the Philippines Blog

2008-04-01T18:22:00.002-04:00

haha my poetry really is nutty. What was i thinking?

anyways here's another one and it goes a little something like this:

find me a job
i would like a job
if u have a job
give me ur job

cause i need a job
to stay busy need a job
so can u help me please
please find me a job

my best work in years

2008-03-25T20:30:00.003-04:00

It's sticky hot. Melt ice cubes on your forehead hot. Two swipes with the antiP ain't going to do it hot
but when it' hot minutes moments come to a crawl and stand suspended
like time picked up its hat went out the door and ended
a blink becomes good night and good morrow
happiness eternal and likewise with sorrow
you see it all for what it is and what it ever will be become
a snapshot of present circumstance and all that can be seen is one
one moment to the next the chain reaction of mind
and mind to consciousness perceiving the elements to shape thought and then rewind...

who is that? a face I do not recognize
a smirk on his face like da kine left after effects of a joke that didn't take
eyes filled with wonder and expectation
he's got life in his soul and the world set firmly in his sights

wait i know that face
it's a face that i do recognize
it's the face of a young boy who saw a chance and took it
without a second thought decided to plunge in and take it in for all its worth
given a ticket for a free ride and pounced
i know that face yes i do plain and clear

2008-03-16T03:31:00.002-04:00

So this week, almost 7 months after the fact, I've gotta give a presentation to the consuelo board regarding my trip to the Philippines. How has my experiences over on that side of the world really changed my thinking, my method of doing over here? Better question, how has it not? In what manner have I not been challenged both as a professional and as a living breathing person?

For starters, the words community and interdependence took on new meaning for me while I was over there. I mean when you grow up in a culture that preaches about the joys and freedoms of independence, it's weird to live in a world that lives and breathes community. And there's real beauty in that two way process. Yep I said two way process because to all those world shakers out there who will give their left nut to help their neighbour, you gotta be willing to receive help yourself. Maybe it's an asian thing but i think thinking like this was almost counter intuitive for me: Always was easy for me to give help/lend a hand/do a favour but was so reluctant to receive these same services for myself. Martyr syndrome? Whatever the case, it don't play like that and that's not community as you're in essence robbing people you served of an opportunity to reciprocate.

And living over there and listening to some of the horror stories that some of these poor souls have gone through, yet you'd never ever see it from their bright affects... that's true resilience right there.

And that's really only the tip of the iceberg. I'm not much of an ego pusher but for me to say that I have in no way grown and realized new things about myself and my surroundings would be a big fatty lie. I sense, feel, think differently now.

2007-08-02T22:24:00.000-04:00

Previous Posts removed to protect best interests of children

beauty and the beast

2007-06-28T05:55:00.000-04:00

2007-06-25T05:04:00.000-04:00

so right now im on one of the desktops at work and everytime i use google past searches come up. And on two of the computers i've tried so far what i usually get is; "Nobody wanna see us together" Most kids here can't speak much english beyond a few words but u hear em singing akon everywhere. Love it.

and since u've come this far already, an entry from my journal:

~ Culture Shock ~
I figured coming into the PI that although people here are living in substandard conditions, you really wouldn’t know from the people’s sense of contentment. And although there are always exceptions, from my interactions with the staff and the children, this remains true. You get this feeling after 5 minutes of talking, laughing and joking that people here are genuinely happy and satisfied with what they have. I’m sure that anyone who visits here or other “problem” areas probably leave with the same feeling: that there is much contentment in a simple and humble life. This flows right in line with the biblical perspective, which cautions us not to look for contentment in material goods cause you won’t find it there. The rich but simple lives of the people here (again sorry for the generalizations) is a testament of this. Here at LCP, people do not obsess about what they don’t have but are extremely thankful and grateful for what they do have. How’s that for perspective?
Coming from the rat-race, material wealth obsessed, “me infatuated” western world of living, it’s both invigorating and challenging to be living in this new setting: Separated from the black hole that is the TV, modern appliances like the washer and dryer, shower facilities, and at times running water and electricity and into a world where the bucket takes on a whole new level of importance, where turning on your room Air Conditioner Unit causes a brown-out for the whole block (nothing says “Nice to Meet you” better than knocking out your power), and where the caribou seemingly takes the place of the lawn mower. It’s a vacation like no other; hard to get used to at first but like a fine wine, gets better with age.

the dumaguete smile

2007-06-23T07:13:00.000-04:00

from my 3 days so far at the shelter I've been overwhelmed with smiles. And smiles here are sometimes deceiving because locals smile when they're happy, when they're stressed, when you commit a social faux pas. People here are so incredibly selfless and accomodating. The 6 year olds are teaching me a thing or two about manners. Everytime an elder enters the room, the kids on cue say "Good afternoon sir/maam" and take their hand placing it on their forehead (asking for a blessing) and then run to find a chair for the visitor to sit on. The hours that volunteers and workers work here are ridoncurous (one day off working sometimes from 8 in the morning to 8 at night).

What I'm specifically here for is to provide assistance and training to the social workers here in the areas of individual and group clinical counselling and present some new methods of intervention that have worked well with kids from my own experience. My actual duties are many and varied on the other hand: Past few days I've done site visits to the children's homes, i've done some advocacy work for my agency by spreading the mission of our agency to the kiwanis club among other rich social clubs, i've lead biblestudies (but biblestudies here are the equivalent of sermons back home since the leader is usually presenting to over 50 ppl).

My living conditions are pretty good according to local standards. I eat with the kids consisting of meals of rice and pancit (noodles) costing 5 pesos a meal (45 pesos make up an american dollar), when i have both electricity and running water at my apartment it is a good day. (I have a dinosaur ac unit in my room but the last time i turned it on, i knocked out the power for about 5 apt units so i think i'll probably not do that again). I've gotten used to the no shower bidness but am trying to but down on the number of buckets of water i require to do the job. Laundry will also be done in my shower bucket.

The ppl here have so little but they are so grateful for everything they've got and they dont take anything for granted. More updates to come =)

still alive still but disoriented

2007-06-19T08:32:00.000-04:00

so manila's ridoncurous. Maybe it's the fact that road divisions and lines are really more guidelines, everyone cuts off everybody, u have cars merging into other cars coming mere inches from brushing against each other...crazzzzy! There's an invisible border that seperates the poor from the rich. The people at Counselo who are sponsoring our trip over here had us stay at the President's condo and then drive down to The Visayas Forum, Kim's safehouse where she'll be working at for girls caught in human trafficking and then checking out Kim's living quarters which looks pretty ghetto but by Phillipine standards in the slums is ballin.

I'm in Dumaguete now (i flew out from manila at 4 in the morning) and spent the whole day picking up household items that i'm going to need. Dumaguete is an interesting looking place that has the manila congested feel but it's a lot smaller than manila and feels more like a university town given the presenece of Siliman U, one of the prominent Universities in the PI. The place that i'm staying is going to be a little bit of a challenge for me since i currently don't have a shower (but a bucket instead), there's about a gajillion ants, coupled with the ridoncurous humidity that has the pores on my sweat sweating. But at the same time, I know i'm living it up in comparison to the living standards and conditions of my co-workers, which means i am in no position to complain.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. If anything, I feel pretty grateful just to take this all in. I've had a chance to explore dumaguete on my own just walking on the streets (it's like frogger crossing the streets) and u see the strangest things: a boy trying to tug a huge oxen only having that oxen tug the boy instead, 5 ppl packed on a motorcycle meant for one, ppl are real friendly and happy to talk to you, every teenage boy rocking chuck taylors. The language barrier is apparent so im trying my best to pick up survival visayan as quick as i can. I'll throw up some pictures soon.

This week ahead looks like a lot of meetings and a lot more super heavy but delicious meals (5 meals a day! what!) and i start working at my organization next week. And while typing this blog, i think i've sweated away a pound...and it's 9pm at night. Thanks errybody for the wellwishes and prayers!

arrived alive!

2007-06-18T09:17:00.000-04:00

that's all for now

Good to go

2007-06-14T22:19:00.000-04:00

so i'm a day away from heading down to the PI and everything's looking set. Past few days spent just getting what i need, moving my junk to storage, getting scuba certified so i'm good to dive anywhere buying books on tagalog/cebuano, which i have yet to really open, and buying souvenirs to leave behind for the keeds.

Couple things left on the to-do list over here but i think i'm pretty much good to dig out now. So like i said, check back here for updates.

ALSO, let me know if u'd like something over here whether it be a postcard or something like that. I'm also arranging to pick up some switchblades and butterfly knives so let me know if u're interested in getting one and i'll do my best to remember you (don't worry, it's perfectly legal to transport weapons thru ur checked baggage so long as it doesn't go boom)

And like that I'm off to the PI. hollerrrrr

make that dumaguete, negros

2007-05-23T08:09:00.000-04:00

so manila is now officially out of the picture for my two month placement. Instead, I'll be headed to the island of negros to the city of Dumaguete (still in the Philippines), which for the sake of comparison is night and day. From what i can gather thru the marvelous gift (and curse) known as the Wikipedia, Manila has the highest population density than any other major city in the world. Factor that in with the summer humidity & the air pollution and suddenly i'm thinking maybe 2 months over there might not be the best thing. Now on the other hand we have Dumaguete, a university town, nicknamed the city of Gentle People. The word "Dumaguete" from the Visayan word "daggit" means "to snatch" in direct reference of the power to attract and keep visitors for good... and also in reference to Muslim pirates and their frequent marauding attacks on the island (but that's just wikipedia talking).

So looks like the new place might be a better fit. Don't know a whole lot about the actual place I'll be working at though yet, but im thinking it'll probably be shelter work with teens as i normally planned.

Road to the Philippines

2007-05-12T23:49:00.000-04:00

check back here in June for some philippines journaling, pictures, and select awesomeness!

back from springbreak right back to...springbreak

2007-04-04T23:43:00.002-04:00

Had the chance to do an interisland cruise with the fam who was up here for the week for springbreak. Now I haven't blogged much recently in part due to laziness but also due to respect. Respectful of what you might say? Respectful to YOUR feelings. You see, i look at the opportunity to be in Hawai'i pursuing a meaningful education as a huge blessing... and most of you do a good job in reminding me of this by the constant winter weather updates in the Great White Northfor example. And given that this blog for the most part is my outlet to both rant and rave about my surroundings, I feel I'm in a bind with YOUR feelings if i do either:

Here's an example:

Me: Hey friend! I gotta tell you about the crazy surf swells that we've been getting! Today I was catching waves for the whole afternoon! Stoked!

Friend: Really? Well It just snowed again here and I have a cold. I hate you.

...
And here's another:
...
Me: Man i had the worst day today. I just got raped on a test.

Friend: Really? Cry me a river. Well it just snowed again here and I have a cold. I hate you.
...

Well of course not all of you will say that to my face, but c'mon now, that's what all you crazy canucks are thinking. So out of sensitivity, i will try to refrain to post pics of volcanoes, valleys, mountains, and bronze skin and refrain from going into elaborate detail of the things i'm learning here whether they are out of praise or rant.

Sincerely,
your sometimes, but not manytimes, blogger

HP spoof with killa cam

2007-03-07T06:27:00.001-05:00

keep on

2007-03-04T17:34:00.000-05:00

mahalo nui for the feedback matt, pea, smileyface grace, katz, johnny, jenniferhy, jordan, angie, & melissa tan on the previous post.

Your responses for what motivates you, although they are unique to you, in turn motivates me. Beating photocopying lines johnny, avoiding bed sores katz, getting your daily sugar dose jordan -> good for you! get em! facing a new adventure jenn and grace, making an impact pea and angie and mel -> press on! At the very least, the common link between all these responses is that these motivating factors are enough to get you up every morning which makes me think that since all of yall are doing life then i better be doing life as well, even on those days when i just dont wanna. And don't we all have those days? where we think that maybe today might be better if we just stay in. Maybe today might be better if we didn't have to encounter struggle and challenges out of fear of failure or inadequacy. Maybe today might be better if i just shrink. Maybe it'd be better that way?

Well if u're ever feeling along those lines, print out the following excerpt and stick it by ur bedside (i got it beside my kitchen sink which helps me finish the dishes so i can get on with the real challenges). It's a nice piece of quotery from marianne williamson. If u watched coach carter, u'ved heard it there (altho it doesn't really have much of a place in the movie jordan and i agree):

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be. You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Much mahalos once again. Keep on.

question

2007-02-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

I have a question for you. Yes you. So by reading these words you are now obliged for the sake of common courtesy and decency to respond with an answer or a a comment. If you don't respond, I'll know that you didn't cause i've activated an ip tracker with my blog and will take it personally. Seriously (no not seriously).

So here's my question: "What motivates you every morning to get out of bed and live?"

there is no wrong answer here. I'm just curious to know what it is that drives you. I appreciate your comments mahalo!

The last of a dying breed

2007-02-13T05:57:00.000-05:00

yep. you heard it here first. I am the last of a dying breed on the island. I am what remains of what was a pretty dominant ethnic group called... the Chinese.

So i was reading an article today in the honolulu advertiser about chinese parents seeking to make a connection to their lost host culture by sending their kids to chinese school on sunday mornings:

"I've been so Americanized," said Au, a third-generation Chinese-American. "When I was young, I just wanted to be 'local.' ... I realized everyone from Hawai'i had an ancestry that should be explored. Then my children came along, and I didn't want them to lose that link."

At work at first with the co-workers:
Pua: hey darren, i hope you don't mind me asking. What ethnicity are you?
Me: Chinese
Pua: Chinese and...
Me: Just the one.
Pua: No way! Can you speak Chinese?
Me: yeah a little bit
Pua: ho brah! you're the first guy i've met that can
Me: What about you? I'm going to take a guess... Portugese?
Pua: yes... along with some german, english, chinese, filipino, and japanese, and a little mongolian.
Me: dayum!
Pua: Fan kae!
Me: funky?
Pua: no! tomato!
Me: nice you got the chinese on lock down too.

and as i went to pick up some chinese grinds at the local chinese bakery to pick up some dumplings they were all up over the place but nowhere on the menu. Turns out that dumplings aren't called dumplings around these parts, but officially known as "pot stickers" cause that's what they do. JUN HUY HO KAY GWAI!

so i figure if social work doesn't work out, im going to rent a space in chinatown, slap on my chinese accent and sell my cultural services to the locals as either an ancient chinese herbalist or a fortune teller, i have yet to choose. I was initially thinking of being a Kungfu sifu but that's a little bit harder to fake. Well... there's always tai chi

I Freaking hate turkey by Darren G

2007-02-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

Are you unhappy? you better stop with the grumble!
You Mumble, Nerves starting to crumble
I just fed your unhumble hole
all the turkey they'd let thru border patrol
And yet you have the audacity to talk back
Girl next to me thought she heard you cry thru my ass crack

(Who me, miss? You're mixing fiction up with fact
But I'll give you a heads up when gas exits the digestive tract)

Look at what you're making me do
See what you're putting me through?
Arrrrrgggghhhhh!
Remind to rewind never to eat a turkey wrap before going to the library.

The end

I am no fan of Tryptophan by Darren G

2007-02-08T01:47:00.003-05:00

ok so just got back from a spoken word/poetry workshop an am now inspired to drop some vomit on your eyes: Try to hold back the upchuck:

Sound of the fan clickety clack an arms length from the head lulls me to deep slumber/
my lower lumber aches like a birthday piniata from the macaroni slouch/
my body becomes the couch, fingers and limbs intertwine with the coffee fabric/
I am now a maverick surfing thru infinte dreamscape I cannot wake as the itis pulls me under/
was it my blunder? The work steady piling, left to the last nanosecond/
anticipation of finished product, tension released i reckon/
a cool river on my face dripping down melon cheek onto cotton collar/
awakened the green neon of 8:58 pulse hollars and pulls my eyes from the socket/
stop it gain control and transform my thoughts from aerosol to something solid/
solid to grasp, solid to last, in my the sieve that is my memory/
i verse a curse, a four letter shut your mouth/
and remind to rewind never to eat a turkey sandwich before getting to work./

make em say "ahhhh"

2007-01-19T20:01:00.000-05:00

I remember back in highschool swapping breakdance videotapes with a friend and one time, tha dood got it twisted and flipped me a DJ battle vid instead of the standard bboy battle vid that i requested. I remember rushing home from the bus, popping the tape in and fastforwarding the thing to the end hoping to see some windmills and flares but nothing. I was pretty disappointed. But then I watched the video tape again and was watching this guy named DJ QBert playing LL's Rock the Bells on the turntable cept he wasn't just playing it, he was taking LL's "Rock the Bells" expression and cutting it up like no one's business. And I remember just staring at the screen trying to figure out what he was doing, that altho i couldn't make any sense of the sounds that were assaulting me ears, i thought the whole shebangabang was dope.

Fastforward 10 years to today, i had the opportunity to teach my first turntablist workshop to the kids at my school. Before actually getting started we went around the room just to see why the kids who were enrolled in my class, were enrolled. Responses varied from, "I thought it would be cool" to "There was nothing better bra". After an hour and a half of teach the kids and lettting them cut ri-ri-rirock-rirrrrrrock-riririrock da beat da da da da beaat and f-r-fr-fr-shhhhh-fereererererefreshh over some akon instrumentals, some dem were asking me what they needed to do to become DJs. Proverbial tear down my eye (cause my tearducts are busted).

While much has changed in 10 years, my love and appreciation for this artform is still true. I've heard enough about the decrepit state of hiphop today but few understand that hiphop is what you make of it. So's the same with life. If you know what you love to do and have the means to pursue it, what's stopping you?

humble pie

2007-01-14T06:15:00.000-05:00

today i was reminded that altho i might look the part of the surfer decked out in billabong and quiksilver apparel, i probably have no right to rock them legitimately. Went surfing today in the afternoon at Ala Moana after yesterday's late night tsunami warnings (cause by the Japanese earthquake) and was served a nice slice of humble pie. Waves were a little bit taller than what I'm used to, and for the brief spell that i was in the water, much more frequent. I'd look up and there would be a wave crashing over my head tossing me off my board and into an underwater spin into the rocks. Because I use an 8ft board, it's too long to duck dive into a wave (dipping myself and board underneath the water's surface and passing under the wave) and i haven't really gotten used to turtle diving (flipping myself underneath my board). In short, for a brief 15 minutes, i went what felt like a 15 round fight of getting knocked off my board and dinged up on rocks, swimming back to my board only to get knocked away again, flipping upside down from the sheer height of the waves. After 15, i admitted defeat and swam back in wearing my head down in shame. But if a year of hearing chumbawumba on the radio and on muchmusic (in what was it, 95?) did anything for me besides trying to convince me that drinking is an effective means to treat depression, it's that nothing ever's going to keep me down. That I need to dust myself off and try again/shake it off/Be a man, must be swift as the coursing river/move along move along just to make it through/walk like an egyptian.

2007-01-07T05:40:00.000-05:00

i've come home to the remains of what must have been an epic insect war. There are no live cockroaches or bugs of any sort... just their severed appendages littered on my countertop, on the stove, and in the sink. My archeological training and examination of the remains has allowed me to narrow it all down to two highly plausible explanations: Either cockroaches are cannibalistic and have a habit of leaving the legs unpicked or there's something more threatening than roaches in my apartment that i need to worry about... namely a new strain of bug that has mandibles and pinchers of death capable of piercing the kevlar like exoskeleton of the cocharoach...and also have a tendency to leave the legs behind maybe as a form of display of dominance and supremacy as if to say that there's no point in running from us cause we'll just severe your legs from ur body biznatch. Which is probably what happened in the end. The roaches probably realized that there was no point in running from their new found predators and staged a final stand, but ultimately were wiped out by the new strain and yeah i really have to get some sleep.

The Day After: Scratch the part about no live cockroaches. I've killed 3 big mothers so far and counting. Make that 10. I've found a nest

Evening the Day After: So I've found multiple hiding spots. 6 More Whoppers hiding in the rice bag with a litter of babies (they're multiplying!). The drawer where I house my important papers also has become a home. I've temporarily sealed off cracks which could be their entry points. Killed about 10 more with the rubba slippa. It's almost becoming routine now coming home, flicking on the light and watching those suckers scatter like u caught em cheating on your wife. And let that be a lesson to anyone in the future who even thinks of cheating on my wife. I will throw a slippa at you to slow you down, slam down the same slippa on your head 10 times until ur insides bleed out onto my carpet, bounty quicker picker up you and toss you into the toilet to a watery grave. Cockroaches (both insect and human) beware.

mondayssssss

2006-12-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

no betta way to kick start ur day when u find out someone kick started ur side mirror. When it happens the first time, u're like, nah b, just an accident so u just bend the mirror back in place. When it happens the second time and the glass in the mirror is shattered, u're like, shoots, person must have been off in a hurry to not leave a note. Fortunately tho the repair costs to replace the glass is only 20 bones so ure counting ur lucky stars. But then the day before u have to bring the car to the shop to get the glass replaced u step outside to see this:

now u start wondering who's grave did u piss on to get this treeee times in the past 2 months. 3 times in 2 months is beyond the realm of coincidence. But who'd wanna hack up my whip? What did Honda do to the world but release a line of environmentally friendly ultra low emissions vehicles that come a close second to hybrids and a third to walking? WhAteguan? I mean if u got beef wit somebody at least leave me a note on my windshield like the courteous sociopath in the I Know What You Did Last Summer series...cause i really dont know what i did last summer. Please tell me! Shoots so parts and labour now come out in the 200s which wont happen for the next few days until the get the necessary parts in. But now i be all paranoid thinking, what's the point in replacing da mirror if someone's just going to come up on it again? On days like today I wish i had a garage. This is what it sounds like when doves cry. Cue my music

YouTube

2006-12-01T14:59:00.000-05:00

So yeah a friend hooked me up to the best youtube link ever: A Band called MiniBosses, only musik they play are oldschool nintendo game themesongs, and they do em well. Brings back crazy memories. Here's one of them covering super mario bros 2 in all its glory. If ure interested, go look em up, they do up megaman, contra, mike tyson's punch out among other NES classics.

While i'm up here i might as well throw up a quick update with the goingons of island living. Had a chance to come back home for the american thanksgiving week and meet up with a few of my favourties (I'll be back again in a couple weeks). Ever since getting back to the island i've been living like a grandpa waking up at 6 and going to bed before 12 in order to get some morning surf action before school. Shoots there is no other feeling like being in the water at the crack of dawn and catching some early breaks and since it's so early not too many peeps are in the water with u, dont have to worry about lining up to catch the breaks. More just paddle out, catch the wave, paddle back, and repeat. And yeah man, for the first time in a while, i can make in time to McDicks to grab me a combo 2 (sausage and egg mcmuffin baby!). Shooots!

If u dont know already i split time right now between classes and doing school counselling at a hawaiian charter school and that's been a pretty big blessing just talking story with the kids and trying to help em navigate through tuff problems and issues. I'm close to getting a green light to teaching an elective up at the school which im pretty stoked about: IM going to be teaching music expression and creation on the turntables breaking down scratching, juggling and mixing for the keeds, which if u think about it, can be a really strong form of empowerment which allows a child to creatively express herself thru music. It's neato that that in itself can be regarded as a form of social work practice. So yeah, only thing i need to do is to get my decks flown over here, and pick me up serato so i wont have to buy any more records (instead i can hook up my laptop to the mixer and play my mp3s.

But jeah, life is alright down here. The temperature dropped recently...to 23 degrees. Don't hate. Appreciate. And come visit and i'll give u a free tour of the island living that is my life. Mahalos

2006-11-16T06:50:00.000-05:00

if you had to write an essay about the importance of the generalist intervention model in working with individuals and it was due tommorow and now it's 1:45 in the am and to top that off, you have a presentation to give in the morning on something totally unrelated... 2 presentations at that... One in the morning and one in the afternoon... what would you write about? because i have a little problem. I have no idea what a generalist intervention model is. Perhaps the correct answer than is that it's not important at all? because i have no idea what it is? therefore, unimportant? my brain is now officially mush and i just want this week to end. gah. homeward bound come sunday. I'll try to think of something more creative and enticing to read next time i sit down to blog. but until then, bollacks.

still alive

2006-10-16T05:14:00.000-04:00

this is me telling you that I am fine post earthquake.

Here are the deets:
Woke up at 7 in the morning when whole house starting shaking. Thought it was a train at first but then it clicked 10 seconds later that hawaii doesn't have any trains (im not a morning person). Rather than do the sane thing that ppl do like run outside or get under a doorframe i went back to sleep despite the fact that my ceiling fan which is positioned directly above my head was starting to rock a little too hard to the left and right (the quake lasted at most 30 seconds). Woke up a few minutes later with earthquake number two which subsequently took out the power which made me feel a little safer knowing that if my ceiling fan was to fall on me, at least it wouldn't be spinning. Subsequently went back to sleep.

Woke up at normal time (9am) and did a quick survey of my rooms. Things were scattered on the floor but nothing broken. Checked in with other tenants and we did runs to the local supermarket, the only supermarket open within a 10 block radius and had to line up forever to get in and after some long waits, managed to escape with a couple candles. Lack of electricity pushed everyone in the neighbourhood full force outside, bbqs lit on cue with families everywhere cooking up their spoils. Passed the day just chillen on the balcony and out running in the rain to stay cool.

It's now half past 11pm and the electricity has just been restored to our neighbourhood 10 minutes ago which means that in all likelihood i will be going to work tommorow rather than braving post earthquake mini tsunami like waves (damnit they only come once every 23 years!). But yeah thanks for checking in on me to see if i'm alright. Only damage done is to my bankaccount or possibly to my digestive system if i'm too cheap to throw away my spoiled fridge and freezer food. Note: Don't spend your savings at SamsClub on a months supply of frozen goods the day before the power goes out. What the issue is now is reconstruction and seeing how long it takes hawaii, which like the state speed limit is slugslow, picks itself back up again.

just my luck

2006-10-12T05:50:00.000-04:00

On my way thru a hiking trail in rural hawaii to meet up with the kids at the taro farm (biweekly field trips) i had to pass by a couple bungalos in the countryside, many marked with private property signs like (Get Out Ass!). Not your typical hawaiian aloha welcome. But yeah the first lot i passed by was pretty much a big open field with a lot of barking. I'm thinking to myself, Good thing that there's the fence seperating me from the firecrackers in there. But Oh wait there's an opening up ahead. As i'm walking past the opening, out come two screaming mutts coming at me full gallop attack mode without leashes on. On instinct I break into a sprint but i can only go so fast in flipflops and the mutts are gaining on me fast and im thinking, there's no way im going to outrun these dogs without runners on so i turn around flip off my pack getting ready to take a swing at the first dog when out from the field i hear the owner (who i can't see) yell a resounding "NO!" to which both dogs, within striking distance, stop in their tracks and turn the corner. Too close a call. I'm on my way down the trail passing yet another house with an unleashed dog lying at the entrance. She sees me , stands up and begins to growl. But i get past her without her snapping at me by walking real slow with reassuring chants of "easy girl, I'm your friend". i'm Thankful that I've managed to escape k9 cruelty twice and continue on along the trail. 5 minutes later I'm at a gate. There's not supposed to be a gate. I see a lady working in the garden (she's holding down her barking dog to prevent me from getting attacked) and ask her if this was the trail to the farm. She says I'm on the wrong trail and need to backtrack to the start. Just my luck.

What can i say? Not all dogs love me. All mosquitos do tho no matter where I am i catch em trying to make out with me. It's as if I'm as popular as the king of the (west) Nile.

slowww day

2006-10-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

so the kids are out of school for the week at the school I'm working at for fallbreak which has reduced the level of chaos from red to yellow but on the flip side, Lost has moved back here and set up permanent camp right below us and will be here it seems indefintely. How fitting since today marks the season premiere. Cause today is a slow day with me dealing mostly with paper and not people, Ive had the opportunity to sneak in and out of work to peer in on the set from atop and to talk story with the film crew. Some observations:

~ Evangeline Lily is a hotty bombotty. There was one scene which involved our heroine stripping off her clothes but they had to reshoot that scene several times cause they just couldn't get it right. Shucks.

and yeah, that's all that's really worth mentioning at this point. Again, I gotta start posting some real posts of real consequence some time soon.

On Being a "Nice Guy" Diplomat

2006-10-03T06:55:00.000-04:00

I remember talking to Kat about this one time about the notion of being "too forward" and just felt like sharing this little diplomat tool with yall. This is called the "I don't mean to be" grammatical rule. Real easy to use. If you have, for instance a real racist comment inside of you that you feel like you need to blurt out, all you have to do is to preface it by saying "I don't mean to be racist but (is this dog meat in the fried rice?)". Come on now. If you didn't mean to be racist, you wouldn't say the racist comment at all. Prefacing it with "i don't mean to be racist" essentially does the job of removing malicious intent. If it comes off as racist, it's because of ignorance and that's it. And there lies the beauty of the rule. It does the job of hiding your intent by publicly removing the most obvious reason of why you are saying what you are saying.

Or how about the ever popular (and i've used this too), "I don't mean to be too forward but do you want to have dinner with me on the weekend?". If anything, altho you might be explicitly saying that you don't want to be forward but regardless what you mean, the action itself is pretty forward but what the preface does is that it sugarcoats it so it's not so aggressive but moreso passive aggressive. This means, for many cases, the exact same thing as "Hey Baby let's kick it" except with half the shock value.

This tool can be used in two ways: To differentiate youself from what you're not or just to blatantly lie to cover up your true intentions like "I don't mean to be an ass (but i really do mean to be an ass)" (hopefully more of the first and less of the second cause if everyone does the second than no one will ever believe anybody trying to use the first... confused?). For the most part this tool is real effective in "Nice Guy Politics" cause nice guys are, generally speaking, careful about what they say to the point that they don't offend someone. Check out the varying degrees of niceity in just asking a girl out to the movies.

From plain straight up neanderthal: You Me Movies Tommorow Night Be There

To our explained approach: I don't mean to be too forward but would you be interested in catching a movie with me?

To superduper nice almost borderline "what is he asking?" approach: I was wondering and would like to know your thoughts on this, if at anytime in the next few weeks, you'd might do me the favour of accompanying me to watch a movie, but don't feel any pressure to say yes or no right now. Just think about it and mull it over and let me know when you have time.

while the explained approach lacks the length and thought put into the superduper nice approach, i think it'll probably score you more movies. sooner or later im going to need to write something of consequence. haha

so.

2006-09-29T05:14:00.000-04:00

i just wrote this mega long post describing the sense of ambivalence that i am feeling at the moment. But being that my sense of ambivalence has me feeling ambivalent towards me attempting to describe it, decided on impulse to hold down on the backspace button and saw it all disappear. But my ambivalence still remains. And what remains of what was at one time a bomb ass piece of poetry at least according to my inflated ego is now nothing but a retarded nonsensical bore that's not fit enough to sit under the century old archie digest mags that u have stashed on top of your can. But being that I'm just in a general ambivalent mood, I guess I'm going to need to flip a coin to see whether i end up publishing this or trashing it. And there's my answer.

On a completely unrelated point, i think my gecko had babies. Here are the pics:

How to perfect a ruin day

2006-09-24T17:44:00.000-04:00

following day i went in to see john from cingular and he hooked me up with a new (used) phone of my model for free saving me a couple hundred that i would have needed to dish out to get a new one. That John is a nice guy. Almost as nice as the guy at the burger stand at the beach who hooked me up with a free burger for being at the right place at the right time. But to kind of even everything out, waves were choppy and infrequent as opposed to frequent as smooth yesterday. Karma.

How to ruin a perfect day

2006-09-23T03:51:00.000-04:00

So there I am in the middle of the ocean along with 50 or so others, on a friday afternoon soaking in some cancer on my board watching, listening, waiting for the right opportunity to paddle into the perfect wave and then coming to the slow painful realization that my cellphone, which is tucked securely in my pocket, isn't waterproof. After 10 minutes with a blowdryer back home I can confirm this fact.

Right now I'd like to direct your attention to a comment made by Matt on my sept 17th post:

At 11:57 PM, matt said...

"u say that now...but once winter rolls around and we're knee deep in snow u're gonna be laughing under the sun sippin ur corona extra and throwing cell phones into the water...wait...NO POPEYES!?!?!?!...i'd rather be in TO=)"

Oh the ironing. And I'm pretty sure that's not irony either.

New (used) Longboard (8ft) make for happy boy

2006-09-22T00:43:00.000-04:00

forget what you heard

2006-09-17T21:00:00.000-04:00

derek on his xanga threw up 13 reasons why Hawaii is better than North America and for the most part his main reasons make sense like hot girls and hot beaches. I suppose I could say the same about Cuba being better than north america too for having been on the beaches and the resorts etc for one week. Having been here for almost 2 months now, let me fill you in on some reasons why home (toronto) is better than Hawaii.

1) change: sure the sun and the rainbows are gorgeous but the little subtle things like leaves changing color will never happen here (and no im not one of "those ppl" and never will be to hop into a car and drive X amount of miles just to see the leaves change)

2) food: what I gain in zippy's (the healthy mcDonalds with real edible local food at McDcs prices) I lose in Popeye's chicken which probably means I gain a couple years but is life without the cajun classic living at all?

3) the decisions made by George Bush and congress have a more direct impact on me here being part of the US than being the "quiet Canadian neighbour". And when Bush puts on a public address on the TV, it's not like i can just skip to global or sportsnet to avoid seeing his face. He's on almost every channel here and i have digital cable.

4) dresscode is more liberal which is good when we talk about all the burnnners up here but then again, not everyone's beautiful... on the outside (good save)

5) the sun sets at 7pm.

6) Our homeless situation is ridigurous not to say that toronto doesn't have a bad homeless problem because it does but here it's exacberated by high housing costs (double that of Toronto) and substandard and prejudiced social services

7) Filmmakers here are a huge distraction: Lost season 3 is filming at the school where I'm working now and it is absolute chaos. I'm not saying I'm not going to watch the show anymore. Maybe i'll just download it and rip to CDs and sell it for profit to steal some of theirs to make up for the hours of inconvenience of having to park at the bottom of the mountain rather than in our designated parking spots that they stole from us.

i heart oppression

2006-09-08T06:13:00.000-04:00

i've been posting enuf crap about beaches and all that when at most that makes up one or two days a week so i figured i'd clue u into the other 5 when i'm on campus. Welll for starters, I'm here for a minimum of 2 years to get my masters in social work currently with a concentration working with children and families. Half of my education is in the classroom (two weeks in) and the other half is out in the field (I start next week). But yeah, of all my classes, one of my favs right now has to be social welfare policy which looks at American social welfare and policy making from a historical and a current perspective. It's my fave right now cause it's picking up where sociology left me: Reinforcing just how our world is so utterly twisted.

When money is diverted from lifesupport programs to keep the poor alive to fund new business ventures that will only benefit the well-to-do whites... When the world once again discovers that (surprise surprise) poverty does exist by watching news reports of Blacks trying to find shelter and food from the devastation that was Hurricane Katrina and having the federal government offer empty promises of aid that have yet come to fruition... when the cash needed to help Katrina victims is given right back to the rich through ridigurous tax deductions... when we look at our welfare system that punishes single moms thru the means of humiliation and degradation yet holds a blind eye to deadbeat dads who don't pay child support... when these and countless other atrocities continue to occur undetected or unpoliced and have been happening since day one... then i realize why I'm in this field. That's because I know about how twisted the world we live in is and I'm blessed (cursed) with the obligation to be an advocate of change (or status quo keeping if i don't check myself). Makes you wanna stand up and club a baby seal or better yet, your congressman.

But at the same time, and here's where I get hypocritical, this system that we live by, based on inequality, is the very system of privilege that i have used and abused to get me here up to my ivory tower where i can now post this rant. It's like I'm trying to bite the hand that's feeding me. My family has benefited from "the system" and I now live on their benefits that they have given to me. I am by no means an innocent bystander. In fact, I reinforce my own "privilege" everytime I open my mouth or type text onto the web (no not everybody has internet or a mouthpiece to speak their mind).

Room is open for comments but keep in mind that this isn't so much a thought out essay as it is me reminiscing about my social deflowering and upchucking these details to you kind folk.

Keep your eyes and ears open to what's going on around you. From Wu Tang tracks to CNN. It's all there laid out in full.

But yeah, sides from that, school is good. Opinions are diverse. People nice. Fitting in ok sides from everybody pointing out that I "talk funny". Learning O Canada in French in an attempt to avoid being assimilated. That and trying to retain my "eh" and for the hell of fulfilling Canadian stereotypes, might as well start saying "oot and aboot" (out and about)

at bellows beach (with jordan)

2006-09-05T04:30:00.000-04:00

so i haven't quite mastered the surfing yet coming close to face planting on coral a couple times but just give me and jordan a boogie board on some baby waves. It's just that hard being this good... Yeah we're losers =p

2006-08-29T05:02:00.000-04:00

Bodyboarding is fun. But surfing tops the list. In two years I will become the next Kelly Slater. Now to end this short thought.

slag!

2006-08-22T05:23:00.001-04:00

i didn't get a chance to get my camera out in time for my pet gecko who lives behind the oven but i did get this big nasty who i sent for a lil ride over the balcony. For errrbody complaining about mosquitos or spiders and flies in their houses sit dem cheeks back down and cry me a river. I've checked my apartment inch to inch and there's no way that these hellspawn can get in here yet here they are.

here's the little demonic bugger, trapped under my 1 Litre Beer Mug. Chirpping away like a grasshopper. Think I heard a faint scream as i sent him over the balcony. Hope he runs back and tells his cronies to leave me the hell alone. Pet gecko's so freaked out that he doesn't come out of hiding anymore behind his home, the oven... cept when he's flipping kickflips into 720 varials off the counter

my llittle guy all grown up. It's hard to let go sometimes

For the love of all that is good and just, where are you jackassess with ur 6 shooters? Stop admiring ur rayban clad rico sauve selves in the mirror and do like the matrix and light my darkest hour

back in black

2006-08-20T06:45:00.000-04:00

yep pictured above is the new whip. Half the horses as the other black sedan back home but who cares? i got my own whip! It took 2 days in a small office to finally get my name etched out onto the pink slip and now it's donezo. Now that she's all mine, I'm getting all overprotective, parking farther away in lots if it means that i'm less likely to get my doors nicked by the next guy, pressing the lock button on my key an extra 3 times...just in case the intial honk telling me that my car is locked was all part of my imagination. But at the same time, i've got a feeling it's only a matter of time before some jackass decides to claim ownership on my whip (honda civics are the most common targets of autotheft here in hawaii) or some pretentious punk decides that it's not enuf that he's got citizenship in the island, but needs a big fat H on a chain around his neck...My H! to let the world know where he's from.

Some other random facts:

~ School starts up on the 21st but doesn't get heavy really until two weeks later so until then, daily trips are in order to the north shore to work out the bodyboard.
~ I've got geckos in my room and i can't killem cause they're so bloody fast on their feet and then they run and hide in crevices where i can't get em. But i'll let em live cause they look funkadelic in their neon colors plus they're saving me large on my car insurance. Now the beetles in my apartment are another story.
~ Harmful exposure to intense UV rays have officially killed the farmer in my tan. Now I'm just tanned. More basian than asian

not everything's paradise

2006-08-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

despite the great sights and the chilllen times, not everything's paradise up in here. I got caught in some bureacractic redtape the past week and the result is now I have to fly back to Vancouver to get things straightened out. Here's the full story:

When crossing thru customs in vancouver, with student papers and visa information in hand, the customs agent waived me through before I had a chance to show him my papers. Because I was travelling with my folks, he assumed that we were all tourists (neglected to check that one of the boarding passes had no return flight). I'm like, ok that's fine. If I don't have to show my papers then I guess I'm okay. Upon arrival into Honolulu I paid a visit to the International Student Center to let them no I was in town but apparently I was missing a crucial document: a 3 by 5 little cuecard with my name on it stamped in redink that I should have received at the border, but because the customs agent thought I was a tourist and not a student, I received no such cuecard. After pleading my case with the director, with the immigrations officer, Homeland security, and the Canadian embassy, I now have to return to Vancouver just to walk thru the gate one more time.

Because of shoddy instructions, an unwatchful customs agent, and a history of everyone telling me to say as little as possible and be cool when crossing borders, I have to fly back, on my parents' dime, so i can fly back in...just with a little 3 by 5 index card. But if anything, i worked it out so that i'm going to spend a couple nights in vancity with my bro so i can at least make the trip somewhat worthwhile, but dayum. Homeland security is tight, unforgiving, and unapologetic. This is my rant for the day.

son of a beach

2006-08-06T15:37:00.001-04:00

Past few days I've finally had the opportunity to have some fun. Got a chance to hit up the beaches (waikiki which is the ash bridges bay equivalent in the downtown core and waimea bay which is where the waves get purty large during the winter season). Did up some snorkelling with one of my new new moms and her fam at waimea yesterday which was pretty crazy. Eyeballed some pretty colourful...oops my bad..I'm in the US now... I mean "colorful" fish as well as some big mother scary ones hiding in the underwater caves. One of the guys that I was with swam out a little too far and was carried out to sea by the current but because hes got a healthy voicebox, he managed to get the attention of a couple of guys from the Navy who swam out and pulled him back into shore. Poor kid was the butt of everyone's jokes for the day. But yea, trying to getting as much beach time before school starts in a few weeks. Doing up some boogie boarding later on in the afternoon so that should be goodtimes (slowly workng myself up the difficulty ladder of watersports). hmmm other things i saw: I hiked to the top of the Diamondhead crater which is a huge mountain overlooking oahu, visited kualoa ranch which was the movie site for jurassic park, godzila, mighty joe young, Hurley's golf course from Lost and some other flicks, and yah a whole bunch of other touristry things

But yeah, sides from the funtimes, according to US customs, I don't exist cause i neglected to show them my student visa when I was crossing the border (because they didn't ask for it) and because of my stupidness I might have to fly back to vancouver and do it all over again but here's hoping that i won't have to. But it's the waiting game for now. So here's some more random pictures of the past few days. Peaaaas!

along the ala wai blvd

looking out from the diamondhead. I gotta stop making that stoopid face

from the top of diamonhead

on the godzilla set and again with the stoopid face

i'm home!

2006-08-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

Four days in everything’s pretty much been all work and no play signing leases, opening accounts, and stopping pedestrian traffic with camera in hand (along with the thousands of other foreigners from Japan). Cell phone’s been ringing off the hook but they’re all my mom’s old HK school friends (cause everybody that went to HK apparently went to the same school) and UH alumni-mates checking up on us taking us out for dinner, lunch, and everything in between. Cell phone directory’s filling up pretty fast but all the entries begin with "auntie", which might be a good thing that I have a bunch of my mom’s friends watching out for me or a really bad thing that I have a bunch of my mom’s friends watching out for me. I haven’t decided yet. But most of the bureaucratic bidness is taken care of so I’m going to have some time in the weeks to come to hit the beaches and the malls. But anyways, here’s a quick update:

I’ve secured my apartment and it’s a beaut: block and a half away from campus, in a real quiet residential neighbourhood in the manoa valley. There’s a real nice breeze that comes over the mountains which make for cool nights and breezy days. Have 3 mango trees growing around me and although they’re a bit stringy, they’re real sweet. There’s wild blossoms everywhere as well as parrots that visit my neighbourhood. Frequent but short downpours make for lots of rainbows. And lots of rainbows make for lots of pots of gold which is probably why the cost of living is high. Downside is that it might be a little too quiet and there’s no room for noise in this community (no love for the tak =().

But yeah everything here is stone cold stunning. From the trees to the view to the peeps. I’ve heard that Toronto has a little bit of a reputation for some real burners but mang you just don’t know tdot, you just don’t know! If anything there’s a higher frequency for burners and many of the mixed, dark skinned, breed. Mix that with what we call here the “aloha spirit” which means out with the snobiness and in with the hospitality and we’ve got ourselves a lil love potion number 5 or combo number 5 or mambo number 5, depending on the appetitie. Guarantee you I’m going to have neck problems after a week.

Miss yall still tho! Next time we all meet I might be more Samoan than chinky, yah? Yaaaahhhh. Aloha nui loa (much love).

2006-07-26T15:50:00.001-04:00

From softball to birthdays to just wasting away: Thanks for a fine summer. Updates to come from the place where summer never endsssssssssssss... and i'm out.

i'l update when i'm dang hibbety ready to update

2006-06-13T13:08:00.000-04:00

I have absolutely nothing new to say! NOTHING!!!!!
so i guess i'll update yall on the nothingness that is the life of me.

Let me walk you through a typical day of nothing... which to me is something... but to those currently running the rat race, my schedule might be a whole lot of nothing... so here goes nothing:

10am: Wake up.

10-12am: Roll myself up to my macbook (oh hilll's yes i got me a sessssy white macbook) and trade emails, check blogs and message boards and sports scores and news.

12-1pm: Hold the Apple button on the keyboard and press R and do 10-12am all over again harhar.

1pm: Eat me some lunch in front of the Toronto Star or some other reading material

1:30pm: Wash me some dishes

1:45pm: Watch me a show or a movie on the PC. Just finished Lost Season 1 and all I have to say is yowza.

3pm: Play me some guitar/piano/djembe

3:15pm: Wonder hard why I'm not in a band.

3:16pm: daydream about a typical day in my band: the Raging Harmonies or Rage Against the Rage Against the Machine

5pm: hit the gym or the pool

6:30pm: Come home exhausted... Just in time for dinner

7:30pm: wash me the dishes

8-10pm: TVs golden hours

11-whenever: repeat 10-12am

throw in some smallgroup, softball, and some other things here and there and there's a regular day. By humanstandards not quite eventful but to seniors, that's a packed day. Almost 2pac shakur-ed. But all that will change when work starts or if daydreams become reality. And Life goes on

midweek update

2006-05-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

spring's been real good so far. Bluejays are staying competitive, raptors have the number one pick in the draft this june, softball practice has been goodtimes, so yeah, it's been a good may. Here are some more speciic updates of what's been going on:

Hawaii: i'm going to have to head down earlier than i thought for a mandatory orientation on the 8th or the 9th of August which means I'm probably going to have to leave sometime in the first week to get myself setup (classes begin on the 21st). Officially the program runs for 2 years with a lot of practicum experience so definitely excited about getting a placement. Still shopping around for a place but i'm going to hold out for a bit till the parentals get back so i can get in contact with my mom's friend who does real estate down there before i sign on the dotted line.

Swimming Lessons: I'm seriously contemplating in taking them but if anyone here is certified to give me some pointers that would be cool too.

Gen4x: have the priviledge to be part of thursday's session worship team for a weekend conference at youngnak. I miss the drums.

RedBull BC1: had the chance to check out a pretty hype one on one bboy competition with jordan, jas and mel. Shuckety-Shucks. Sensory overload. Same day, headed down to the distillery district and had me the cotdang best gelato i've ever had...made me weak in the knees.

and in other spontaneous news, I just bought be a macbook online. It was one of the hardest struggles I ever faced. But in the end my bank account lost and will be receiving my 13 inch glossy mother of a notebook in the mail in approx 2-3 weeks. So if you owe me money, now would be a good time to ante up cause i need money to pay off my Visa bill. Gracias!

the housing search

2006-05-17T17:43:00.000-04:00

the past few days I've been looking to secure a good housing situation for myself for the next year in honolulu. Since Honlulu isn't a really huge massive island, and everything's bus-routable, i have decided to look beyond traditional dormroom on campus placements to check out what's affordable in the city and after some phone and email inquiries, I'm looking at 3 different apartment complexes, 2 designed specifically for students and 1 for errbody and anybody. The rates are more than double of what I paid in k-town (900 USD for all inclusive one bedroom packages is the going market rate) but the location is so money. All three are within 1-3 blocks from Waikiki beach and are on the bus route to UohH (3 miles out = 10 minute busride). After heeding some suggestions, i figure that living in downtown Waikiki is probably the best situation given easy accessibility to the beach, parks, grocery stores, malls etc.. Besides, lugging a boogie/surf board on the bus would probably be a hassle if coming from campus. Alas, some pics of potential homes and their views

UohH aerial shot

Dynasty Apartments
the interior pics aren't much to see cause all the pics they sent me were of unfurnished units. Here are the exterior and view pics:

no luck gettting good pics from the other two places (sides from interior shots) but they both are one block away from this mother...Waikiki Beach

dang. Just dang.

dooooom

2006-05-15T13:30:00.000-04:00

so i got a letter in mail today from the University of Hawaii. And it wasn't one of those huge Manilla envelopes, but instead the small ones that u receive bills and credit card statements in. And it was paper thin. Crap.

And inside were these words:

"Congratulations! You have been admitted into our MSW program. However, based on a review of your application material, it has been determined that you do not meet the MSW program's liberal arts perspective requirement in the following area: Biological Science."

So yeah I'm officially in but i need to either summarize a intro bio text book thru a critical analysis paper or take an intro to bio course come fall in hawaii. But yeah, I'm officially going to Hawaii come August so thanks so much for all the inquiries, prayers, and support along the way... Really means a lot to me that you guys all have my back! Next step is to find housing over there and to start me on some biology readings. Alo-freaking-ha! =)

the summer of darren

2006-05-13T14:50:00.000-04:00

yep. It truly is the summer of darren. While everyone's off rushing to find summer jobs or means of employment for the years to come, I'm here typing away, sipping on some honey lemon hot water soaking in the UV rays from my trusty zenith LCD monitor. So what do I have to update you on? Not too much, it's been real slow, like Bengie Molina's sprint around the basepaths. But on the Bengie Molina tip, I did manage to catch some jays game last week. Count em: THREE Jays games. Goodtimes from start to finish. Nothing beats catching a game with the roof open on a sunny day with good people with the token "I LOVE BJs" chant on the repeat in the background, being drowned out on occasion by the sounds of a high pitched shriek followed by "Catch it Catch it Catch it!" from a young girl at every play (including foul tips no where close to being put in play). Yesterday tho, helped to throw a 30th anniversary party for the parentals which was goodtimes (akkkkwwarrd) but goodtimes still earning me precious "gwai-jai" points with them which in my mind is like a get out of jail free card. Any time i potentially screw up large in the near future, that party will be my form of leverage (to cash in my "gwai-jai" points possibly to escape punishment). I can see it now.

operator: Will you accept a collect call from "your loving son"?

Dad/Mom: ummm... yes.

Darren: Hey dad, mom!

Dad/Mom: what did you do?

Darren: Well one thing led to another and now I'm in jail, we no longer have our two cars anymore and we have a 10 million dollar lawsuit on our hands.

Dad/Mom: "Our hands?"

Darren: Hey remember the time I threw that party for you guys and you you guys had all your friends over and had a great time?

Dad/Mom: ahhh yess. Gwai Jai. Okay. Just give us the details and we'll take care of everything.

Darren: Thanks! Love You!

It's ok to live just a little bit more recklessly knowing that you have some gwai-jai points stored away some where for a rainy day. Alright so sides from softballing, chilling, pokering, it looks like another honey lemon hot water kinda week for next week. If you're busy with the job, the work, the summerschool, it's high time that you broke out a glass, cut up some lemons, throw in some honey, break out the aviators, and get your tan on. I saved you a lawn chair in front of my monitor.

Sing with me now... "Summer breeze...Makes me feel fine...Blowing through the jasmine in my miiiinnnnnddddd" ~ Seals and Crofts

weekend update

2006-05-05T14:21:00.000-04:00

so the undergrad's officially done and i'm now typing this entry away on my dad's laptop. But yeah, it's been a pretty busy first week of freedom still, you know cause it's so hard just chilling out, maxing, and relaxing all cool and shooting some softball outside the school. But yeah, good times catching up with the fam and friends. Here's a couple observations from this week:

a) My dad is a machine: went running with the old man a couple days ago on the trail and he was running at my pace and i was thinking, yeah this is ok. It's funny too cause when he runs, for every one step i take, he takes 3, so i'm thinking to myself, that's so inefficient... how did this guy ever run in the boston marathon? So I'm all cocky and tell my dad, "Hey dad, why don't you run at your regular marathon pace"... and he's like "Ok, right after this hill"... and as soon as we clear it he takes off and i'm left coughing on the exhaust. Less than 5 minutes later i'm telling my dad to slow down so i can lay down and die.

b) I Hate trees: well at least this time period when trees are starting to bud cause it's got me blowing litres of snot into tissue. Coupled with a cold/cough that i've developed, i'm just so confused of what medication to take... Contac today or Aerius today? Buckley's or Reactine? So in the end i just take em all... I guess that makes me the posterchild of North American society being "Overmedicated". In the end though, my frequent use of tissue means me buying more tissue, means more trees are cut down, which translates into no more trees, which means no more allergies so in the end I win! (unless i'm allergic to weeds or something else).

c) 24 is freaking good: had some time to catchup on season 5 and OMG, like Lays, you can't stop at just one.

d) Good catching up with the pengyous: from the school to the church buddies, it's been good times. Definitely looking forward to the weeks ahead with more playdays in front of me

e) Party Planning is hard work: so i'm working side by side with my rents friends to plan a 30th anniversary bash for my mom and my dad and yeah, so many things just to work out from cakes to decorations, to figuring out who to invite, of who's cool with who, how to make the worlds collide as softly as possible etc..

f)pokerstars.net is more addictive than a roll of unpopped bubble wrap

that's it for now. Looking forward to a weeeeek of bluejays baseball!

at long last...

2006-04-19T03:18:00.000-04:00

my rough draft for my undergrad thesis, which was 8 months in the making, hitting 39 pages, is dizzzzoneeee!! It's been submitted via email to my prof as of 3:15 in the AM. And i'm only like a month off of my original schedule to get the rough draft completed. To that accomplishment I have a baker's dozen of friends to thank:

1) Like peeling paint on my walls for being so distracting to watch

2) for the occasional beetle or flythat would
enter into my room and force me to get up from study with tissue in hand, thanks!

3) For bloggers and xangas which have been fun to read

4) for ESPN live game updates and to a greater extent Yahoo Fantasy Sports which necessitate me checking ESPN live game updates to see how my players are fairing.

5) To my friends who have helped me along the way by talking to me on the phone, feeding me, eating with me, playing streetfighter at loud levels right outside my room forcing me to get up from my workstation to show and prove to the world who's game this really is, much thanks!

6) to my significant other, korea, for always being at arms length away, allowing me to twang my frustrations out, usually in the Key of E and G cause everything else hurts the fingers. yeah, I'm talking about you A flizat and E flizat minor.

7) to my capo which means i'll never have to ever again play in A flizat and E flizat minor

8) to my cut capo which means i can play everything in super easy mode and sound audiotastic

9) to my immune system which has stayed the course

10) to echinechea pills which have helped my immune system to stay the course

11) to youtube and thatvideosite dot com. You've taught me so much. From perfecting my kraft as a "Krumper" to opening my eyes to the world of urban ninjas. Thank you.

12)to my dependable PC which has yet to crash this whole year. They were all wrong about you. Including me. I guess the back up back up back up copies that I've made for this thesis aren't justified? thanks

13) But i cannot forget season 1 and season 2 of the Office, which has served as a comical reminder that working away on a project, could be much worse.

So the work is out of my hands (for now. Knock on wood. Let's hope editing and final prep is easy breezy beautiful cover girl). It seems like now it's time to get reaquainted with an old friend of mine... regular sleep patterns, save me a plate cause i'll be over later!

2006-04-10T17:32:00.000-04:00

so im knee deep in essays and thesis work so i'm going to save the more serious "hey look i'm graduating and i want to thank..." blogs until after i conquer these mountains. But until then, an update on hawaii:

3 weeks ago, i got this email from the Masters of Social Work secretary at the U oh H:

Hi Darren,
I have your application before me and was just about to acknowledge its
receipt. No decision has yet been made on your application. Can you check back with me again within three weeks? Hopefully, I'll have an answer for you by then.
Aloha,
Marlene Matsuda

so 3 weeks later, today, I sent em an email to check up on my status and got this as a reply:

I checked with the Graduate Division and they will work on your application
right away. Upon receipt of their documents, we will then review your
application for admission. Thanks for your patience.

Marlene Matsuda

... which got me a thinking. If Marlene had my application 3 weeks ago to review, why is she telling me now that my application is with the grad division? Just to clarify the way paper moves, is that it first goes to the grad division, and then sent to the specific department for admission review.

"I have your application before me" - 3 weeks ago

"Upon receipt of their documents, we will then review your
application for admission" - Now

something smells fishy about these emails I've been receiving. But on the real, the waiting part doesn't bother me. Now that I have no timeline of when i should get word, it's like Christmas Eve everyday. But yeah thanks everybody for checking on me with this and now you know what i know. In the words of Marlene Matsuda, "Thanks for your patience"

the better than the furniture sale....

2006-04-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

The Better than the furniture sale!. Since all of the furniture has been claimed I've decided to put the REAL goods on the market. We're talking about the items that i was real hesitant to put on the market but now i'm learning to let go so...here goes. Remember, first come first serve. I can't reserve anything for anybody cause that won't be fair.

It's a Goldshlager bottle that's 5/6 full. It's lost its novelty on me. I just don't think drinking gold flakes is cool anymore. I just don't feel any richer after taking a sip. But hey, if you love gold jewellery and gold plated scorpions and golddiggers, goldfingers and goldmembers, and u've got a heart of gold than it's time to add to the collection. Price: I'll trade you for your gold jewellery

it's a dragon boat medal that i "earned" two years ago, cept i'm as deserving of that medal as you are cause i was sick on race day... and missed most practices. Now you have the opportunity to live the lie and tell all your friends with this medal that u were on a dragonboat team and placed in competition! Price: Priceless. I mean chicks dig medal winners, right? You're practically an Olympian with this sucker around your neck. Good Luck fighting off the cougars.

moldy grapes that have been a staple fixture on our coffeetable since december. Like violins, grapes appreciate in value. They're practically growing you furcoats. Buy em while they're still cheap! Price: $10

it's an epson stylus c60 kids. Buy it while it's still hot! Price: $20

the "if there's ever a fire use this to go out ur window" chain. Hasn't been used yet. Price: Since this'll save your life, just save mine one time and we'll call it even

a different tune for a different mood. Let my CD collection take YOU back in a journey thru time. I've got what you need! Price: the whole CD tower consisting of over 60 CDs for the low low price of $50. Cmon freaking starcraft's there too and that's classssic!

Bruce doesn't say much but those words right there will get u thru some long nites of procrastination. Even now he's speaking to me. Telling me to finish up this blog and work on that essay. Let Bruce be the kick in your can! Price: $1

i don't even like playing guitar. worst investment ever

i keeeeed i keeeeed. I'm married to this piece of wood. however, i'll consider playing "trading partners" if your partner's name is Macbook Pro.

ericson viola. I'll set you up on a date with this dreamboat! Don't pass this one up! He's a keeeeper girls (and as we speak there are already a list of gurls vying for this hottie's attention, don't miss the boat or ur name's angry tang ;p Price: dinner for a week

sprung into spring (no puns intended)

2006-03-31T11:52:00.000-05:00

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!"

the kingston classified post

2006-03-30T02:51:00.000-05:00

so if u're in the ktown and ure in need of furniture hit me up at darrengenewong@hotmail.com and we'll make things happen. It's the "everything for 10 bucks" sale. Jump on it before it's gone!

KUMIIITTTEEE!

2006-03-27T15:02:00.000-05:00

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.

the old man and the sea

2006-03-23T01:15:00.000-05:00

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

cooooool

2006-03-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-03-17T05:37:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-03-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

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.

chapter 4...but wait, u said earlier that there would only be 3?

2006-03-14T01:11:00.000-05:00

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.

another cuban installment

2006-03-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

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.

my motorotcycle diaries without motorcycles chapter two

2006-03-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

Chapter 2

now you think by heading from kingston to cuba, you might, just might come back with a tan. Not in my case where the exact opposite happened and i have pics to prove it!
from chocolate brown 2 nights before departure (now only ricson is pictured here but the whole lot of you that were there to make my prebirthday feel special, i'm deeply moved and thankful!)

I'm an apprentice geisha here with good company mangry tang and bboy rizzzeeaaal courtesy of waterproof sunblock that isn't really that waterproof.
here we are at the okiya at the final tea ceremony celebrating my initiation into geisha-dom with not so innocent jan pan and jtran doing the honours of dressing me in my mask.

My life as a geisha

for one thing, it ain't easy

...not easy one bit...

...putting on shows...

...acting the fool...

...sometimes relaxing...

...other times very distressing...

...but if i had to do it again, i wouldn't have it any other way. Arigato chinos =)

to be continued still...

my motorcyle diaries without motorcycles chapter one

2006-03-01T02:35:00.000-05:00

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!!!!!!!!

from 28 degrees to 16 below 0

2006-02-26T23:25:00.000-05:00

yeah i've got pictures to post and things to say and many peeps to thank and i'll do that all in a ridiculously long post for you but in order to enjoy the full experience of the week that is my week, i suggest that you fire up the limewire or hit up your local spanish musica cd shop and pick up a copy of SBS's mueve la colita. Then when you're done that, hit up the LCBO, pick up some Habana club rum, toss it together with some OJ and grenadine to make a Havana special. And if u've managed to accomplish both of those feats, replace all your lightbulbs with 400 watt burners and turn up the thermostat to 28 degrees celsius. When you've done all three, it'll be just like you're there yourself! But alas, i will include a teaser pic cause i'm like that.

very necessary poser picture courtesy of one peter bronze owen

but if that didn't do it for you, here's a solo pic courtesy of our very own jtran. Teaser pic to the very essence of the worddddd. To warn you, it's actually quite the "spicy" pic so i'm going to press the spacebar a lot now so that the pic won't actually load fully on your screen unless you scroll down a bit just in case you're at work or at the library. Remember, you have been warned! Peas for now!

>not quite there yet

>> just a bit more....

>>> keep it coming...

Bingo! Jtran in all of his uncovered unadultered glory!

ahem

2006-02-13T23:14:00.000-05:00

now a message for all the haters out there: Stop hating. M.K.'s been through a lot this past week and I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate... WE wouldn't appreciate her good name being tossed out with trash. So I beseech you. If you have something negative to say about M.K. just remember that she can skate well and you can't. She can proudly call herself an Olympian and you can't. She's won countless medals in countless competitions and you haven't. So don't hate. Appreciate. She's invited us on a magical journey this past decade in an exploration of beauty, art, and form. Instead of throwing hate and slander, we need to be hurling bouquets of love and sincere appreciation in her direction for the wonderful show, the dizzying but beautiful adventure of ups and downs, and all arounds that is michelle kwan's skating career. Besides, I'm taking down tabs of who's hating and on our wedding day, haters will be left out in the cold. Yep. You'll just have to drop off the china set and the fondu set with the bouncer at the door and get on with your merry way. But anyways, in celebration of the journey that is m.k., a video montage with a coincidentally appropriate tune for this exchange running in the background to soften your calloused hearts. Raindrops will fall suckers. Oh they'll fall.

And if that didn't do it for you, you need to get your eyes checked and schedule a heart transplant for that lump of coal you call a heart that sits inside your ribcage. Peas to the lovers. I wish NO PEAS to the haters.

2006-02-12T16:10:00.000-05:00

single tear.

sleepless in seattle

2006-02-10T05:45:00.000-05:00

yeah man. on the real, whenever thursday night comes around i know i'm screwed for friday's 8:30 seminar cause in the back of my mind i'll be counting down the hours of how much sleep i have left. And here we have again one of those sad nights. But it was nice at around 12 (yep, i went to bed at 11:30 in hopes that i would just "will" myself to sleep, but to no avail) cause yeah at 12 a car/truck/the sugerhill gang themselves pulled right outside my window and was blasting the full 8-9 minute version of rapper's delight at window-shaking decibels... and you can't hate that because that song is so participatory. The beat's infectious, and when you hear that bass line, you can't help but sing along to the booogety beat. But once the song was over, it was back to trying to get to sleep.... which i think i did for 4 hours and was just dreaming of trying to get to sleep (which makes for the worst dreamsever). But apparently i'm awake now and i mean fully awake, which means by the time 8:30 rolls around, i'll be a walking corpse, but meh, might as well live for the present. But the possiblity has also hit me that the words i'm typing right now are all going down in my dream and none of this is real. Which would also make for another crappy dream, like the one i apparently just had about trying to get to sleep in the first place. But whenever the brain's running wild like this i get caught up on some serious thinking on the serious "what if" tip. Like the ever so popular "what if everything i'm doing right now which i think is right, is actually wrong?": which is actually good cause it makes u rethink what you're doing... which inevitable leads for me to the: "what if my picture of what christian living today is totally wrong or out of touch with reality?", which is another good one to throw out there. Why my brain gets so hyperactive when it's supposed to go on sleep-mode is beyond me. Maybe i should switch it up. Since i'm so tired during the day and awake at night, maybe i should live like a bat?

Bleh. Had a reallly good thereupeutic scratching session with hiphopanon today which is good, followed by a really good thereupetic prayer session with the cell group which is also good. Now I'm looking forward to a good thereuptic sleep session before the dreaded sun comes up and fries my vampire skin. Blllleehhh!

why am i looking for pictures of vampires at 6:07 in the AM? I need some chlorform bad right now.

2006-02-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

where's the worst possible place that you could lose a book? In stauffeur library. sigh. If anyone's seen a SOCY 476 courseware package let me know. thanks!

innertubular. I am so clever

2006-02-08T00:05:00.000-05:00

I look younger in black and white shots. And a lot more white. But then again it is a black and white shot so that comes as no surprise
so yeah, after a killlller workout with eric and pete, we ran into matt on his way to an innertube waterpolo match at 9:30. Wasn't planning on going initially but after last week of playing for the first time, i decided to say, "screw being sore. If it's innertube waterpolo i want more!" (well i didn't actually say that at the time cause i'm not that clever with the rhyming on the spot, but i was thinking along those lines). So i followed matt out to the pool and we played. But i must say, i have improved drastically from my last outing. Whereas it took me a good 15 minutes to get into the innertube (thus holding up the match from beginning), i cut down the time by a good... oh 30 seconds... and badaboom that match was on. But honestly, there was no real good flow to the game since there were too many stoppages of play... on account for the other team scoring so frequently haha. But of all the different sports i've played, i gotta say that really sucking at this one has gotta be the best on account for the whole team not being all that great (with the exception of james fong who is a machine... which probably frustrates him but he doesn't show it). That and the fact that the game itself is so ridiculous. I mean waterpolo on its own sounds a little suspect. Putting people in inflatable tubes is the cherry on top. How 2-man luge is considered to be an olympic sport and not this is beyond me. But innertube waterpolo definitely is a reason to come back to the pool (after years of childhood trauma with swimming lessons taught by nazi cows). Peas

today in kingston

2006-02-04T23:51:00.000-05:00

today in kingston it rained pretty hard and we had a wind warning in our area from the weathernetwork. But that behemoth of an umbrella, despite much bending and twisting with the different flows of the wind held its ground and i am now home. And I am dry. Like this post.

what it is

2006-02-02T16:19:00.000-05:00

what's playing in the ipizod: amerie ft. camron: why don't we fall in love remix

why that's playing in the ipizod: Cam: why don't we just slow down a bit, hit the town and split, you dealing with killa that means you dealing with killas my clique is bananas the team is gorillas, holla! ~lady lyrics aside that line from Killa Cam is fiyahhhhhh!

why is that song getting replay status on the ipizod: it's a beautiful song. Beautiful produced beat. Beautiful lyrics. Cam complements well. When you hear something good u know it's from God. Altho amerie and cam might not recognize it, that's the all living God's creativity at work.

You hear God in your ipizod?: most definitely and it's not only when i'm listening to gospel. God inspiration is everywhere. When artists recognize this tho, then maybe you can hear God better. See God better.

in defence of my defence of robby

2006-01-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

i know in our super speedy culture writing a post about babcock's firing is weak. As in last week. But a couple of things for the keeds. Me writing this post does not mean that i have some form of unhealthy emotional attachment to our former raptors GM, it's moreso me saying, "whaaaatt is up?" basketball and nonbasketball fans. I'm past the point now where I think i need to defend babcock's moves as a GM for our Canadian franchise. But i don't know man, I'm just kinda bummed about how everybody from the sports fan to the sports critique is really praising this firing thinking that this is a positive step forward for our raptors franchise. And you know now would be the time to insert a really deep proverb or truth but i gots none right now, cept this bitter taste left in my mouth... this bitter taste that cannot be sweetened even with the biggest spoonful of nutella. Oh no friends, this bitter taste cannot be fixed with a shot of proverbial sugar a.k.a. bringing in a real fantastic credible GM to take the helm. It's just knowing that when something goes wrong, you gotta get rid of it. Because Robby might have made some questionable moves, we gotta can him. And you know this ain't a good message to be sending to the keeds. In an age where the term "till death do us part" is a running joke, where we throw criminals in jail to rot or sentence them to death for breaking the law, we gotta ask ourselves if this is really what we want of life? is it better to discard than save? And i know talking about a sports firing might seem a little trivial... but what happened to robby isn't so much an isolated move but moreso a small tumour of the selfish deteriorating cancer that is this selfish culture that we live in. And i know. Basketball is business and what happened just happened because it's the nature of the beast. But isn't it a little unsettling knowing the message we're sending to the keeds? The weather forecast doesn't look so bright.

in defence of robby

2006-01-27T14:12:00.000-05:00

yay raptors! it's about time we got rid of that know-nothing pretentious sorry excuse for a general manager! Now we can back on the road towards nba credibility! yayyyyyy!

couple problems i have with the firing. First, arguably the main reasons why he was canned was becuz of past mistakes: the VC trade and drafting Hoffa. If you wanted to can your GM because of these two moves alone, fine, but wouldn't it have made sense to see his termination a lot sooner, say about a year ago when Vince was packing his bags in exchange for picks and scrubs? Why wait till now to pull the trigger. If we look at this past season we can see a lot of corrections/good moves that Robby made:

1) traded Skip to my Lou for Mike Jones...er James. No argument of who won that trade

2) drafted promising rooks in Charlie Vanilla, Joey Graham, 2 Euro boys who we'll see next year maybe and signed Jose Calderon. None of these moves are considered bad

3) brought back Matt Bonner on a small 2 year contract: This one is a toss up

yeah yeah? so yeah his most recent moves of this season have looked decent and shows that maybe Robby can turn the corner and turn out to be a decent GM. Too bad we won't get to see what he can do. But this all makes things very interesting for the next GM to call toronto home. Whoever this mystery man is is going to inherit a pretty decent looking franchise jam packed with potential-budding youth, a lot of cap wiggle room next year as Jalen comes off the books among others to make some trades and signings, and a budding superstar in Chris Bosh to build around. If you ask me that's a dream job. Never mind the losing right now cause that's bound to happen with a young team, and may i remind u that we are very young but there have been glimpses of things to come with our most recent win streak. So whoever's going to be our next GM is going to get lotsa love from fans and media cause he's walking into a potential goldmine. Kinda like how JP Ricciardi inherited a real good base of young talent from Gord Ash when he took the helm of the Bluejays.

So friends, don't hate Robby. He's done some good. He's drafted well (with the exception of Hoffa). He's cleared cap. He paved the way for the future. And now we robbed him of his baby. Shame on us raptors fans. Shame on us.

whateguan

2006-01-26T00:58:00.000-05:00

this was sent to me courtesy of one chris kong who writes some serious funny material: check Chris on the peng-yous list. So anyways, this is an email transcript that was forwarded to me by chris that was circulating within the qkids circle. Goodtimes. But on the serious, I am serious on the locking. Don't front. - BBoy ChinaLock (yeah? yeah?)
...............................................

On 1/20/06, Kevin S. Hagino wrote:

Yo! Con, i really like the beat to this instrumental~ I can already picture different poses on the chairs and stuff. Maybe we'll bring some to the 7:00
sesh and mess around with stuff? I've been thinking about getting shirts done for everyone. It'd take about 3weeks to process and maybe a $20-25 investment from everyone. How'boutit? It'd make the final show look really legit and plus...i wanna walk away from qkids with something from my last year!!! Any thoughts for designs?
>>Kev
...............................................
>>> > >From: Jordan Wong
>>> > >To: "Kevin S. Hagino"

i can get darren to so some simple graf stuff and possible get my friend
lena to do the silk screen for teh shirts. all we would need is to buy the
shirts. i'd of course have to talk to them bout the details first. we could also get darren to lock for us in the show but then qkids would be "cute" dancers. hahaha
>>> > >
>>> > >jordan
...............................................
>>>On 1/20/06, geoff goodson wrote:
I would love to incorporate a locker into the show! But, we'd have to get
that started right away and know that the guy is commited. Locking makes
me giggle like a school girl tee hee hee

...............................................

>>>From: Jordan Wong
>>>To: geoff goodson
>>>Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:51:28 -0500
hes not really a locker, hes just cuuuuuuuuuute hahha
- jordan
...............................................

> From: ready2battle@hotmail.com
> LOL....i laughed out loud when Geoff thought that Darren was a real
> locker..hahaha
>
> kev
...............................................

From: Chris K.

man, somebody's gotta forward this whole ordeal to darren
yea, he's cute, but he's still a baaad man.
sorta like bruce willis.
...in die hard 1988
but THEN in look who's talking in 1989...
but THEN in die hard TWO in 1990
BUT THEN in look who's talking TOO in 1990 (TOO!)
BUUUTTTT then: die hard WITH A VENGEANCE (1995)
but THEENNNNN: rugrats go wild (2003)
and finally: Die hard 4.0 (currently in pre-production(!))

so there you have it. Darren is serious.
perhaps not a serious locker, but a very serious man.

take it from me, someone who has never been taken seriously

Darren is serious.
seriously cute! :P (teehee!)

-chris
...............................................

from: darrengenewong@hotmail.com on Jan 26

Serious in the demeanor. Serious in the studies. Oh and you bet i'm serious in the locking.
peace qkids
darren

do you believe in magic?

2006-01-25T02:28:00.000-05:00

David Copperfield in one of his latest illusions plans to impregnate a virgin through immaculate conception on stage for the world to see: Source. I like where David's going with this. I mean, he's got a pretty impressive resume of past tricks...he moved the statue of liberty, escaped out of alcatraz, flew, but i guess he was running out of ideas so he decided to check out the bible and duplicate some of the miracles that have taken place there for some inspiration. I mean, c'mon now, impregnating a virgin without touching her sounds like a pretty neat idea. Too bad we already figured out how to do that through in-vitro fertilization but hey, can't knock dave for thinking of what seems to be a pretty neat trick. What Dave needs to do is find a way to not only impregnate a girl on stage without touching her or shooting any bodily fluids in her direction, but to use his "magic" to speed up the labour process so she gets knocked up AND gives birth to a healthy baby on stage, have the baby grow somemore and witness the horrors of puberty, the horrors of the midlife crisis, grow old and die all within the one hour TV special time slot. Then and only then will I become a member of his fanclub.

and in other news I read that FRIENDS, yep the main cast of FRIENDS is coming back for 4 one hour special timeslots. And in addtion, yes they're doing another spinoff. This time with Ross, Joey, and Chandler. To these news events I have but one thing I'd like to point out: Apollo Creed in Rocky 4 came out of retirement much after his prime to fight an exhibition match against unknown Soviet Union champion, Ivan Drago only to die on the mat. How many times does Apollo have to die over and over again until we get the point?

RIP Apollo Creed.
Ironic quote the day before his last match: "Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about now, but believe me you will when it's over. You will when it's over."

I'm alive

2006-01-23T18:45:00.000-05:00

because of this, i get to keep all of my junk. Apologies all around. The water situation in our home is apparently back to normal after 2 days of weird colours. Our landlord came in to check it out this morning and found nothing and probably thinks we made up the story, which brought me back to the bugs bunny and tweety show where in one episode some guy comes across a dancing and singing frog which'll will only sing and dance for that one dude and nobody else. I know what i saw and I'm not crazy. But yeah, this morning i got off to a bad start to my new start at life. While playing with nunchucks i managed to knock myself in the eye and dislodged my contact lens deep into the crevices of my eyeball. For a good 15 minutes i tried to get my contact back into my iris and because of this struggle i now have what seems to be a permanent red outline of where my contact was trapped (the dangers of gas perms). In the afternoon i went to head out and fulfill my civic duties as a citizen to go out and vote. But after waiting in line for about 20 minutes, when i finally got to the front of the line, they told me that I had went to the wrong polling station and that i needed to go to another location and wait in line again.... which sucks, and as much as i want the communist party to get a seat, i'll have to wait till next year cause i'm not really feeling like lining up again. A bad start to a second chance of life but i'm looking forward to a strong second half of the day.

this might be my last post ever

2006-01-22T02:17:00.000-05:00

true story. 5 minutes ago I'm in the washroom brushing my teeth. The water's running at full pressure and i'm rinsing out my mouth. And then things start to go weird. Suddenly the tap starts to spit water out in uneven jerks. I fiddle with the cold and hot knobs to try to correct the situation. I turn down the cold knob and the water flow becomes normal again except for one thing. The water turns piss yellow. When i hit the cold knob and fully turn it off the water turns, i keed you not, rusty brown and then red. The water that is coming out of my washroom tap is red. Not blood red I might add but more of like a raspberry kool-aid. So I shut off the taps and i flip them back on. Again with the spitting action and then everything's back to normal. I let the water run a bit so i can finish rinsing out my mouth. At this point, it's kinda late and housemates are sleeping so i don't feel it's right to wake em and tell em about the water, but I've seen this scene happen in many movies. We have normal bath water turn into green ooze in Ghostbusters 2, we get tap water from a sink turn into muddy swamp water in an episode in Supernatural. What happens in the end? You die. A ghost or demon is angry with you and takes your life. Now I've managed to escape any ghosts that have it in for me tonight up to this point as i type away at this entry but there's no guarantee I'll be in my bed tommorow morning. So, if I'm no longer here and the cops find my body floating in Lake Ontario, Jordan gets to keep my turntables since he put dibbs on them in an earlier posting, katz can keep my chronicles of narnia collection, jon lee can get my leftover food cause he likes to eat, and you, since you're reading this right now, you get claim something that's currently in my room, other than my beloved guitar, Korea. A special request please, that we (Korea and I) can both be cremated together and that our ashes will be tossed into the winds on the beaches of Honolulu (maybe some of me will fly into Jack Johnson's hair and stick to his head like dandruff and I'll get a chance to live the life of a rockstar that is until he decides to wash his hair. If I'm gone tmw than like Tamia, I'm Officially missing you.

Thanks mom and dad for raising me. Goodbye cruel world

just a random entry about my thoughts on the counterculture of christianity today

2006-01-12T22:48:00.000-05:00

some legitimate lol-age here

It's been interesting to see how Christianity has emerged in Canada to become the big ole punching bag that it is now in today's culture with creationism being sharp-shootered in science labs (I see you Jordan putting up that kickass tribute to the Hitman), the Bible being power-bombed for being deemed irrelevant to deal with current issues like same sex marriages, and the beat(down) goes on...

An example of the biblical beatdown or moreso ommission: During the Christmas season, i managed to hit up a Cartoon christmas special, Disney's Recess, and during that one hour special they managed to give shout outs to Santa, Hanukah and Kwansa. Didn't catch No mention of Jesus though, cause I guess that's like swearing now and if it's Disney, you can bet that the G rating does not permit course language.

But yeah, it seems that Christianity has gone or is going counter-culture. Here's some food for thought: Is it easier to sell weed on campus now than it is to sell Jesus? Kanye gets some good jabs about top 40 radio or corporate america not being too fond of Jesus in Jesus walks but that's the lone ranger right now to the Leeggaaallliizzeee It ala Seana Paul, the Smookkkeee Weeed Everyday al a Dr Dre Next Episode (they got the Next Episode 2006 now), and our beloved Afroman who laments about his day of nothing because he got hizzigh

Here's some thoughts running through my cranium turbo about how Christians are responding though:
On the own hand you can be a laid back cool Christian cat and not let anything faze you. You can leave the political lobbying to the more intense brothas and sistas rocking the jesus freak wristbands at the cost of maybe being charged as being complacent or even hypocritical. And on the other hand, you can defend your faith by the (proverbial or literal) picket sign and march onward as a Christian soldier and be called a fundamentalist waging another high holy war. Action or inaction, it seems that flax will follow. And there we go, we got ourselves a counterculture, but it's not necessarily a counterculture as a unified culture that is opposed to the culture it is in, but moreso, the leftovers that culture as being postmodern pop oriented techno culture, no longer wants.

so where do we go from here? Like the Black Panthers, Christianity might become the new buzzword for keeds some years up ahead and everyone will be showing their Jesus membership-card and their Jesus-torn jeans, and their Jesus tattoo, and rocking (gasp) Jesus tunes on their 8 track players (which will become cool again, just you wait) while parents will be waging campaigns to get and keep Jesus outta town cause "He's poisoning our youth!". Heh.

So what now? well I think, and backlash very much welcome here, as a Christian, i think i gotta be better in breaking the stereotype whatever that may be as a gaybashing, hate mongering, holier than thou but not really holier than tho, hypocritical, funkiller, pretentious hipster (although this one might be justified). Now finding the proper means to do that is the trickdaddy of em all. Cause hey, Hitler thought of himself as a well-intentioned dude as well and he didn't exactly spread love and joy to the world. But yeah man. Being a Christ follower in today's world just got a whole lot harder (well not really if we make true comparisons throughout history and we take the lens off of Canada). I like to talk about this stuff more witchu if interested. And when you realize that there is no proper way of ending a blog entry you just hafta go mehhhhh.

jobbed

2006-01-11T17:49:00.000-05:00

work update: yep the reason why I am still in the t-dizzot is for work purposes really so i can continue to carry out interviews in writing my thesis. For ethical reasons I am not allowed as a researcher to disclose the subjects I am interviewing but I've honestly been learning a lot from them and which is shaping to a degree how i think of church in both the theological and practical sense of the term. Just as a quick recap tho, I'm writing an honours thesis on the emerging church scene in Ontario... emerging not as just a typically new church plant but one that fits the criteria of doing things reeaaal different from your typical bethel. But yeah, the journey's been real enlightening (sides from getting lost in the whitest of white towns) and yeah, my supervising professor has taken a real keen interest to my work that he's going to sponsor me as a research assistance to carry out some further research so he can publish his own paper on the topic which means your boy gets paid for school. How do you like them apples? I'm gonna get published after all, except it won't be my name on the paper. Meh.

fun with dano

2006-01-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

darrengene.blogspot.com says:
happy birthday mang
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
thanks dude!
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
how's it going man?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
good
getting ready to crack down on some work this week
but nice to spend an extended week back home
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
nice nice!
when are you coming back up?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
how's ur special day?
i'll probably be back in on saturday
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
was yesterday man
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
but, it was good
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
ahhhhhh cool coool........., man., u've been at home for a loong time.., i'm so jealous
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
ouch my bad
msn names are deceiving
nah well everyone else is back so i might be the jealous one this week
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
ahhhhhhh whatever man...., but, do come back soon man!
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
the funny thing is that if i really wanted to, i could probably run this whole term outta correspondence
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
hahahhahaha
are you SERIOUS
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
with the exception of one class on friday, yeah man
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
oh my..........., ahhhh at least you don't have friday's off
dude......, i think you should do it
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
u could even get an early jump on teaching overseas!
darrengene.blogspot.com:
yea i've looked into that already
apparently, japanese language training goes for one month, after that, certification, i could be in japan in march till september
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
DUDEEe!!
i can't believe that you could actually do it......., that's amazing man....,
but......., i think u should come to kingston.., so we can hang out for one more term
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
so yeah, been thinking of that. Running it by the parentals to see if it's alright and they're thinking about it
yeah right now kinda torn
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
woahh! so this is for real? like it could really happen?
what do the rent's say?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
they're not really for it at this point but they said if i get all the papers put together and show how i'd still be able to do the schoolwork, they'd give it more consideration
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
and u'd like to do it tho?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
i think i would. Been back and forth to the Nova office this past week and i'm honestly getting sold to do it up
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
hahaha, they're good at what they do....
but what about the app to hawaii?
would you being in japan affect it at all?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
yeah the thing is the contract would end in september allowing me to go to hawaii or ubc if i get into either....if they don't work out, i'd stay and extend my contract in japan
cause nova's good like that...u sign on a tri-monthly basis, not annually
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
hmmmmm........, i seee!!

and the school's wouldn't need to contact you about stuff? like.., acceptance.., ur parents' gonna mail it out for you to sign in japan?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
that's the good thing about both schools i'm going to. Everything can be done online. Yeah, they'll send me acceptance packages in the mail and stuff and i can get my rents to send me that stuff to japan but they'll correspond with me over the net as well
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
dang man.., sounds like it could work...
what about rent in kingston?
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
yeah well if i do it, then i just gotta eat the rent in kingston which sucks
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
ughhh....., CELL GROUP?

our worship team?!?!

COME BACKK!!!
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
yeah been talking to sammo about the situation and yeah, he's pretty against it too but he says that if i really feel that i should go, then i shouldn't give up the opportunity
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
yeah, it IS a great opportunity..., u could fit in an awesome trip to japan before starting grad school
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
yeah so i'm going to stop lying to you now man
[888] dano - YESS bday's at mcd's.., it's like i'm 8 again says:
you're a freaking jerk.
darrengene.blogspot.com says:
hahahaha
I think this'll make the blog

i got laser eyes!

2006-01-05T14:50:00.000-05:00

not as in laser eye surgery but my updated contacts prescriptions has me spotting pennies on the sidewalk... on the other side of the road and hair on people's sweaters. It's a whole new world. A new fantastic point of view. No one to tell us no of where to go or say we're only dreaming. But yeah, the break's been good. So good in fact that I've decided to extend it for another week so I'm taking a temporary hiatus from school in order to make the break a whole month instead of just a measley 3 weeks. I figure that this way, the feeling of heading back to school will be even more satisfying knowing that i am going to miss it for another week. And plus, since i figure my eyes get even worse when i'm at school staring at powerpoint slides in lecture(s), I'm doing my eyeballs a favour by saving them from an added week of strain and drain. I'm going to try to pamper these boys blinking more at the computer screen and ingesting more carrots. Afterall, with great power comes great responsibility. Annnnd it's about that time to end this nerd post.

astigmatized

2005-12-28T02:35:00.000-05:00

Can you Guess Who it's a mystery?
Um...Does your person wear glasses?
Yes!
It's Dano!
That's right you win!

yeah so after checking out my eyes at the optometrist i learned that 'sides from my near blind near sightedness, i also have minor astigmatism too on the side which contributes a bit to the blurring of the vision. Funny thing is that although this was news to me, apparently I had this for 5 years and my eye doctor just neglected to tell me until now. It just kinda slipped out...like "yeah so i'm gonna send out an order for new lenses for you to counter the slight changes in your right eye so if you can just see Viktor at the desk to set a pickup time that'll be great and you have astigmatism." So yeah man and since my eyes are still getting worse, i can't do up the laser treatment yet which means that if i ever plan to go surfing in the near future, either I'm going to have stumble about blind and no doubt get my ars kicked mistaking girls for my surfboard or rawk pescription goggles and still get my ars kicked for being on the beach and not at a dungeons and dragons convention. Being diagnosed with astigmatism might explain for the real clear slivers and small white chunks that i sometimes see every so often and when i try to follow them with my eyes they just zip away. But i never saw that as a problem, but moreso a dumb impossible to win game that i play with myself in trying to catch the slivers. Like in my wonder years, blinking everytime we passed by a streetlight in the car while my dad or mom was driving...Game was fun in neighbourhood zones but once we hit the open road and my dad can sometimes floor it, my eyes would get reaaal tired... which probably explains the eye problems now...that and those retarded magic eye pictures that i could never get (i mean how do you "unfocus" your eyes? I bet you nothing was ever there at all and it was just a trick to make gullible ppl look stupid... Everyone who says they can see spaceships and horses? Liars and are in on the prank. And for the rest of us trying to play the game in figuring out what's secretly (not) there like.."yeah now that i flip my eyeballs inside out and look a little to the right with my left eye while blinking with my right, i can kinda make out darth vader" meanwhile everyone else in the room is snickering. Didn't think i'd find out about ur tricks and lies diiidddd you? conspiracy theory's my gamme!). Bahhhhh! On the bright side, if i get reaaaal blind, maybe that'll be enuf justification for my dad to get me a "seeing-eyed" dog.

...and astigmatism also means that i see dead people. Woogie Boogie Nyuukeeeaaaa!

love me the 680 news

2005-12-26T03:27:00.000-05:00

so on our way home from the annual wong family christmas dinner, i caught this on 680 news:

Newscaster: ..."this marks the first time in almost 25 years that Hanukah is being celebrated on the same day as Christmas. With more on this story, we go to our special correspondent, Rabbi __________."

Rabbi ______: "Yes, this is a very rare occasion that both Jews and Christians can celebrate together on the same day. Because it is so rare, this makes this day very special."

Newscaster: "Thank you. And in other news..."

Thanks 680 news. I needed a rabbi to tell me that that something rare is special. Quuaaalllity use of sources there. If i ever setup a news show I'd get mike tyson to be my insider for all my news claims cause if you even try to disagree with him, he'll come over to your place, nibble on your ear a bit, and eat your kids.

a model of journalistic integrity

king kongacrappa

2005-12-23T03:20:00.000-05:00

Safe to read. No spoilers. Cept that Kong dies in the end. But if you didn't know about that than I should probably let you know that Jesus rises from the dead in the Passion of the Christ. Whoops. Honestly, there's a whole lotta good that can be said about this movie and a whole lotta bad. Now if you watched this movie, jack black caps off the movie with a pretty memorable quote at the very very end. Only problem with the quote is that it's absolutely retarded. If you haven't seen it, go watch it, if even just to hear that one quote. And then come back here and we can talk about it. Seriously, it's one of those movies that eveyrone has to see. Like Starwars. No matter how retarded it is and how bad the acting is, you have to see it so you can tell your kids that you saw it cause starswars and kingkong and titanic will be the only movies that they'll recognize from ur generation. Like my mom and dad telling me about all these obscure bands they listened to but the only ones that register are the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. Do it for the kids so you guys can have something to talk about over the dinner table. Making connections to the obligatory "drug talk" with the kids will be much easier when u make reference to peter jackson being high as a kite when making this movie.

a few of my favourite (kinds of) blogs

2005-12-21T03:12:00.000-05:00

I had a chance to catch the tail end of the sound of music a couple days back which got my thinking about what are a few of my favourite things... and that's blogs. So many different types, and here I outline my favourite kinds:

1) The metaphorical Blog: these are the ones that don't really tell you anything about the person, how he or she's doing, but might give you an idea. These ppl often post song lyrics which apparently are supposed to reflect the current state of mood that they're in. How Lifehouse lyrics get to so many blogs is a mystery to me. I mean is Lifehouse really that good that u must post "you and me" on ur site or a similar type song on ur site? What kills me are the ones with mp3s or midi songs embedded into the site once u load the page... and it's ALWAYS a slow jam. When did everyone become so romantical? How are you going to have Utada Ikaru's First Love song playing on your site when u don't even understand Japanese? For all you know, she could be talking smack about your mom in the verse while you sway gently back and forth to the infectious musicbox piano key hits. We need to get original and upload some good ole Metallica to midi. Can you imagine how the guitars would sound for Unfrogiven in midi? that would rock my world and instantly make that page a bookmark for me.

2)The Spiritual encourager blog : These sites are also metaphorical in nature. A simple Bible passage is posted and that is it. They're usually posted because they were some form of encouragement to the writer and she/he felt it was a good idea to post it to encourage others. I'm in no way knocking this approach because hey, at least the writer is posting about something that is eternally significant, but verses can be pretty cryptic. I'd be more interested in how you interpreted such passages in your life and how you responded in turn.

3)The hater-ation/Ranter blog : This extends to hating about everything about their significant other, their hate for others who have significant others, their hate for themselves because they don't have a significant other, and just generally hate all around. To be honest, reading such entries makes me LOL (except i'm not really LOLing...I'm just thinking LOL cause LOLing at your computer? who actually does that? Hey if you do, that's cool...that's just not me, so when you spot me saying LOL, check me in my fakery cause I'm probably not LOLing and would need a good rebuke for lying). These blogs are all about creating drama where there should be no drama. I love ppl who hate on wannabe gangstas like they're all wise old men who have been gangstas and have the street cred to say: "Hey son. Stop dressing like a G, cause I was a G and I know that you ain't one." It's the "realness" critics, the "relationship gurus", the "hopeless romantics" that all come out and show their true colours in such blogs. Being a fellow hater myself, to the extent that I just like to laff about everything because this world is just a funny funny place with funny funny ppl, i gotta give two thumbs up (with some serious cut-eye on the side) for offering me minutes of fun.

4) the What Just Happened blog : After getting thru an entry of these kinds, you're just left there scratching your head thinking that maybe the mushrooms you ate in your pasta might have actually been shrooms, which is why you're so dazed and confused right now. These are the most completely random blogs in the universe of bloggery which my consist of math tangrams for the oct 15th entry followed directly by a grocery list the next day. People who are typing away on their keyboards for these blogs have to be certified geniuses cause an ordinary person's brain does not operate in that manner... but then again there is no real fine line between insanity and genius... sucess seems to be the determining factor between the two. If you visit such blogs regularly, get in tighter with the blogwriter cause she/he is brimming on some Beautiful Mind Action and you just might be the Jennifer Connelly to the Russell Crowe if you play your cards right.

yeah so these are my favourite kinds of blogs. I by no means am claiming that I have not dipped into each archetype because to a certain degree I have posted incredibly random things, posted obscure bible verses that spoke a certain brand of truth to me, hated on others and hated on the fact that I am being hated on by others, but what I have NEVVEERRR done is post song lyrics. I don't know why. Songs do speak to me. I just never felt compelled to post a set of lyrics...until now. So here goes. Enjoy my faithful blog reader! Peace to K-town.

R&B singer R. Kelly was arrested in Florida in 2002 on 21 counts of child pornography. The arrest was based on a videotape allegedly showing R. Kelly having sex with an underage girl.

My minds telling me no but my body my body's telling me yeah baby i dont want
to hurt nobody but there is something that i must confess to you

Chorus
I dont see nothing wrong (Wrong) With a little bump and grind with a little
bump and grind I dont see nothing wrong (wrong ba ba baby Hey)I dont see
nothing wrong (wrong) I dont see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind
with a little bump and grind i dont see nothing wrong (wrong)

Verse
(lookie here) See i know just what you want and i know just what you need girl
so baby bring your body to me(bring your body here) im not fooling around with
you baby my love is true with you with you is where i want to be i want to be
girl you need someone someone like me to satisfy your every need.

Bring that badboy back to the chorus yeaaaahhh

the break thus far...

2005-12-21T00:57:00.000-05:00

i have beeeen eating sooo much foood.

When I'm at home making dinner in the ktizzzown, I'd usually do up half a cup of rice, 2-3 cups of veggies (assuming that they're in the frozen form), and slab of meat be it fish, chicken, or beef, and call that a meal. But ever since I got home I've been eating for two... and it doesn't help that my parents have been taking me to all you can eat sushi places (i'm heading again tommorow...this'll be twice since i got back on the saturday, not including taco sushi which i hit up with ET peeps after church). I knew it was coming too. When I first walked thru the door my mom said i looked too skinny and said that she was going to fatten me up good before i head back to school.

I'm now beginning to realize that that's the mission of all mothers in my family: to fatten up their kids. It's true everytime my grandma sees my dad (but my dad is legitimately skinny being the frikken ironman marathon runner that he is...and no im not jealous). I believe my mom said the same thing to my bro and he ain't even that skinny. You know i don't necessarily have a problem with my moms telling me that she's going to feed me good, but why does she wanna fatten me up? Is this because she wants me to be nice and plump before she sticks me in the oven? Do your moms tell you this as well? Honestly, I don't think i've gotten skinnier and my weight's been pretty consistent for 5 straight years. I think her telling me i look skinnier might be a front... that is unless of course the family pictures she's been developing have been stretching the pictures a little too sideways or the digicam picture viewer that she rawks makes people seem a little chunkier and shorter than they really are. But tha can't be the case either cause she's never in the past 3-4 years, said that I look like i'm taller (damn you milk and your lies). And yeah, there's the whole obsession with looking healthy with Chinas and what healthy really looks like (my chinese middle name means good-health just to show you how big a priority that was for my parents for me....nope not to be handsome or damn sexy...to be healthy)... this has the makings of another retarded Seinfeld post where i rant about nothing....i'll stop here and carry on with the rest of my weekend.

So yeah besides the excessive eating, I'm setting up interviews for my thesis with pastors and revs from emerging churches, and they've all been real receptive about doing these interviews...even offering to take me out to lunch and pay for my meals in doing em... I suppose that kinda generousity is expected out of church shepherds, but it's real nice to be on the receiving end, especially during the crazy Christmas consumer rush.

And yeah, on another note, I've been doing pretty good in avoiding the consumer rush (except when it comes to food at least). I only hit up Fairview once and that was to pick up a pair of some real nice leather mitts to keep the paws warm. Think I'm going to do the shopping for the family online this year...maybe book a show for my parents thru ticketmaster.ca, and get something nice for my bro. Don't know yet, but it's been the least of my worries. I've had some good times so far: Watching Narnia and almost watching Kong the next day with good friends, playing hockey with ET boys and Eric Mok, making a ruckus at Gavo's baptism, chillen like a villain with my always dependable, sometimes off the top with the ethnic hate boys (and manda =p), watching raptors games again on the tv set, putting gradschool applications on the backburner....yeah man goodtimes

And more fun stuff to happen during this week including Kong (finally), illuminate and ET parties, and winter crystal bizzaaaallll

And on a totally random tangent, just a quick question. If you had a plant that you grew and nurtured for 3 years but in the third year, started to grow mega ugly...like a twig with a couple of leaves on the top, wouldn't you chuck that? I sure would. Ugliness is grounds for chucking. There I made my case Kat Zhang.

Peace to K-Town (and dano: I'm eating for both of us here in your memory haha)

phonetag

2005-12-15T17:28:00.000-05:00

so right about now (5:28PM) i'm waiting by the computers at mac-correy pressing the refresh button on my email box hoping that my thesis supervisor will hit me back. This afternoon was all about phonetag, email tag since we've both been working against the clock trying to get ethics approval for my undergrad thesis that im working on regarding postmodern churches. He's all over the place, I'm all over the place and now that everything's done, all i need is his signature and then i can drop this sucka off and head home with a smile. Real nice guy, but impossible to locate. He's the kinda guy that when u try to schedule an appointment with him, he emails you from india 5 hours later letting u know he'll be back shortly. arrrrgrggghhhh but yeah all i need to do is find him then everything's gravy. I love how in mac correy too, when u go upstairs everything is windows so u can check to see if the person u're looking for is on the 3rd or 5th floor as well. Wish me luck or im going to have to make a homecheck! peas

(5:38 update): cmon now. If you're a prof teaching about new communications technology there's no excuse to no pick up ur phone or answer ur emails. Work with me here ryan (name changed to protect identity). let's go.

(5:38: 32 seconds): yesss i type that fast while still looking down at the keyboard. I've grown impatient and hungry within the last 32 seconds. I'm going to call his home now

(5:40): why is no one picking up? why won't you return my calls? was it something i said? was it something i've done? I'm starting to feel the irrational/violent veins pumping...

(5:44): that's it. I'ev had it. Prof. tomilslot (name changed to protect identity) is the invisible man. I'm not in the proper mental state to continue with these sherades. Unguarded empty pop cans beware. Hulk smaaasssshhh! Oh well, at least i get to head to "wok IN" with jordan and dano tonite and then watch kingggg konnnggg take on t-rexs! oh snap! maybe this'll beat narnia night last night (which i really enjoyed)....irrational/violent veins subsiding... all is well. Serenity now

(5:59): was halfway on way to home when i decided to call his home again. Success. I can drop off forms at his house. Now back at Maccorrey doing my part of the signing and updating about the latest. Hopefully this'll be the last post about this. Pray that i don't get attacked by squirrels or rhinos on my trek to his home
Peas for good

(6:00): my prof is also a prof about surveillance practices with new forms of tech. I will change his name to protect his identity as well as my own academic future just in case this blog becomes published in sociolofy today

what the heck...let's make it 4 posts in one night

2005-12-14T02:04:00.000-05:00

funny

funny

funny

kinda funny

funny... when we did that in frikken elementary school! That's just straight up ignant.

Let him know, son

kobe again

2005-12-14T01:46:00.000-05:00

thanks to ken tang for this one. harhar

2005-12-14T01:18:00.000-05:00

if boiling eggs correctly is a sceince thanm i'm no scientist. Sick.

bleeeccchhh

2005-12-14T01:01:00.000-05:00

this stuff doesn't hehlp u concentate better. it jstu make your fingersa alk jitttery so yoiu can't tyoe good. say no to redfull

a break from the essays...

2005-12-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

...to post about social responsibility. I wrote a comment on jordan's blog in response to the political agenda of gunlaws coming up in the next election so i felt like venting a bit here.

gunlaws gunlaws gunlaws. On the surface this might not seem like a race issue but it totally is, since in Canada the ppl most likely to pull the triggers (or so says our "unbiased" Canadian media outlets) are young black males. What are we saying by enforcing gunlaws? That you need to get your piece registered and if you don't and you get caught with a pistol, you'll get jail time.

Now gunlaws have been a bigger issue as of late given that the number of homicides of black on black violence has increased. Take into account of some innocent bystanders who weren't black who got shot as well and now we have a "moral epidemic" (It's always a moral case when a black man shoots and kills a non-black person..."OH NO! NOT IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD!"... but if we flip the switch and give the white man the gun and have a black person lying on ground, it's not so bad).

So what effect do gunlaws have on our homicide problem? As Jordan was talking bout in his blog, if you want a gun, a gunlaw isn't going to stop you from getting one... it'll just give the cops another excuse to toss your hide in Kingston Penitentiary.

Bling Blang. get Rich or die Trying succckkkaaa

When you watch MuchMusic nowadays don't you just feel good knowing that if u had kids right now u could leave them in front of the set to oogle over bouncing bootays in seanapaul videos and gunfingers raised in 50 cent vids? just warms the heart . So we've got an urban culture that glorifies "the lovely lady lumps" and gangsta culture. It's interesting to look at the history of rap and see that it first started out as a tool of protest against white oppression. Look at what it is now. White corporate America hsa managed to take a tool of resistance and reappropriate it to meet their own ends....profit maximization. It's all about the escalades with the spinners and the glock to make sure that no tries to hotwire ur new ride. We live in a culture that glorfies sex, violence, and material things. Who's profiting off of this culture? Not black ppl that's fo sho. And now you got white kids and chinese kids and other kids of other ethnicities trying to be gangstas too (and white men in the board room are all like..."crap! not our kids. This was only meant for blacks!")

So now they wanna tell me that gunlaws are going to help the problem? U can probably do more for the struggle by rolling down Rodeo drive California with a shotgun in hand.

awwww aren't they cute

and on the other side of the world: wait a minute...are those guns...real?

gotta love him

2005-12-10T13:28:00.000-05:00

Kobe makes the best pictures. Enter in your own caption for this picture. I'll start then you:

Janeero: Hello... yeah listen Kobe... i know i fouled you on that last play and all but...
Kobe: Shut up.
Janeero: uhhhh...
Kobe: Just shut up. You had me at hello. You had me at... hello. (cue bruce springstein's secret garden here)

question...

2005-12-09T03:52:00.000-05:00

what's right/wrong with this picture?

I'll take the first stab then you. Kobe's shoes need to be outlawed.

reeeeeee-flect

2005-12-07T18:46:00.000-05:00

So i've been pretty conflicted in the past 48 hours about social work and why exactly I'm applying to social work programs right now. Figured that social work would be the "logical" progression after finishing up an undergrad in sociology for the following reasons:

1) Sociology is the study about how the world we live in is bleeding from all orifices is and social work sees itself as the itsy bitsy band-aid

2) Since both disciplines are the object of crude jokes u wouldn't say in front of your granny with a dash of pity at medical conventions and legal cocktail parties, i won't have to throw away my list of snide scientists, doctors, lawyers, and professional charlatans that i plan to assassinate when i make the transition from sociologist to social worker

3) They both start with Soci... like socicannibalist

after some digging into what being a social worker is all about, especially with regards to child welfare, I've come to realize that many of the stereotypes of being a social worker are shockingly true:

1) The pay is low. Median salary is 30-35 gs. A small minority of supervisors and social workers of social workers see double that but that's about as high as that goes.

2) Social workers working in child welfare do face the risk of bodily harm... from the parents of the kids u've decided to remove from the home for safety issues

3) there's a high turnover rate for social workers due to not being paid enuf, not being prepared for the harsh realities of the job, beauracratic mumbo jumbo, and developing cases of depression.

So all this got me thinking. Is it all worth it? Is social justice and change high on my list of priorities that i'd be willing to forego personal riches of a more money-laden job? Do i really care THAT much? Now I realize I can read and read and read and still not know what being a social worker is really about since I'm looking in from the outside but my initial impression is like this job could turn out to be like watching a Passion of the Christ movie marathon over and over again and skipping over the part where we know that Christ overcomes the grave at the end.

Then just recently while reading an article for an essay I'm writing (yes i still have work to do you insensitive monkeys) I came across this quote which floored me:

"We simply cannot transform the world without in the process of transforming ourselves. We cannot stay fabulously rich and still pretend that we are committed to eradicating poverty. If doing away with inequality means - and does it not mean this? - that our privileges must be shared equally and universally." - Brain Murphy (Inter Pres)

and in light of all the biblestudies that alvi and I have been leading about not living for ourselves, it really got me to thinking to what extent do i take this... being committed to others, living a life not of my own... seriously?

you know and u pray for this sort of thing that God would do whatever the hell he wants with you and that u just learn to be submissive... man what if God's calling me to do this and the "perils" of the job is making me not want to listen?

man.

oh my goodness

2005-12-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

so yeah im applying to the university of hawaii for social work this year. So recently, they just put a promo video about campus life over there and man... it's goooood times like watching saved by the bell reruns.

Favourite part in the trailer:

Dan: heeeeyyyy K-dawg!
Kamuela: hey dan-dawg!
Dan and Kamuela: Woooof!

best promo ever. And as Dan would say, "it's the bomb yo". Cross your fingers for me. It might be me in next year's promo giving props to my boys K-dawg and Dan-Dawg. bark!

praise and prayer

2005-12-03T13:18:00.000-05:00

man i just wanna say that i had a lot of fun last night at the fellowship's praise and prayer. Real hard to hear anything cause everything was so loud but just singing with one eye open and watching ppl with eyes shut and arms raised expressing their love to an awesome and loving God and then getting retarded with shouts of praise later did it for me. Everyone going nuts over a rockstar named Jesus. Goodtimes. But yeah man. It's so encouraging to be in a room with ppl who seem to love Jesus so much which even the more motivates me to carry out that love outside the walls of kingston hall. Rock on

spizzzooorrrttsss

2005-11-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

u know besdies social work, i wonder what it'd be like if i became a Toronto sports writer. I think my ability to talk about sports more than makes up for inadequacies in playing sports. I point the blame finger at my parents for enrolling me into too many music and arts classes and not throwing me into a house league. Ahh well. Let bygones be bygones. Here are my thoughts on recent events in the world of baseball and basketball for toronto's faithful:

Bluejays signing BJ Ryan to 5 years at 47 million

Huge signing. With the name BJ, you know it was only a matter of time before he returned home to the (BLUEJAYS...just in case ur head was somewhere else with reference to the acronyms in his name). Here's the next step in maturation for a good developing ballclub. We've got a decent core of kids who we raised in our farm and now we're just finishing the puzzle by adding some more pieces on the side...hopefully within the next few weeks we'll add a couple of more pieces by the name of AJ and maybe Giles. That would be a fun and competitive team to watch.

Raptors suck now
It's true, but i remain optimistic that it's all part of the big plan. Babcock even said in the start of the season, which was a pretty dumb move on his part, that we'd do worse than last season given our youth movement. So yeah, nothing totally unexpected here...we're just probably a little worse than we iniitally thought we were. But the kids look promising. Love me charlie vanilla and Calderon and Graham has some hops. Give them a full season together and we'll be looking a lot better. Take into account that we'll be pulling in two more first rounders in the next (but weaker) draft, bring over our overseas kids, throw jalen rose in the garbage can come contract expiry time and we got ourselves a whole new look. Best possible scenario I see is us developing into the Bulls who basically pulled the plug on their vets and started to play their kids. Albeit our kids are not as good as theirs but here's hoping we might have a similar impact. Until then, just bite ur tongue and make sure u take plenty Peptol Bismol after every loss.

Yeah man and for the Leafs.... just get the cylinder shaped ball thing into the hoop or mesh. Yeah. Go Leafs Go.

2005-11-29T17:18:00.000-05:00

you know that this year's Winter Crystal Ball is going to be a big party when ur parents call u at 5 in the afternoon, 1 month in advance to the actual date, that they already got their tickets and are wondering if you got urs already. WHAT THE HECK? that's just wiiiizzzziiieeerrrrdddd!

eric nei is in need of some serious sensitivity training

2005-11-28T15:25:00.000-05:00

(earlier at around 1:30pm)
Katz: "coming up the stairs...everything smells like pee" (in reference to the stairs leading up to our apartment smelling like pee)

(later at around 3PM)
Eric: yeah man, i was downstairs earlier today and there was a guy outside talking to another guy and yeah man, he smelled homeless. Now everything down there smells homeless!

Therefore according to Eric Nei, the term 'homeless' is synonymous with 'stale urine'. INTERVENTION!

sensitivity training subject in question