昨日までの毎日がまるで長いようで一瞬なHOLIDAY
ON AND ON HEY MR. DJ 回すTURNTABLE BREAKBEATSにのせ
思えば歌う 過ごした月日 出会えば別れが近づく日々 クソ喰らえ
時代は過ぎ 時間だけは過ぎていくよ 迷わずに
あれからもう 約何年 思い出してみるなら儚ねー
初めて会った頃 大嫌いだった アイツが今じゃ だいの連れ
BACK IN THE DAY 朝の来ねえ夜までひたすらかけ抜けて行くぜ ALL DAY ALL NIGHT
次のページめくる 過ぎていく時を 追わずBAY BLUES

ON AND ON 出来るだけ 遠くまで 行けるとこまで 行くべ
出口やゴールなどねぇ 所詮はどんぐりの背比べ
ON AND ON 生まれて死んでくだけ 笑えるだけ笑え
そこにゃ理屈なんかいらねぇ 出会い晴れ 別れ雨

それでも回る地球さ まるでおもちゃ箱みてえ道草
泣いた 笑ったとかはいいさ 乗り越えた今だから二度もねえさ
思い出しても そこにゃもう居ねぇ 霞んで消えてくだけ思い出
死ぬまでつるんでいこうぜ MY MEN 俺の記憶の中 生きていく一人で
今だけ 今だけが特別な時 熱いもの込めた情熱的
綴っていく ペンの上 生き様いく NO PAIN NO GAIN
まわりくどい事は言わねぇ ただ目の前がまぶしいBABY
その気になりゃ今よりうだつ上がる その気んなりゃ 地球も一つになる

俺のRADIOから鳴る曲 移りゆく景色の中 鳴り響く
RADIOから鳴る曲 変わる季節の中 遠い記憶
俺のRADIOから鳴る曲 移りゆく景色の中 鳴り響く
RADIOから鳴る曲 変わる季節の中 遠い記憶

ON AND ON 出来るだけ 遠くまで 行けるとこまで 行くべ
出口やゴールなどねぇ 所詮はどんぐりの背比べ
ON AND ON 生まれて死んでくだけ 笑えるだけ笑え
そこにゃ理屈なんかいらねぇ 出会い晴れ 別れ雨

うろたえねー 前へ 答え そりゃ MY WAY もがいて ないで ひたすらな夢
絶えず運命 抱いたまま上 退屈いらねぇ TIME IS MONEY
この際はダイレクト まさに外伝 うだつ上がる HEY うわっつら内面
絶えず運命 描いたなら上 二つとないね いたずらなGAME

思い出したそう言えば 俺ガキんときゃ 生まれたまんまのにな
たかが何か こっ恥ずかしいだとか 素直にゃなれねー 俺の今
目にした現実の数だけ イカレていくよ 夢は捨てねぇ
でも俺は俺だけさ 常忘れねー 人は人 それはそれ
春四月 桜散り 夏 暑さにうかれ 秋収穫 冬こえて春 夏秋冬 また来る季節
去年とは違う まだやり足らねぇ事ばっか やらかしてるドデケーなんか
世界中 今この時を感じているかよ おはよう

ON AND ON 出来るだけ 遠くまで 行けるとこまで 行くべ
出口やゴールなどねぇ 所詮はどんぐりの背比べ
ON AND ON 生まれて死んでくだけ 笑えるだけ笑え
そこにゃ理屈なんかいらねぇ 出会い晴れ 別れ雨
うろたえねー 前へ 答え そりゃ MY WAY もがいて ないで ひたすらな夢
絶えず運命 抱いたまま上 退屈いらねぇ TIME IS MONEY
この際はダイレクト まさに外伝 うだつ上がる HEY うわっつら内面
絶えず運命 描いたなら上 二つとないね いたずらなGAME

Everyday leading upto yesterday seemed so long compared to this momentary holiday
On and on, hey Mr. DJ drop the breakbeat on the turntable.
I spent my days putting my thought to lyrics, in these times where “hellos” soon lead to “goodbye”
Fucking a man, time flies by; in fact it’s the only thing that’s truly consistent in this world.
The chumps that I used to hate when we first met are now some of my tightest homies,
back in the day when we’d go on and on until the end of the never-ending night all day and all night
I turn the page to the next chapter of my life, living with the bay blues without chasing after the escaping time.

On and on, go as far as you can, I’ll go until I can go no more
there’s no such thing as an “exit” or a final “goal”; life’s all the same to begin with
On and on, we live and then we die, laugh about it as much as you can
There’s no logic to it at all, after every sunny hello there’s always a cloudy goodbye

normally when one thinks of private universities, one may perhaps think of ivy league schools or specialized vocational colleges, but in most cases, private education is not usually far from an air of “prestige” and “bourgeois” if not because of the price tag that comes with it, because of the exclusivity that is often associated with such institutions.

being a graduate of a public institution myself, i was often curious of what is being taught in these private institutions that set them so apart from their public counterparts, and since my brother is currently finishing up his undergraduate studies there, i figured that now would be an opportune moment to perhaps compare and contrast the quality of education being provided in both schools.

my brother was given one of those practice exams to take home and study from which is actually the final exam from the previous semester/year, for his biology 101 class which i can only assume is the private school equivalent of “gen bio.” being curious as to what’s being taught in a private instituion’s gen bio class, i asked my brother to send me a .pdf copy of the test exam he’d been given to which he kindly obliged.

reading through the exam revealed that the content being taught in my brother’s bio class, for the most part, wasn’t all that different from what was being taught in my general bio class freshman year (it’s general bio, how different can it get?) but the quality between private and public was made clear in a minute but subtle way… actually, who am i joking… they were glaring made obvious to me in very disturbing, yet somewhat humorous ways.

the test, for example, contained normal bread-and-butter bio questions like these:

like any good elective bio class, his exam seemed to contain questions that don’t really require any formal knowledge of the subject but simply the use of common sense such as the above (given that a myriad of organisms don’t cohabitate or inhabit aquatic environments, it is painfully clear that the answer to the above question would be “c”);

and of course, like any moderately-challenging multiple choice exam should be, the exam also contained “brutal reality” questions, where you pick out one correct answer from a pool of many likely answers. (and the answer here, as it always is, is “c”)

the questions from the exam so far suggested that there was more or less parity between the quality of education between private and public institutions; at least i thought so until i turned the page to reveal this lovely surprise:

in case that’s too small for you to read, the question asks:

We said that Jesus and water both share some common characteristics: they are both_______.

to which students are expected to answer from the following choices:

a. Unique–there is no other like them
b. Indispensable–we can’t live without them
c. Metamorphic–they both are ever changing
d. both a and b

at this point, i was dumbstruck with awe for this shocking revelation; how could i have been so blind as not to see that jesus and water were two in the same? still shaking and trembling from my new discovery, i peeked even more carefully this time through the exam to see if any more of these hidden gems would be made known to me from this obviously superior education curriculum until i came across the following set of questions:

mind = blown.

addendum
i didn’t know if lucifer would be classified as a true life form or not (as opposed to “President Bush”, who obviously is not a true life form) so I asked my brother to shed some light on how to clasify him.

saudades さんの発言 (23:43):
wait
so is lucifer a true life form
or dead

Jay さんの発言 (23:43):
considered a person but not living

saudades さんの発言 (23:44):
is it bad that i find that hilarious

Jay さんの発言 (23:45):
well in the scientific sense he cant use energy

saudades さんの発言 (23:45):
what about jesus

Jay さんの発言 (23:45):
and he doesn’t have potential for physical growth, reproduction

Jay さんの発言 (23:46):
Jesus at a time was a physical living being
but then after the second coming I’m assuming he was not a living being but was a supernatural being

saudades さんの発言 (23:46):
wasn’t lucifer at one time physically living too
as an “angel of god”

Jay さんの発言 (23:46):
they don’t discuss theological biology in class

Jay さんの発言 (23:47):
but he still didn’t have potential for growth or reproduction

夫の場合

2. running/jogging on west cliff peering at the coastline

A brief crash course in the history of the Japanese archipelago reveals that the rise of the warrior class and the warrior elites started in mid 12th century with the advent of the Kamakura Period of Japanese history. The warrior class of this time came into power under the time-tested axiom of “might makes right” and gradually wrested authority away from the imperial rule previously established during the Nara and Heian Periods of Japanese history. The emperor gradually lost all de facto authority by the advent of the Muromachi Period in the 14th century—a time of escalated violence and vicissitude perhaps most attributable to all the aforementioned romanticized portrayals of samurai—and the Japanese archipelago remained under the mercy of military might until its unification under the now famous “rice cake metaphor.”

An irony surrounding the identity of the samurai is that whereas media depictions and portrayals of the samurai would most rightly place them in the midst of all the raging military conflicts of the Kamakura and Muromachi Periods, their existence only became codified and officially recognized after those military conflicts would mostly come to a halt with Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s rise to power. Toyotomi Hideyoshi laid the foundations for a social caste system where the right to exercise violence would be limited to a hereditary group of warriors whose task was to samurau [侍ふ/候ふ], or to “serve and stay by the side of one’s master” . The irony would only be realized in its full extent after Toyotomi’s reign would be brought to an end and the Japanese archipelago would finally be unified and followed by two and a half centuries of Tokugawa rule, where a caste system based on military ascriptions would be expected to function without an outstanding war to fight.

The Tokugawa Period which followed soon after the formal codification and recognition of the samurai as a social class, was a time of unparalleled peace on the Japanese archipelago; so much to the point that historians often refer to it as the Pax Tokugawa in the fashion of the period of peace and prosperity in the Roman empire which bears a similar name. Much like the Heian Period on the Japanese archipelago where a prolonged period of peace gave rise to an overabundance of culture, (or what historian Gregory Smits refers to as “a rule of taste”) a similar phenomenon was observed during the Tokugawa Period, where the samurai elite and the daimyō to whom they were bound, were more concerned with the pursuit of culture than militaristic gains and campaigns.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa shōgun, for example, was known to be a “pragmatic Sinophile,” under the impression that Chinese (predominantly neo-Confucian) thought “[would serve] as a tool for the construction of good government” and that the collection of Chinese art, like the shōgun before him, were a way to “to [draw] connections to the legitimizing power of Chinese civilization” . Where most cloistered rulers before Ieyasu’s time—such as the ōgosho of the Ashikaga shogunate or the “retired emperors” of the Nara and Heian periods whom employed the insei system of rule—continued to insert themselves into the affairs of the state or even play out their “cloistered” role as a mere extension of their previous regiment, Ieyasu reported spent the remainder of his days pursuing his interest in neo-confucianist literature and the art of falconry, which was perhaps “what golf was is to political power in more recent times” . This fascination with pursuit of culture was not only restrained to just the shōgun and those occupying positions of high authority, but to the lower strata of the samurai class as well; it is documented that even the lower-ranking samurai of the time “studied the tea ceremony and incense appreciation and pursued scholarly studies under leading teachers of the domain.”

Although their original militaristic purpose was thrown into obscurity by a lack of (inter)national conflict and a brilliantly structured system of dominance set in place by the presiding generation of shōgun, such as the system of sankin kōtai, which ensured that the numerous daimyō would remain loyal and perhaps too occupied to incite domestic rebellion, the samurai and the members of the samurai class were still duty bound to fulfill their duty of “serving and staying by the side of one’s master.” Removed from the role of the warrior, samurai and the many lesser retainers of the domain instead served their lords as “government administrators… and companions” ; the members of the samurai class served as what can perhaps be considered public servant positions of today, as “police, firefighters, soldiers, tax collectors, administrators of granaries, ports, and roads.”

Another overlooked consideration often unmade when discerning the identity of the samurai is the role of women in the samurai society. Like their male counterparts, the sacred code under which women of the era were made to abide and live by was to “serve and stay by the side of one’s master”; though samurai women did not serve the daimyō or the shōgun through militaristic feats such as the men did, they were for all intents and purposes, seen as equal to their male counterpart as members of society whom occupy the highest social strata in the shi-nō-kō-shō hierarchy of early modern Japanese history. The importance of the samurai woman labor force was almost parallel to those of their male counterparts as samurai women were employed all over the domains of Tokugawa Japan in a multifarious positions from the Japanese equivalent of Tudor England’s “lady-in-waiting” to pages, guardians, transaction agents, cooks and fire wardens. The importance of these positions employed by the samurai women were almost parallel to that of the other posts occupied by their male counterparts, as women employed in the lowest strata of the samurai class as drudges reported made as much money as men who were employed as sandal-bearers or soldiers to the daimyō . Samurai women as joint members of the samurai class with the men, therefore, further propel the idea that the place of the samurai, regardless of his/her role in the grand scheme of things, was under the servitude of his/her lord.

In summation, barring numerous comparisons of the samurai as the “knights” of the European feudal systems aside, the identity of the samurai is a complex amalgamation of cultural and militaristic elements bound together by a common sense of duty of “serving one’s lord and staying by his side”; whether it was in battle or in matters of culture or domestic governance, members of the samurai class both men and women alike, despite their elevated status in the social hierarchy, were made to serve and tend to their lords and masters above every other purpose. Although their foundations were set under militaristic pretenses, the peaceful nature of the times that followed their installment into the social hierarchy transformed the samurai from spirited warriors to social representatives who mirrored the will of their lords to the lower classes of early modern Japanese society.

so in law, desert is met and fulfilled through either a designation by the state or contractual obligation (and in other cases, through dependence formed out of the aforementioned two things). it makes perfect sense — you’re only entitled to something if the state/parties involved has an interest in your need and they agree to fulfill your need. if such an agreement or understanding is previously set in place, then it’s safe to assume that you do indeed deserve what you’re legally and contractually entitled to.

but the idea of desert seems to become obfuscated when it touches upon the borders and barriers of sociology; for some reason, people always seem to think that they’re entitled to something no one is obligated to provide to them and often times are very vocal about it. take for example the recent “scandals” floating around tinseltown like tiger woods’ infidelity and south park’s supposed “jab” on islam. i don’t understand why people seem to put celebrities on a higher standard of judgment/criticism than they do normal people. i can actually see why people would jeer at crooked or misbehaving politicians as those are the people who represent us in the legal/political world, but celebrities aren’t any different from the average joe other than the fact that they’re more widely recognized and possess depressingly greater sums of money than most people do.

i find it utterly stupid that people expect tiger woods to be apologetic to the entire nation for his infidelity to his wife; the only duty/obligation he’s broken here is his fidelity to his wife, which whereas others will say is a grave crime, is absolutely nobody’s business other than tiger, his wife, and the myriad of women involved. sure some would like to argue that it’s bad sportsmanship, but since when does the sport of “playing golf” extend to ooutside of the golf course? the fact of the matter is, tiger woods is just an extremely gifted golf player who corporate opportunists such as nike rightfully saw a potential to milk money from — last time i checked, there is no formal consent form that one needs to sign before becoming a celebrity that has one swear to uphold the moral fibre of the country in which he/she is famous in.

my annoyance towards the whole tiger situation is actually quite minuscule in compared to the latest “south park vs. islam” fiasco. people are claiming that south park should “show some respect” toward islam and are slandering them for their “misrepresentation” of the religion. whereas there may be an ounce of truth in that claim, the fact of the matter is, south park has always been a show about social satire/commentary and has never been about showing deference or respect to a particular theme or idea. actually, south park even acknowledges that their views may be offensive and warns viewers before every episode that the subject material might not be suitable for every(any)one:

ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS SHOW–EVEN THOSE BASED ON REAL PEOPLE–ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL. ALL CELEBRITY VOICES ARE IMPERSONATED… POORLY. THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM CONTAINS COARSE LANGUAGE AND DUE TO ITS CONTENT IT SHOULD BE VIEWED BY ANYONE.

setting issues about lazy people not reading or taking warnings seriously aside, the whole south park fiasco also brings out perhaps a fallacy or a misconception about the first amendment that americans seem to have/taken advantage of; whereas the freedom of speech / expression entitles every citizen the right to free opinion and to say whatever they want, (assuming that what they’re saying is not perjurious to the state) it doesnt entail that anyone who has such free will and the opinions of those peoples are any more significant or hold more weight than others. in short, having the freedom of speech doesn’t make anyone’s opinion any more or less special when everyone has that freedom.

it disgusts me to see that the same people who sometimes cower under the banner of free speech as a defense toward having anything censored (such are religious beliefs, ideas, etc) are now using that same defense to attack ideas that seem offensive to them; the beauty of free speech is that it provides for an open forum of ideas both good and bad — all you have to do if you don’t like a certain idea is to just ignore them and move on. (though i do realize that by saying this i put myself under the very same position as those i’m lashing out against — “if you don’t like the criticisms, why don’t you just ignore it?” etc)

in any case, the idea of “desert” seems to be way overplayed in society and especially on “tv”; whether it’s something we take for granted such as the freedom of speech/expression or some exalted ideal as “showing some (undue) respect” it’s both fascinating and frustrating how we as people seem to hold desert to a double standard — we seem to agree upon its existence when its favorable to us, and then deny its very existence when it’s not favorable — i’d like to contend that unlike the veggies and the greens that were presented to us as children on the dinner table, desert is not something we can/should be picky about; instead of being embraced in part to fit our needs, we should either embrace it as whole, or take on the neutral stance such as the law adopts in determining who is and is not entitled to the (fulfillment) of need.

April 20th, 2010
I for some reason had a dream that I was starting law school, but I couldn’t go to the second and third week of classes because the volcano in Iceland erupted again and for some reason I was visiting grad school in Holland. I came back on what’s presumably the fourth week and the professor who was teaching my classes was giving the class a lecture (of different sorts) about how students haven’t been coming to class and how he plans to drop students who haven’t been coming as soon as he figured out which ones weren’t coming.

so, what happens if:
1. i don’t want to contribute to threatwork alliance and not send my scan results to them
or…
2. i want to contribute to them by sending money instead?

DONALD DUCK GOOFY MICKEY MOUSE!
IMMA PUNCH YOU IN YO FUCKIN’ MOUTH!

ドナルド・ダック、グーフィー、ミッキーマウス
オメエのその口ぶん殴ってやるぜ！

I’M A CARE BEAR NIGGA
YOU WAS NEVER THERE NIGGA
I WAS ON THE BLOCK PLAYING WITH TOYS EATIN’ CANDY THERE NIGGA

俺はケアベアみたいな二ガァだぜ
オメエはずっとそこにはいなかったぜ
オメエがいない間俺は下町でお菓子食べながらおもちゃで遊んでやったぜ

I’M A A-1 NIGGA
A THICK SAUCE NIGGA

俺はA-1みたいな二ガァだぜ
濃いソースの様にしつこい二ガァだぜ

I’M A…. HIT YOU IN THE FACE PUNCH YOU IN THE MOUTH NIGGA
IMMA PUNCH YOU IN YO FUCKEN MOUTH

俺は…「おめえの顔をぶっ壊す、おめえの口をぶん殴る」様な真似をする二ガァだぜ
オメエのその口ぶん殴ってやるぜ！

I’M A REAL NIGGA
A NIGGA THATA COME THROUGH AND RIDE AND PUNCH YOU IN YO FACE NIGGA
I PUNCH NIGGAZ IN THE FACE!
(EVERYDAY!)

俺は本物の二ガァだぜ
何かに乗っかて来てオメエの顔ぶん殴る二ガァだぜ
俺は二ガァたちの顔面ぶっ壊す二ガァだぜ
(毎日のようにね！)

IMMA PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKEN FACE!
AND WHEN I’M DONE, IMMA PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKEN FACE
I’M ABOUT TO EAT THIS NIGGA
LIKE A NESTLE’S CRUNCH
AND IF HE DON’T LIKE IT…
HE’S GONNA EAT A FUCKEN PUNCH!

オメエのその顔俺がぶん殴ってやるぜ
終わったらもう一本顔に殴ってやる
この二ガァ、俺が喰ってやるぜ
まるでネスレの菓子みたいに喰らってやるぜ
もし嫌だったら
そん時はパンチを喰わせてやるぜ！