak attack until next morning, just in time for work. 7 . 2 . 0 0 Went to "sushi tsunami" on kapiolani someplace by that car wash, it was one of those kaiten sushi places with the little belt that brings the sushi around, and you pay by the plate. Neat about this one was that there were all boats going around instead of just a belt. They had a bunch of interesting sushi too. originally we went there because they advertised a 10% discount before 6:30, but the bastards didn't honor it, saying that it was only for M-R. guess we're not going back there again. Officially finished with 1/2 of the internship so far, and technically, same with summer vacation. So far so good. Went to Ty's grad party last night at the HCC, brought along the Queen B because there were spaces open from last minute cancellations. She thought it was funny there were so many Iolani kiddies there, I guess she's feeling old. I saw shaft later too, pretty funny movie. Lots of good catch phrases and dialogues in that movie. Last thursday, went to Gordon Beirsch and the Pier Bar too, met up with Lewis and Brandy for dinner, and then drinks with Bub, Mindy, Keith, and Casey? there was this band playing called "don't share underwear", they were pretty good, but it wasn't really happening that night, i think most people went to Oceans for some 98.5 concert or something. Kinda reminded me of playing there for the jazz festival, long time ago it seems like. Got a call from the quirckstah, psycho kitty and yobogirl, neat talking to people all over the country on this nifty little phone, had to use up the long distance minutes. i guess the quirkster is coming down for a visit, sometime in august. should be fun, I'm sure the nightlife here will treat her better then it is in berkeley. Which reminds me at the sushi place I tried some Okinawan beer called "Orion", tasted like asahi but i think i liked it a little better. kind of a contrast with hawaiian sushi, and the fact that I've been researching a bit about Okinawa like a good uchinanchu should. |