| Friday, March 31, 2006 |
| sprung into spring (no puns intended) |
note: if you by chance got here to this here page looking to buy my furniture all you gots to do is scroll down a bit
alright so i'm walking home from my last surveillance class ever at 11:30 and the sun's blazing, it's around 11 degrees celsius and spring is in the air. As i'm walking home i began to notice some real interesting things reagrding race and ethnicity pertaining to asian and white appearance and behaviour. Keep in mind now that I'm leaving a SOCIOLOGY of surveillance class so the budding sociologist in me is always a little more critical, the senses are a little more heightened than regular walks. And yeah i'm just walking and i'm noticing some correlations on my trek north to princess street via division.
Observation 1
The majority of white Queens students on their way to classes or just lounging on their patios with book in hand are rocking skirts/shorts/tshirts/Beaters even. Again, it's 11 degrees out so it's a comfortable weather to be dressing like that, but yeah, whenever the sun's out tho, the first thing that I notice is that white ppl break out the spring/summer fashion line (at queens this happens in colder weather as well...like 5 degrees and girls are out in flipflops and spahgetti straps). K yeah, so there's nothing ridiculous about this observation but when we look at...
Observation 2
All the asians I encountered, and altho the sample size is fairly small...we're looking in the neighbourhood of 10 in comparison to the neighbourhood of 40 whites, yeah all the asians i encoutered were dressed in layers like a snowstorm was on its way. A few guys i passed by were rocking the Columbia fleece jackets, one girl had on the scarf and the wool cap (hey which could be more of a fashion statement than out of practicality..or maybe she was sick?), but yeah, on a general note, the asians i observed were, comparatively speaking, dressed more warmly then the whites.
Hypothesis
Now now i know that the scientific method says that it's probably important to come up with a hypothesis before you start to observe and experiment but i'm a sociologist and scientists don't regard us as being scientists at all... more of a pseudo science like psychology, so i say screw the scientific method... and all scientists in general. Until we're allowed to join ur secret science society, we'll do what we want when we want. Rant over. So yeah, here's a couple of my hypothesis:
Number 1: White people have thicker skin or smaller pores than asians and in order to maintain the proper body temperature, they need to shed more clothing than asians do when it gets warm. This also explains why white ppl can walk around campus in flipflops and shorts when there's still frost on the ground while asian ppl look and point in horror(It's nature!).
Number 2 : Social conditioning from spastic asian mothers to wear more clothes than actually necessary in fear of catching a cold is only an asian phenomenon. Is it weird that i still sometimes hear my mom before i leave my apartment: ("WAI! SOOOY JUY! JERK DOH DEEE SAAM-A"! translation: hey! bad boy, wear more clothes!) (It's nurture!)
Number 3: Bad sample? Maybe I'm just completely off here. Perhaps the asians that i encountered on the street were on their way to a ski trip somewhere where snow still exists and were rushing home to pick up some last minute things (like their skis!) before heading out.
Number 4: Maybe I'm just a little too racist. A good friend told me that it's ok to be a little racist cause it helps us categorize people in our mind. And you know what? I agree with this and do this myself in my head. Let's be honest here cause we all do it. You know that itself doesn't seem harmful but once u take it a little step further and start attaching value judgements then boom! The headlines read "Ethnic Cleansing". Oh wait. That's already happening. Things that make u go hmmm.
Final thoughts
Now i just wanna make myself perfectly clear here that i have no hate for whites or asians for that matter. It's just something subtle that has been popping up in my head on more than one occassion. And who are we to be prudes that when Mr. Sun decides to pay us a visit, we would not welcome him into our pores by choosing to hide ourselves under Columbia fleeces and longjohns. So when Mr. Sun does come a knocking, you best "take dem clothes off" as my good friends from the steel town, Frank and Dank put it.
"take dem clothes off!" |
posted by DarrenGene @ 11:52 AM  |
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| Monday, March 27, 2006 |
| KUMIIITTTEEE! |
i should be at the libs right now getting to work, but instead i'm stuck back here at home trying to pry myself away from my computer, reliving the movie bloodsport in my mind starring jean claude van damme by listening to the soundtrack. Quite possibly one of the worst yet best movies I've ever seen and experienced. The best cause it was a favourite of mine when i was younger and then, action movies rocked my world. Worst cause there is no acting...just primal screams...screams of pain, screams of frustration, screams of triumph, screams for the saking of screaming... love it or hate it, the underdog is still on top. So this post is a tribute to quite possibly the best and worst movie ever made. "VERY GOOD.... BUT BRICKS DON'T HIT BACK" - Chong Li"
Frank Dux: ARRRRRRGHHHHH! I will train to fight the Kumite in Hong Kong to honour you Shidoshi, my sensei! ARRRRRGGGHHHHHH!
Chong Li: "Your martial Arts is weak. Like Last week. Being flexible will not save you. I will crush your bones whiteman!
Frank Dux: you gotta be keeding. Errbody knows that you gotta be flexible in order to suceed. You don't scare me china man. hahahaha
Chong Li: ahhhhhhh get at me dog!
Frank: "..."
Chong Li: here i come here i come!
Chong Li: Try to withstand my deadly roundhouse!
Chong Li: what the heck? Where'd you go?
Frank: I'm up here stupid! try to catch me villain!
Frank: I don't hear you talking now, Bizzzznaaattchhh. |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 3:02 PM |
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| Thursday, March 23, 2006 |
| the old man and the sea |
and no i'm not talking about Hemingway. I'm talking about how i got owned by the sea aka the Queens swimming pool tonight. So yeah man, I'm a really bad swimmer. Sooo bad that when i first started swimming here at Queens last year, the lifeguard would walk on the deck alongside of me just in case i didn't make it to the otherside. But with a lesson some weeks back with greg and some pointers by pete, i was thinking that maybe with proper instruction and practice this is something i can conquer. But mang. It's just so humbling, cause today was really the first time in a while that i decided to do lane swims (as opposed to swimming on the diving side so i wouldn't get in anyone's way) and yeah i was in the slow lane, and yeah, started strong with my frontcrawl but by the time that i got to the wall i was already out of breath. I mean is it possible that one's resting heartrate can hit like 200bpm in less than 15 seconds? I was on my way back with the frontcrawl and got so pooped that i had to stand up halfway and walk the rest of the way back (but i made it look like i had goggle problems so the rest of the ppl in the pool wouldn't suspect that it was a lack of swimming conditionion that made me stop) So i decided to switch it up after that and got me a flutterboard to work on my kicks, and yeah i know that i have no legs, but man, everyone else with flutterboards, with the exception of this one girl, was passing me as well. So after 25 minutes of struggling i decided to call it quits. Man. So owned today. So humbled. It's like when I'm swimming, it's a fight for survival. I blame it all on the massive undertows and sharks.
But alas I have not given up just yet. This old man isn't ready to let the sea win this war. To be continued |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 1:15 AM |
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| Monday, March 20, 2006 |
| cooooool |
i just placed an order (of 10 dollars) for the coooooolest T-shirt ever in history. It's so cool that when it arrives at the end of the month, i know that everything will be seething with jealousy once they see it. It's just that cool. But alas, like every good surprise, what is on this tshirt must remain a secret until that glorious day (hopefully it'll be Tshirt weather by then). The waiting game is awesome (no sarcasm intended).
And speaking of the waiting game, I now have a 3 week countdown in knowing my application status to the University of Hawaii at Manoa. After emailing the secretary, they sent me back a speedy response letting my know that they have received it and are in the process of reviewing it, and that I should know by 3 weeks time whether or not I'm UofH material. The waiting game is awesome (no sarcasm intended).
And now that itis has seemingly gone through its full course and the blood has once again returned to my brain, i can get back to work on this mother of an essay. Sweet deal!
Aloha friends! |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 7:36 PM |
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| Friday, March 17, 2006 |
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so it's 5:36 in the am on friday and yeah man, got me about 4 hours of sleep but am now restless in anticipation for my 8:30 (cause i love school this much). Checked me out some Youtube vids, but that got a lil stale after 10 minutes of searching for more videos of "urban ninjas". So instead, figured i might as well jump into scripture since my mindstate has been restless as of late to find refuge, and Psalm 5 hits me like a Mack 10 truck. Rather than paraphrasing this one, i'm going to say check it out for yourself. But yeah, it concludes like this: "For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favour as with a shield" . True. Double true. And while I'm in the mood of quoting SNL parodies of the Chronicles of Narnia (and if that made no sense to you, it's time to check out LAZY SUNDAY - the Chronicles of Narnia @ Youtube.com), i might as well exercise a loose mental movie association/connection and throw out an Aragon quote from LOTR. This one's for you Jon Lee!
Hold your ground, hold your ground. Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!
....and I'm ghost like Swayze! |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 5:37 AM |
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| Wednesday, March 15, 2006 |
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so after four long years of struggling and toil, i finally got a picture of what revival is and is supposed to be like. God, you so craaazzzzzy. But crazzzzzzy as in crazzzzzzy good. And the joy that comes with living revival... it's like I'm giddy like a schoolgirl. Yep that's the best analogy I can come up with. ha. But alas, a real good verse from joshua 1:8 that sums it up better than i can:
Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 10:56 AM |
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| Tuesday, March 14, 2006 |
| chapter 4...but wait, u said earlier that there would only be 3? |
welcome to another weak entry. As in last week. So yeah, just when i thought, maybe it's time to retire this mangled villa tortuga ID bracelet that i've been wearing to remind me of the good times that was Gideon Yong or Cuba, Gideon Yong, the person, releases this amazing DVD filled with everyone's digipic including a seperate DVD: a half hour long film of our exploits down the rio de canimar. So yeah, here I am back in Cuba with a fresh desktop wallpaper on my monitor that is yet another group shot on the beach. Dang.
While I'm living in the past I might even go back a lil farther and think about some other happy moments of the past: like waking up early saturday mornings to catch some saturday morning cartoons...namely Garfield and friends, Bobby's World, among others...and then getting the worst feeling of dread knowing that at 11:00, just a couple hours later, my dad would drive me to swimming lessons, which I was deathly scared of. Funny how now, I'm starting to fall in love with swimming, cept i still can't do it well, but then again, my deathly fear of swimming made for an inability to suceed in snatching up badges like most keeds and i only ended up getting to orange...which came after freaking pollywog...which isn't even a real badge... that's why i'm so wack at swimming now. And i used to be so scurred of dogs when i was little. Funny how now i can't wait to get my own. If i had a time machine and had a chance to visit younger me, we probably wouldn't get along.
But yeah, don't worry, it's not like i'm going to post anymore cuba pics cause that's been done to death.
whoops. Lied again. My bad dawg. |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 1:11 AM |
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| Friday, March 03, 2006 |
| another cuban installment |
Chapter 3: Gideon Yong as a metaphor for Cuban euphoria
myself with Gideon and Pete on our first night at Varadero. Pee in your pants good times. Literally.
So there we were inside of La Rumba on thursday night, 50 cent & mobb Deep's Outta Control blasting in the background, we're all on the dancefloor showing stella how to get your groove back (or on). I'm looking around thinking, it's around 1 in the morning, we paid 15 Cuban pesos which is the equivalent to like 18 Canadian dollars to get into this club to dance and instead of throwing on some salsa music or some beloved reggaeton, the DJ is playing North American fromage. Cmon now, give me Cuba! Give me mueve la colita at least...I'll even take Guantanamera ...annnnyyyttthiiinnngg but "i got shot 10 times and two gunshot wounds left permanent dimples in my face" 50 cent a.k.a. half a dollar a.k.a. spare change a.k.a. "you're better off spending your dollar buying a nail clipper at the dollar store than dropping any kind of money in buying my pretentious album". But have no fear, the night got better with the change of pace in music. At around 2, as most DJs do, the music genre switched from hiphop to thumpity thump thump techno. And i know, this is usually the time that ppl groan a bit, leave the dancefloor, approach the DJ booth and ask, "What's the deal hombre?? Where's the good stuff?", but lemme tell you, that that thursday night, this musical shift was the best thing that could have happened on the trip. Why? Because Gideon Yong happened.
Our hero Gideon Yong is wearing the white polo, whom everyone is pointing to as if to say, "it'ss allll youuuu baby!". And indeed it was all him. For thursday night/friday morning belonged to one Gideon Yong
I will use the words Gideon Yong in this story as both a noun and a verb. The noun being Gideon Yong himself as the person and the verb, "to Gideon Yong" I will get to in the meat of this story. Now where was I? Ahhhh yes. The moment the shift happened from tempo from gunshot sounds and windows shattering to constant pulsing beats with strange eerie ambient keyboard noises in the background, something clicked inside of Gideon Yong's head and he became a totally different person on the dancefloor. This is not to say that Gids wasn't getting down before this point but his mannerisms changed... inhibitions were totally lost and the Gideon Yong as you might know, completely changed. Upon noticing this (not so subtle) change in demeanor, the dance circle formed and Gideon was thrown into the center by our collective hands in order to display his artistic interpretation of the pulsing beats, to which Gideon provided little resistance. Can words do any justice to how he was interpreting the music? I don't think so but for your sake I will try my best to describe what was going on. In order to visualize the dance of delight that Gideon Yong was performing, picture a hunchback dancing on the spot with index finger of the right hand raised...sometimes twirling, sometimes pointing, but always moving. Gideon's eyes were for the most part, it seemed, closed as if to say that "nothing else exists right now but me and the music!" And indeed i believe that this assessment into Gideon's thoughts might very well be true. Our shouts of encouragement and laughter, endless pointing, seemed to fall upon deaf ears as Gideon , unfased by the attention, continued to rock the beat only the way that Gideon Yong could. There are no verbs present in the Canadian Oxford dictinary to describe this beahvioural shift, this dance of euphoria that Gideon Yong exhibited at La Rumba way into the early morning in our last day at Cuba... it needs to be given it's own word. Gideon pretty much "Gideon Yonged" it up at La Rumba and its effect served to lift up our own spirits as we shared in the experience and proceeded to "Gideon Yong" it up ourselves. So thank you Gideon Yong for sharing that experience with me (us).
Hands and spirits lifted high after "Gideon Yonging" it up
Gideon Yong redux
Now here I am back in kingston with newly downloaded trance music blazing out of my speakers in order to try to retrigger the Gideon Yong in the comfort of my own home... to little avail. The experience of Gideon Yonging, the verb, can and only be revistied in memories and captured pictures (where this blog serves as a historical marker). Same can be said for Cuba... which is why Gideon Yong is a metaphor for Cuba. Although we have Gideon Yong, the noun, the person, back in Kingston, back home with us, the Gideon Yong we knew at La Rumba is no more... as well as our Cuban experience. It exists only in the caveats of our memory, in documented pictures. Do I miss Gideon Yong, the verb a.k.a. the experience of Cuba? A little, but hey, everyday is a new day filled with potential of new experiences. Maybe 3 chapters is enough. Time to loook forward.
Peas. |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 12:07 PM |
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| my motorcyle diaries without motorcycles chapter one |
Chapter One
if you watched the exorcism of emily rose, in the movie, at preceisely 3AM in the morning, that's the most likely time that a demon will mess with you. What happens then is that your watch/ clock will stop the moment it strikes 3 and then a demon will start choking you out or closing doors and weirding you out. Well, ever since we checked in our bags and all for our flight, my cellphone and digi alarmclock resets to 3PM Feb 18th: the day we boarded the plan. Now logic (or peter) tells me that the reason why my digi devices are messed up is because of some sort of magnetic field that has been messing with my devices when they were scanning our baggage, but i like to entertain the thought sometimes at night that a demon's trying to mess with me. Not that I would ever want that to happen or anything but it's just a thought.
the moment we stepped off the plane into the airport carrier it was like a blanket of heat hit us... or maybe it was that demon? (we arrived at around 8:30 at night)... proceeded to strip off the many layers of clothes that we had bundled on. Made it to the resort Villa Tortuga in about 30 minutes after taking a shuttle there and upon looking around my first reaction in my head was.: "Why are there so many old ppl here?" (the lobby just happened to be the place where the elderly congregated to after dinner....the youngings would come out at night tho and cause ruckus). Managed to make the buffet a couple minutes before it closed and had our first hit of Sodexo quality food consisting of nasty beef liver, plenty of corn...cubans looooovvvvve corn, and black bean rice. Amazingly despite eating pink burger patties and hot dogs that came right out of the package, NO food poisoning. Things that make you go hmmmm. But the food did get better as the days went by. After food went down, we hit the beach for some star gazing, and by golly, some stars we did see (thank you upgraded contact lenses... I see you Orion!)
to be continued!!!!!!!! |
| posted by DarrenGene @ 2:35 AM |
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