elaboration

shoo...I had a poopy day today.

just when I'm feeling like I've finally got a handle on my Japanese, I'm thrown into a new situation that reminds me how much I still need to learn.

after several months, on my own, I thought I have finally figured out the complex proceedure of sending money overseas through the post office. I tried doing it again today. I'm not entirely sure what was going on, but in trying to get the forms I needed from the postal clerk, I stumbled over my words. Mix up, misunderstanding...okay, let's back up and try again. Nope. He wouldn't give the forms to me without asking me at least a half a dozen questions in Japanese, very quickly. So, I made my exagerated face of "What?" and asked for the forms again. Again he fired off his questions- to which I could only understand a few words. Then he started getting angry with me, pointing his finger in my face, yelling very loudly "anata!" (you!). I finally phyiscally pulled his finger down and said in English, very calmly "Give me those forms. Now."

It was at that point, after getting the forms and walking back to my seat to fill them out, that I could feel the whole post office looking at me- totally silent. I just quietly filled them out, but I did catch the glimpse of one woman- she definitely had a look of disapprovement on her face.

poop. I AM trying. it's just my lanugage ability is that of a three year old. I don't want to be treated as one.






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okay, I'm pretty sure I'm not this boring, but I've been doing a lot of studying lately- I've been practicing reading and writing japanese, trying to keep sharp on my french, reading analysis of US foreign policy on the environment (did you know that Montreal Protocol pretty much came about because it was COST EFFECTIVE for those companies who produced CFC's to phase them out?!? always follow the self-interest...), taking notes on philosophy (see below). And that's when I'm not teaching. I think study is my default life- if I don't have an adequate social outlet, I become a nerd (geeze- even that last sentance sounded nerdy) .

I remember promising myself in college, if I ever have to go through a divorce in my life, that is when I'll pursue a degree in chemistry. I love the way chemical reactions and nomenclature can just envelop the whole mind, cushioning the world outside to near irrelevancy.

heheh..I just realised..I am about ready to pursue another degree soon. gads, how's that for knowing myself?

Anyway, yeah- I'm not this annoying in real life. Really. I promise.
At the very least, I sincerely hope not.



Please give me a swift kick in the butt if I am.

Alright folks, here's the deal.

I will be cutting WAY back on my Internet time now. This has nothing to do with anyone personally. I have a few movements coming up and I need to start making my expenditures much leaner.

What does this mean? That I'm pretty much removing myself from the board. I'll still be blogging, as I can do that offline. Also, I can be reached by e-mail (dalang@post.com) if you need to get a hold of me, particularly if anything about the upcoming NYC trip comes up. I'm also allowing myself an odd chat or two, for which I will make myself visible- most likely Saturday mornings (Friday nights for you).

This does not mean that I don't dig you guys immensely, that I'm not thinking about ya, or that I'm trying to make a statement. This is just the reality of the life I have chosen for myself- EVERYTHING gets sacrificed to the Gods of Peregrination.

If it makes you feel any better, I'll be eating eggs and rice for the next few months. :-)

keep in touch.
please.


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On another note, it is REALLY hard to find evidence of "ugly" or "stupid" in a National Geographic. But it is deceptively easy to find their antonyms.
Just be warned if you are going to try to make that an English lesson.

So, I've been brushing up on Plato lately.

As classical philosophers go, he's a favorite of mine. Actually, Socrates ranks up above him, but as it is sometimes hard to tell where Socrates ends and Plato begins, I tend to lump the two together. Socrates' methods were the most revolutionary of all; most other philosophers (and the Sophists during his time) provided answers to the grand questions. Not Socrates. He expected YOU to get on your hands and knees and play in the dirt of philosophical inquiry- he only asked the questions.

Not to mention, I'm a big fan of Socratic irony- but you already knew that.

But enough about Socrates, what about Plato? He was concerned with what changes and what does not, particularly within society and man. Plato exerted that everything material changes, and how do we experience the material world? Through our senses. Since everything material is in constant flux, we can never know fully any one thing- we only have opinions about what our senses tell us (not to mention that our senses are tied to our bodies, which are also material). Fair enough.

So what can we know? What our reason tells us. Our power of reasoning comes from our immortal soul, the balance of our senses. Supposedly, our immortal soul existed in the world of ideas long before entering our bodies (I'll return to the world of ideas in a moment). When the soul leaves the world of ideas for the world of senses, it forgets how to reason (hence the inability to reason with a child). But, the immortal soul, over our lifetime, starts to remember the other world. What's more, it starts to yearn to return home and does everything it can to get back there (I love it when academic subjects like philosophy start to sound like comic book story plots).

The world of ideas- what is it? As I said before, it is where the immortal soul resides before entering our bodies, but also it is where the established molds of perfect beings reside. It was Plato's way of trying to explain why there were limited number of patterns in the world and why all tigers look like tigers and not elephants- in the world of ideas, the mold for the perfect tiger resides and all tigers are shaped from that idea. The elephant is a different idea from a tiger, so there is no mixing. According to Plato, yes, there is a perfect human and a perfect society in that world, but I won't get into that here right now.

I do have a point to this.

What would Plato think of the Internet? Think about it- it is a world constructed nearly completely by human reason. Granted, yes- the senses of sight and sound are used to convey information. But, would he think of it a mirror to the world of ideas? And what would he think of my earlier blog- that I am 100% human and in need of sensory input to complete my mental pictures of people I meet on the Internet? It seems pretty obvious that Plato gives much more creedince to the world of ideas- basically he preferes using reason over trusting the senses. If we are to take away nearly all sensory input, would Plato still want to live by reason alone?

It's a daunting question.
I wish he was around to answer it.

we are children of a dream. the collective dream of humanity.

yet, being born of this dream, living it, walking among it- the dream becomes more than a dream, more than reality.
it becomes nothing.

noseeums nibbling us into a mellifluous sleep.

if you think that's bad, wait until you hear this- those living outside the dream want nothing more than to live inside it. to be exactly where you are- being eaten away in honeyed ecstacy.

Only, they will know it's a dream.

man oh man

the ghosts are traveling and converging in the homeland.

I called my grandparents this week to thank them for the Easter card they sent me. They walloped me with the news that they are coming to Oregon at the same time I will be there. I haven't seen them for about four years and I generally don't keep in contact with them. I get the distinct feeling that they would like very much for me to be six years old again, and thus treat me as one. I wish I could share with them my life, and I do try occasionally in letters. But, there's always a feeling that I've missed telling them some vital piece of information- perhaps the code to relate my life to theirs.

so, as it stands- basically nearly every familiar tension that could possibly be addressed will be played out in Oregon in four weeks.
Welcome back.

come skeletons..come dance with the tango with me...
we be dancing good now! rhumba!!

I needed to clean that closet out anyway.

illusions, baby.
it's all about playing with the illusions.

You can slap it, slop it, flop it, mash it, mix it, whisk it, nix it, toss it, turn it, spurn it, durn it.
do whatever your little heart desires- you can even pretend they are more real than they are.
but be prepared to live and die by the choices you make.

sure, yes of course, there are people around here I would like to know in the four dimensions of the smelly world. Just as there are people I meet in my dreams I would love to pull into the reality that is before me. But, in the end- I am 100% human- I need all my senses engaged before I even think about moving even an inch closer.

Know thyself.

Arm's length and half a world away, distance is already a barrier for me, even without having the "half the world" part. Reality distilled into two dimensions adds to the impossibleness of knowing completely what we tie ourselves to. Dalang is the embodiment of that- this is my shadow ONLY. I make puppets with it, compose little stories, mock a drama or two, a characture based upon myself. The reality is messy, dealing with life as it is blown face first in my general direction, day in, day out. Yet, the unexamined life is not worth living, in any dimension.

In any case, it's coming closer to the time of pulling two dimensions into four. And not just in the arena of family, but friends, old and new. Come out of the cave, oh allegorical dweller! Climb over that wall, adjust your eyes to the light, and smile- see the world for as it Is.

Scary shit, but I'm still excited.

okay, I had to put this in a benign place where I could share.

saw the most beautiful movie I had seen in a long time last night. it's a Chinese movie called The Postman of the Mountains. set in the mountains of Hunan province, it's about an aging postman who takes his now-grown son on the mountain footpath for delievering the mail. In this one journey, the son has to learn all that the father can teach him, as the son will take his father's place after this one trek. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the dialogue was in Chinese and the subtitles were in Japanese, so I could only understand fragments of the actual dialogue- BUT, the words weren't exactly important. Because the story was so simple, all that was really needed to understand what was being said was the tone of voice and the body language.

it was so elegant. so rare.
lovely.

go find it.

so I found a time capsule online the other day- my h2g2 past.

It says the last time I posted was August 8th, 2000, so it was awhile ago. But there are some good articles on there. One about Yap Institute of Natural Science, another titled "The Secret to Trans-Situational Amusement or “Oh wow! Lookit dat!”", Fun with Invertebrates (one of my favorites).

I miss that forum of writing style, but as you can see from the top, my introduction was "inappropriate" according to the BBC. Here it is, in case you are curious:

Please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen...

This is a critique of a theatre in which I am the main performer. Therefore, it may not accurately reflect reality. Don't count on me to tell you otherwise. Consider yourself warned.
But I suppose that is true for all of us, whether we choose to believe it or not

Hi there and welcome. My chosen character's name is dalang. The (h2g2) guide will be a secondary source point for me while I am out tramping about in New Zealand and the South Pacific. (This is my first false step and I am very excited.)
Thanks for stopping by and do come visit

~dalang

that was it. I'm not sure how that could be viewed as inappropriate, but whatever. I figured if I couldn't have my creative freedom, then poo on them, even if it is my beloved BBC. But, I am thankful that they haven't deleted any of it. I'll be backing up the files after I have my hard drive replaced.

Yes, the dalang part is explained there as well. If you don't want to go around hunting for the story, here you go:

Dalang is a puppet master of the Javanese shadow puppet theater, known as Wayang Kulit. My choice in the name is not necessarily in reverence to the particular type of art form (although puppetry has the similar allure as with conjuring and juggling: the creation of an illusion for its own entertainment purpose.) Stories of life, love, war and hatred are played out in the flare of candle light with intricately carved, fragile stick figures against a white sheet, allowing only the silhouette of the puppet to show. My pseudonym is motivated by the idea of the dalang. The puppet masters are said to be the ones to give ‘life and breath’ to the puppets. However, the effort is so seamless that the audience believes that the puppet is the dalang. Sometimes the dalang believes this as well. But a few, and only a few, accept it for what it is: shadows and light. Very little is known about the dalang, because audience members are forbidden to cross the threshold of the illusion and the reality of the illusion. Only the shadow of the puppets is shown to the outside world. Never the puppet master. This pseudonym seems appropriate for this forum.

perhaps I should have chosen that name on the 'ze board, as I still seem to subscribe to the point of view. Yet, I have my real name next to my posts. the puppet master's wish to come out of the shadows, but still wanting to tell stories. I really shouldn't try to have it both ways.

Speaking of telling stories...lala told me about professional storytelling- what an incredible job. I would love to have that as a business card- professional storyteller. Perhaps I'll persue it sometime when I'm not busy collecting stories.

Thousands of wonderful lives, so little time.

The story.

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Dust settled on his feet, making his new boots appear much older than the few weeks than he truly had them.

Behind his boots, the only home they had ever known, the East- St. Louis, to be exact. Before them, the land of opportunity, of hope, of a new home- the West. Beside them, his brother's own boot-clad feet, who had been right there always- from fights with bullies to fishin' trips, and everything in between. He was more than a brother. He was a friend.

Together, they heard the call- "Go West, young man!".
And together, they heeded it.

Once the decision was made, finding a way to travel was easy enough- all the westward wagon trains could use an extra strong hand or two with wagon repairs or hunting. Just as long as these boys minded their good Christian consciousness. Despite being city boys, they knew well enough to keep their hands to themselves. Penalties for misconduct were simple, yet high- you were left behind. The only protection in the Injun wilds of the frontier was each other. To be left behind, was to call on Death himself.

The wind blew differently in the desert- it howled and screeched across the barren landscape, causing even the most burly men of the train to shudder. This was not the most ideal place to stay the night, but the sun was low, and the horses had become weary. They rounded up the train, and set to work on building a camp for the night.

Injuns. Them's the curses of dead Injuns, those howls caught on the wind.

The children of the train were too frightened to wander far enough to get enough wood for the entire night. Only the brothers were sent. Perhaps they could bring back a jackrabbit or two on the way back. Unsure, but with little choice, they agreed. 'Tis the bane of grown men- to face the dangers that haunt children's dreams and his own nightmares.

Clouds of dust still hung in the air when they returned, settling on the land that was to be for guarded sleep that night. In their absence, the wagon train disappeared, leaving a few scattered arrows as clues. A rampage. Thankfully, there were no fallen members, but it was hollow compensation to their new predicament. They had been left behind.

The wind howled in mockery.

Sleep was impossible that night. And the next. Waiting for the wagon train's return was foolhardy. The brothers need to press on in the same direction they were traveling, if only to catch another train bound for the promised lands of the West. Food and water were scarce in this godforsaken desert, and the vultures circling overhead knew this better than these greenhorns. No other creatures were more pleased when one of the brothers, driven wild with hunger, chased after a rattler. The rattler had a quick bite out of him instead.

A canyon they had passed was the only protection he could have sun and wind. The brother carried his fallen kin to the safety of the crags.
"Leave me. Leave me here to die."
"I will do no such thing."
"Then, fetch me water. Water is the last thing I wish to taste. Not this dust."

This was the last wish of his dying brother. He would run to the ends of the Earth to fulfill this wish, if only... if only, he weren't so close to death himself. Days stretched with no semblance of time. Only the howls of the dead, the scorching sun, and this dust were his companions now. He knew, the chances of finding water were beyond his ability to hope. Their combined fate were in the hands of God now, but frankly, his faith lay next to his dying brother, aching to be quenched. Hell itself would have been a easier place than this to find wa...



wait



what was that?

In the distance. What was that glimmer?

He ran like a madman towards it, whatever it was. When he caught up to the oscillation, it revealed to be a small silver water dipper. It must have fallen from a passing wagon. His heart sank. What good was a damned water dipper where there was NO WATER! He picked up the dipper and was about to throw it back for such foul temptation...

when he saw it inside the very bottom. One drop of water.

Like a newborn babe, he cradled the dipper in his arms and ran. Ran back to his brother, if only he was still alive.

He returned to the canyon to hear his brother's breath. Shallow, but still present.

"Brother, I've found you water. I fear that I have only found one drop, but you must have it."

He drank the one drop as it were a dipper full, thankful that his weary brother came back with this small treasure he needed nearly as much now. When he lowered the dipper, he noticed on the very bottom, one drop of water.

His parched lips knew he drank that treasured drop, but..perhaps there were two. This second drop, he insisted, was to be for the other for fulfillment his faithful duty. He drank it happily. As he was about to set the dipper down, he saw again. One drop of water.

How can this be? He gave the dipper to his brother, who drank the drop. Again, one drop of water remained.

They exchanged the dipper for hours. The snake bite was washed, drop by drop. Their bellies filled, drop by drop. They slept in peace among the safety of the crags, where no wind could haunt their dreams.

Next morning, they decided to continue their trek westward, the silver dipper in hand. As dusk started to fall, in the distant horizon, they saw the familiar shapes of wagons and men. They whooped with joy, half-dancing, half-running toward their wagon train. In their excitement, one of the brothers threw the small silver dipper in the air.

It never landed.

And that is why we see the constellation of the Little Dipper in the sky.

mu- nothingness

I woke up this morning to drumming, flutes, shouts and barking from Koko (the neighbor's dog).

I looked out my window. The men with a mikoshi were blessing the neighbor's house, shouting the evil spirits away. Koko was going nuts- many loud men envading her territory. Jumping up on their happi coats, trying to bring the portable shrine down, she had to kept leashed down. She's a good dog, but protective- she'll even protect against benedictions.

Later, I went walking around the neighborhood. Follow the drumming, follow the mikoshi, the throngs of shouting Japanese, both adults and kids. Mikoshi are beautiful ornate portable shrines in which the kami, the Gods, are carried. This is the day of the bendictions, when the spirits need a lift from the neighborhood shrine and spends the day cruising the streets. Every once in a while, the throngs stop, turn towards a house on the way and shout down any potential evil spirits. I watched from a distance. In the evening, the spirits needed to return back to the shrine, so the men with mikoshi brought them back- only to be greeted by singing, games, and food.

Kumiko came by with her children and brought me to the shrine. The kids had a ball, eatting cotton candy and yakitori. I did my first askance for blessing from the spirits, but I did it wrong. I've seen the routine many times- toss a coin, ring the bell (or clap) and pray. I tossed the coin, but forgot to ring the bell. Kumiko laughed, "You forgot to knock." she said. With all the singing and chanting around me, I didn't think anyone noticed.

I kept to myself mostly. They know that I'm only here for a short while and treat me as such- respectful, but guarded. A perpetual guest, I normally just look on. My camera stayed home- I knew better than to bring "the eye" with me. Nevertheless, it was still a lovely day.


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Got the plane tickets. Love that feeling.