My Brain Feels Like Ouch -- and a Short Essay

Apparently there wasn't any school today.

Having missed a couple of classes that rounds up to almost two weeks, I was uninformed. Funny, I recall emailing my professors about the sickness based lack of attendance--you think they could have at least emailed back to tell me there wasn't any class today but I am pushing the envelope on customer service.

Hold your applause...I stayed on campus from 9am - 3pm to catch up on reading for quizzes and research. When I say "research", it makes me feel like I'm actually doing something productive but in all seriousness, I have hundreds of pages of PDF ranging on topics from illegal immigration to cognitive dissonance to acculturation with second generation Vietnamese immigrants. The stack of paper is reaffirming...mostly because I didn't pay for printing because of access I have to a certain computer lab for cool kids.

My studies over the last 2 blocks of school have made me very interested in racism/prejudice. I'm advocating for some change and I think my continuing research will focus on long term solutions. I've also been reading up on acculturation and the conflict it brings in the family which sometimes manifests itself in problems in society. Studies about identity, assimilation, biculturalism, cross-generational conflict, etc. are really starting to interest me.

I find it interesting that when you drop all the frills of race, religion, culture, ethnicity, that these problems are merely identity centric--who am I, how do I fit in, where do I fit in, what defines who I am?

Good stuff.


PELE (NOT THE SOCCER GOD BUT THE HAWAIIAN ONE) & ALASKA

I was in second grade when I learned of Pele the Hawaiian volcano goddess of molten fury, creator of all that is Hawaii island goodness. They say that if you removed rocks from the island and take them home, nothing but bad luck will accompany you until you return the rock back to the island chain.

Apparently there is a curse attached to stealing from the island which is really stealing from Pele. Frankly, I think she's a greedy little biotch. Yes, I understand that island land masses don't just form overnight, and that lots of millennia are involved so every rock really does count, but I am living in the immediate gratification age--I don't have time to wait around for continents like Australia to form.

Seriously though, Hawaii is not having a rock shortage crisis.

If anything, Pele should be pretty dang proud that people are taking home chunks of rock as souvenirs. I, personally, would forgo the rocks and be packing back coconut bras with matching grass miniskirts (not for me...for a friend...). It's just that when I think of Hawaiian souvenirs I think of that plastic hula girl playing the ukulele that bounces around on the dash of the car. Rocks just don't jump out at me as a tourist attraction that leads to impulsive theft.

And you know, Pele can't be having that much of a hangup on her rocks because what about the sand that gets caught in your bellybutton when you go swimming in the ocean? Does she only have a monopoly on rocks but not sand aka minuscule rocks? Sounds like a double standard and I don't respect goddesses who roll like that.

I'm thinking a starfish would be a nice souvenir too.

Admittedly, my hometown is only an hour and a half from the beach which offers the same starfishes, rocks, sands, and Pacific Ocean as does Hawaii. It's the same water so if you've seen it here, you've seen it there. Save yourself the trip! Also, remember how Pele doesn't share rocks?

This might make me sound like I believe California to be bigger than it is but it is. California is America but I have lived in other states that have claimed the same distinction: Utah, Texas, and Alaska (vicariously through a 5th grade report).

Logistically speaking, there was not enough students to cover all the States so how did Mrs. Reams pick which States would be reported on? Was she a stark raving Democrat who picked only the Blue States or the same stark raving Democrat who intentionally picked only the Red States to reassure herself that the information her kids would glean would be easily dismissed as frivolous in the sense that nothing good comes from the Red States?

It's too hard to tell--she was from Massachusetts.

Facts I do remember about the situation is that Alaska's state flower is the Forget-Me-Not and to that I must say: COME ON NOW, ALASKA! Are you crying for attention? Are you that afraid of being left out of the fun that is the contiguous United States!?

Well, I am a believer of solutions and options and although I mention solutions and options in the plural sense, there are only two courses of action: Alaska can annex itself OR start carrying its weight as a United State by conquering Canada to MAKE ITSELF contiguous.

When I think about how Alaska has failed me as a valid state of the Union, I am filled with compassion for Pele. Perhaps what she has been trying to do this whole time was to bridge the gap to California via volcanic expansion to be truly a part of the Union in a way Alaska could never be.

If this is the case, every rock counts. No wonder she's pissed.

Stop stealing her rocks!