Kaulapi World

So for almost a month now on this new lifestyle change and I’ve been eating a lot of okinawan sweet potato, tofu, brown rice, seaweed, miso, and a lot of steamed vegetables from our neighborhood farmer’s market. I’ve pretty much cut out everything fried, dairy, and cow-based. There have been stretches of days now that I don’t even eat meat, and when I do, its fish, or a very small amount of steamed pork. Meat has now become more of a condiment than a main dish for me, something that I never thought I’d ever do, being that I’ve always been a big meat eater. I’ve also always been a little irritated at the smugness of people who like to broadcast that they are are “vegetarian” or “vegan” as if its for some social cause. I say you do it for personal or health reasons, more power to you, but just don’t do it to show off like a pompous ass.

Another sign that I’m getting older – Hana noted the other day that a lot of our friends are getting married, or getting engaged lately. It seems like we have showers and wedding trips to plan ahead for at least the next year or so. Of my old group of friends back home, only a handful of us have gotten hitched so far, and at least one of them was probably one of the last we all would’ve thought have been one of the first. I hear through the grapevine that at least one of my ex-girlfriends is not only hitched, but already a happy and proud mom now. I’m glad I don’t have that kind of pressure from my folks yet. One step at a time.

So a few weeks ago I mentioned some blood tests from my trip back home as being kind of a wake-up call. Despite feeling fine and in good shape overall, I found out that some of my blood chemistry was off quite a bit from the normal ranges. They were off enough to cause my folks to sit me down the evening before I was heading back to DC to tell me that I need to slow down a bit with everything and take better care of my health. I think the stress, lack of sleep, (and oh did I mention stress?) of work and night school for the past 3 years has been taking its toll. The fact of the matter is that I’ve been pretty much running on empty since August, 2005 and in some sense I’m amazed that I haven’t lost my mind with all the side adventures and challenges that have come up along the way. The test results were really a second warning. The first warning was earlier this summer when I got my teeth checked out. After not having a single cavity my entire life, my first real cavities ended up being pretty bad requiring some drilling and more drilling, and more filling than I had ever imagined.

All the while I’ve been coming across sobering reports on the state of public health back home, talking about the rise of type 2 (adult onset) diabetes being rampant in Hawaii, especially among Native Hawaiians. Researchers and Doctors are baffled by the fact that the Hawaiians used to be a very lean and fit population, that is, until the overthrow of the monarchy, and the annexation of Hawaii to the United States. Kind of another wake-up nudge to me to keep up with my new health and diet plan.

Few more days and I’ll have a break from school, a few more weeks then I’ll be able take some real annual leave. It seems like the the busy spring went right into a busy summer, almost pau already and my summer course final is knocking on the door coming up next week. Looks like it’ll be late nights at the local coffee shop for me for here on out, looking forward to being finished with what has become a very busy year as a 3E. Looking forward to being a 4E, but more importantly to being almost done with this degree program. It’s been a challenging yet awarding experience.

My Commercial Transactions course this summer has been an example of a challenging course, given the depth of the material and the condensed course schedule down to 8 weeks. This has become another class in an area of law that I seem to have held a interest in that was previously unknown to me when I started school, similar to Corporations and Trust and Estates. I think it helps having a capable professor who can bring it all together quickly and in a way that both challenges you and provokes thought beyond the text and the cases.

Taking more sick leave this week, been a sobering reminder this summer as to how fortunate I am to be gainfully employed and covered by insurance. I’ve been joking with Hana that I should be bringing in lunch for the rest of the year to offset the costs, even after taking into account the insurance coverage. All these appointments have also been a reminder to me on the importance on getting enough sleep on a regular basis and pacing myself for this marathon life schedule I’ve been running for the past few years.

On a side note, I’ve noticed that Meyer’s Brigg temperament has been shifting again, from what was once becoming a solid ENTP to a moderately ENTJ. It has been the P/J split that has been fluctuating throughout my life. If I’m now a J, then it might explain some thoughts and realizations I’ve been having recently, or maybe more. There is something to be said about the temperaments of individuals as well as organizations as to how they can interact. Not sure where my agency would fall under, talking to one of my more experienced co-workers, it could be either an ISTP or INTP. Food for thought.

June again and I’m already knee deep in another summer session, I seem to have reverted to the almost back to back semester schedule that dominated the first 2 years of my adventures as an evening student. Took a little while, but I’m starting to feel my second wind to get back to studying this stuff. I’m taking a course in Commercial Transactions this summer, and once again I’m finding myself surprisingly interested in a course that I never really thought I’d be interested in before getting into the material. Never fully appreciated all of the federal statutes and anti-fraud provisions that are built into the simple action of writing a check, or swiping a credit card.

Taking some sick leave tomorrow and later this week for some appointments and checkups. Kind of a reminder that it’s a good idea to slow down and take a break once in a while from the busy life and get more sleep. I’ve been in constant work mode for day and night for so long now that it has become second nature, but has started to take a toll on my health. Nothing too serious, but definitely a reminder that I’m not as young as I used to be. By now I’ve accumulated a ton of sick leave I might as well use some of it.

June has been kind of an annual month of reflection for me in more ways than one, first off I started this journal many years ago this month, mostly because it marked the end of the academic school year. Looking back, June is also the month that I completed grad school and relocated to the district. Things to reflect on at this point might be that in my life there is always something around the corner to look forward to – for the longest time I thought it was because I was still young and sometimes overly idealistic, but lately I’ve been realizing that it may be because by nature I refuse, occasionally to my detriment, to be complacent in either mind or spirit. I’m never quite willing to settle for the problematic status quo if it can be improved.

After paying close attention to the races in 2000 and 2004 I’ve been I’ve been watching from the wings at both party’s primary process with a guarded level of optimism balanced with a healthy dose of cynicism. I come from what is considered a Democratic state, so every Presidential election has less meaning in the sense that I know where my electoral college votes are headed. Adding to the layer of pointlessness is that two party system hasn’t been effective at putting forward a candidate from either party that I can stand behind without too much reservations. Every election cycle its more often the lesser of two evils, with some cycles better than others.

For 2008 it is unfortunately more of the same, although I have to admit that it is a neat idea to share a home state and high school with someone who might very well be the next president of the US. At the very least this time around there is a big contrast in campaign styles, and overall charisma between the two nominees that might make things more interesting. If enthusiasm of supporters and the ability of a candidate to get people to pack auditoriums and get off their asses and do something is any gauge of success, I can’t see how the Democrats can lose this November.

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.

One Final done, 3 more to go. The first one always is the hardest one to get through in terms of the prep, review, and all the motions. As always, I’m not quite sure how I did. The good news is that going through it quickly I was able to recognize everything and immediately tie the questions to material that we had covered over the semester. Usually that means that I did OK. As I tell Hana, I’m confident that I passed. . . but passing could mean an A, B, or a C. If grades were any function of how much one learned from a course, then this should be my highest grade, it definitely opened up some perspectives and caused some re-evaluating of political philosophies for sure. Of course in law school your grade is solely determined on your ability to articulate your knowledge in clear, concise legal arguments, in proper IRAC form in a single exam at the end of the semester (or year). There’s no credit for participation or recognition for the process by which you learn the law. I’m wondering if the X-factor on this first exam was that this was a class I took during the day division – I would think this would stack things against me as the lone evening student competing with classmate who well, have ample time to prepare, but a good chunk of these day students happen to be graduating this semester.

Either way, what’s done is done, its on to the next one. Back to camping out in coffee shops and subway. Looking forward to getting this stuff done.

In the past I’ve noted times when I’m sitting around, doing something usually very ordinary, but then I have a sudden realization that I’ve dreamt about the exact moment down to the very minor detail. In the past I’ve called it de ja vu, but maybe I should call it more like a moment of clarity or realization, an epiphany maybe. It almost always is some random and meaningless moment, like looking out a window of a car and noticing the detailed reflection of my shirt print, or sneezing on my way to work. But when it happens I feel a sense of calm, sort of a reassurance that I’m on the right track in life, that everything up until that point in my life has been for a reason. Trying to rationalize it psychologically, I have wondered if its a self-talking mechanism in times of my life when there is some self-doubt, or questioning of life in general. However I’ve noticed that this has happened in relatively frequency in both good and bad times in the past.

The only other reasoning I can think of is that I’ve noticed the frequency of these feelings increases right before some kind of an world event or personal crossroads in life comes up. The creepy thing is that like the feeling, I don’t even see it coming until after it happens. So if I’m some kind of a clairvoyant, my forward viewing devise is way out of focus.

So the reason why I mention all of this now is that it happened a few weeks ago, for the first time I think in at least a couple of years, on my work trip down in the hotel down in Orlando. I was up late doing research for one of my classes and kind of thinking how out of synch it is trying to study away from home. Then the feeling hit me, down to the smallest detail, the shape of the room, the furniture, this funky laptop tray that came with the hotel, the fact that my extension chord barely reached the outlet, the coverage on the news about the pope visiting America.

Late April, and the finals crunch is here again. Been MIA from this journal for almost two months total now this year, its been hard to keep up with the posts with everything going on. Aside from getting flooded this past weekend, I also got to do some work travel, headed up to Philadelphia and Orlando for a few days. Had a chance to have dinner with my cousin and her husband at a place called Monk’s in downtown Philly, they had a variety of belgian beers, pretty tasty burgers, and a bunch of steamed mussel pots. Have to say that I was pretty impressed with how vibrant the downtown area was even on a weeknight, it kind of seemed like a scene in between NY and DC.

When I was on break from the conference I walked around the mall that was adjacent to the hotel. During lunch I got a good cuban plate at the food court, it was a no brainer to go there instead of the McDonalds, Panda Express and all the other standard food court fare. Happened to check out a surf shop that had a lot of brands from Hawaii, the kind that I used to check out a lot growing up. After a few minutes walking around I happened to glance at my reflection in one of the mirrors of myself wearing a coat and tie with the surfboards and racks of boardshorts behind me.

Raining all day, this morning, afternoon, and tonight in the district, it seems like this time of year we’re stuck right in the middle in between winter and spring, and its really hard to tell whether its going to snow or rain. Its really too warm for ice, but cold enough to make you shiver on your way home late at night. Either way its soggy and humid, be sure to pack an umbrella and watch your step. In the meantime the sakura are blooming all around with a reminder that spring is just around the corner, and then theres the heat of summer to look forward to.

In other news, Badgers get upset by the cinderella and crowd favorite of the tournament, Davidson behind a hot shooting Curry. I watched most of the sweet 16 game and was very impressed with the intensity that Davidson brought to the court. Pretty bummed that they weren’t able to keep it going against Kansas after beating Wisconsin pretty handily. Now we’re left with a first time ever 4 top seeded final four. Blah, boring. I guess theres always next year to look forward.

Been about a month between actual entries, once again life gets busy and there hasn’t been too much time to stop and actually write something down. Had a good trip out west, will have to write about that with some pictures when I get around to it. Meanwhile life goes on I suppose, I’m getting pretty tired of the daily grind, especially when lately it seems like its much ado about nothing at all. Its an ongoing struggle seeing and learning one thing in school, and then seeing the opposite at work, sometimes vice versa, either way it can be either uplifting or discouraging. The study of law is a different animal, in some ways its hyper theoretical, studied in a vacuum, just like other ivory tower disciplines. In other ways its quite real and hard hitting, when it comes to basic procedure and due process. At the same time work has the theoretical process on how work is supposed to go, contrasted with the imperfect reality of how things play out and how people actually interact. I have to say that I’m quite proud of how I’ve been able to balance both day work and night school, so far neither has really intruded into the other one in a negative way, mostly because there has been so much overlap between the two. It is discouraging sometimes when it feels like I’m the only one that really sees it though.

There is something worth mentioning that my generation has been the beneficiary of the one of the longest bull markets, by some estimates since 1982, meaning that we’ve never had a period of economic slowdown, never had a tough period for finding jobs, never had anything major barriers to access to credit. Both have contributed to a decent and increasing quality of life, either from actual income, or more perceived quality of life from cheap credit at low interest rates. As businesses start tightening their belts and laying people off, as banks stop giving out loans without ample capital or credit ratings, this will ultimately result in a shift in the American way of life as we currently know it, a shift that I wonder we are all adequately prepared for, both financially and psychologically.

About a week back into classes and work is picking up as well. Looking like a busy spring is in store for me on many fronts. On a side note, I got a chance to make wonton, some for saimin and another batch to freeze for later. It had the flavor and feeling of home.

Still following the primaries for the upcoming 2008 presidential election, have to say that I’m still a little torn on the prospects that I’ll most likely be considering come November. I’m always amazed at how US politics has become a warped version of reality TV and a strange never ending talk show in which candidates field questions and are continuously giving speeches and smiling so hard that it hurts.

Meanwhile, AFC championship is coming up, New England v. San Diego in a rematch from last year’s divisional, this time the stakes are higher as the winner goes to the Superbowl in Glendale, AZ in a few weeks. Read an article online about how both Jr. Seau and Rodney Harrison were both former Chargers before coming to New England, but Harrison was able to get there in time to get a superbowl ring or two while Jr. is still gunning for his first in 18 years. Reading about the pursuit of perfection at a professional sports star level puts things into perspective, it shows the drive and dedication of some athletes to stick with goals for years and years. We’ll have to see how this season plays out, I have a feeling that this season will be memorable thats for sure.