Chael's Xanga

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:07:03 GMT

hey all! so it strikes me that i haven't written since...umm...last fall. i assure you, it's not because i ran out of things to say. it's just that i....umm...got busy. yeah. that's it. but never fear, gentle reader, chael's blog is back in force! i've decided that, since i have nothing better to do with my life right now, i'm going to update this page daily. well, i'm going to try to update it daily anyway. so start checking my page when you can... you're sure to find *something* that interests you.

today's blog is just a bit of an update. kinda let you all know what i've been up to since, well, last september. in a nutshell, i graduated from college (yay!), except i still haven't received my diploma yet, since my thesis chair decided it was more important to (1) write a book (check it out...its a yearly publication called Africa by Charles Cutter published by Stryker-Post), (2) party his ass of in belgium (yes you really can party there) and (3) pretend he was lewis (or clark) and go trekking through the wilderness of eastern montana. i shouldn't complain tho because i got the paper to him like 2 months late.

at the end of last term, i'm guessing as a reward for finally finishing my fucking paper, the fates gave me a hot boy to play with for a while. damn was he a hot boy. like 6'7, blonde hair, blue eyed grade a hottie from virginia. but alas, i lost him towards the end of summer when i came back to hawaii. yeah. i came back to hawaii. mostly to help my parents move. i guess they're finally going through with their plans and leaving hawaii. my mom want's to move to the great inland empire apparently. why? i'm not entirely certain. but temecula seems to suit them. my dad can drink local wine. my mom can live in a large track home and drive an suv. so it works out.

so here i sit, in starbucks kaneohe, two and a half months later, still waiting for the parents to sell the damn house. which is guess is coming, since they're talking to a realtor as we speak. complicating things was been my dad's massive construction/renovation project aimed at making the house more valuable. and the fact that my sister got knocked up. yes. that's right. sis is gonna have a little boy. wild shit huh?

so things have been pretty stressful lately, as you can imagine. and i in particular have been going out of my my since i'm in a state i don't really like, i'm living with my parents. i'm sleeping on the floor. i'm sharing a bathroom with the rents (yes, in a house with 5 bathrooms, there is only one functional bathroom right now. damn construction). i haven't smoked hookah in like a month. and my sex life is fairly limited because i'm scared of gay people in hawaii. long story.

but life hasn't been all too bad lately, because, well, i met a hot boy. let's just call him jake. no, that's not really his name. that's a long story too. but he's a fascinating guy. and i've definitely fallen for him. i probably shouldn't have, considering i'm like leaving hawaii in a few days. but hanging out with him really makes time more bearable.

plans for the future? well, i'm gonna move out to arizona in a few days (but gonna stop in sd for a bit first). as much as i didn't wanna start out in phoenix, i've got three reasons for moving: (1) i have a free place to live (2) my sister is gonna need help with the rugrat (3) i need to save money for grad school. yes, i'm gonna go back to grad school in the spring. i'm gonna start off at asu, and in the fall i'm going to (gods willing) enroll at the university of wisconsin-madison to get a masters/phd in african language and literature and a phd in political science. so wish me luck. anyway, that's all for now folks! i'll see you keikis tomorrow.

song of the moment: cranford nix, cigarettes and heroin
book i'm reading: louis de berniéres, corelli's mandolin

Monday, January 31, 2005

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 05:14:23 GMT

Right. So I've never realized how much I hate weekends. As a college student, my weekends start on Friday. What have I done since then? Well nothing really at all. I've been miserably unproductive. Whatever. Anyway, so KJ and I went out for Mojitos this afternoon. Funny thing, liquor is. I woke up today at about 2:30. Tumbled out of bed, brushed my teeth and drank my breakfast. What a wonderful way to start the day huh? As it turns out, KJ and I are in similar situations, we're both pissed off at our homosexual significant others. Well, you know what I mean. Najwa and Scott. I dunno, for some reason everything that comes out of Scott's mouth recently pisses me off. I literally become a more miserable person being around him. This is a conclusion that I've reached earlier, but for some reason, it hold increasingly true at the present. I've been trying though, I swear. I've tried to call him a couple of times this weekend. But whatever.

So stress there, I've got stress with my parents, who, if they were not realted to me, I'd have killed by now. Well maybe not. But I've certainly contemplated it a number of times in the past week. Where does this stress stem from? Well, mostly it's them thinking I'm incompetent. Oh, and it's also them freaking out because I don't have anything to do with my life post-May. I've been freaking out what I'm going to be doing with my life post-May for about 4 years now. I've got the hang of it. I know how to do it quite well. Three of us freaking about my life is a bit more than I can handle.

What else? Oh, right, I've realized that sex does nothing for me anymore. I've slept with 11 people since Monday (hmm, is that a record?) And for some reason it's A: not enough and B: not fulfilling at all. Oh well.

So yeah. Anyway, I'm going to go try to be cheerful right now, and organize my life in such a way that I can bear it. We'll see how that one goes.

Oh yeah, and apparently my mom's computer blew up tonight. Haha funny story. Peace.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:12:32 GMT

So it's been a long time since I've written. Actually, it's been since the beginning of the school year. Oh well, I doubt you, gentle reader, cares that much. What's been new with me? Well, not a whole lot. I've been relaxing during my winter break, trying not to bee too productive. I have been trying to catch up on my reading, a task that I have endeavored with gusto. The other day, I read the "DaVinci Code." I thought that it was a remarkably clever work of fiction. How I wish I had the immagination of Dan Brown. Scott, apparently thought tbe book was horrible--too many historical blunders says he. Apparently he missed the point of 'fiction.' Last night, I took up "the Days of the French Revolution" by Christopher Hibbert. Another excellent book. I've got about 3 chapters left, but it's an uncompromising account of the French Revolution, from Louis XVI to Napoleon.

Got distracted...more later today.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:09:27 GMT

ok, so the person who rang me up at starbucks this morning was a total bitch. the woman that mdae my tea was incompetent and about a million freshmen took over my seating area. i freaking hate aztec shops. yesterday, i ate at durangos, another aztec shops creation. for the rest of the nite, i thought my stomach was on fire. go food poisoning! my solution? write a nasty letter to r.d. and never eat meat at aztec shops again. hell, i'm thinking with my tank ass that i ought not eat meat anyway.

so yeah. i'm working on my third day of school. though i don't have class today. today is work, psfa, as and reading the 30 chapted i have to read for the two classes i've been to already. let' see. monday i had iscor "our global future," which is essentially an eco-security class. ought to do well, we shall see. class seems straight forward enough. tuesday i had abdel-nour's class. funny story. so scott and i were like "we can't be late, he's going to freaking shit if we're late." so to be sure, we got to class early. sitting there, talking. chatting. shooting the shit. we look up, look around and notice that the entire class is women. hmmmmm. lean over, ask one of the girls what class this is. "women in sociology" she says. son of a monkey-fuck. we hightail it down to the first floor, notice abdel-nour taking roll in sh150 and sneak in. we got in just as he was calling the 's' names. lucklily, we did not coem in 15 minutes late like some dumb fucks. abdel-nour's class is goin going to kick ass. kick lots of ass.

so the reep convention is going on now in nyc. interesting choice of venues. i like the huge fucking flag that chillin behind the stage/platform thing. anyway, the reeps have dug up some good speakers. juliani's (is that how you spell his name?) speech was amazing, and i hear thar the gubernator gave a pretty decent speech. though (i didn't hear it but i saw it on cnn) he did use the phrase "economic girlie-men." common gubernator. saying shit like that makes you sound like a numnut. even taken out of context, it was the sound byte all over the internet this morning.

who do you think will win? gawd damn i have no idea. i couldn't even begin to guess.

anyway, i've got a million and one things to do today, so i'm gonna bounce off.

song of the moment: jason mraz, after an afternoon.

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Sun, 29 Aug 2004 18:39:49 GMT

so yeah, it's been a while since i've last blogged. actually, it's been a long while. i'm sitting here in starbucks contemplating the last couple of weeks of my life, thinking about how much things have changed and how different i am as a person, and how much i've developed in even the past month or so. tkae for instance the fact that i am now in a fraternity. if you had told me my ffreshman year that i would be a frat boy (well currently frat boy in training) i would have laughed you out of the room. but now, i live in frat row and am a fully initiated member in lambda chi alpha. funny how that works huh?

anyway, i'll bet you all are wondering what it's like, being a frat boy and living in and such. well, lemme tell you, it's a blast. it's great living with my friends again. the problem? erm...it's hhard to get anything at all done licing in the house. especially in a semester like this wehre i'm just sooooo busy. it should be an interesting test of my time management skills.

what else is going on in my life? well, being broke. haha don't you hate that feeling? well for me it's even worse. at angy given moment, i have between 3 or 4 g's in my checking account. but it always seems that no matter what, all of that money is spoken for. rent, books, bills, fraternity dues, booze. hahaha. i keep complaining that i have a hard life. but not really. hahaha. my life is as chill as you can get. eh. whatever.

so i got a job!!! are't you all shocked? yeah i'll bet. i work for enrollement services (fancy-smancy name for admissions) now. well, an office in e.s. called srsr--student recruitment and school relations. i'm pretty much a recruiter and mentor for high school students. i tell them why they ought to go to college, why they ought to go to state, how to get in etc. then i give a couple of applicaiton workshops, and then i give a couple of admitted students workshops. it's pretty mellow, the atmostphere is really fun, i get to work with yung'uns and it's just really chill job. plus, the give me a car and pay me a bunch for working only 20 hours a week. yup yup.

tomorrow, school starts up again! w00t! i'm excited. i'm really looking forward to a kick ass year! it's gonna be hella fun guys. senior year is gonna be the best year EVER! i'm taking my thesis with prof. cutter, then abdel-nour's politics of the middle east, then another cutter class-african civilizations. lastly, i'm taking the last core class of major, iscor 310. so pretty mellow unit load. what's up after that? well, i'm looking at grad schools for the fall. university of wisconsin @ madison, michigan, ucla, berkeley (i always spell that wrong). so we'll see where i end up huh.

what's new in the news? well, there are hella protests going on in nyc at the rnc. go figure huh? the goal of the protesters? bring the city of new york to absolute stand still. they want to absolutely halt the subway system, take block out cell communications and just be a generally disruptive pain in the ass. notice that nothing like this happened at the dnc? granted, reeps are less likely to protest anything, but common guys, the convention hasn't even started yet and there ahve already been massive protests. will bush win this election? fascinating question. this past week, researchers at the LSE and at MIT forecasted that bush would, in fact, win. i personally have my optomistic doubts, but let's face it peeps, it's gonna be disgustingly close.

what else? well, the internet is like 35 years old. and i'm already addicted. the seemingly most scandalous olympic games in history just came to an end. isn't interesting that good clean fun and cometition could become so damn dirty. on the same token, isn't it interesting how a straight election, something this nation has been doing every four years since the late 1700's, could be so damn dirty and scandalous. have you all been following the drama between the bush campaign and the kerry campaign and the whole vietnam business? re-cock-u-lus i tell you. the last sor of very signifiacnt thing in the news, in my opition, is the darfur region. and it's more significant that you might think. darfur is going to serve as the litmus for all western nations' foreign policy in africa for the coming decade. it's going to test the un's ability to get anything done, and it's goin going to test arab-bantu relations in north africa, and it's going to test african unity and the future of african inter-state relations.

well, that's pretty much all for now.

song of the moment: dispatch, the general.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:12:32 GMT

So I'm an intelligent person. And I'm majoring in politics and foreign relations. But I've got a question. Moqtada Al-Sadr. What is up with this guy?! I don't understand why his Iraqi Defense Front is attacking/kidnapping everyone and their mother (including other muslims--like the Somalis, Iranians etc.). And I don't buy the fox news explanation that that they're just "savages." Savage they might be, but in madness there is always reason. What are their motivations for kicking ALL foreigners out of Iraq? Is it power? Are they trying to gain political power? Probably. But I mean, the country looks like it's leaning towards becoming an Islamic Republic anyway. Hmm. I ought to sit down with Dr. Abdel-Nour. To tell you the truth, I think I will. I've got to head down to Storm today anyway.

You know what song has caught my attention recently? It's apparently really popular in Europe. Kevin Lyttle's "Turn me On." I don't even like this kind of music, but it's hella catchy. Music I do like though is the band Leftover Crack. I think I blogged about them the other day. Good shit. For all you die-hard liberals like me, you ought to listen to this shit. There's a cool collaboration between NOFX and Rancid called "Vanilla Sex" about government censorship and obscenity laws.

So the price of oil is freaking at his highest point since the 1980's. That's great. Apparently, the wells in southern Iraq were completely shut down. As were some platforms in Mexico. Hmm. I guess all these goddamn "Americans" in their freaking SUV's are gonna be regretting their decision not to buy a civic now. Anyway.

Haha the top story on Le Monde today was that the intellectuals and artists in America (all the educated people essentially) were rallying against Bush. According to Le Monde, "...une série d'artistes et d'intellectuels viennent de prendre position contre George Bush et la guerre en Irak." The biggest celeb, the paper goes on to say, is Bruce Springstein, "...qui a annoncé, le 5 août, dans les colonnes du New York Times, une série de "Concerts pour le changement" à partir du début octobre."

I'm sitting in Starbucks, as usual, and watching all the incoming freshmen file past with their parents. Freshmen are funny as all hell, but incoming freshmen with their parents are even funnier. They're all trying to look cool, while their parents are snapping picture after picture of them. Funny shit. Haha, you can tell the student vs. incoming freshman so easily right now. Students are walking around either 1) on their cell phones or 2) half asleep chugging a non-fat sugar-free-vanilla latte from Buckys. Incoming freshmen are wearing new clothes, and don't have a backpack, and usually have a lost/impatient/excited look on their face. The ones that get me are the ones that wear their letterman's jacket around. Two things little boy: 1) it's fucking hot out here and 2) you were hot shit in high school, but you ain't nothing here. I like the line from "Big Fish;" You were a big fish in a small pond back home kid, but now you're drowning in a huge ocean.

Anyway, I've gotta pee. So I'm gonna bounce.

Song of the Moment: Led Zepplin, Stairway to Heaven

Monday, August 09, 2004

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 03:11:59 GMT

So I'm reading Eliot's "Silas Marner" right now. Fascinating story. Anyway, on the second or third page, a couple of sentences really stood out to me--this excerpt really outlines the current mood of America.

"A shadowy conception of power that by much persuasion can be much induced to refrain from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of the Invisible by the minds of men who have always been pressed close by primitive wants, and to whom a life of hard toil has never been illuminated by enthusiastic religious faith. To them, fear and mishap present a war wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment: their imagination is almost barren to the images that feed desire and hope, but is almost overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear. " ~George Eliot

Eliot's observation here really is accurate...though I would swap "enthusiastic religious faith" with "enthusiastic intellectual inquiry." This culture of fear so prevalent in America has much to do that most Americans merely subsist-their entire lives have everything to do with so called "primative wants," that is, material posessions and such, and absolutely nothing to do with rational or moral thought. Her second point here is that, to the mediocre mind, fear and loathe are much more attractive. Paradoxically, this seems true. What is it about conspiracy and fear? Why do humans desire to be in constant terror? It makes one a weaker--fear and terror lead to such institutions as organized religion and the Bush administration.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Sat, 07 Aug 2004 08:12:06 GMT

I like how even though i have not a damn thing to do, i'm still busy to blog. quick updates about my life:

1) caskie finally got the wireless working in the apartment
2) i fucking hate not being able to spend as much money as i want to
2.5) mike moved in (mostly)
3) i smoke again
4) i've become fat and lazy
5) i'm freaking out about getting into grad school
6) chris leaves for brussels tomorrow (sunday)
7) scott leaves the bay in about 7 hours for slo (sat)->santa barbara (sun)->san diego (mon)

fucking matt got me addicted to political punk music. i love it because a lot of it espouses my liberal political views. have any of you heard of a band called leftover crack? too bad, becasue they're the coolest band next to gwar. they sing a song called "gay rude boys unite." here's some fo the lyrics:

___________
you know i'm not PC i'll shoot your kid at school
'cuz he's gonna grow up to be a fucking asshole just like you
you can celebrate your unity till every gay is dead
but why don't you stop your fronting with real unity instead
and on a better dime on this shitty little globe
we would crucify the racists and be bashing all the homophobes

Intolerant society rears it's ugly face
you're turning your hardcore music into a homophobic disgrace
the gay ones, the straight ones, the white tan yellow and black
gay rude boys and girls, we're gonna take that dancehall back
we'll take it back, we'll take it back
because without respect there's gonna be nothing left

2000 triple zero stand up and take a look around
this ignorant fucking shit shouldn't happen in any town
so come on leave the closet and on your way out grab a bat
cuz there's a battle to be fought and the prize is fucking phat
autonomy from ignorance there's got to be a better way
but the racist, sexist homophobes and piggies gotta pay
but right now you got to get out of your fucking seat
and jam down to the faggot rythm's of that crack rock steady beat
___________

it's good shit. anyway, the news has been pretty boring lately. especially in my area of interest: africa. it seems that the biggest news on the continent lately have been the outbreaks of ebola (bitch of a virus, as made famus in that stupid movie), locusts (crappy littel bug) and terrorists (apparently the sahara is the "new battleground" in the "war against terror").

sorry my blogs have been so crappy lately, but i just don't have the energy to write anything profound.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Wed, 04 Aug 2004 16:40:13 GMT

right, so it's been a long time since i've last blogged, and there's a reason for that. i've been busy moving and such. that's right, the long awaited move finally occurred. i am now officially a resident of frat row. and i have my first frat row horror story! you all ready for this? here it is:

monday morning, my first goddam morning in frat row, i wake up to the sound of banging on my door. now mind you, this is not the door to the apartment that i'm talking about, it was the door to my bedroom. so me, thinking it was my roommate ryan, was kinda like "come on in," wondering what on earth had posessed him to wake up so damn early. so someone comes into my room, and i kinda roll over to see who it is. guess what, there's some random ass person standing in my bedroom. and he proceeds to say something to me in spanish. first though through my mind: "i have got to stop getting drunk in mexico." two seconds later, another guy shows up in my room. this guy (in english), is all like, "we've come to change the battery in your smoke detector. needless to say, i was kinda pissed. like why the hell couldn't they wait till normal business hours? not ten minutes after tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum left, i hear pounding and drilling on my patio, which goes on all day.

this morning, something similar happens. by about 7:15, i get a knock on my door. wise to the fact that it was likely not my roommate, i proceeded to brace myself for the prospect of getting kicked out (even though i had just tumbled into bed 3 hours prior--i wen to mexico again last night) . sure enough, there was a team of workers outside waiting to replace my damn closet door. by the time i got out of the shower, there were 8 people in my tiny ass room trying to replace my closet door. i've not lived there a week and i'm already over the construction.

in the news today, have you read this? fucking missouri. why don't people get it. this is not a constitutional amendment, it's a constitutional restriction. the founders intended amendments to limit government, not to limit freedoms. fucking americans. some people are just so ignorant. this is not even an issue of partisanship or liberal vs. conservative ideals, this is about protecting fundamental constitutional values. you know what's even worse? this was not even the main story on cnn. it was the second story under "politics." now tell me, amending the goddam constitution of a fairly significant state over the most controversial moral-political issue of the decade is not worthy enough to be a top story?

which brings me to my next point-the ineptitude of the american mainstream media. take of example the top story on the news today was the top story on le monde yesterday. good job america! day old news from arguably the most technologically advanced news network on the planet.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 06:52:34 GMT

It just struck me that America is stupid to keep pusing for elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kaplan is right:

"States have never been formed by elections. Geography, settlement patterns, the rise of a litereate bourgeoisie,and, tragically, ethnic cleansing, have formed states."

I think Kaplan's point that it's absurd that the west is pushing democracy on the rest of the world. Tocqueville writes that democracy evolved in the wes because of an organic outgrowth of development. Forcing other nations, such as Iraq, into democracy and elections and such ignores the fact that these palces did not suffer the same organic outgrowths (this term is explained in Kaplan's essay, "Was Democracy Just a Moment?") Read Kaplan, I really like his realist point of view.