August 2009
3 posts
http://dshinzaki.blogspot.com/
Fruit and Females
The other day I made the mistake of bemoaning my lack of girlfriend and general female companionships with two friends of mine. This qualifies as a mistake as it gives them license to voice their well known complaints about my general preference towards females. It also gives them a chance to point out that I am, in fact, a mean, cynical asshole, which, to most people, is not a trait conducive to...
The following is an excerpt from the letter signed by 23 department chairs at the University of California at San Diego. The letter was dated June 15, 2009 and was forwarded to the University of California Office of the President: “3. Establish different budget priorities for the profiles of different UC campuses. Every state system of public education save California manages to sustain (at...
July 2009
4 posts
Economic Elitism
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/college-and-meritocracy
I was reading this afternoon. I do that occassionally. A friend of mine recommended the above article to me. Probably because I attend Princeton (mentioned in the article). Or maybe because he knew that I enjoy immflamatory opinions. The main point of the article states that while major universities (especially so-called...
Varsity Wisdom
The other day my mom provided me with an eye catching article in Vanity Fair about Harvard called “Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard”. A link can be found here :
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/06/harvard.html
Honestly speaking, most of the article wasn’t that interesting. Whoever was writing it was more concerned at the finger pointing of the various executives and leaders of...
Tend Your Garden
I got a small bonsai tree today. I know fairly little about the art of keeping such a tree. My prefered type of plant to keep are cacti and succulents. Even during the hottest part of the San Diego summer, I can keep my aloe vera in full sun being generally ignored except for occassional water (and I emphasize occasional). One pot I planted about two years ago currently is attempting an escape as...
Weird Dream
I had a weird dream last night. Weird by my standards:
I had just done ocean fishing with my dad, but we hadn’t had very much luck. We had only caught 1 fish and it was the fish that you catch right at the beginning on the trawl line. But we had a fish, so it wasn’t too bad.
We were cutting it up at home, and we cut off it’s head and it’s meaty insides looked like...
June 2009
12 posts
Playing with Fire(flies)
I spent a few hours this evening reading a book in the lower branches of a favorite tree just outside of my room. When the light finally became to dim to read, I headed back to dorm, finding the constant luminance of my room a more conducive environment for reading. Yet while I was making my way through the grass, I noticed a faint spark among the darkened blades of grass. As a natural pyro, I...
News: News sux
I keep a feed on my home page that gives me what they believe to be the top headlines of the day. I must stress “they believe”, as I am wary anytime an outside organization does such explicit and blatant filtering of the news. I did this because at one time I believe that it would provide a font of wisdom into the workings of the world at large, elevating my view of the world.
That...
Summer rain
Summer rain makes my day, the really hard stuff bombs the ground and drums the window. I spend my time indoors, not dancing among the puddles. But I still appreciate summer’s song, for it is a catchy tune.
Soul-stice
June 21st is one of my most favorite days of the year. Fuck Christmas. Screw Thanksgiving. It’s today (I guess yesterday by the time I post this). June 21st is the summer solstice, or more commonly known as the longest day of the year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice#English_names
I thrive in such prolonged sunlight and warmth. I was born in the sun and have lived in the sun. I...
Dear Prudence
(Copied from an email dated 6/15/09)
Dear students,
Over the past several semesters, students have expressed concern about professors who have not correctly followed the grading policy. The most frequent complaint was of professors saying that they would have liked to have given an “A” for a particular assignment, but that they were prevented from doing so by the grading policy.
To...
On Tea
I have just returned from a short trip New York City, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. And while the city has a kind of restless energy that acts as the dynamo for its cultural development, I found myself continually uncomfortable by the situation. I must concede that I stayed in Manhattan, only a few blocks from Time’s Square, it is one of the most busy areas of the city. However, as a...
Social Control
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”
I often rail against how dumb and obedient and useless “people” are. And in there lies the potential for cognitive dissonance. Because if I truly held disdain for every single person, I might as well go back into my cave and pine away with nobody else for the next 50-80...
Survival of the Fittest (University)
When I was growing up, I used to think of the Ivy League schools as bastions of intelligence and brilliance. A school like Harvard or Yale or Princeton or any other was a of beacon of light for the dark and unenlightened rest of the world. I would like to say that this illusion has effectively and completely broken down into rubble, but I feel that rubble would be too close to the original...
Short complaints
Things that I am tired of hearing about:
1) Information regarding the fate of Air France flight 447. Yes, it crashed. Yes, everybody appears dead. I don’t see the need to belabor the point. But I understand to an extent why the original story would be noteworthy. The idea of a big heap of metal crashing into the ocean does sound pretty interesting. I don’t like all of this stupid...
Flash of Nocturnal Thought
I write right now in a time when a few moments ago I was about to go to sleep. Three minutes ago, I thought I preparing for a peaceful night of sleep. But sudden bursts of insight make for poor bedmates, as they contain a sort of restless energy. Ideas strike when they wish; and the job of the observant writer, nay the observant human, is to catch them in a medium of choice. And so I write.
We...
Balance
Despite 13 years of Tae Kwon Do, I took up Aikido last fall as a martial art to study. The philosophical basis of Aikido stems from the idea that strength comes not from muscle, but from balance. The key to any takedown is to first assure the opponent is off balance. Actually, the key to any takedown is to first make sure that you have your own balance. I have heard the advice “take their...
Reuniting with my blog
I haven’t been writing much as of late. I have found that working a 9-5 job does stifle your creativity a bit. I find that my idle thoughts flow much more easily from an unworked mind. With each engineering and programming problem I solve, I work one half of my brain while leaving the other to atrophy and wither. I will have to do something about that. The problem is that because 8+ hours of...
May 2009
11 posts
Cooking Victory
Moving heavy boxes from Whitman to Mathey is tiring. Doing is about 7 times is more than 7 times as tiring. At least I got a good night’s sleep last night. Yuliya still owes me dinner XD.
Have you ever gone to a Japanese resturant and be the only one of the group to not order sushi for dinner?
While a summer long orgy of Hoagie Haven, Panera, and other take out food sounds like a good...
“There is more day to dawn”
“I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
-Henry David Thoreau in Walden
I am quite excited to move into my new room. After...
Stupid Shit
“Apparently, in this country, the Stupids are an extended family. And besides wearing them T-shirts, every one of them families have got on a backpack, strapped to their back, so that they could carry around lots of stupid shit. And the reason they need to carry their stupid shit strapped to their backs is because their hands must remain free at all times to hold food. And to get that food...
Princeton's Teachers
I woke up this morning and looked out my window. There was a white stuff covering almost the entire lawn. For the briefest moment I thought “OMG SNOW”. I turned out to be a white tarp in preparation for reunions. My first thoughts of the morning move slowly and rarely represent a coherent picture.
The beat of the campus moves at a different pace these days. The rushing mass of students flowing...
Finals = Over
I had my last final yesterday morning. I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7AM and, for once, saw the Princeton morning in all of its sunrise glory. I made my way over to the Friend Center, took the test and walked out of the building. I am now a free man. All of the pressure, weight and strain have been banished for another semester. I am done. And yet, I feel exactly the same as earlier in the...
Rain!!!
It’s a bad sign when the first thought of the morning/afternoon is “Shit, I’m going to miss lunch”. I was up until 4AM last night. I wasn’t up for any reason. I didn’t have reading to do, papers to write or tests to study for. I just got wired on tea, so I didn’t get really sleepy until about 3:30 AM. I’m gonna be screwed when I have to get up at a “decent” hour to go to work or do anything...
Wikipedia Adventures
I love looking at random articles on Wikipedia. It gives me the feeling that I’m doing a constructive activity by learning new pieces of information. However, I greatly (and rightfully) question the worth of knowing the year “Pickpocket” was released. It also gives me the chance to fulfill intellectual whims. Like today, I was looking at the Wikipedia article for pyromania:...
Dean's Date
I have had a remarkably boring Dean’s Date. I had no all-nighters to pull or papers to complete. So I went to bed as any other night and spent the day relaxing. I almost feel a little let down, as the time honored college tradition is to completely lose your sleep and sanity in the days before a major project is due. I may have lost my sanity long ago, but for a completely different reason.
I...
"I make my first entry today"
“‘What are you doing now?’ he asked. ‘Do you keep a journal?’ So I make my first entry today.”
-Henry David Thoreau
So at long last I begin to keep a blog. I’m not quite sure yet why I’ve decided to do so. I hope to find that in doing this writing I find the meaning of why I write. My potential motivations are mixed and many and worth dissecting in their own...
