Kaulapi World

Still stuck in the middle of my finals month, week 2 of 4, I’d like to say. Drawing from past semesters I thought I’d use this journal as a source of taking mental breaks from here and there. We’ll see how far this goes from here on out – and how often I’ll actually do it.

Another part of the dream I was calmly walking in an crescent shaped atrium with large glass windows worried that my cover had been blown, I knew I was being pursued by a young military officer. He was tailing close that I figured he probably knew something was up. As I turned around the bend I jumped maybe 60 feet in the air and wedged myself between the archways on the ceiling and the glass panel. When he passed I descended down only to see him reaching for his sidearm. What happens next was a little fuzzy, but I overpowered him with a jiu-jitsu arm lock and ran off with his weapon. I’m not sure if this part of the dream precluded the dinner meeting or came after.

The markets have been in turmoil this week, the two biggest drops in the DOW since 9-11 for the most part coinciding with massive, unprecedented bailouts of major investment banks and companies tied to mortgages and other debt securities. You know its bad when you can hear the water cooler talk, especially the older co-workers talk about huge losses on the year to their retirement accounts. There is a somber, anomic mood overall, a sort of helplessness, much like there is nothing that can be done. The younger folks on the other hand, so far have been largely silent, maybe due to the confidence that they all have many years ahead to make up for the losses. Maybe because many of us don’t have much of a stake in the market yet, or another possibility is that much like the rest of the country right now, we have no assets at all and are drowning in debt.

Been having a a recurring dream lately about riding a train, I’m headed either to or from work. Sometimes the train is crowded, other times there is an old friend, often its someone that I was once close with but lost touch over the years. The one recurring detail however has been that I overshoot my destination and get off onto the platform and have to double back and wait for the train going in the opposite direction. The most recent one I run into a friend on the platform who convinces me to go to a nearby izakaya instead of heading to my original destination. It’s a refreshing change of pace, whenI realize that despite passing through the station on the train many times before, I’ve never actually stopped to get off and look around. The izakaya itself is located on the side of a busy street, inside a sort of shopping arcade near the station. When we get there my friend starts talking to the waitress in Japanese, and despite my limited proficiency, for some reason I am able to understand almost all of it. The dream ends there after we’ve placed our order.

2 Finals down, 2 to go. Well, one more final, and a paper, same smell more or less. The nature of the study of law has blurred the intensity of test prep and papers that I don’t know which one I prefer anymore. Once upon a time I used to enjoy writing papers, even the more challenging and academic ones. Now it seems like its such a labor intensive and detail oriented process that seems like a mountain of work before you start and it just keeps piling on and on. Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy doing all this research, I find it very insightful and enlightening, its just that with a full 8-6 work schedule, after three or so years now I actually have begun to value sleep and downtime as a valuable commodity as well as education.

This exam was definitely a tough one. I could tell partly by the questions and the format itself, have to give props to my prof for designing a challenging final exam. Also I noticed that only 1 or 2 of my classmates left before the 3.5 hours time was up, that is out of at least 60 of us in the class. Also hardly anyone decided to take a piss break. This may seem like a trivial point, but when you’re really hunkered down in cranking out some legal IRAC analysis you just hold that shi-shi for the love of god, your grade depends on it. Unfortunately for me I was drinking Pepsi max the whole time so about 3.1 hours in I had to give in and take a whiz break. The look on some of my classmates as I was walking out the door was a mixture of irritation to sheer panic, maybe because they thought for a moment, I’m sure, that I was done already.

Without sounding like a broken record from a few days ago, I have no idea how I did, other than I was able to make what I think was a good hard effort and it more or less reflected that I went to just about every class and was pretty good about keeping up with the reading, which believe me is a feat in itself, going at night. I can also say that I enjoyed the class overall, and learned quite a bit. That means I’ll probably get a C or a B. Oh well. Again the curve seems to maybe be in my favor, I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a tough exam. Oh well, that all pau, on to the next exam.

Strange/insightful dream again last night, it seems like during my finals prep my subconscious is especially active nocturnally. This dream I was visiting Madison, Wisconsin, on either some kind of fellowship or sabbatical. I had become some kind of academic professor of law or something like that and I was visiting my old alma mater. I went to the union and noticed a bunch of changes to the layout and the old haunts I used to frequent many years ago. Out of sheer coincidence, I learned that Akiko was in town as well, visiting from Japan, and I was in touch with her over phone and blackberry to meet up later that evening. To kill time in the meantime, I went walking along lake mendota, which now had become a rough lake, with waves crashing on the shoreline. I thought to myself that it reminded me a lot like Hawaii, and noticed the amount of sand that had accumulated on what used to be the Union terrace. The water was green and dirty looking, churning with microbiotic life, yet there were a lot of people jumping in, playing in the water.

Strange dreams, a recurring one no doubt, it comes in pieces, all of them have a sense of urgency and loss. There are two that stick out, one is I’m riding a subway train and I discover that one of the passengers has left a whole stack of partially used fare cards behind in a seat. I don’t know who this person is, but I am left on the train counting a whole stack of paper train currency, wondering what the right thing to do is. I dont’ know whose these belong to, so there isn’t much a point in reporting them as missing, worse yet, If I give it to a station employee there is a chance that they’ll just pocket it. While I’m sitting there counting the cards, 3 secret police officers get on board and two of them recognize me, and all three take a seat next to me.

The agent that sits next to me is very friendly as I am introduced by my other friends. I notice that the other passengers visibly tense about these three, and are looking away from our small group, and are avoiding eye contact with us. We kid around, talk about the weather, and the local sports teams. I have to notice that the agent next to me is carrying a very lethal looking submachine gun, semi-concealed. He offers it to me to take a closer look – the gun is an impressive work of mechanized technology. Weird things are that the sights are below the muzzle, and the clip is very small and compact. It feels very light but sturdy in my hand. At that time I kind of have an “aha” moment that I’m not in DC anymore, I’m not even in the present time either. I don’t recall how this dream ends.

The semester is picking up right about the time that work has as well. Its been a pretty busy few weeks, and it looks like will continue until the end of the semester. Seem to be on more of a morning schedule lately, crashing after I get back from my late night classes and getting up before the alarm clock goes off. Something that comes with my shift in schedule is that I remember my dreams much more vividly. Last night’s was vivid enough to recall, and interesting enough to be worth mentioning.

Linkes for 11/5/2007
Remember the 5 of the November?
Interesting article about the bomb as a war atrocity against Christians
This is called a budget?
The three “As”
Dropout Factories
Zipcar Acquiring Flexcar in Merger

Strange dream last night. If you are studying dream interpretation and have an explanation let me know. In this dream I am young girl searching for something hidden in the wall between two carved sculptures on the town hall, placed several stories high overlooking a town square. I need to get the treasure at all cost, quickly though, without anyone discovering that I am up there. The path up to the unseen treasure is a difficult one, literally up the side of the building wall. Somehow I am able to scale the wall, and wedge myself in between the stone carvings enough to search for the ancient treasure. The treasure is a set of decorated plates or tiles, with rows of solid gold engravings, all in a circular pattern, maybe as a Buddhist mandala. When I am able to get my hands around it I am awed by the weight of it and condition of it after all these years. The next challenge I face is that I know of another similar tile that lies on the other side of the rock carving that I must also find, but it is just out of reach. After some thought I put the first time back and climb over to reach the second one. When I remember that waiting below is my friend to whom I can throw the first tile, double back and then get the second one. The only problem is that the way I am clinging onto the rock wall, I would have to make a blind throw to her. I am just about the throw the first tile to her when the stone ledge bends (but doesn’t break) and I am sent plummeting to the ground below.

Almost immediately I am flying up to a stone ledge, flapping my wings as I soar up towards the side of the building wall, this time as a bird, either a goose or a crane. It all happens so fast that I don’t realize that I am no longer a human, or that the building face has changed over time, and that there are vines and trees growing out the side of it. I am also no longer in search of the decorated tiles. I am now seeking a seedling impeded into the wall that I am trying to dig out with my beak. Standing on a protruding stone ledge, I use my long neck to reach into the decaying stone wall and pullout in pieces by mostly intact, a seed partially sprouting out the side. I fly down to what is left of the town square where there is a small crowd of people gathered, apparent spectators to my task. I hand the seedling to the old shaman who is standing there and fly back up to retrieve the rest of the seed, piece by piece. I overhear the shaman address the crowd with emotion, talking about how this seedling is in fact his long lost daughter who has finally have come home, thanks to this benevolent creature of the wilderness.

After a few trips back and forth, In doing so, I notice that there is another separate seed growing in the rock, but hidden from view. I chip away at the wall as I did with the first, and eventually bring that seedling down to the shaman in the square. When I return the second seed to the shaman, he is overcome with joy that I have found the second daughter, which he did not realize was hidden in the wall along with her sister. I stand silently behind him, listening to his words, unknowingly to the shaman and the crowd around him, I can understand everything they are saying. Maybe a reminder from my former life.

Most dreams, if not all are symbolic, especially recurring ones. I’ve been having a few that were worth noting although I’m in the dark about what they might mean.

The new dream is definitely symbolic, this one I am raising a child who goes from infant to toddler in the course of the dream, roughly an afternoon. I go from being semi-unsure changing diapers and dealing with the usual projectile emergencies, but mostly because we cannot communicate with each other effectively. The strange thins is that she grows older and bigger in the course of dream, which is in a single day. As she grows older I feel more comfortable with the idea of being a father.

It’s looking like a busy summer alright, already looking forward to the Chicago trip to go to Patty’s wedding, visit the kid brother, and meet up with my folks all in a short weekend. After that I’ll be hunkering down on the books for my corporations class this summer, keeping going with the law training. I’m hoping that with just one class to focus on I’ll be better position to pull of a decent enough performance as an add on for the last semester, build more experience and push on through to the 3rd year. Juggling 4 courses and working full time was pretty challenging.

First day of summer session was today, first impressions of a course are always memorable being that you don’t really know what to expect at first. So far I’m finding some interesting side observations on the readings so far which comes to somewhat of a surprise as that this course isn’t one that at first thought comes to mind as one that I would be interested off the back. I think its the public policy training and all the economic theory that I’ve crammed into my brain that gives me an interest in this area, one things for sure, I’m not going to be closing off any possible interests that might develop through this course of study.

Having some interesting dreams. The theme lately has been that I keep finding secret tunnels and doors in my apartment that lead to hidden rooms, corridors and exits that I never imagined possible. At times I’m able to peal away the concrete foundation and walls with my hands to reveal another passageway. The spooky thing is that some of the rooms I’ve been in before in previous dreams, and they are over the top extravagant, like a luxury hotel room overseeing a cliff with wall to wall, ceiling to floor windows. In stumbling on these rooms I kid myself in not realizing that this was here all this time, and I had been confining myself to only a handful of small rooms.

I think there is some symbolic references to what is going on in my personal life and perceptions, especially in the past month or so, persons of whom I am very protective of in some difficult times. I’ve noticed that I’m not anxious at all in these dreams though, in fact I’m more thrilled at the prospect of finding rooms and passageways that I’ve overlooked, or been too busy to notice before. It seems like every time I look there is someplace new to explore, and each time I feel strangely at peace.

Linkes 5/21/2007
9mm violence on the rise in Honolulu
Ron Paul Can’t say that, can he? Sure, why not?
Foreign Policy of Freedom – Bomb or Subsidize
Why China must be scapegoated
Ron Paul – SC debates party crasher
Live Science – top 10s geek style
Torture – its ok now?
DC demographics shifts, compared on a national scale.

Got done with a Trust and Estates exam last night and just got up from my first 6 hours of sleep in about a month. I feel a lot better about this one compared to my first exam, given the amount of material I was able to review in a short amount of time. Although with any of these exams you really have no idea how you did until you get the grades. one more to go, but its a take home and is due a a few days. Just have to stay focused and theres a light at the end of the tunnel. It really has been a perfect storm these past few weeks, month even, it seems like work, school, personal life, and more and more all comes at once and you just have to deal with it. Still not pau yet, but I’m still standing I guess.

The symbolic dreams are back again. A few nights ago I had one where I was holding the door to my apartment shut with my back, because there was a constant wind blowing it open and I couldn’t get it to shut completely and stay shut. After a while of this I noticed that there was a side door/cabinet that I had never seen before. While still holding the first door shut I opened the side cabinet which revealed a bunch of pipes like an old radiator and a tiny hallway leading away from where I was standing. once I opened the cabinet the wind seemed to be somewhat diverted enough that I was able to close the door. I wondered what was down that hallway. Part of the significance is that this is one of the few dreams that I’ve had in my apartment up in DC. new sense of home, maybe, and all of the symbolism that comes with it.

Last night I had another where I was back home in Hawaii, many years in the future. I had rode the rail line that they are supposedly planning on building and I was either down in Waikiki or by Kaka’ako, down by the water in some kind of a tourist trap. There were a lot of boats in a shallow harbor and I was watching an old local man going fishing with a bunch of tourists standing around, yapping and eating lunch. For a while I was distracted with the tourist’s conversations, a few of them started talking to me. I noticed the old man caught a medium sized fish by snagging the hook on the side of the fish and pulled it up. Immediately the fish started growing bigger and bigger, with its teeth widening alongside its mouth. I noticed that the tourists were both frightened and intrigued.

As the man pulled up the fish he quietly was talking to it as he removed the hook, and then gently put it back in the water, rubbed its belly and the fish grunted back at him like a dog. Then it swam along the water on its way. the old man then jumped in the water and somehow was able to tread alongside the fish by moving his feet, gliding through the water at his ankles. They were like two old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The violence of the hook snagging the fish was necessary to restart their acquaintances and then they could go along their way. I noticed that the tourists of course were not noticing any of this. A bunch of them came and asked me which rail line to catch to manoa or someplace, and I told them that I wasn’t as familiar with exactly how the rail line works, despite being from there originally.

Jump either earlier or later in the dream I was back at an old work place, I was talking to a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years, but they recognized me. I was going there to get a copy of a record or something, and ended up walking around the place. apparently they had remodeled and made part of it a bank.

This morning, feeling even more like crap and looking at the forecast of 18 degree weather and possible snow, I decided to play it safe and take another sick day. Hopefully this isn’t the start of me getting burned out, since I think theres a lot of reason to be, especially looking back on the past year. I’ve been running on empty almost non-stop since about a year ago when I started the spring 2006 semester. I jumped straight from being a 1L (1E, depending) into summer school which the particular class happened to continue on from May to August right before the next semester. Then this past semester carried on through most of the break, finishing up my clinical work and then I jumped into the next semester. Amazingly I didn’t really get sick at all for much of 2006, either I was being healthy, or maybe my body was just running on adrenaline the whole year and I was just toughing it out.

All and all its been relatively nice and relaxing staying home, aside from feeling like total crap I have to say its nice to just lounge around, sleep in, watch some TV, make some saimin and otherwise just get some rest. It really has been ages since I’ve been home without some work deadline, exam, or paper breathing down my neck. Thats what I’ve been telling people lately, when I take a day off or make good a flex schedule I’m actually allocating time to study and study. I think the biggest change is the role reversal of sorts, instead of coming home late for a change I’m being domestic. Time fo stey home, cook rice.

Had another strange dream last night where I was at some kind of a Jamaican restaurant of sorts and stumbled onto a weird high school reunion on a long table that filed the entire room and went on and on. Had a few awkward moments in trying to explain what I’ve been up to for the past several years, and all that stuff. The dream went in sequences, in which I ran into a number of people with whom I haven’t talked to in years. I also remember eating a lot of jerk chicken and thinking that it was a pretty good place, I need to come back.

Just last week I went to this really good seafood place downtown and had one of those crab and oyster towers. I always see other people ordering them but I’ve never been able to answer to those sea otter cravings. I was pretty amazed at the number of fresh Hawaiian fish they had available on the menu. It was all and all pretty pricey, but impressive.

Linkes for 1/25/2007
Medicare costs and other problems.
Graphical breakdown on the costs of Iraq war.
More discoveries on MRSA infections
God who wasn’t there Documentary
More Youtube finds:
Fantan Mojah Live – Hungry and Others
Boy Ken featuring Tony Curtis – Pretty Looks
Metis – Mi Strong Woman