Humble Bees and Daisy Kisses.

So...

I just got anally raped by my Kanji and Grammar finals. Wow.

I...don't know if I'll get those As this semester.
Ugh. It's all up to prayer now.



Listen to Disturbia with me. Don't know why I'm liking this song suddenly.

Probably gonna read more 1984. I'll go to the library and work on my paper in a bit.
At least I'm pretty much done with my Japanese classes now. From here on out, it's mainly papers.

Also, here's a story on our "schizophrenic" Axis of Evil policy. Found it interesting.
Here.

Be back later.

ETA: The forces at work on youtube are quite fast. New video since the one I originally posted has been taken down.

Milking neutrinos from a dead dwarf star.

This is shameful, but I've started listening to Mindless Self Indulgence again.

I found about them from my carpool, back in high school. At first I hated them but after listening to them for a good two years or so, my brain was poisoned.

The FGWSS album from 1999 is the most familiar to me. Golden I might be my favorite song. "Holy Shit" is also pretty good, I think.

Here's a fan video for "Golden I" if you want to give it a listen.

Yeah, I pirated all their albums. Don't judge me too harshly-- I still have no intention of going to any of their concerts.

Also. I saw this video a while back and thought it was funny. Excuse my blasphemy; I'm sort of on strike from Catholicism at the moment.



Maybe the key to being a consistent blogger is just using a lot of youtube. I've discovered Meghan's secret!

Alright, I really need to do some work now.

So far, it's:

--Memorize my speech for tomorrow
--Do my Japanese exam review packet for tomorrow
--Study for Kanji Final[Wednesday]
--Study for Grammar Final[Wednesday]
--Write my paper on Zen Ethical Theory by Friday...in Japanese
--Write a paper on Kafka on the Shore[Before Semester Ends]
--Write a paper on a Japanese Experience class, or something[Before Semester Ends]
--Turn in all my essays[Before semester ends]

Uhhhh. I guess it's all mainly busy work but a paper on Zen ethics? Like, a serious philosophy paper, in Japanese? I'm unsure of what it's supposed to look like, but I think he said something like a preliminary rough draft would be about 5 pages? But the actual research students here have to write 10 page papers. Do I...really have to write a ten page paper in Japanese on comparative ethics?

Uhhhh. I never should have tried to be an overachiever and sign up for this optional Japanese philosophy thing. Hopefully I don't bomb too badly.

I should get back to work now.

Dreaming of teacups, in yesteryear

Some quotes that I like:

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody." -- Catcher in the Rye.

I never reread anything, but I have the strangest desire to reread Catcher in the Rye. When I read it, around age 13 in my summer before high school, I thought Holden was such a neurotic dick. Even though he did remind me of myself and some of my friends, he wasn't a character I particularly wanted to read about.

I think I would feel differently about it now. It also makes me want to reread Franny and Zoey, which I don't think I ever finished? I did love the pretentiousness of it all, though.

Another quote:

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. " -- A Remembrance of Things Past, Volume II.

I forgot how much I adore Marcel Proust. He's also on my list of rereads.

I'll add a few more. Scan if you can; read if you might.

"But, when nothing subsists from a distant past, after the death of others, after the destruction of objects, only the senses of smell and taste, weaker but more enduring, more intangible, more persistent, more faithful, continue for a long time, like souls, to remember, to wait, to hope, on the ruins of all the rest, to bring without flinching, on their nearly impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory."

"Society people are often myopic; at the moment when the cease all relations with Jewish ladies of their acquaintance, as they wonder how to fill the void, they notice, pushed among them as if by a stormy night, a new lady, who is also Jewish; but thanks to her newness, she is not associated in their minds, as were the earlier ladies, with what they believe they must detest. she does not demand that they respect her God. She is adopted. It was not a question of antisemitism when I first started to go to Odette’s."

"There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life’s circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently—without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love."

"Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination."

All from A Remembrance of Things Past. Other quotes may be found here.

And he's Queer? Amazing. Proust has this amazing way of taking everything that I like about Old world writing and doing it so incredibly well. He makes me want to be a novelist.

In other news, I've been feeling this change come on for a while-- I was talking to Irene about it earlier. That I'm slowing down, getting a little less excited? I keep seeing myself in tea shops, wearing sweaters, screaming less and adventuring even less so.

In other words, I am feeling heartbroken in a number of ways, melancholy, and literary. The last one is a good thing-- I always think I'm a better writer when I'm a little sad.

Still reading 1984. And I really need to start studying for finals.

Wish me luck.

Air, Brain and Physical Conditioning.

I was looking back at my first entry and I think I wanted this blog to be a little more issue oriented. Maybe I'll try that.

I was reading the news for the past hour or so, enjoying my Saturday hangover.[Perhaps I'll talk about last night at some point] Normally, I just go onto google news every now and then and try to randomly read articles but I went to specific sites today.

I don't know why I thought I would like the Huffington Post. It seems creative, interesting, hip and young-- I should be a good fit. But I was reading a few articles for about a half hour and many of the arguments were utterly unconvincing. I couldn't help tearing them apart in my head. It's also a tad too liberal for my tastes.

I am starting to like BBC, though-- I think they have a good, critical way of reporting. Perhaps a bit liberal but it doesn't bother me as much, for some reason.

The people on Biased-BBC seem to have a problem with it, though.

Maybe the Telegraph would be a better fit. Hmm.

In other news. Hopefully I remember to talk about this. The link features a video of verbal fisticuffs between Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, on the View. I've seen the show maybe twice, tops, and even I knew enough to predict the ending: someone crying.



Anyway, they're arguing about the use of the n word. After posting on some Black Gay forums[I'd link but...perhaps some anonymity here and there is a good thing], I've been thinking about my own position on it as well-- I don't know if I've done my obligatory post on the n-word. Might as well do it now.

It bothers me when someone who doesn't have a good reason to use it uses it. Namely, those who do it because they're friends are doing it or it's in vogue or whatever. The only acceptable reason to use the n-word is to de-power it, if someone has the deliberate intent in mind of reducing the word's power and taking ownership of it.

Of course, even by using it without having some sort of agenda to reduce the stigma around the n-word, you still reduce its stigma. Albeit unconsciously. So perhaps my position doesn't have a leg to stand on after all. Part of me realizes this, which is why I've gradually become more liberal about it, but it's still not a word I use or see myself ever using. Might have something to do with the way I was raised.

Elisabeth's line about "trying to live in the same world" struck me. Is that really the goal? I disagree for the most part.

But I'm tired of talking about the n word.

In other news, currently reading:



My edition is different but this one has a cooler cover. I feel as if there are a slew of books that people are expected to have read before college or in college, this being one of them. So I'm giving it a go before it gets to late.

It's alright so far; I'm about a hundred pages in. Maybe I'll try to plow through it today.

Hopefully I can keep this up-- talking about books, I mean. If there's anything I actually *do* often, it's read. Maybe next entry I'll make a list of recommendations or start doing reviews here.

I'm off. Later, duckies.

Blood Brothers

And this is what happens when you force a poem.

Don't try this at home.

Blood Brothers

I assume we were blood brothers,
though we never bled enough to tell.
Beer brothers at the very least,
drowning in whiskey together,
my hand not in his as we crossed
black streets.

I am not sure when 'are' became 'were',
when my blood coagulated and turned into
something irrevocably different,
irrevocably queer and possibly sinister,
when the jeans I wore became even more cum-stained
than his.

But when they did, what we had stopped being an
adventure and started being a
crusade.

--

Also, I apparently love myself to the point that I am uninterested in other people.
I wish someone could have told me this earlier.

Vacuum cleaner nightmares, on Monday nights.

Perhaps I should stop apologizing for my inconsistency. I'm torn. On the one hand, my apologies and half-assed reasons explaining what has led to yet anotherspell of bad blogging gives me a gimmick. A way to start every entry-- maybe it's endearing.

As I was going through it, though, I've noticed how often I actually do start with "sorry" or something other, and do I really mean it? If I did, I'd probably be more consistent. Right?

So, I apologize for not being sorry enough. I am working on it.

I am going to let you all in on a little secret, since I'm apparently being introspective and thinking on this sticky Monday night.[Have I mentioned Japan has suddenly become hot as BALLS?] I have this bad habit. It's small, I suppose, and I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. But I'll try. I actually check my blog quite often, and the comments from last entry were really quite moving. And I intended to write an entry quite a while ago but I kept avoiding it, putting it off, thinking of doing Japanese homework that I would eventually leave undone. And this snowballs, somehow, hours become days, my "I'll write an entry tomorrow"s slip from my mind. And before I realize, a month has passed.

The same thing happens with eMails, actually. Someone will send me an eMail-- my teachers, my advisors, even my mom and I'll go through the same motions of delay. First a half-hour, then a few hours, and while I've been too busy assing around playing Hearts or reading the Economist time will crawl by until it's some obscene hour. And when it gets too late, I always feel as if it's too late to write an eMail, as if my fingers stop working properly after 11 P.M., and so it'd be best to leave it to tomorrow. Rinse and repeat. Magically, a week has gone by and my advisor is now messaging my classmates to relay information because I've been too unfeeling to respond to an eMail asking if I was in good health after my trip to China. As melodramatic as it sounds, I really fear getting eMails.

So, now we've all become closer.

I'm unsure of what this entry should be about. Perhaps race.

There's no way I could seriously discuss all of my feelings about race in Japan in one entry. But one recent development is worth talking about, namely what seems to be the white guilt of some of my classmates and my recent ineptness in tackling racism and prejudice.

For the past month or so, it's become apparent to everyone in the dorm that I am a "heavy drinker", since I'm hungover for half of the week most of the time. This has led to me being invited to the drunk brigade with two of my Tufts classmates-- one is short, sort of pudgy-ish, black hair, typical NJ-but-spends-time-in-NY kind of suburban type. The other is tall, bald, in his thirties, Californian joker type, I guess. And so we usually go out drinking every Thursday, sometimes with another boy, who's from California.

On one such night, as we were chugging cheap Japanese beers, getting ready to go to a nomi-houdai[all you can drink, essentially], I was asked: "So, since we're close now, I can make Black jokes, right?"

As I held my beer can to my lips, I raised my eyebrows. I didn't even dignify it with an answer. Just, "huh?"

"Well, I mean, now that we're good friends and stuff, you know that I wouldn't mean any jokes offensively, right? You can make Jewish jokes and stuff too; it's totally cool."

Or something to that effect.

I just looked. And laughed. And looked some more. I think I gave something akin to a "yeah, sure" because, as I'll get to later, I have become incredibly lazy and, as mentioned above, inept with dealing with racial issues.

I don't recall what exactly was said. Some comments about Hypnotiq being a "Black drink"[though they've all had it more often than I have, apparently] and some other nonsense. This has all been snowballing, and I made the mistake of making a statement the other night that I think will only add to the enabling. The conversation went something like the following:

Me:"Yeah, my high school was pretty expensive too, about 25K a year."
M: "Wow, yours was expensive too?"
Me: "For no reason. I mean, there was nothing extraordinary about, I guess it was because I got to go to school with you guys."

M., the guy I was talking to, is Jewish. What I meant by "you guys" was people with money, and from context, it sort of makes sense. But what I'm pretty sure it was taken as was a Jewish joke, which was not what I meant. We were interrupted by some other people coming to our little "Beer garden" party and so I never was able to clarify myself. Plus, I was pretty drunk at this point. I'm just pretty sure that this came off as me agreeing to that little, "you can make Jewish jokes, too" permission that I was given. Which was not my intent.

I'm pretty sure I'm enabling.

Anyway, I suppose I don't laugh enough when one of them compares me to Jero[have I talked about him? If not, then that deserves its own entry. He's a Black singer in Japan] or when a joke is made about Kanye West or Flavor Flav. And so, at least in the past two weeks, two of the four have felt the need to give me apologies about it, about, once again, how they don't mean to be offensive and hope I am not taking the jokes in that way.

I, of course, feel some kind of way about it. But as when Jefferson[a Nigerian] used the n-word in China, or when another Latino friend of mine used it, or as when someone else made a racial faux pas that made me uncomfortable over the past year, I have preferred to ignore it instead of explaining why that sort of behavior makes me uncomfortable.

There's a lot more to say[like, say, my actual opinion, I guess] but it's almost ten o'clock and I'd rather pretend to do my homework. Maybe I'll make a part two to this entry.

Anyway, yesterday, a friend here took a picture of the front of a Japanese record store here in Kanazawa and I am going to steal that now and post it. Credit to him, of course.[Whatever, I'm not a real blogger; I can plagiarize...right?]




This led to us "talking about" a series of issues-- and by talking about, I mean, him asking me questions about racism and me responding. This is unfortunately my general impression of racial dialogue with white or passable "liberals"-- them asking questions and the other responding with their complaints and grievances. But I shall leave that topic for another entry. Either way, he asked me a series of questions-- "Which country do you feel is more racist, China or Japan?", "What types of racism did you deal with in America?", etc. And part of me was reluctant to answer-- here this goes again, if and when I fail to adequately represent Black grievances to a potential ally in the struggle for Black Power!!![yes, the exclamations are necessary], I will have to deal with the disappointment, with my sudden ineptness in explaining why a lot of Black people are still mad.

And instead of talking about the jail system, or how race relations in the 1960s and beforehand in the US has had major effects on class and gender issues in the Black community today, or the public schooling system, or health issues, or WHATEVER, I wound up saying getting chased by cops.

And I always feel as if, as silly as it might be, that despite their oh-so-bleeding hearts, and the compassion that they wear on their sleeves and facebook profiles, that many of these white liberals have a quota, a limit to how many times they can ask a Black person about racism. So. What if I'm the last person they can fit in the quota? And if I, the rare sagelike Black kid who's almost done with a relatively good college, cannot answer these questions appropriately-- who will?

And this is all what runs through the mind of a petty Juggernaut like me when I get asked these questions.

It's hot as balls. I have homework but I want to write a poem. And I've been thinking of that comic that I wanted to write, again.

I imagine this entry is possibly offensive, and I'd apologize, but...do I mean it?

Hopefully this entry was a good exercise in honesty, a faculty I've forgotten how to use properly. I'll come in and do clean up later, if necessary.

Much love. There's so much more to say-- I think I might actually write another entry tomorrow but with me, that's probably as likely as leeches raining from the sky.

Fin.