Monthly Archives
Already : Hatachi Monthly Archives
being alone Thursday October 28
this summer, i (re)learned how to be alone. as a generally social person, i sometimes get caught up in people and fail to value my own time. this is not to say that i don't need others to get by: who knows where i would be without the support and guidance of naomi, nate, the rents. the list goes on.
when i examine the times that i have "not been alone", however, i see that i was orchestrating the circumstances instead of embracing being alone. possibly, this is because i had equated being alone with loneliness. i'm not doing that at the moment, and i simply don't believe that to be true.
i don't want to blame all of my inadequacies on things that "happened to me" during the last academic year. while i can say that i didn't have an easy year, it was all a matter of perspective, and i lacked ability to identify what was important and good for me. rather, i concerned myself with others in a social construct to avoid thinking about myself. possibly worse, i believe i overvalued my lack of self-importance as a device of humility.
i don't regret this period. it is something i knew i would need to live through and could not circumvent, or, even, would not circumvent, and i knew i would find myself "here": a more rational, stable individual who can appreciate himself. in short, my self-esteem has gone back up, so i don't need to falsely prop myself up with inconsequential socialization: something that's easy to do in college.
back from the weekend Tuesday October 26
i don't have any final exams. certainly, i have papers, but i also have an extended thanksgiving break: a full ten days. thus, i was thinking about finishing everything over thanksgiving, and taking my sweet ol' time saying goodbye to the town(s) that have done me so well over the past five years.
drumming up a list of places i have to go/see before i leave. feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.
indigo girls Saturday October 23
want to download the indigo girls show i taped? click here.
slc punk
i just finished slc punk for the first time. i had started it twice already: one time we turned it off because nate, todd, and i had a guy's night out, and the other time cara called me. while a movie about dudes with mohawks is cool, so are attractive girls. it's a tough life.
however, nathan quoted it tonight at dinner, and i really don't think there could have been a better time to watch it. you see, today i went to my first job fair ever. and if you follow that link, you'll notice that it's all in japanese. i am not trying to sound impressive -- no, i am trying to express simply how intimidated i was to even walk in that place to begin with.
certainly, i knew that if i were interviewed, it would be in english, but still. but still. approximately ninety-seven percent of the participants were either japanese, first-generation japanese-americans, or half-japanese. and there was a whole lot of "gozaimasu" floating about.
so i strolled about the convention center for awhile just looking. i had told myself that i was just going to look, but that's like saying that i'm going to go to the salvation army and not buy an indie rock t-shirt that fits me too tightly.
"dude, you spent six dollars on the cab to get out here. at least talk to someone," i told myself.
so i started where i felt comfortable: where i saw white people. white people would certainly speak english to me and not expect me to interview in japanese. where were the white people? in finance. american finance companies.
now mind you, two people i know in my life have worked or are working in these kinds of companies; they stories they tell make me curious to say the least. one of them would be rick, who said just this evening when i called him: "they work you to death in the first year; if you're not dead or quitting, then you can get on with your life." at least he makes no effort to cover it up.
so i spoke with jpmorgan, lehman brothers, and goldman sachs. honestly, i had less interest in lehman brothers, but i thought it would be funny just to do a screening interview there anyway. for mike's sake. i actually screwed that interview up badly, actually, when it came to that: i mentioned mike in brief and they asked me what kind of work he did. and i didn't know his title, or what department he worked in. certainly, i knew what kind of work he did. alas, it was a good start to get me out of the "i'm too afraid to go anywhere" mood.
i should back up: i was focusing on my IT skills. given my liberal arts degree, basically all of my interviewers asked me why i didn't hold out on the computer engineering. by the end of the day, i actually had a polished answer -- which represents the truth, but intelligently -- i won't give it in full here, but if anyone is curious, post a FAQ question on the right.
goldman sachs ran me through a screening interview; in the middle of it, my interviewer, named aoki, broke into japanese. luckily, he was pretty nice about it:
"how is your japanese? [日本語はどうですか」" he asked.
i smiled, hesitated a little bit to express reserve, and said:
"conversationally, i'm all right, but i don't think i'm good enough to do business in japanese. [普通の話だと、大丈夫だと思いますけど、ビジネスなら自信がないんです」"
or something like that. i don't exactly remember what i said in japanese. but enough to make him know that i wasn't lying when i said i had 3 years of experience. we, thankfully, went back to english. he was a nice guy. so nice, actually, that he scheduled me for a first interview. score.
it was with a man named sayto. he was, quite simply, the most soft-spoken man i've met in awhile. i was intimidated by his coolness. his job, throughout the entire interview, seemed to be the task of making me feel like i had no clue why i was there, and to point out to me how out of my league i was. yikes. i walked out of the private interview room thinking, "time to go meet up with nate."
about 10 paces from the reception desk of the interview area, i hear my name called once, then twice. i turn around, and sayto is giving me the japanese "come here" gesture. if you don't know, it is the same motion as in america, except that the hand is flat horizontal, not vertical. in america, it seems like a dimissive action. so i came over, and they asked if they could talk to me at four.
whoa.
i had a half-hour to kill, so i went up to the food court and met a colorado MBA student named makiko, she was eating umeboshii onigiri, and suddenly i remembered one of the less serious reasons why i was going to japan: fooooood. we spoke in english for the most part, because i didn't want to insult any of these kids. it's a bilingual job fair; they assume that everyone, at the very basic level, can communicate in both. since we're in america, using japanese is almost, i dunno. just somehow not right. somehow like i have something to prove -- which i do, but not to girls named makiko sitting in the food court of the conference area -- i have something to prove to myself. so don't waste their time, especially if their english is better.
went to the bathroom, made sure i looked damn sexy, and then went back downstairs to the interview area.
mike was my interviewer this time, and i immediately noticed that we were in the technical interview. he read my resume for about 2 minutes, turned it over, drew a figure on the back and said:
"how would i model this table in html?"
"well, do you want it in the old style [tables] or the new style [css]?"
[dammmnnn!!]
so, while explaining exactly what i was doing, i said:
then i proceeded to explain how CSS would achieve the same thing, and started comparing the two in terms of XML compatibility and usability benefits.
without going too overboard, i would say it was the best interview i've ever had. i was talking to "one of my people". you know. the nerds. so they're supposed to call me tomorrow. i'm not holding my breath; even if this is all i get, it was fun.
going back to the punk, the whole reason for this post. when i came here this weekend, i was looking to go to the job fair for kicks. i am still planning on applying to the JET program. but.
for a long time now, when people have asked me what i wanted to do with my degree, i've always said the same two things: "graduate, duh" or "nothing, i want to do nothing". neither are necessarily true, but it allows me to avoid the more serious answer: i don't know. i really don't. i've got a couple plans, but outside of that, i don't know.
slc punk, outside of just being funny, is all about figuring out what "it" is really about: stevo is a punk: his identity is one that exists solely in opposition to his lawyer father's lifestyle, and thus when he finally sits down and examines himself towards the end of the film, he realizes that he's been fighting a good fight, certainly: but definitely not one worth fighting.
kids such as myself are good at that. we do fight the good fight. just don't ask us why.
for awhile i've said that i wouldn't "sell out" and get some sort of salary job straight out of college and that i wouldn't miss out on the best part of life blah blah blah. life is hopefully long and in front of me; if i was planning on doing the JET program for a year, why is it so different to maybe work in a company for two? the reason that the JET program still sounds sexier is the commitment. it's short-term. one year. then it's done. if i like it, then i can renew. no commitment if i don't. free trial, satisfaction guaranteed.
the truth is, i am twenty-two years old. i am young, and i have a lot in front of me. but, i can't dawdle about forever with my head in the clouds: whatever i do, i have to start nailing down choices. i have to start putting together the coffin on my "freedom" one nail at a time -- no, i'll never be a rockstar, no, i'll never be a lot of things. acceptance.
let's go back to that cheezy pop song from like eight years ago:
whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself -- your choices are half chance. so are everybody else's.
so, i'm just kind of living; trying to not look at life like a destination-oriented thing. it's a journey that gives no vacation, not that you need or want one, and really the only thing we really have with us along the way is each other. and if i didn't believe that to be one of the few absolutes in life, i don't know what the point would be.
japanese movies Tuesday October 19
todd telling me about a movie he just saw:
todd (14:47:46):Her last boyfriend was a music rep of some kind. She found out he loved someone else (like, his brother or something like that) so she cut off his hands and his feet, plus his tongue and a few fingers, and keeps him in a bag as a gimp that she only feeds bowls of her own vomit.
me (14:48:00): i see
me (14:48:04): is this a japanese film?
todd (14:48:08): Very.
my "first" blog entry ever Saturday October 16
thursday night i searched for an old wallpaper i had before The Great Desktop Data Loss. instead, i found something i wrote from the summer of 2001, that fateful summer. with naomi and miloney. and this was before i blogged, but after reading it, i decided it MUST be chronicled within.
this is why i started blogging in the first place. i need to get back to this kind of writing.
i really didn't want to go to work, if you can call it that. yes, i only make five dollars per hour, but for a guy who moves two tubs of audio equipment, takes five minutes to set it up in random location, and then sits on his thumbs for two hours, it's fair pay. moreover, working at a radio station's got it's perks: cds, free food, movie tickets, free little blinky budweiser cute buttons that i collected have altogether too many of. and, occasionally, you'll meet someone promising (or at least, attractive) and offhandly mention having to work later in the night; i've learned to do it with such disinterest that begs the question, "so, where do you work?" "at 107one, the planet," i casually respond, as if collecting little blinky things were something just about everyone did for their daily grind. i admit, it's a f-n cool job, and when you play it off like it's nothing, the chicks dig that. i'm serious.
however, the promo staff working with me at kam's tonight was pro bono: why? the perk i left off: free beer. in a college town, beer is almost currency, and the idea of getting something for as little as possible is what living at college is all about. however, while i'd prefer to find way to market this free beer that i have access to as opposed to drinking it, i still have yet to arrive at a feasible solution.
my co-workers solution: drink as much as possible while it's still on the house. worse yet, pretend like somehow it's acceptable because of the presence of a deck of cards.
luckily, i had plenty of staff to help me carry the equipment out of the grimace-from-mcdonalds-purple planet van into the bar. in fact, they were so eager, i didn't even carry anything in -- just holding doors. now that's always a good thing; i walk in like i own the entire planet outfit, indicating to my underlings where all the equipment goes, and just generally looking cool for all the women looking around to see who we are, why we're there, and whether or not we'll give them anything for free. unfortunately, as i get blank stares from my "staff" as soon as they set the remote transmission rack on the floor, i realize that my mirage has vanished. as i set up the antenna and whatnot, it is clear that i am the bitch.
it's not like i want the kam's women to target me anyhow. the entire joint has this stale beer smell mixed with smoke and hooch, and all the girls that hang out there either need more clothing to cover their beer guts or are painted sorority sisters who are somewhere in the process of husband-hunting.
i entered the DJ booth to set up our wireless microphone for the planet emcee, and noted an addition from last week: a laptop playing mp3s instead of the usual burned-cd mixes laying about. no one seemed to be in charge, so i browsed the list of what was to come. "ben harper - good - dave matthews - good - whitesnake - good - notorious big -- not so good." eventually, a decently dressed girl entered the booth.
"hi, my name's mark, i'm the planet engineer, just setting up the wireless mic," i say, explaining my reason for entering the forbidden territory. come to the bar at any busy hour and you'll realize why the booth is off-limits: some guy will stop at nothing to get "survivor - eye of the tiger" played for he and his drinking buddies for a rocky re-enactment.
"hi, i'm kathleen," shakes my hand and smiles.
"are you the DJ tonight?"
"no, i'm just a bartender here, but I'm working as a DJ tonight."
she is cute, at least, in the you-just-smiled-at-me way, and i'm temporarily choosing to ignore the fact that she openly chooses to work at the sleaziest bar on campus. so i probe a little.
"how's that work, being a bartender and a DJ?"
"well, i cover a few times a week during the summer. two or three days, weekdays."
i want to get rid of the crap she's playing. noting that she came from a table of girly husband-hunters playing what appeared to be "circle of death", i make the two-step pitch:
"you know, i dj private parties from time to time, and i have quite an mp3 collection going -- about 2,000 --" first off, i've only djed one private party -- one i was helping host -- and second, i have no where near 2,000 mp3s. i'm stuck at about 1,700 right now, but 2,000 sounds cool to a cute girl who obviously is familiar enough with the technology to be DJing from her laptop. nonetheless, i charade:
"i'll tell you what, i'll drop some burnt cds off here next week for you, i'll leave them for 'kathleen'."
re-enuciating that i know and enjoy her name, standard op procedure for flirting.
"really?" she sounds excited. step one complete.
"yeah. i'll tell you what, since i'm looking through what you have, do you mind if i add a song or two?"
or sixteen.
"sure! i'd be grateful -- i'm just out playing cards over there if you need me...thanks so much." mission accomplished.
"do you know jordan?" she ventures. [ed. note: last name omitted]
certainly, i do. he's our sports director at the planet.
"do you see him often? i don't want to inconvience you, you could just give him the cds, he's my boyfriend."
she tags the boyfriend line on there so casually that you know it was the boyfriend-warning device. it's that inner-trigger both sexes use when they sense a conversation has gone beyond pleasantries, and boundaries need to be set. jordan was her boundary. i had no issue with this, she does work at kam's and all, and moreover, after continually talking to her the initial cuteness had worn off anyway. especially after looking more deeply into her playlist. lil kim? what the?
i watched the planet staff pass through a few card games and a few pitchers with steve the beer guy. what a crock this guy's job is: he works for the bottling company selling beer and promotions to the bars. then, he comes to the bar to oversee the promotion, and he gets free beer -- hence the planet hookup. so, essentially, he gets the beer that he sells to the bar served back to him for free. the more he gives out to us, it's more the bar has to buy. i repeat, a crock.
after awhile, the bar filled. i wouldn't call it crowded, but well enough that patronage for the evening would cover expenses. our "game" there was to give away cubs tickets to the person who could answer the most cubs and music trivia correctly. we lined up four individuals -- two of each sex -- and handed them cue-cards with the letters a, b, and c written on them. they turned their backs to the quickly-building audience as our dj matt denault read off questions. they had to raise the cue-card of their answer, multiple-choice style.
unfortunately, two of the individuals were rather drunk, and while they weren't trying to be unfair, they were continually cheating by turning around to see their boisterious male friends loudly shouting and miming "c! it's c!!! c!!! c, not b, you fuck!"
for some reason, i'm usually very tolerant of intoxicated people. not tonight. exercising my right to be an asshole, i stepped up to one of the drunk guys and told him if he didn't stop cheating we'd disqualify him. to a guy trying to look cool for his friends and all the hooch ladies in the place husband-hunting, getting disqualified didn't sound appealing. he backed off, but was too drunk to remember this, and continued his behavior. i gave up, especially since his friends seemed to suck at cubs trivia anyway.
i drove a slightly drunken planet staff back to the station. free beer. what can i say for them? naomi was drunk; she was hanging on me before we left, and this was the tell-tale sign: our relationship has always been 100% platonic, and when she hangs it means she's on her way to being tanked.
as we unloaded, plans were being made.
"denault. here's ten. but we need to go before schnuck's stops selling," someone said.
matt denault, one of the two twenty-one year olds of the group, had volunteered to buy. i paid naomi $14 i owed to her roommate, with marginal faith that it would make it to miloney -- but my debt was paid, so i'd let them sort it out.
"where's the party?" i ask out of random curiousity.
"probably back at my place," naomi indicates.
"seriously, you guys never quit -- it's 12:30 already..." i went home and talked to jon online for too long -- 4:34am, wait, 4:25am. i keep my clock fast. we had a good conversation, though, about how we wanted more from our lives than...the standard. yeah, that's how i'd put it. we're f-n special. we deserve something special, and we realize that we're probably going to have to do it ourselves.
fine with us, but how do we start?
in a dj booth at kam's on a thursday night.
this week, justin. Thursday October 14
i just finished a cd for justin, who will be in iraq until february. i'm planning on sending a mini-care-package, even though, admittedly, i dislike the term.
i've gotten back on the "todolist" track this week. i think i have three going at the moment: "stuff to do before boston", "stuff to do before the weekend", and "stuff to do in general". i don't know if i can handle all of this organization.
the upshot of it, though, is that i easily finished all of my work well before the weekend (now), enabling me to have another rawktober weekend: todd's in town, gretchen's birthday is tonight, tomorrow is the wpgu alumni outing, saturday is pgu pregame, and sunday i've got to work 15 hours at the auditorium.
moreover, i had today's japanese homework done well before last night, enabling me to go to stephy's debate party. uhm, yeah. there were supposed to be rules, but it ended up with most of us just yelling at the television. bush looked markedly better than usual, which gave most of us reason for concern.
thunderbird, hands down Wednesday October 13
one of the things i need to pay attention to, particularly as i get older, is my stubborn nature. it keeps me doing things, for no good reason, other than it being the way i have always done them.
for example, for years i insisted that everything, ever, would be in lowercase. while that's mostly true, for many e-mails now, i realize that conformity is not necessarily required, but definitely a small price to pay in return for having your comments respected.
also, as some sort of weird collection fetish, i used to put all of my mp3s in the same directory. and i wouldn't sort. refused to. i ended up with over 3,000 songs in one directory on the old blackbox, and the net effect was that the directory took about 4 seconds to load. that's what directory trees are for. it took the corruption and subsequent massive data loss of that drive for me to finally change my ways.
luckily, i'm making strides. i've long thought that eudora was an inferior mail client. it certainly used to be superior, particularly to webmail, but it has absolutely no support for multinational character sets. for any japanese e-mail i received -- of which there are three or four commonly used character sets -- i had to copy the gibberish on my screen to a text file, save it, and view it with a web browser.
since firefox won me over so easily in the browser war, i figured that i might as well try its partner in crime, thunderbird. it is everything i wanted out of eudora, and nothing else. pure perfection.
my LAS grudge Monday October 11
i'm glad i am an LAS student, for sure. engineering would have been neat, i guess, to finish out, but then i wouldn't be who i am now, and i feel like i'm not hiding who i am "really" anymore -- which i was doing as an engineer -- always playing along like i cared as much as the kids who really did care.
but.
if i come across the opener "going along with what person x says," in a class discussion or on an online post one more time, i am going to pull all of my hair out. quite simply, if you're responding to a person's statement and/or post, you do not need a connective to indicate what you're talking about. it is obvious in its nature of reply. if you are trying to say that you agree, state your point. don't waste our time or our intelligence, we know that you agree based on what you've said.
and if you disagree, the worst thing is, "going along with what person x said, i think i disagree". not only is it self-contradictory, it's a waste of your breath and my time. just say: "i think i disagree".
mind you, this is coming from someone who talks a lot and rambles. but when i speak in class, i try to make it coherent and concise. rant off, thank you.
breaking the fast Saturday October 9
i've decided to break the fast a whole 24 hours early. it doesn't have to do much with hunger, actually, but more the question of "why i am doing this". i am doing it to promote the health and cleansing of my liver, kidneys, and bowels, and i feel that 36 hours has been sufficient.
the other reason is far more direct: i want to work out, and i can't as long as i am doing this.
my first meal will be a salad and a soup: a very weak chicken broth base with mushroom and scallion -- much like you get served in the japanese restaurants.
weekend fast Friday October 8
fasting has spiritual and mental benefits -- but yet, it's something i usually wouldn't really consider. i love food. but much like the free ipod gimmick, when someone i know has explained whether it's safe, a good idea, advice, et al, i am much more open to new ideas.
sweta, my old co-worker and now, next door neighbor, came over for dinner the other night. we talked about fasting, because she's done it, and she encouraged me to try it. and she's someone who's word i would take on matters relating to health.
it's friday morning, and i'm particularly feeling eh, it's possibly because it's raining out -- but i digress. i've been reading up on fasting on the web, avoiding all of the weight-loss sites trying to sell me something. i'm not going to do a water fast -- although that is the definite route to detoxification -- but rather a juice fast, which is far less severe and easier.
reading some of these health websites on the topic, though, are interesting. some refer to it as a psychological and spiritual experience: much in the way i've heard people describe their experiences on hallucengenic drugs. odd. we'll have to see.
so tonight i'm starting with a green salad, and then tomorrow and sunday is all fruit juices, every 90 minutes, all day. fruit juices are mostly water, and they provide the necessary carbohydrates for your body to prevent you from going into ketosis: the process that occurs when your body runs out of carbs. it burns fat instead, but it also makes you feel like garbage. ask anyone who's done atkins.
i should note that i am not doing this to lose weight -- i am trying to lose weight via healthy exercise: running 2-3 miles four to five times per week. this is totally seperate.
free ipods Wednesday October 6
viral marketing at its best.
there's this company giving away free ipods if you buy into their scheme and get five of your friends to do so. of course, the first thing i did was see if couldn't find away around all the requirements, but whoever wrote the software did a fairly good job of it.
i was so impressed that i signed up. cara (from high school) did it, and she has a free ipod now. i was intrigued, and so i decided that if she could do it, so could i. so sign up for something on my behalf, and start your own thread of people so you can get your own ipod. if you play my game, though, i'll set you up with a free dinner when i get my ipod. if you do the right offer, it doesn't even cost you anything other than time.
see, i come from the "incentive" marketing school.
so help me out. free dinner comes your way.
bloomington Monday October 4
the trip to bloomington was relaxing, but sometimes intense. all the way to mahomet there is a shoulder, which is nice. but after that? not so much.
the ride from mansfield to farmer city is straight for five miles, and no traffic. that was my favorite part. and in farmer city? the "family restaurant", which served up some really cheap and really tasty (and probably, really caloric) brocolli soup.
the brocolli soup. i also had a turkey melt.
following farmer city is leroy, who is doing quite well in football this year. go panthers. some supporters even went as far as to get cardboard jersey cutouts, and put every single name and number of every player on them, then put them in an serial array so that drivers could see the names and numbers of everyone as they drove pass. my thoughts are that they took this display strategy from the "guns save life" kids. or, it's the same people. eeek. which leads me to my next point.
i was truly in the country, in the middle of republican country. bush '04 posters everywhere. might as well have been texas. certainly, we need all that protectionist rhetoric out here in central illinois, because i heard that al qaeda's next major target was the leroy panthers' homecoming football game next weekend. they'd be hitting america where it hurts, the heartland. let's also not forget that crime runs rampant in the middle of nowhere, so we all have to arm ourselves to avoid getting robbed by the images of black men we see on the regional television stations.
(sarcasm off).
the liberty cafe
it was too bad i was running low on daylight -- i considered stopping here, saddling up to the counter, taking a stool, and starting a discussion about the presidential debate of the night before. but it's not fair to go pick a fight in someone else's hometown. i wasn't invited there. i thought better of it.
i made it to bloomington in 4 hours exactly, save the 30 minutes i stopped for lunch. but that 30 minutes was also the extra time that i spent getting lost, so if i had had a better bike, no hunger, and better directions, i might have done it in as little as 3:15.
try it again sometime, maybe? check the regular photo albums for pictures from bloomington.
