Kaulapi World

Decided to take a mental break from studying, clean up around the house, run some errands, I have a few days more for my 3rd final than I had for the first two. Plan to get back in the grind later this afternoon, maybe try a different coffee shop for a change of scenery.

Went up to Maryland to pick up another earth box, potting soil and some starter plants. Starting earlier this year to take advantage o the good weather and maybe get some more veggies and herbs this summer than last. So far its looking like grape tomatoes, thai basil, italian basil, japanese eggplant, chinese squash, beans two types of goya. Last year I think I started it up too late in the season by the time the plants started producing it was getting too cold and they died off.

In driving up there I noticed that the only zipcar available was a civic hybrid, something that I had been meaning to test-drive, but never got around to. It pretty much drives like a regular automatic car, with the exception that there’s this battery gauge that swings from “assist” to “charge” depending on if you’re climbing up hill, or breaking. Also the engine cuts out when you’re sitting at a stop light. I suppose it takes some getting used to, I remember talking to someone a few years back when these cars first came out and she was concerned about not having the power or control over the car. I figure as long as the thing doesn’t die on you who cares about power.

Driving up to Maryland I passed a couple of signs at $4.01 a a gallon. Thats a big chunk of change for transportation. When prices of a good or service doubles and triples in a short time frame of months or years, you either adjust your consumption behaviors or continue to throw money down a hole. It seems to be the big story in the news lately, although a lot of media time is being spent on people bitching about oil company profits when they really should be talking about the inflation caused by monetary money supply games. The scary thing about the energy costs going up is that you really can’t hide from it entirely. Even if you cut down on your driving, take the train or carpool, you end up paying for it at the grocery store since most of everything Americans consume is trucked in. While gas was $4.00 a gallon, diesel fuel was $4.22 at that same gas station.

I’m a big fan of zipcar after being a member for close to 2 years now. Being that I don’t have a parking space, and pretty much take the train to work and school, it makes a lot more sense to just rent a car when I need it rather than have to car payments, and insurance and worry about street parking permits. But the biggest benefit especially late is that the gas is free with the rental fees. I remember talking to someone at a party once who scoffed at the idea of even using car sharing programs, something to the effect of how she would never date someone that showed up in a zipcar. This was right before she started complaining about finding parking that night and how the price of gas which was then about $2.00. Lucky for me I was already happily attached at the time, but it kind of got me thinking about how ironic the statement is.

I suppose this is a girl who would appreciate a guy with the big bucks who could afford to blow money on her on top of having money to spend on a nice set of wheels. Then again when you really think about it, if the girl was really smart, she would realize that a guy who was economically aware to discern from good and bod choices would have even more money to spend on her. Then again, this type of guy probably would want nothing to do with such a money grubbing date.

At a certain price, paying for a certain good or service becomes impractical, and consumers seek more affordable alternatives.

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.

For what its worth, I thought I’d make it a point to make more regular posts at least for my crazy finals prep week(s) It sort of allows a mental break from reading case law. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a few days advanced leave from work due to my trip going over the weekend. I usually plan to take some leave around this time of year months in advance, but it seems like more often than any extra time to prepare is welcomed.

Looking back to my political compass and mindset from the last presidential election a couple things haven’t changed at all. I’m still looking for a truly anti-war candidate, pro-civil liberties, and pro-fiscal responsibility and pro-social responsibility. What has changed since 2004 is my opinion on the way to achieve populist goals, and to what extent the “noise” in the political discussion has confused us to which party or which ideology promotes the values that I believe in. Sometimes its better to keep a healthy level of skepticism whenever ideas are reduced to sound bites and one-liners. The party who speaks about limited government in actuality becomes the big government spenders, the party of civil liberties becomes the party of pro-war party, and the party of warrant-less domestic spying.

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.

With a hard fought victory in the meadowlands, the Patriots go 16-0 in an amazing season with a number of dominating victories along with a few close come from behind games. I had a feeling that they would be in good shape to make a playoff run, but to get the top seed and home field advantage through the playoffs and to cap off an undefeated season was pretty unexpected, at least to me. New England players now hold a bunch of league records, in addition to the first undefeated regular season since 1972, records for total points scored, passing and receiving touchdowns in a regular season. The downside is that after watching such a dominating regular season anything short of a trip to Glendale would be a letdown. I’m hoping that there are at least 2-3 more wins for the Pats this year. We’ll see if they can keep it up in a couple weeks.

The other aspect of modern day totemism that I would be interested in how Durkheim would’ve analyzed in is how sports fans have put up fan blogs and discussion forums on the various articles floating around on the internet. For every celebrated match up, both team’s fans are quick to boast about their respective team’s strengths, the abilities of its star players, coaching staff, and go on to predict the outcome of the football game. There is usually a bit of comment about each team’s past laurels, from the current season as well as past seasons, all evidence on the superiority of one’s team. One of the forums I browsed through recently had some interesting turns, as the debate on the final football score in the sugar bowl went from discussing football to discussing the quality of public education at the UH-Manoa vs. the UGA. Another one went into the greater debate on what it means to be a local (Hawaiian) vs. a mainland Wannabee local. This is an ongoing debate that revolves around Hawaii’s star quarterback and his troubled past before he came to Hawaii.

First snowfall of the year in the district, and I’m in full study mode for this next round of finals. Got a paper out of the way a couple of weeks ago, then its two big staple exams, and then I have a 4 day break before the last elective course is up. After that its another smaller paper, and some administrative matters which would wrap up the semester. Its crazy enough that I planned ahead to take some annual leave this week, ironically it ended up that my job had a crunch this week as well.

Crazy to think how busy life gets right around the holidays, when most people are thinking about winter vacations and shopping for Xmas presents. I’m usually camped out in coffee shops and libraries. I suppose its been like that for almost a collective decade now. Its become second nature really, the one year when I didn’t have to go anywhere or study anything I felt kind of lazy.

Pleasant distractions/breaks from studying has been the ongoing successes of my college and pro football teams. Hawaii went undefeated in the regular season and is set up to go to the Sugar Bowl to face Georgia, who had case to be playing for a national title. Wisconsin is on its way to the Outback Bowl to face Tennessee. On the pro side Green Bay lost a battle with Dallas, but is still in the hunt for the NFC playoffs at 10-2. Finally New England has had a couple of close games but is still undefeated at 12-0. I suspect that the rest of the games will be tough, even the winless Miami and almost Winless New York. Everyone is saying how Pittsburgh will be the hardest game, and it should be a cakewalk after that I’m not so sure, after seeing how the Baltimore and Philly brought their A game on to face the Pats. Its a strange feeling really, being in a bar and hearing just about everyone cheer against your team, even though they aren’t Baltimore fans.

One thing for certain, its looking like both pro teams will be in the playoffs, and both college teams are in New Year’s day bowls - which makes for good football distractions for the winter, and the first month or so of the next semester.

Haven’t had much of a chance to comment on the status of the football teams that I follow, following one of the biggest hyped pro games tonight, maybe a brief post is due. Its a little past mid season for both college and pro, and two of the teams that I follow are undefeated, (Pats, Warriors) one with one loss (Packers) and the other still with a winning season at 7-3 (Badgers). Growing up I followed Hawaii for college ball, and thanks to my Dad’s loyal following from his time living in Boston, New England. Spending a collective 6 years of college and grad school in Madison I traded Hawaii to become a faithful Wisconsin fan, and to some extent started following Green Bay, but still considered the Patriots my pro team. Some people think its lame to have more than one college and pro team, but given all the miles I’ve had living in different parts, I think its more than justified. At least the teams are in different conferences, so they’ll rarely play each other except inter-conference play or in a bowl game.

The thing I get a kick out of is how people are quick to lob that comment about me being a bandwagon fan or something, since Boston seems to be having a lot of sports successes recently. Two world series, 3 Superbowl wins since 2000, and I guess the Red Sox and the Pats are challenging the Yankees for the most hated teams out there. Not too long ago one guy I talked to said that he didn’t believe me that I had been following the Patriots as long as I can remember, and that I remembered how much they used to suck so I’m just enjoying it while they are playing well. He said that he still didn’t believe me, and that every bandwagoner says that. I kind of sat there and stared at him, not really knowing what the point of the conversation was, or why I should even have to convince someone about something as stupid as fan loyalty to a team that happens to be having a good season. I suspect it had something to do with him being a Redskins fan.

With the mess of the BCS which relies on polls and perceptions of sports writers, both Wisconsin and Hawaii tend to get the short end of the stick as non-traditional powers. Granted this year hasn’t been the best for the Badgers, every year it seems like Wisconsin is considered overrated and as soon as they lose, the sports writers are dying for a reason to drop them in the polls. This week Wisconsin kept up with #1 Ohio State and actually lead until they imploded in the 4th quarter, which I think was better than anyone thought they could’ve done. Hawaii on the other hand usually has trouble getting ranked, and despite having an undefeated year so far this season, are being kept out of the top 14 BCS, mostly being dinged for not playing anyone good on their schedule, despite the fact that nobody seems to want to fly out and face Brennen and June Jone’s run and shoot offense. I remember all the years that Northwestern was ranked and even won a few big ten conference championships after breaking the smashmouth football tradition and going with a spread offense, but no one claiming that it was just a “system” therefore not legit, or worthy of national recognition.

One thing for sure, I think its time for a playoff system for college ball. Make teams qualify based on their records, and then fight out for wild card games, seeding in a 2-3 week tournament instead of bowl games that most people don’t even follow anyway if it isn’t on Jan 1, or the national championship. To make the season more doable, they could cancel the conference championships in favor of wild card spaces. They could even create a system to restore some of the traditional match ups, like keeping the Rose Bowl between the Big 10 and Pac 10 team that qualifies with a certain record.