200 out of 6,883,258,326
pneumonia, pneumonia, bronchitis, bronchitis, right testicle, right testicle.
a constant smile due to muscle spasms in my jaw.
Japan
June 29th 2008
rainy season
so it was a very rainy day yesterday.
james and i didn’t get up til about 12 because of how late we stayed up the night before.
james didn’t have band practice until five so we just decided to stay inside and chill out a bit, since there wasn’t really enough time to go anywhere.
so we took the train about four o’clock or so just so we could take our time getting to the small studio where laverite (james’ band) practices. i’ll take this time to rave about how great and easy the japanese railway system actually is. i can get to all the major places in japan in about 15 minutes. think about having sf, la, and ny all within a short train ride. :)
i met the two other guys in the band and they were very nice, in fact the vocalist bought dinner. the music was a rock/metal mix and i’m excited to see what it’s like live.
news from shibuya next
June 28th 2008
so its been one full day of japan..
james didn’t have to go to work til ten so we got to sleep in. somehow i have not been affected by jet lag at all while i’ve been here…it was very nice to sleep in though since i don’t really at home haha
so james went to go teach little kindergarten children while i stayed in the room and organized my stuff. and then watched the first third of the first season of arrested development cause james wasn’t getting back until one. and i also took a shower.
which was at first kinda awkward because the whole floor shares one shower. uhm ya…i’m used to having the bathroom to myself with locked door.
but there’s a curtain and a sliding door between.
still it’s a little weird..
but anyways he came back and then we left for harajuku.
where i bought a few new things and tried to reserve myself as much as possible. i could’ve spent all of my money in harajuku and been content for the next two weeks. but i kept it to a few things.
the first thing i bought was a pair of red shutter shades for 1000 yen ($10)
a pretty good deal considering they retail about 20-25 online and another boutique i went to was selling them for 40. ridic.
the next purchase i am quite proud of…a ny yankees new era cap.
now i know i could’ve bought this back home but..not in a bartering war with a nigerian guy. he turned out being really nice but the nigerian guys who sell hip hop clothing are extremely pushy here. so i suggest staying away from them if you ever come to harajuku.
after wandering around and finding some great used clothes boutiques (which are the cleanest and best i’ve been in but pricey) we ran into this guy who looked like he was ready for space battle…and got his armor from a junk yard.
the picture on facebook doesn’t quite capture the idiocy of this guy…but he had two lightsabers and a helmet and said he was running security for the rave he was going to that night, quote: “things might get a little kinky, you guys wanna come?”
In my head: not if they’re all dressed like you, guy.
since his lightsabers weren’t real i doubt that security was going to be doing much.
dork stamp.
continuing on, we went to this shop called wego.
its like urban outfitters, only raving on ectasy. and the music matches it. there i got three tanks, which are actually calm and not too colorful. and a lime green belt. almost left my camera here in the dressing room.
next was a huge shoe store with vans, nike, puma, reebok, etc. i only searched about half of it but the vans collection was amazing with everything from the simple classics to vault editions to stuff that must’ve been japan only. i ended up getting some hi-top vans.
then we found a cheaper, bigger used clothes store called Kinji. i found a great pair of yellow levi 509’s which were only 30, extremely low for how much it costs to buy jeans here. and i almost left my camera in the dressing room, again.
after that we walked to the high end part of harajuku with allll the designer stores.
i didn’t buy anything from the designer stores..but visually these stores were amazing. and here was one of the coolest malls i’ve ever been to. the architectural wonder of it is to go up to the next floor you don’t need to walk up stairs or use an escelator (this is available though) or elevator. its a slight incline the entire time! (see picture on facebook for reference)
after navigating harajuku, james took me to haiji temple. the temple was very cool, cleansing, and calm. an opposite to the city part which was just a couple minutes away.
after that we went back to the apartment and hung out in the common room and had a little party..a nice way to end the day. :)
so check the pics on facebook!! look out for more blogging to come
june 27th 2008
greetings from japan pt. 1
Current mood: excited
well my friends i’ve made it safely to the land of the rising sun..
and let me tell you it was quite the journey getting here.
apart from the 11 hour plane ride which was probably the most boring thing i have ever experienced.
but once getting off the plane i was thrown into the confusing world of customs…
it wasn’t that bad in retrospect. it’s just that the workers didn’t speak understandable english.
so then i set off to navigate the complex, crowded japanese railway system with only the set of instructions my cousin, James, gave me. Oh btw i decided to wear my wolf hat during my flight and left it on for the misadventures. i realized that japanese girls thought it was heckkka cute but the guys not so much. James explained later that is was because of the way the girls reacted to me that the guys didn’t like it. i was getting their attention. ahhhh jealousy.
anyways, the first train part was long, the airport to nippori was about an hour ride…smashing my fantasy that trains in japan are really fast. i didn’t realize at the time that the train ride would be that long so i had a thought in the back of my mind that i was going the complete opposite direction from where i needed to go.
not so. thank god.
i had to switch to a more local rail after getting nippori station. the ticket guy sent me in the right direction, which was very kind of him. unfortunately he forgot to tell me that i left my notebook at the counter…
so i lost my directions annnnd my ten or so hours of creative doodling. :((((((((((
luckily once i got on the train i finally understood the railway map and recognized the stop that i needed to get off on. it was only about a ten minute ride this time :D
so i get off at my final stop, use the pay phone to contact james, and my mission is accomplished.
when we got to his apartment i unloaded all my stuff and we headed out to get some food. traditional japanese sushi. mmmm.
it was amazing, cheap, and visually pleasing. for the most part haha.
i wasn’t too hungry though because i brought some cliff bars to tide me over in case anything went wrong.. but i look forward to more of this new cuisine.
after dinner we went to the 99 yen store to get me some slippers..i didn’t really think about what i would be walking around in inside since i wouldn’t be wearing shoes..they’re rediculously small slippers..
then we came back to the apartment and i got to meet some of the people who live in the complex. all very nice, very polite, and welcoming.
well here goes to the beginning!
more to come since james works every morning and i have some time to myself..
There was this guy who believed very much in true love and decided to take his time to wait for his right girl to appear.
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SEC. 215. ACCESS TO RECORDS AND OTHER ITEMS UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT.
Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861 et seq.) is amended by striking sections 501 through 503 and inserting the following:
`SEC. 501. ACCESS TO CERTAIN BUSINESS RECORDS FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS.
`(a)(1) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.
`(2) An investigation conducted under this section shall—
`(A) be conducted under guidelines approved by the Attorney General under Executive Order 12333 (or a successor order); and
`(B) not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
`(b) Each application under this section—
`(1) shall be made to—
`(A) a judge of the court established by section 103(a); or
`(B) a United States Magistrate Judge under chapter 43 of title 28, United States Code, who is publicly designated by the Chief Justice of the United States to have the power to hear applications and grant orders for the production of tangible things under this section on behalf of a judge of that court; and
`(2) shall specify that the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation conducted in accordance with subsection (a)(2) to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.
`(c)(1) Upon an application made pursuant to this section, the judge shall enter an ex parte order as requested, or as modified, approving the release of records if the judge finds that the application meets the requirements of this section.
`(2) An order under this subsection shall not disclose that it is issued for purposes of an investigation described in subsection (a).
`(d) No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section.
`(e) A person who, in good faith, produces tangible things under an order pursuant to this section shall not be liable to any other person for such production. Such production shall not be deemed to constitute a waiver of any privilege in any other proceeding or context.
`SEC. 502. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT.
`(a) On a semiannual basis, the Attorney General shall fully inform the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate concerning all requests for the production of tangible things under section 402.
`(b) On a semiannual basis, the Attorney General shall provide to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate a report setting forth with respect to the preceding 6-month period—
`(1) the total number of applications made for orders approving requests for the production of tangible things under section 402; and
`(2) the total number of such orders either granted, modified, or denied.’.
A. ctual R. adical T. actics
1st-on-D1
Our university is in the midst of a protest at the silent tree. While the crowd seems strangely quiet and small (it took about until library walk to hear), a friend who got there before me said over text that it was “as wild as UCSD can get with this kind of thing”. I find this to be true. At the same time another issue is currently being voted on by the undergraduate population. The shift of the entire athletic program to D1 is I believe more hotly debated among my friends or at least those on Facebook. The status updates and social marketing of the opinion on D1 were more prominent than the March 1st action. I can only name one undergraduate friend who was actively promoting March 1st while there were countless arguments, profile picture changes and IRL talks about D1. The walkout generated nowhere near as much excitement as the previous one did, it was so small compared to what other protests the people protesting imagined they want to replicate.
When I graduated from high school, while I thoroughly enjoyed the festivities (in fact there is a documentation of me shirtless next to my friend, who is shirtless as well but also wearing a feathered headdress [which no one bothered to take offense to since the high school mascot is the Indian and he is Mexican, the “closes: thing we had to the Native American tribe the accessory references]), I was happy to find myself in a different composition of social structure. This is partially due to UCSD’s lack of a football team. The spectacle of sports in America with football instead of futbol is complicated but has a couple tropes I will reference. First, it satiates the populace in large coliseums just short of bloodsport (though rules are making it more and more “safe”, mainly for the quarterback) like that of Rome’s galditorial games. {Reference USC game visit}.
Second, the emphasis on the quarterback (like the rule changed mentioned previously) elevates his (college and NFL football has no female quarterbacks) status to that of a deity in some circles. Take Tim Tebow’s explosion into the public sphere with not so much his abilities as a player but his belief as a person as well as the meme called Tebowing in which people replicate his kneel with his arm connecting his knee to his forehead, which numerous athletic players do on the field when thanking typically an American Christian God, in various locations while pictures are taken of them doing it and posted on the internet most likely on Facebook. The phenomenon of Tim Tebow continues beyond this but I believe I have made it clear that a man who is playing a game has been elevated in our culture to a standing that is much too high. A more personal example, and one more people could probably connect to, is the quarterback during my senior year of high school pretty much never did what school was about – academic learning. Most of my friends can attest to him cheating off of them at some point during those four years.
When we watch him play Oregon football and we say “Hey I know that guy.” Our memory usually goes back to him jumping a tackle in a football game or looking over someone’s shoulder during a quiz. So both of these points lead to why I like UCSD. We don’t have this obstacle. As an academic institution we aren’t bogged down by having sports figures being the faces of an institution that has been about amazing scientific research (also has its corrupt qualities, not my point) and social advancement through the humanities. That’s what worries me. Our school has a rich history with political activism. So when one of my professors tells me that she hadn’t heard anything about the March 1st rally until the night before and everyone I know is fiercely debating whether or not we should increase funding for sports, there’s much to consider. What the D-1 referendum is sponsoring goes along with the hegemonic idea is that we have to pay out of our own pockets for this education. Ad hominem attacks aside in regards to who is getting what money to pay for their education from where, should we be the source of this business’ capital? Should we lose everything to get an education at a university that calls itself public?
