Every single day, every moment of the day, I cant believe you are still in my memories,

Am I fortunate enough to remember you, or is it just a hope in these beautiful melodies?

Your memories are the only things I remember about you know, since it has been a long time,

Your name still with me, your face and the way you talk, all preserved in these memories

I looked for you almost everywhere, the only place I haven’t looked is inside of myself,

for inside me are the painful memories, ready to be erased with new pages in the chapter of life,

I don’t want to erase anything, even though these old thoughts hurt me inside like a knife,

it is this pain within me that runs me, that keeps me going, it is the picture of your face that brings happiness to me

Where on earth could you be? Could you even be alive, I wonder sometimes.

Should I stop looking, or should I keep on looking? These questions haunt me all the time,

I can never answer these questions, for I have chosen to focus on the journey, not the end,

I try to find comfort in the question of what to do next, not how the end will come and when?

Your memories are the only things I remember about you know, since it has been a long time,

Your name still with me, your face and the way you talk, all preserved in these memories

I wonder if you still remember me, remember who I am and even remember my name,

for I try to remember almost everything about you, since the rust in my memories is finally settling in,

I wonder if you remember all the times we argued together, and the small little discussions we had and how you would always want to win,

This idea of friendship that is bestowed upon humanity, even in memories I think it is a very evil thing,

for this value of friendship is not only capable of making new bonds, but also destroying the bonds of a person with themselves,

I will keep remembering though, through these memories, even if my trust in friendship fades away, for friendship teaches us not only to give happiness to others but also find happiness within ourselves.

Your memories are the only things I remember about you know, since it has been a long time,

Your name still with me, your face and the way you talk, all preserved in these memories.

The top word used to find this site through search engines is “hunington beach”, because of me accidentally spelling Huntington as Hunington on my gallery.

One of the other words used in search engines to find this site is “mcdonalds now hiring losers”, because of McDonalds now hiring losers.

While Moveable Type [MT] has been drawing a lot of criticism from its users over its new pricing system, there has been an increase in pressure from other developers to provide conversion tools to let people convert. While I do not use Moveable Type on this site, I myself have been looking to convert to something else like WordPress.

There has been a lot of confusion and frustration over MT’s new pricing system, as Lynda mentions on her site, for example.

The following is the disclaimer I had referred to in my last article named “Privacy in libraries – the Electronic perspective.”

<%popup(20040514-no-privacy-on-computers.jpg|954|1426|Click here to view the no privacy on any public computer disclaimer note scanned)%>

I recently saw a notice by a college in my area, which outlines some changes to the rules and regulations governing the monitoring of data on campus computers. To quote [a scanned copy will be up here soon], there is “no privacy” on campus. It is as simple as that. If no one has noticed the change, many public colleges now require students to log in with their usernames and passwords to even use notepad to type something. There is no access to computers for visitors or non-students any longer at these public colleges. At this time, public Universities have not followed the same trend. It does, however, seem that similar moves will be made by every public University.

This heat is very bad for the brain. In the morning the radio stations claim it will be 50 at nights, yet it is 70 and more. They claim it will be cooler in the next five days, yet it has been around 110 for the past five.

We wait around for the book “The Day After Tomorrow” to be released in a movie version in theatres on May 28^th 2004, and wonder about our own weather here. It is cold one day, hot the next. Summer is upon us a bit sooner than expected, and Winter was fluctuating wildly also. While we may not be destroyed physically like the book and the movie suggest, many minds do wish that there was a consistency in weather right now, rather than fluctuations.

When will the summer end?

[from within one of the young workers]

The sun is blazing on earth, every living thing is wet with sweat,

I work in these fields, with feelings in my chest, hope in my heart,

I worked less back home, and had some respect,

what happened to the dreams they told us we could realize in another country like America?

I move every two years from city to city, within California,

from Huntington Beach to Santa Ana to Irvine now,

each field proving to be harder and requiring more work than the previous one,

I heard people saying Saigon sometimes when they were jogging past the fields,

So I asked other workers I knew what the word Saigon meant in English,

I found out Saigon looked liks this, all the country,

now I know how they must have felt, now that I know what happened there, even though it was an entirely different case.

They went there to end such fields and bring the new harmony,

little did everyone know that those people loved their lives already,

they went in there to end such fields and bring a Western system into place,

yet the make us work here the same way, not a single white face or race working with us here,

I sleep next to the same faces, work with the same faces, live and eat with the same faces,

I am a minority in a country where I cam to be treated like a majority,

This is my dream converted to reality; I now have to live my life in this place.

At least I know people in Saigon and other places work hard like us,

it does not matter if we are happy like them or not,

we both share the same sense of duty; duty to work hard and find happiness within ourselves.

She sees into the distance, wondering if he’s alive,

all the joys that he brought, and all the joys that she gave back,

All those days of having a good friend are probably gone for at least one of them,

she now wonders if he’s still around in the same old neighborhood.

He remembers her smile when she always say him,

he remembers her aggresiveness in all the different situations,

he knows she would stand in the face of opposition and still be proud,

he wishes her to have the best of this life, a good friend he valued a lot.

This world is a big place to hide in, even if one does not wish to hide,

It is a gigantic maze to go through to recover old memories and all the old ties,

It is the journey itself that accounts for the hope of finding happiness again,

this very hope of finding happiness results in achieveing happiness again.

[parental discretion advised because of sweaty lines]

Here we are, driving and teaching in hot California,

car burning with anger because of the heat, rooms devoid of any air,

driving around for almost an hour to find a parking space,

teaching all day in a room full of people, sweat dripping down every ones face,

the car is the burning coffin, torturing me for using it in the first place,

the room is full of people, everyone breathing for the same air in the same place,

as the driver tries to find parking without any luck, sweating even more at the sight of each filled parking space,

the teacher tries his best to deliver the information to students, glancing time and again at the clock and every sleepy face,

At last there is a parking space in the disabled/staff parking area,

at last its time to drive back from the hot 110 degrees class,

even if the driver gets a ticket for not being staff nor completely disabled, he will park there,

driving back home at least gives a comfort that home might be a bit better, much cooler than here.

The task is finally done, no more need to park here any more,

the home is finally here, no more need to witness the scorching heat,

it is time to hopefully wish that tonight will be a night spent sleeping, and not in agony,

tonight the margarita and milk will help in a beautiful peaceful, and cold, dream.

Media Type : Book | Rating : 6.0 out of 10 | Read on : April 15^th, 2004

Released : June, 1999 | New & Used Book Price : $25 & $12.50

Buy this book

I recently finished reading the book “From Pearl Harbor to Saigon”, a book by Toshio Whelchel that focuses on the Japanese Americans serving in the Vietnam War and their experiences both at home in America and while serving in America. Toshio Whelchel, who served with the Marines, interviews hundreds of Japanese Americans who served in the Vietnam war to give us an idea of how it felt to be an Asian American and serve during the Vietnam War. From the most general details [such as being placed in different elements of a unit because of being an Asian American] to the most minute ones [accounts of people asked to dress up as Vietnamese farmers and opposition fighters to give the soldiers an idea of who they were fighting], this book opens up a chest of secrets that was closed for a long time until Toshio approached the soldiers and interviewed them.

The book details the accounts and views of each person interviewed, from their childhood, to their teens and their experiences during the war. The book also does an excellent job of telling us what each of the soldiers felt when they came back from duty in Vietnam and how the people reacted to them, and how they themselves reacted to the people around them. At a time where hostile attitudes towards anyone who was thought to have fought in Vietnam was at its climax, each of the people interviewed came across ideologies which changed their lives forever. The book, overall, opens up yet another chapter in a War that is still a mystery to us.