Cara Kamehiro
May 5, 2011
FD4
One Thousand Words Equals Tatau
A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. Yet it is known that actions speak louder than words. There are many different types of art from paintings, sculpture, photography, sketching and even tattooing. Many might not consider tattooing to be a form of art. Tattoos date back in history for over a thousand years in each culture from the tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean to the huge countries like China. Many cultures like the Japanese and the Polynesians consider tattoos a form of art, and have been displaying this art for over thousands of years. The art of tattooing is a story of each persons journey in life, and a way of making the body "beautiful." The human body is an amazing work of art itself of evolution. Who would have thought that the body could be used as a canvas for artists around the world? A picture in someones' living room or bed room can define the whole room or even the whole house. [Thesis] A picture is worth a thousand words and if actions speak louder than words, is a tattoo a picture of a thousand words or an action that speaks louder than the picture? [Thesis]
Tattoos in Polynesia has been around since the 1400s, and was believed to be the start of this tattoo art. The word tattoo can be broken down into two parts: 'ta' which means striking something and the word 'tatau' which means to mark something. 'Tatau' is used in the little islands of Polynesia like Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa. In Hawaii instead of the word tatau the Hawaiians use the word 'kakau.' Another way of breaking down the word tattoo is 'tata' means repeatedly done by hand and 'u' means color. When the westerners came to Polynesia the word 'tatau' became tattoo. These Polynesian tattoos are not just for show. They define who you are, your role in society, what you do-like a job, battles you won or people you killed in battles. These tribal tattoos are a sign of protection. The Polynesians believed that the right tattoo would shield you from bodily harm and evil spirits.
In Samoa tatau means honor, strength and virtue of Samoa. This is what they believe tattoos represent on their bodies. Polynesians used tools made by hand from the barbs of a fishes tail, birds' beak, or the boars' tooth. There are many different names for this tool like 'tapulu,' 'nefo,' and 'moli.' Since Polynesia has different cultures they all have different names for different things. In which ever language, this tool is known as the modern day needles. Their needles look like a hair comb that is 1-2 inches wide and has 30-40 teeth. Today they use metal instead of bones of animals. This metal or bone is attached to a wooden stick used for the handle. The needles are dipped in the ink made from the burnt soot of Kukui nuts and are tapped into the skin by a stick called 'sausau' by the Samoans.
These tattoos would be received after a child goes through the adolescence stage and becomes the man of the house. This means taking on more responsibilities and more chores like work as a fisher or a hunter. These tattoos of the adolescence is a passage into adulthood, a mark that a transformation occurred in their life. Another reason to get a tattoo would be after accomplishing a milestone in life, for instance after graduating college or high school, or succeeding in work and settling down in life. Usually in Samoa the men have tattoos from their waist down to the end of their knees. This is a long process of 1-2 weeks and Samoans would need a tattoo to enter a chiefs' house. After getting this full body tattoo completed in Samoa you were believed to be a better man, like to be reborn.
Till today the art of tattoos by the Polynesians is a very spiritual process. The person receiving the tattoo usually does not tell the artist what he or she wants. The artist decides what is to be imprinted on each persons' skin based on where they want the tattoo and the reasoning for their tattoo. The artist allows the sketch pen to flow freely by what is believed to be the gods drawings. This is why the tattoos are known to be a spiritual form of art. Each artist has 2-3 men who help stretch the skin for an easier process. The skin stretchers are believed to help share and relieve the pain from the "patient" through their hands.
In Japan the art of tattoos were believed to start over fifteen hundred years ago. The earliest evidence of tattoos in Japan were on life size clay figurines sculpted after real people when they died. These tattoos were supposedly religious and magical in the after life to protect them from the unknown. In the middle ages Japanese government banned certain theaters, paintings, and dresses known as kimonos. Since these dresses and paintings were banned, the Japanese would tattoo their whole body known as body suits that were colorful tattoos that looked like the kimonos and the paintings. This body suit looked like clothes on a person, even though they were basically naked.
In 297 AD the Chinese saw these behaviors of the Japanese and in all of Chinese context, tattoos were always negative. During the seventh century most of the Chinese cultures were adopted by the Japan rulers. In a result of these rulers, the tattoo became a form of punishment instead of an art. In 720 AD was the first record of tattooing used as a punishment. After the sixth century tattooing was used to identify criminals and outcasts. Outcasts would be marked with a cross on their inner forearm, a straight line on either their outer forearm or upper arm. For criminals there were different symbols tattooed on their arms or sometimes forehead that symbolized where the crime was committed in Japan. For instance there were symbols of pictograph dogs, patterned bars, crosses, double lines, or circles that all depended on what area of Japan the crime took place in. Any tattoo till today on any part of your body, any picture, character or symbol is looked down upon in Japan. Family members find it dishonorable and the community makes it hard for someone with a tattoo to find a job and to live in Japan. Tattooing was the worst sort of punishment you could get for being an outcast or for committing a crime.
Today tattooing has changed in so many ways. There is only one needle and it is attached to a handheld tool that moves it up and down at a rate of several hundred vibrations per minute. This needle penetrates the skin about one millimeter deep and is electrical, which means no pounding by hand and a faster process. The tattoos today have fancier symbols, figures, and pictures than just the ancient geometric shapes and lines.
People still get body suits like the ancient Japanese but they are not displayed how the Japanese use to. People with tattoos in Japan are known to be the Yakuza, or the under ground gangs. People with Polynesian font phrases and the ancient symbols of Polynesians are usually the people who still have the Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan, or Samoan blood in them. There are tattoos of pictures, shapes, and phrases with meanings to their lives and their journeys. In Hawaii, tattoos are viewed harsher than how the ancient Hawaiians viewed tattoos. It used to be a norm, a gift, an honor to get a tattoo in the past, and today it is viewed as unnatural, a choice, and is looked down upon if you have a tattoo. Tattoos used to identify a persons' job and now it is harder to find a job with a tattoo. Tattoos would identify a persons' strength, honor, role in society, and now people just stereotype people with tattoos.
Another way tattoos have differed from the past is the ancient Polynesians had a tattoo called henna. The henna tattoo is the ink from an acidic plant that is pounded into the skin that lasts only six months to a year. This was a temporary tattoo used to mark the death of a loved one. Since today henna tattoos are not pounded in the skin, and only applied to the surface of the skin, they only last for a couple of months instead of six months to a year. There is now cosmetic tattoos like the eye liner, eye brows, and lip lining tattoos which is permanent make up.
Tattoos have spread to places all over the world. It is said to have started in the Polynesian triangle. To have a tattoo depends on the culture you live in. Everyone is different and will have a different reason for getting the type of picture, phrase, or symbol embedded in their skin. Some use this form of art as a helpful remember of a certain moment in their life of success or accomplishment, being a better person, having a better life, to remember another form of art, or represent respect of a loved one. The human body has become a permanent living canvas to artists not only of pictures and sketches but to help make the body beautiful, like permanent make up.
A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, and multiple permanent pictures on our body makes it easy for society to judge us. In the ancient days of Polynesia it would define who a person is and what they did, but since tattoos have come a long way in history, shouldn't we change and accept tattoos as a form of art again and not stereotype a person? Now the art of tattoos are frowned upon. A lot of tattoos are created by a person for their own reasons and not by the "artist" or the one who applies the tattoo. The "patients" are the artists now and all artists want is to be heard and when one sees this art displayed in such a bold way, people tend to turn a blind eye and disregard what people are trying to say. A tattoo starts off as an idea, a drawing, an emotion, and a picture, and instead of turning away at the sight of a bold statement, we should embrace it and accept what truly lies inside our minds, hearts, and skin.
_X__ Apr. 7- Intro to Paper #4: Read Guidelines for Paper #4: Literary Journalism
_X__ Apr. 11- Complete readings for paper #4: chap. 15
_L__ Apr. 15- Laulima Discussion #1.
_L__ Apr. 21- Laulima Discussion #2.
_L__ Apr. 29- RD4 due [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_X__ May 2- Submit three RD4 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_X__ May 4-9- FD4 due [150 pts] Review the guidelines.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
FD5 To Enter A Door, You Must Exit A Door.
Cara Kamehiro
May 6, 2011
FD5
To Enter A Door, You Must Exit A Door
Through a window, there are mountains in the distance and are surrounded by dark grey clouds. All around the window there is a yellow glow. Is it possible that this bright light glow surrounding the window is a huge light bulb that can hidden to many if they choose not to see it and look right through it? [Thesis] I am a victim of being blinded by this glow for nineteen years, but I am glad to say I retrieved my vision. [Thesis]
My older sister has a birth mark on her back in the shape of kissing lips. My mother told her that before she was brought into this world the angels kissed her good-bye and sent her to my mom. I was always jealous of that story so my mom would tell me that, “I was her sweet heart, angel who God sent and always heard whenever I prayed to him.” Of course I believed her because she was my mother but there was something else that drew me to the conclusion that I was an angel sent from God to help my mother. Whenever my mom needed to find parking, was stressed, or if she was ill I would always find myself sitting in my car seat or my bed with my hands together and my eyes closed. I never understood what I would say or even know what I was feeling, but all I remember was hearing this instinct inside my heart telling me what to say and do. Some would call this a gut feeling but I knew it was something else. For every time my eyes closed and my hands touched, I heard this little voice and every time it would tell me to say or do something it was right.
This little voice would tell me what to do and how to do things to please my mom and make her life just a little easier. I remember when I was 5 years old I could barely see the sink faucet if I tippy toed. That day my mom was feeling under the weather and I heard something tell me to wash the dishes. I never remembered any one telling me how to wash the dishes, or to grab a stool so I could reach the dishes at the bottom of the sink. I remember standing at the sink with a plate in my left hand and the soapy sponge in the other and my mother walking downstairs starring at me in shock. She said,"What are you doing? How did you know how to wash the dishes? Why are you washing the dishes?" And so fourth, it was almost like an out of body experience when I had these little voices guiding me what to do. I loved this feeling of accomplishment and the smile I seen on my moms face every time I did little things like this for her.
My family was the best one I could ever imagine, until the day my father left our family. My mom, sister, and I were very sad, as my mom told us the news in our brown Honda Accord car after a basketball heading home. I remembered that night, it was dark and rainy, almost as if a higher being knew that bad news was approaching in my life. So, I prayed to this higher being and being so impatient I never could find what blessing I was received as my father stepped out the front door. Than a couple years after my brother followed his footsteps right out the very same door, twice. I was such a confused little girl. I felt that this higher being who always helped me, guided me and was there for me, betrayed me and punished me for something that I never did. That was the day I lost faith in prayer. That was the last day I prayed as a little girl.
On the day of April 22, 2010, I started this amazing day by forgetting my phone in the car. The one day I needed it the most. I remember feeling lost with no way to call for a ride home or help to dodge the rain. I decided to walk home after class which was a normal thing for me to do. I walked out of the library and I saw bright sun shine. Than to my surprise it was raining, hard. Thought to myself, “Great, could my day get any better?” To kill some time hoping the rain would stop, I walked to the cafeteria to grab something to drink for my journey home. I paced down the white sidewalk next to "the great lawn" and I headed down towards the cafeteria, I noticed the clouds started to hold back the drops like someone catching their breath right before the tears flow down their face. One foot in the cafeteria, I turned to peek behind me and it poured cats and dogs for a good five minutes. I grabbed my drink and the next thing I noticed was the strangest thing, as I set foot out the door deciding to just suck it up and take the rain head on; the sun started to shine and the drops got lighter. Yes, maybe this walk will not be so bad after all.
As I left the campus, it meant beginning the journey of the two-mile walk home. I walked with my head bowed down to protect my eyes from the piercing raindrops, like how people in Japan say hello to each other. I remembered I cleared my mind and closed my eyes and I heard something tell me to look up. I heard the piercing raindrops fall to the ground and not pinching my skin anymore. There was like a force field surrounding me and protecting me from any harm around me. I saw what seemed to be a yellow aura bubble around me as the dark clouds and rain still pouring down. Dark clouds and rain drops were everywhere except for a quarter mile radius around me. I continued to float along the sidewalk that was soaking wet with the fallen raindrops that were shinning like the morning sunrise reflecting off the ocean.
I live in a valley, between two mountains on an island. When it rains there are stronger raindrops the closer I get to my house. I approach a bridge that shelters me for the time I am there. It was a good thing I got there in time as the rain poured down like a sheet of glass being shattered on cement, that would break through my bubble. Worrying out of my mind to step out of the shelter I had by the bridge I said, “Oh well, it is just rain and I am almost home, once there I can dry off quickly.” I tried to walk as fast as my slippery slippers could take me. I gradually picked up the pace and realized again that the yellow bubble still surrounded me. I decided I could walk a little slower so that I would not slip from my slippers. Finally, I arrived at my warm home. I felt completely weird as I stepped in my house and another glass shattered to the ground.
At home I realized when I left campus, I was saying in my head over and over, "Please don't rain on me." I heard a real faint voice inside telling me to go with my cousin to “bring a friend to church day” that coming Sunday. I always believed in a higher spiritual power, but never did I believe I would worship God. Even though I was always a believer in prayer, I always prayed like that little girl with no idea how to pray, who to pray to, but always with the hope she had. I have not prayed for anything drastic like answers for my father leaving or why I could not make my mother feel happy again, in a while.
Sunday rolled around the corner in a blink of an eye. That day the pastor talked about how Jesus had the heart to love everyone, even if they hated him. How Jesus found a strength in himself that allowed him to give his life happily by loving and forgiving everyone in his life. The pastor also talked about how we all can find this strength that Jesus had. He referred this strength to a cartoon of Popeye the sailor man. How Popeye found his strength from a can of spinach and how we can do extraordinary things if we found our “can of spinach.” The pastor also talked about how Jesus prayed for the little things, and that the little things make up the bigger picture in life. As soon as the pastor said, “prayer,” it clicked in my mind like a light bulb being switched on that ever since I was a little girl God has been with me.
I did not see the prayer of my fathers' absence being answered right than and there when I was a little girl because it was the little things that God blessed me with to make up for the bigger picture of my father’s absence in my life. The little things were the things that I have not been appreciating everyday. The family I have that loves me and cares for me and who will protect me from things in life like betrayal and pain. My family is like the bridge that sheltered me from the rainy day. The bridge that broke my yellow aura only to shelter me when the rain was too strong for a bubble to handle. Not having a father all these years, I could not see how God could take him away from me and my family and how hurt we were. Now I see how he has been my father all along guiding me and advising me, as a real good father should do making me stronger and giving me nothing but the best in my life. My Father up above has been my yellow bubble of sunshine, the light bulb always on that protects me and makes me stronger as a person, working with the bridge to shelter me as best they can. He is the yellow glow around that window that I would look through and not noticing the little things that made up that big picture. My birth father leaving me, God blessed me with him being my father figure who guided me to a better life. I can see clearly now the rain is gone, the light hidden by the window I looked through is now a window filled with the yellow light shinning on my journey through all the darkness ahead.
May 6, 2011
FD5
To Enter A Door, You Must Exit A Door
Through a window, there are mountains in the distance and are surrounded by dark grey clouds. All around the window there is a yellow glow. Is it possible that this bright light glow surrounding the window is a huge light bulb that can hidden to many if they choose not to see it and look right through it? [Thesis] I am a victim of being blinded by this glow for nineteen years, but I am glad to say I retrieved my vision. [Thesis]
My older sister has a birth mark on her back in the shape of kissing lips. My mother told her that before she was brought into this world the angels kissed her good-bye and sent her to my mom. I was always jealous of that story so my mom would tell me that, “I was her sweet heart, angel who God sent and always heard whenever I prayed to him.” Of course I believed her because she was my mother but there was something else that drew me to the conclusion that I was an angel sent from God to help my mother. Whenever my mom needed to find parking, was stressed, or if she was ill I would always find myself sitting in my car seat or my bed with my hands together and my eyes closed. I never understood what I would say or even know what I was feeling, but all I remember was hearing this instinct inside my heart telling me what to say and do. Some would call this a gut feeling but I knew it was something else. For every time my eyes closed and my hands touched, I heard this little voice and every time it would tell me to say or do something it was right.
This little voice would tell me what to do and how to do things to please my mom and make her life just a little easier. I remember when I was 5 years old I could barely see the sink faucet if I tippy toed. That day my mom was feeling under the weather and I heard something tell me to wash the dishes. I never remembered any one telling me how to wash the dishes, or to grab a stool so I could reach the dishes at the bottom of the sink. I remember standing at the sink with a plate in my left hand and the soapy sponge in the other and my mother walking downstairs starring at me in shock. She said,"What are you doing? How did you know how to wash the dishes? Why are you washing the dishes?" And so fourth, it was almost like an out of body experience when I had these little voices guiding me what to do. I loved this feeling of accomplishment and the smile I seen on my moms face every time I did little things like this for her.
My family was the best one I could ever imagine, until the day my father left our family. My mom, sister, and I were very sad, as my mom told us the news in our brown Honda Accord car after a basketball heading home. I remembered that night, it was dark and rainy, almost as if a higher being knew that bad news was approaching in my life. So, I prayed to this higher being and being so impatient I never could find what blessing I was received as my father stepped out the front door. Than a couple years after my brother followed his footsteps right out the very same door, twice. I was such a confused little girl. I felt that this higher being who always helped me, guided me and was there for me, betrayed me and punished me for something that I never did. That was the day I lost faith in prayer. That was the last day I prayed as a little girl.
On the day of April 22, 2010, I started this amazing day by forgetting my phone in the car. The one day I needed it the most. I remember feeling lost with no way to call for a ride home or help to dodge the rain. I decided to walk home after class which was a normal thing for me to do. I walked out of the library and I saw bright sun shine. Than to my surprise it was raining, hard. Thought to myself, “Great, could my day get any better?” To kill some time hoping the rain would stop, I walked to the cafeteria to grab something to drink for my journey home. I paced down the white sidewalk next to "the great lawn" and I headed down towards the cafeteria, I noticed the clouds started to hold back the drops like someone catching their breath right before the tears flow down their face. One foot in the cafeteria, I turned to peek behind me and it poured cats and dogs for a good five minutes. I grabbed my drink and the next thing I noticed was the strangest thing, as I set foot out the door deciding to just suck it up and take the rain head on; the sun started to shine and the drops got lighter. Yes, maybe this walk will not be so bad after all.
As I left the campus, it meant beginning the journey of the two-mile walk home. I walked with my head bowed down to protect my eyes from the piercing raindrops, like how people in Japan say hello to each other. I remembered I cleared my mind and closed my eyes and I heard something tell me to look up. I heard the piercing raindrops fall to the ground and not pinching my skin anymore. There was like a force field surrounding me and protecting me from any harm around me. I saw what seemed to be a yellow aura bubble around me as the dark clouds and rain still pouring down. Dark clouds and rain drops were everywhere except for a quarter mile radius around me. I continued to float along the sidewalk that was soaking wet with the fallen raindrops that were shinning like the morning sunrise reflecting off the ocean.
I live in a valley, between two mountains on an island. When it rains there are stronger raindrops the closer I get to my house. I approach a bridge that shelters me for the time I am there. It was a good thing I got there in time as the rain poured down like a sheet of glass being shattered on cement, that would break through my bubble. Worrying out of my mind to step out of the shelter I had by the bridge I said, “Oh well, it is just rain and I am almost home, once there I can dry off quickly.” I tried to walk as fast as my slippery slippers could take me. I gradually picked up the pace and realized again that the yellow bubble still surrounded me. I decided I could walk a little slower so that I would not slip from my slippers. Finally, I arrived at my warm home. I felt completely weird as I stepped in my house and another glass shattered to the ground.
At home I realized when I left campus, I was saying in my head over and over, "Please don't rain on me." I heard a real faint voice inside telling me to go with my cousin to “bring a friend to church day” that coming Sunday. I always believed in a higher spiritual power, but never did I believe I would worship God. Even though I was always a believer in prayer, I always prayed like that little girl with no idea how to pray, who to pray to, but always with the hope she had. I have not prayed for anything drastic like answers for my father leaving or why I could not make my mother feel happy again, in a while.
Sunday rolled around the corner in a blink of an eye. That day the pastor talked about how Jesus had the heart to love everyone, even if they hated him. How Jesus found a strength in himself that allowed him to give his life happily by loving and forgiving everyone in his life. The pastor also talked about how we all can find this strength that Jesus had. He referred this strength to a cartoon of Popeye the sailor man. How Popeye found his strength from a can of spinach and how we can do extraordinary things if we found our “can of spinach.” The pastor also talked about how Jesus prayed for the little things, and that the little things make up the bigger picture in life. As soon as the pastor said, “prayer,” it clicked in my mind like a light bulb being switched on that ever since I was a little girl God has been with me.
I did not see the prayer of my fathers' absence being answered right than and there when I was a little girl because it was the little things that God blessed me with to make up for the bigger picture of my father’s absence in my life. The little things were the things that I have not been appreciating everyday. The family I have that loves me and cares for me and who will protect me from things in life like betrayal and pain. My family is like the bridge that sheltered me from the rainy day. The bridge that broke my yellow aura only to shelter me when the rain was too strong for a bubble to handle. Not having a father all these years, I could not see how God could take him away from me and my family and how hurt we were. Now I see how he has been my father all along guiding me and advising me, as a real good father should do making me stronger and giving me nothing but the best in my life. My Father up above has been my yellow bubble of sunshine, the light bulb always on that protects me and makes me stronger as a person, working with the bridge to shelter me as best they can. He is the yellow glow around that window that I would look through and not noticing the little things that made up that big picture. My birth father leaving me, God blessed me with him being my father figure who guided me to a better life. I can see clearly now the rain is gone, the light hidden by the window I looked through is now a window filled with the yellow light shinning on my journey through all the darkness ahead.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
RD4 One Thousand Words Equals Tatau
Cara Kamehiro
May 2, 2011
RD4
One Thousand Words Equals Tatau
A picture is worth a thousand words and actions speak louder than words. There are a bunch of different types of art from paintings, sculpture, photography, sketching and so on, but many might not consider tattooing to be a form of art. Tattoos date back in history for over a thousand years in each culture from the tiny islands in the pacific to the huge countries like China. Many cultures like Japanese and the Polynesians consider tattoos a form of art, and have been displaying this art for thousands of years. The art of tattoo and the tattoos itself is like a story of each persons journey of life, and a way of making the body "beautiful." The human body is an amazing work of art itself of evolution but who would have thought that this would be a canvas for artists around the world? A picture in someones' living room or bed room can define the whole room or even the whole house. [Thesis] A picture is worth a thousand words and if actions speak louder than words, is a tattoo a picture of a thousand words or an action that speaks louder than the picture? [Thesis]
Tattoos in Polynesia has been around since the 1400s, and was believed to be the start of this tattoo art. The word tattoo can be broken down into two parts, 'ta' which means striking something and the word 'tatau' which means to mark something. 'Tatau' is used in a lot of the little islands of Polynesia like Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa, but the Hawaiians use the words 'kakau.' Another way of breaking down how the word tattoo came about is that 'tata' means repeatedly done by hand and 'u' means color, when the westerners came to Polynesia the word 'tatau' became tattoo. These Polynesian tattoos are not just for show, they define who you are, your role in society, what you do-like a job, battles you won, and people you killed in battles. These tribal tattoos are a sign of protection, and it was believed that the right tattoo would shield you from bodily harm and evil spirits. In Samoa tatau means honor, strength and virtue of Samoa, this is what they believe tattoos represent on their bodies. Polynesians used tools made by hand from the barbs of a fishes tail, birds' beak, or the boars' tooth. There are many different names for this tool like 'tapulu,' 'nefo,' and 'moli,' because Polynesia has different cultures their languages have different names for different things. In which ever language, this tool is the modern day needles that are 1-2 inches wide and has 30-40 teeth, today they use metal instead of bones of animals. This metal or bone is attached to a wooden stick for the handle. The needles are dipped in the ink made from the burnt soot of Kukui nuts are tapped into the skin by a stick called sausau by Samoans. These tattoos are believed to be received after a child goes through adolescence and becomes the man of the house taking on more responsibilities and more chores like work as a fisher or a hunter. These tattoos of the adolescence is a passage into adulthood, a mark that a transformation in your life occurred. Another reason to get a tattoo would be after accomplishing a milestone in life like after graduating college or high school, or succeeding in work and settling down in life. The person receiving the tattoo, usually does not tell the artist what he or she wants, but he desides based on the reasons why you want to get a tattoo and where you want it. The artist allows the sketch pen to flow freely by what just comes to him spiritually. Most of these tattoos are a symbol of a spiritual art. Usually in Samoa the men have tattoos from their waist down to the end of their knees, it is a long process of 1-2 weeks. You would need a tattoo to enter a chief's house, and after getting the full complete tattoo in Samoa you were believed to be a better man, like a rebirth.
In Japan the art of tattoos were believed to start over fifteen hundred years ago. The earliest evidence of tattoos in Japan were on life size clay figurines sculpted after real people after they died. These statues were tattooed to prepare this person to enter the spiritual unknown. These tattoos were supposedly religious and magical in the after life to protect them from the unknown. In the middle ages Japanese government banned certain theaters, paintings, and dresses known as kimonos. Since these dresses and paintings were banned, the Japanese would tattoo their whole body known as body suits that were colorful tattoos that looked like the kimonos and the paintings. In 297 AD the Chinese saw these behaviors of the Japanese and in all of Chinese context of tattoos were always negative. The body suits were only done on the men ranging of all different ages. During the seventh century most of the Chinese cultures were adopted by the Japan rulers and the tattoo became a form of punishment instead of an art. In 720 AD was the first record of tattooing used as a punishment. After the sixth century tattooing was used to identify criminals and outcasts. Outcasts would be marked with a cross on their inner forearm, a straight line on either their outer forearm or upper arm. For criminals the symbol tattooed on their arms or sometimes forehead were symbols of the different areas of Japan. For instance there were symbols of a pictograph of a dog, patterned bars, crosses, double lines, or circles all depended on what area of Japan the crime was committed. Any tattoo till today on any part of your body, any picture or symbol is looked down upon in Japan. Family members find it dishonorable and the community makes it hard for someone with a tattoo to find a job and to live in Japan. Tattooing was the worst sort of punishment you could get for being an outcast or for committing a crime.
Today tattooing has changed in so many ways. The needle is attached to a handheld tool that moves the needle up and down at a rate of several hundred vibrations per minute. This needle penetrates the skin about one millimeter deep and electrical, which means no pounding by hand. The tattoos today have fancier symbols, figures, and pictures than just the ancient geometric shapes and lines. People still do body suits like the ancient Japanese, but in Japan it is still frowned upon to have any sort of tattoo. People with tattoos in Japan are known to be the Yakuza, or the under ground gangs. People with Polynesian font phrases and the ancient symbols of Polynesians are usually the people who still have the Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan, or Samoan blood in them. There are tattoos of pictures, shapes, and phrases with meanings to their lives and their journeys. In Hawaii, tattoos are viewed harsher than the ancient Hawaiians seen tattoos. It used to be a norm, a gift, an honor to get a tattoo in the past, and today you get might not be allowed a job if you have tattoos. Society has changed a lot from the ancient times and like Japan tattoos in Hawaii are not as exposed on the body as they used to be. Nowadays there is a tattoo called Henna that is a tattoo that only lasts for about a month or two. In the ancient Polynesian days the henna tattoo is the ink from an acidic plant that is pounded into the skin that lasts only six months to a year. Since today henna tattoos are not pounded in the skin, and only applied to the surface of the skin they only last for a couple of months. There is now cosmetic tattoos like the eye liner, eye brows, and lip lining tattoos which are just like permanent make up.
Tattoos have spread to places all over the world. It is said to have started in the Polynesian triangle, and to have a tattoo depends on the culture you live in. Everyone is different and will have a different reason for getting the type of tattoo, picture, phrase, symbol embedded in their skin. Some use this form of art to remember a certain moment in their life of success or accomplishment, help them remind themselves of a better life, help remind them to be their better self, remember another form of art, or represent respect of a loved one. The human body has become a permanent living canvas to artists not only of pictures and sketches but to help make the body beautiful, like permanent make up. A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, and multiple permanent pictures on our body gives society a thousand reasons to judge us as now an art of tattoos are frowned upon. Artists want to be heard and when one sees this art displayed in such a bold way, people tend to turn a blind eye and disregard what people are trying to say. A tattoo starts off as an idea, a drawing, an emotion, and a picture, instead of turning away at the sight of a bold statement, we should embrace it and accept what truly lies inside our minds, hearts, and skin.
May 2, 2011
RD4
One Thousand Words Equals Tatau
A picture is worth a thousand words and actions speak louder than words. There are a bunch of different types of art from paintings, sculpture, photography, sketching and so on, but many might not consider tattooing to be a form of art. Tattoos date back in history for over a thousand years in each culture from the tiny islands in the pacific to the huge countries like China. Many cultures like Japanese and the Polynesians consider tattoos a form of art, and have been displaying this art for thousands of years. The art of tattoo and the tattoos itself is like a story of each persons journey of life, and a way of making the body "beautiful." The human body is an amazing work of art itself of evolution but who would have thought that this would be a canvas for artists around the world? A picture in someones' living room or bed room can define the whole room or even the whole house. [Thesis] A picture is worth a thousand words and if actions speak louder than words, is a tattoo a picture of a thousand words or an action that speaks louder than the picture? [Thesis]
Tattoos in Polynesia has been around since the 1400s, and was believed to be the start of this tattoo art. The word tattoo can be broken down into two parts, 'ta' which means striking something and the word 'tatau' which means to mark something. 'Tatau' is used in a lot of the little islands of Polynesia like Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa, but the Hawaiians use the words 'kakau.' Another way of breaking down how the word tattoo came about is that 'tata' means repeatedly done by hand and 'u' means color, when the westerners came to Polynesia the word 'tatau' became tattoo. These Polynesian tattoos are not just for show, they define who you are, your role in society, what you do-like a job, battles you won, and people you killed in battles. These tribal tattoos are a sign of protection, and it was believed that the right tattoo would shield you from bodily harm and evil spirits. In Samoa tatau means honor, strength and virtue of Samoa, this is what they believe tattoos represent on their bodies. Polynesians used tools made by hand from the barbs of a fishes tail, birds' beak, or the boars' tooth. There are many different names for this tool like 'tapulu,' 'nefo,' and 'moli,' because Polynesia has different cultures their languages have different names for different things. In which ever language, this tool is the modern day needles that are 1-2 inches wide and has 30-40 teeth, today they use metal instead of bones of animals. This metal or bone is attached to a wooden stick for the handle. The needles are dipped in the ink made from the burnt soot of Kukui nuts are tapped into the skin by a stick called sausau by Samoans. These tattoos are believed to be received after a child goes through adolescence and becomes the man of the house taking on more responsibilities and more chores like work as a fisher or a hunter. These tattoos of the adolescence is a passage into adulthood, a mark that a transformation in your life occurred. Another reason to get a tattoo would be after accomplishing a milestone in life like after graduating college or high school, or succeeding in work and settling down in life. The person receiving the tattoo, usually does not tell the artist what he or she wants, but he desides based on the reasons why you want to get a tattoo and where you want it. The artist allows the sketch pen to flow freely by what just comes to him spiritually. Most of these tattoos are a symbol of a spiritual art. Usually in Samoa the men have tattoos from their waist down to the end of their knees, it is a long process of 1-2 weeks. You would need a tattoo to enter a chief's house, and after getting the full complete tattoo in Samoa you were believed to be a better man, like a rebirth.
In Japan the art of tattoos were believed to start over fifteen hundred years ago. The earliest evidence of tattoos in Japan were on life size clay figurines sculpted after real people after they died. These statues were tattooed to prepare this person to enter the spiritual unknown. These tattoos were supposedly religious and magical in the after life to protect them from the unknown. In the middle ages Japanese government banned certain theaters, paintings, and dresses known as kimonos. Since these dresses and paintings were banned, the Japanese would tattoo their whole body known as body suits that were colorful tattoos that looked like the kimonos and the paintings. In 297 AD the Chinese saw these behaviors of the Japanese and in all of Chinese context of tattoos were always negative. The body suits were only done on the men ranging of all different ages. During the seventh century most of the Chinese cultures were adopted by the Japan rulers and the tattoo became a form of punishment instead of an art. In 720 AD was the first record of tattooing used as a punishment. After the sixth century tattooing was used to identify criminals and outcasts. Outcasts would be marked with a cross on their inner forearm, a straight line on either their outer forearm or upper arm. For criminals the symbol tattooed on their arms or sometimes forehead were symbols of the different areas of Japan. For instance there were symbols of a pictograph of a dog, patterned bars, crosses, double lines, or circles all depended on what area of Japan the crime was committed. Any tattoo till today on any part of your body, any picture or symbol is looked down upon in Japan. Family members find it dishonorable and the community makes it hard for someone with a tattoo to find a job and to live in Japan. Tattooing was the worst sort of punishment you could get for being an outcast or for committing a crime.
Today tattooing has changed in so many ways. The needle is attached to a handheld tool that moves the needle up and down at a rate of several hundred vibrations per minute. This needle penetrates the skin about one millimeter deep and electrical, which means no pounding by hand. The tattoos today have fancier symbols, figures, and pictures than just the ancient geometric shapes and lines. People still do body suits like the ancient Japanese, but in Japan it is still frowned upon to have any sort of tattoo. People with tattoos in Japan are known to be the Yakuza, or the under ground gangs. People with Polynesian font phrases and the ancient symbols of Polynesians are usually the people who still have the Hawaiian, Tahitian, Tongan, or Samoan blood in them. There are tattoos of pictures, shapes, and phrases with meanings to their lives and their journeys. In Hawaii, tattoos are viewed harsher than the ancient Hawaiians seen tattoos. It used to be a norm, a gift, an honor to get a tattoo in the past, and today you get might not be allowed a job if you have tattoos. Society has changed a lot from the ancient times and like Japan tattoos in Hawaii are not as exposed on the body as they used to be. Nowadays there is a tattoo called Henna that is a tattoo that only lasts for about a month or two. In the ancient Polynesian days the henna tattoo is the ink from an acidic plant that is pounded into the skin that lasts only six months to a year. Since today henna tattoos are not pounded in the skin, and only applied to the surface of the skin they only last for a couple of months. There is now cosmetic tattoos like the eye liner, eye brows, and lip lining tattoos which are just like permanent make up.
Tattoos have spread to places all over the world. It is said to have started in the Polynesian triangle, and to have a tattoo depends on the culture you live in. Everyone is different and will have a different reason for getting the type of tattoo, picture, phrase, symbol embedded in their skin. Some use this form of art to remember a certain moment in their life of success or accomplishment, help them remind themselves of a better life, help remind them to be their better self, remember another form of art, or represent respect of a loved one. The human body has become a permanent living canvas to artists not only of pictures and sketches but to help make the body beautiful, like permanent make up. A picture is said to be worth a thousand words, and multiple permanent pictures on our body gives society a thousand reasons to judge us as now an art of tattoos are frowned upon. Artists want to be heard and when one sees this art displayed in such a bold way, people tend to turn a blind eye and disregard what people are trying to say. A tattoo starts off as an idea, a drawing, an emotion, and a picture, instead of turning away at the sight of a bold statement, we should embrace it and accept what truly lies inside our minds, hearts, and skin.
Friday, April 15, 2011
RFD2 An Alien In a New Galaxy
Cara Jean Kamehiro
14 April, 2011
RFD2
An Alien In a New Galaxy
Ever since I was a little girl, I always imagined aliens to look like little green people with four or less fingers, a big eye or a bunch of little ones, and two short stubby antennas on their heads who fly around outer space in gigantic UFOs and speak different dialect tones. Aliens are said to be nonexistent, so I will leave picturing an alien to your imagination.
I am taught such creatures do not exist so I cannot believe my eyes as they stumble across a computer screen that is attached to a television that shows an alien in a thick, liquid bubble, inside me. Through the screens is the only way to see him, otherwise he is an unknown creature to the naked eye. Technology allows me to see him and with my hands and body I can feel him. He does not speak any tones yet, but he does yawn, swallow, hiccup, "breathe" and blink just like humans. He has only a couple fingers visible at the moment, but more are on their way soon. He has two big eyes that are closed now, a tiny nose and small lips that looks just like mine. No hair on his head like mine, yet, but there are no antennas either. What kind of creature could this be that I am staring at? A UFO is his own spaceship that he just floats and swims in all day long. His UFO is his safety bubble with its own o-zone layer that protects him from all harm of the outer galaxy, also known as his outer space called Earth. [[THESIS]] Definitely an alien, could be the only word to describe him to some, but I like to call him my baby boy. [[THESIS]]
As the clock strikes twelve the night passes and grows to the morning of February 22 two-thousand and eleven. I start to end my day, or so I thought, finishing my marathon of 'The OC' a television show I love to watch over and over. One forty-five strolls along the clock and my eyes start to get super heavy. This alien makes me wobble and waddle like a duck strolling along a river bend. I slowly make my way over to a ship to take me to never, never land, and I realize just before setting foot on dock that there is water every where. Calmly, I walk back to the bathroom to check myself. I exit the bathroom for the second time and turn left to my moms room, where she is laying in bed doing her own Sudoku print outs. "Uhm, mom? I think my water just broke" I say to her as she springs up from her bed faster than lightning. I look at the clock and notice that my water broke at two in the morning. I quietly say to myself, "Finally, the UFO is about to land and I am finally getting by body back to myself."
My mom and sister are running frantically around the house gathering things together to go to the hospital, while I am moving at one mile per day, trying to pack my things together. I grab my pink Dakine backpack that is bitten by my four year old brown floppy ear bunny and stuff it with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, my phone charger, a stem cell kit, and a change of clothes to come home in when I get discharged. Feeling like I forgot something useful as I always do, I grab my cheap, no brand, yellow purse that has everything I need in it to get through a day or two. Packed and ready to go, I grab a dark, vibrant, almost blood red towel and squeeze my light brown, Kona Wind brand, rubber slippers on my swollen feet, kiss my bunny good-bye and head out the door.
The morning is dark like night. The air is cooler and thinner than an air conditioner, I love how it makes my skin feel so clean. The stars are shinning almost as bright as the orange street lights that line both sides of the street outside my tan and beige Kahala town house. Two parallel lines of cars line the street leaving absolutely no spaces except in front of the designated fire hydrants. My sister, mom and I walk to the back parking lot in a single file line to Lola, my moms two thousand and nine, tomato red Corolla. This early morning, Lola is driven by my mom to the hospital and returns back home with my sister.
Entering the freeway from the on-ramp heading west from Kahala, my mom says, "At least there is no traffic right now, we will get there in no time." In about ten minutes we arrive at a sign that reads Kapiolani Medical Center for women and children, next to a pink building with huge windows and sliding doors. We leave my sister at the door entrance with Lola as she returns home to study for school tomorrow. We arrive here so quickly, my mom was right. It is only two thirty a.m. when I check in at the pink hospitals front desk and they give us directions on where to go. I think being at this hospital is giving my mom mixed feelings since nineteen almost twenty years ago I was born in this very hospital, and now her baby of three is going into labor.
The feeling of water oozing from my aliens UFO, is such a weird feeling. It feels like water is escaping all over the hospitals white tile floor. However, my water and presence does not seem to phase the young adults that are sitting in the waiting room watching the Disney channel, a television station meant to be watched by little kids. I giggle as I watch how entertained they are by the innocent jokes on screen, because I must look the same way to my mom when I am entertained by that station. I had a short wait in the waiting room that should not be considered a room. This waiting room is not like the waiting rooms you see on television shows that is a separate room from the hallways with a door and windows, but a "room" with just a television and a handful of chairs in the corner of the labor and delivery wings entrance. I sat there no more than two minutes leaving me no time to mass text everyone the huge news.
After the short wait, I walk down a hallway between two huge automatic wooden doors to what appears to be a whole other floor. I than struggle to unload all my bags and dump them on my moms outstretched arms as a nurse takes my weight for a quick second. I arrive at my first room, that just so happens to be the same room I was in earlier last year for a check up. It is such a small room, it seems to be the size of half a bedroom. This room is a glass door that lines all the rooms down the hall and seems to be separated by a thin wall on both sides. In each room is cramped with a sink (a small toilet hidden inside it), a bed, one chair, a television and a wall full of gloves and supplies. Everything is happening so fast, it is as if the little alien is controlling the whole universe to make way for his grand entrance.
I am finally getting in the hospital mood, in other words clothed in nothing but my gown and under the warm heated sheets in bed number one. A bunch of nurses start hooking me up to monitors and pricking my veins with millions of needles that are either draining blood or pumping fluids in me. I am finally finishing mass texting everyone who is a close friend or a family member, when my nurse enters with a black and blue wheel chair that looks like it is designed for a ten foot tall persons torso. Just through another set of automatic wooden doors, down the hall, around the corner, is a door with the golden numbers 301 nailed to it. This is room number two and I tell my mom that, "I feel lost in this hospital, it is a huge maze with all these automatic doors everywhere." Kicking, kicking, kicking so hard the alien is pumping all the liquid from inside me out. He must know that I am being wheeled to the room where he is going to make his grand entrance into his new galaxy.
This room is twice the size of my first room and way colder than any room I ever stayed in before. It is bigger than my bedroom at home, and bigger than any master bedroom I have seen with my own eyes. But all I can do now in this room is wait, and wait and wait, as he kicks harder and more often. It is still dark outside and he is still submerged in darkness. Nurses come in and out of my room every half an hour, leaving my mom and I no time to sleep, not that the cold air conditioner or the alien allows me at east to sleep. It is so cold, nurses pile more than seven heated blankets on me as my body is shivering from the cold medicine coursing through my veins. Sooner than ever it is light out and eleven o'clock came out of no where.
Shortly after my mom and I are finishing up watching two new released movies for free on the hospitals television, due to not getting any sleep, I receive the wonder drug to kill the pain. This experience is one I am going to remember always. It is the worst pain ever and the most abnormal feeling in the world. This epidural is a sharp but dull pain that sends chills and spastic feelings up and down my spine and legs. Thinking I am going to break my nurses finger as she tells me to hunch my back, relax my shoulders and squeeze her finger when I feel the unusual pain in my spine. My nurse than announces she will expect me to deliver around midnight. The alien must have felt my pain from the shot, on the back of his UFO because the delivery came sooner than the nurse expected. Rather than waiting twelve hours, two hours came with a lot of cramping pains from him pounding "let me out of here." Some wonder drug, I could feel everything from the cramping to the pushing to the wonderful relief. Finally the last hour went by faster than lightning and the alien, my baby finally arrives at two thirteen p.m.
This tiny alien from his UFO is the most quiet and cutest thing I ever seen. Tones start to seek out of his little chest as he lays on top of his UFO and grasps my finger tip. He grips it tight and we instantly gaze into each others eyes, bonding like we knew each others faces for years. He is all slimy, a grayish purple color, soft and squishy. If you did not know he was a new born baby you could think he is an odd purple alien with no antennas. I do not care what he looks like, just as long as he is mine, my flesh and blood, my one and only little purple alien.
When he blinks his eyes it still looks alien. The movement is so slow motion, almost like he is uncomfortable as he squints his whole face with every blink he takes. His eye lids are so swollen and puffy I do not know what seems to be a thin and transparent layer of skin that covers his eyes when he blinks his uncomfortable blink. His eyeballs are all black when he opens them and they have no white around them. Miraculously within minutes, he starts to look different to my eye, he is more human like. He is no longer slimy, he gains color in his squishy skin and what use to be the unexplained sounds that emerged from him is starting to sound like a feeble cry. I continue to examine every square inch of every detail on his little seven pound and one-point-one ounce body, from his hair on his head, to his eyelashes that are long for a newborn, to his extremely long fingers and toes.
I have seen him from a computer and television screen, pictures of a 3D pixel face and he seemed like galaxies away, to a real life three dimension physical being, laying right in my arms in front of my eyes. As we part our own ways now, I can only imagine, my own little purple alien crawling amongst us humans, till the day we meet again. Slowly growing everyday, making our one UFO called Earth his own personal galaxy waiting to be reborn again.
14 April, 2011
RFD2
An Alien In a New Galaxy
Ever since I was a little girl, I always imagined aliens to look like little green people with four or less fingers, a big eye or a bunch of little ones, and two short stubby antennas on their heads who fly around outer space in gigantic UFOs and speak different dialect tones. Aliens are said to be nonexistent, so I will leave picturing an alien to your imagination.
I am taught such creatures do not exist so I cannot believe my eyes as they stumble across a computer screen that is attached to a television that shows an alien in a thick, liquid bubble, inside me. Through the screens is the only way to see him, otherwise he is an unknown creature to the naked eye. Technology allows me to see him and with my hands and body I can feel him. He does not speak any tones yet, but he does yawn, swallow, hiccup, "breathe" and blink just like humans. He has only a couple fingers visible at the moment, but more are on their way soon. He has two big eyes that are closed now, a tiny nose and small lips that looks just like mine. No hair on his head like mine, yet, but there are no antennas either. What kind of creature could this be that I am staring at? A UFO is his own spaceship that he just floats and swims in all day long. His UFO is his safety bubble with its own o-zone layer that protects him from all harm of the outer galaxy, also known as his outer space called Earth. [[THESIS]] Definitely an alien, could be the only word to describe him to some, but I like to call him my baby boy. [[THESIS]]
As the clock strikes twelve the night passes and grows to the morning of February 22 two-thousand and eleven. I start to end my day, or so I thought, finishing my marathon of 'The OC' a television show I love to watch over and over. One forty-five strolls along the clock and my eyes start to get super heavy. This alien makes me wobble and waddle like a duck strolling along a river bend. I slowly make my way over to a ship to take me to never, never land, and I realize just before setting foot on dock that there is water every where. Calmly, I walk back to the bathroom to check myself. I exit the bathroom for the second time and turn left to my moms room, where she is laying in bed doing her own Sudoku print outs. "Uhm, mom? I think my water just broke" I say to her as she springs up from her bed faster than lightning. I look at the clock and notice that my water broke at two in the morning. I quietly say to myself, "Finally, the UFO is about to land and I am finally getting by body back to myself."
My mom and sister are running frantically around the house gathering things together to go to the hospital, while I am moving at one mile per day, trying to pack my things together. I grab my pink Dakine backpack that is bitten by my four year old brown floppy ear bunny and stuff it with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, my phone charger, a stem cell kit, and a change of clothes to come home in when I get discharged. Feeling like I forgot something useful as I always do, I grab my cheap, no brand, yellow purse that has everything I need in it to get through a day or two. Packed and ready to go, I grab a dark, vibrant, almost blood red towel and squeeze my light brown, Kona Wind brand, rubber slippers on my swollen feet, kiss my bunny good-bye and head out the door.
The morning is dark like night. The air is cooler and thinner than an air conditioner, I love how it makes my skin feel so clean. The stars are shinning almost as bright as the orange street lights that line both sides of the street outside my tan and beige Kahala town house. Two parallel lines of cars line the street leaving absolutely no spaces except in front of the designated fire hydrants. My sister, mom and I walk to the back parking lot in a single file line to Lola, my moms two thousand and nine, tomato red Corolla. This early morning, Lola is driven by my mom to the hospital and returns back home with my sister.
Entering the freeway from the on-ramp heading west from Kahala, my mom says, "At least there is no traffic right now, we will get there in no time." In about ten minutes we arrive at a sign that reads Kapiolani Medical Center for women and children, next to a pink building with huge windows and sliding doors. We leave my sister at the door entrance with Lola as she returns home to study for school tomorrow. We arrive here so quickly, my mom was right. It is only two thirty a.m. when I check in at the pink hospitals front desk and they give us directions on where to go. I think being at this hospital is giving my mom mixed feelings since nineteen almost twenty years ago I was born in this very hospital, and now her baby of three is going into labor.
The feeling of water oozing from my aliens UFO, is such a weird feeling. It feels like water is escaping all over the hospitals white tile floor. However, my water and presence does not seem to phase the young adults that are sitting in the waiting room watching the Disney channel, a television station meant to be watched by little kids. I giggle as I watch how entertained they are by the innocent jokes on screen, because I must look the same way to my mom when I am entertained by that station. I had a short wait in the waiting room that should not be considered a room. This waiting room is not like the waiting rooms you see on television shows that is a separate room from the hallways with a door and windows, but a "room" with just a television and a handful of chairs in the corner of the labor and delivery wings entrance. I sat there no more than two minutes leaving me no time to mass text everyone the huge news.
After the short wait, I walk down a hallway between two huge automatic wooden doors to what appears to be a whole other floor. I than struggle to unload all my bags and dump them on my moms outstretched arms as a nurse takes my weight for a quick second. I arrive at my first room, that just so happens to be the same room I was in earlier last year for a check up. It is such a small room, it seems to be the size of half a bedroom. This room is a glass door that lines all the rooms down the hall and seems to be separated by a thin wall on both sides. In each room is cramped with a sink (a small toilet hidden inside it), a bed, one chair, a television and a wall full of gloves and supplies. Everything is happening so fast, it is as if the little alien is controlling the whole universe to make way for his grand entrance.
I am finally getting in the hospital mood, in other words clothed in nothing but my gown and under the warm heated sheets in bed number one. A bunch of nurses start hooking me up to monitors and pricking my veins with millions of needles that are either draining blood or pumping fluids in me. I am finally finishing mass texting everyone who is a close friend or a family member, when my nurse enters with a black and blue wheel chair that looks like it is designed for a ten foot tall persons torso. Just through another set of automatic wooden doors, down the hall, around the corner, is a door with the golden numbers 301 nailed to it. This is room number two and I tell my mom that, "I feel lost in this hospital, it is a huge maze with all these automatic doors everywhere." Kicking, kicking, kicking so hard the alien is pumping all the liquid from inside me out. He must know that I am being wheeled to the room where he is going to make his grand entrance into his new galaxy.
This room is twice the size of my first room and way colder than any room I ever stayed in before. It is bigger than my bedroom at home, and bigger than any master bedroom I have seen with my own eyes. But all I can do now in this room is wait, and wait and wait, as he kicks harder and more often. It is still dark outside and he is still submerged in darkness. Nurses come in and out of my room every half an hour, leaving my mom and I no time to sleep, not that the cold air conditioner or the alien allows me at east to sleep. It is so cold, nurses pile more than seven heated blankets on me as my body is shivering from the cold medicine coursing through my veins. Sooner than ever it is light out and eleven o'clock came out of no where.
Shortly after my mom and I are finishing up watching two new released movies for free on the hospitals television, due to not getting any sleep, I receive the wonder drug to kill the pain. This experience is one I am going to remember always. It is the worst pain ever and the most abnormal feeling in the world. This epidural is a sharp but dull pain that sends chills and spastic feelings up and down my spine and legs. Thinking I am going to break my nurses finger as she tells me to hunch my back, relax my shoulders and squeeze her finger when I feel the unusual pain in my spine. My nurse than announces she will expect me to deliver around midnight. The alien must have felt my pain from the shot, on the back of his UFO because the delivery came sooner than the nurse expected. Rather than waiting twelve hours, two hours came with a lot of cramping pains from him pounding "let me out of here." Some wonder drug, I could feel everything from the cramping to the pushing to the wonderful relief. Finally the last hour went by faster than lightning and the alien, my baby finally arrives at two thirteen p.m.
This tiny alien from his UFO is the most quiet and cutest thing I ever seen. Tones start to seek out of his little chest as he lays on top of his UFO and grasps my finger tip. He grips it tight and we instantly gaze into each others eyes, bonding like we knew each others faces for years. He is all slimy, a grayish purple color, soft and squishy. If you did not know he was a new born baby you could think he is an odd purple alien with no antennas. I do not care what he looks like, just as long as he is mine, my flesh and blood, my one and only little purple alien.
When he blinks his eyes it still looks alien. The movement is so slow motion, almost like he is uncomfortable as he squints his whole face with every blink he takes. His eye lids are so swollen and puffy I do not know what seems to be a thin and transparent layer of skin that covers his eyes when he blinks his uncomfortable blink. His eyeballs are all black when he opens them and they have no white around them. Miraculously within minutes, he starts to look different to my eye, he is more human like. He is no longer slimy, he gains color in his squishy skin and what use to be the unexplained sounds that emerged from him is starting to sound like a feeble cry. I continue to examine every square inch of every detail on his little seven pound and one-point-one ounce body, from his hair on his head, to his eyelashes that are long for a newborn, to his extremely long fingers and toes.
I have seen him from a computer and television screen, pictures of a 3D pixel face and he seemed like galaxies away, to a real life three dimension physical being, laying right in my arms in front of my eyes. As we part our own ways now, I can only imagine, my own little purple alien crawling amongst us humans, till the day we meet again. Slowly growing everyday, making our one UFO called Earth his own personal galaxy waiting to be reborn again.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Yesterdays Tomorrow is Today
Cara Jean Kamehiro
April 4, 2011
FD3
Yesterday's Tomorrow is Today
It felt like yesterday was the last day of twenty-ten, a night filled of alcoholic beverages for adults and sparkling cider for the twenty-one and under. Another cloudy black sky on a new year filled with smoke and flashes from all the different firework shows exploding along the shores, including a couple illegals you see in the neighborhoods here and there. I find that time is all around me like noise. Its everywhere, and I cant ever escape it. Time is such a tricky and an amazing thing. Just one tick of a second is a new minute, another tick is a new hour, an hour to a new day, a new day to a new year, new year to a new decade.Life can be measured in so many ways, there is no right or wrong way to measure life, just like how there is no right or wrong way to live life.[[THESIS]]If I had to measure my life, it would be with time and the moments time brings me. My life is time, it is tricky and amazing. [[THESIS]]
There is this song called "Seasons of Love" from the broadway musical called Rent. If you ever listen to that song they ask "How do you measure a year in the life," and answer "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife, In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes."The first time I saw Rent and heard this song was with my mother on our comfortable charcoal gray couch in our little Kahala town house. It was just around our dinner time, seven or eight o'clock during a cool spring night. I remember this night because my mom got me this play on DVD for my fourteenth birthday since she knows how much I love musicals. This play is not like the other musicals like West Side Story or Grease which has a Romeo and Juliet story line. This play deals with real life situations and how these people take the worst situations life could offer and continue to live and love. After two hours and fifteen minutes went by, my mom and I listened to the song one more time as it rolled through the credits. We were singing to it like we heard it a million times. As the song was playing I realized how this one song that is three minutes and seventeen-seconds can sum up a movie that is 135 minutes long. We wondered if there really were five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, so out came the calculator and all the numbers added up.
We were blown away that there is only 525,600 minutes in a year. If you were to put a minute count down for a year, you could literally watching time fly by. Imagine five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes times five, thats how many minutes a five year old lives. I find it interesting to hear about people who live their whole lives, trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to measure it. That is a lot of minutes trying to figure out how to measure life.
When I was in grade school I would go to my granny's appartment after school with my cousins and sister. When my mom was finished from work she would call me and say, "I'm leaving my office now, meet me downstairs in ten minutes." I would always make her wait either a couple minutes or five minutes accidentally. One day she was so upset at me after she waited for ten minutes, she told me loudly in her blue 2001 corolla, "When I tell you to come downstairs you have to time yourself using the same clock, because not every clock has the same time." A lesson I took to heart because never did I like it when she yelled at me, and I never made her wait again.
Since no two clocks are exactly the same time, I figure I need one watch or clock to follow from the strike of a new year till the end of it. For my christmas present a coupe years ago I got a stunning, bright yellow rubber band, with rhinestones lining the face, and glow in the dark hands, Juicy Couture watch. There is so much technology and different clocks I was not sure whether to set my watches' time according to my laptop, my pink smart phone, the cable channel on tv, from the numerous radio stations, or from my smallest house clock. I really wanted my watch to be as accurate as possible, deciding which clock to set my watch to was very difficult. There is this clock known as the universal clock that is accessible to any one who knows how to use google. It shows all the times of every time zone in the world. However, google users know that when searching for a specific thing, there are always umpteen million websites that have similar searches. Great, more different clocks to choose from. All the times on these websites don't have seconds either, just minutes. Every time I set a clock, I always wait till the number changes than hit save or push the little button in on the side of watches as fast as I can so that the seconds are almost the same.
The last day of the year, twenty-ten was almost over as my sister and I were watching a rerun of our favorite show called "One Tree Hill." This episode was about one of the girls who became really famous with her clothes line, is no broke and is trying to find inspiration. She finds a list she made when she was rich of things she has always wanted to do. One of the things was sky diving, so her boyfriend takes her in an airplane and their mark is coming up. Up in the air she wants to back out, but her boyfriend tells her this quote, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath way." My sister and I laughed, cause we knew it was from another funny movie called Hitch, and the girl in the show knew it too. I knew what my sister was thinking when we heard this quote, as we both started to sing this line from the song by Nicki Minaj, "I believe life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive."
Life isn't about precisely setting my watch on time, or knowing how many minutes I have in a year to make life count, its about moments that take my breath away. Life is always in the present, always moving, no stopping, like seconds on a watch. Every breath I take is right now, today, no one ever says they breath tomorrow. There is no tomorrow unless the world enters a black thickness of nothing, when everything just stops. So thats why with every breath taken, the world is still in motion, the today and the now. The present never rests, it doesn't matter if I'm awake or asleep. It's always breakfast or dinner somewhere in the world. I like to live today and for right now. The only minutes I worry about is the seconds ticking on my yellow Juicy watch. If tomorrow comes right now or in a week, or in the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes I know I can say I lived my life to its fullest of every second. There is no day but today.
_X__ Mar. 3- Intro to Paper #3: Personal Essay.
_X__ Mar. 7- Complete readings: all of chapter 12.
_X__ Mar. 10- Laulima Discussion 1: “Chimera“
_X__ Mar. 14- Laulima Discussion 2: “Notes of a Native Speaker“
_X__ Mar. 16- Laulima Discussion 3: “Under the Influence“
_X__ Mar. 18- Laulima Discussion 4: “Being Brians“
_L__ Mar. 29- Laulima Discussion 5: “Warring Memories“ and “Snakebit“
_X__ Apr. 1- RD3 due [50 pts]
_X__ Apr. 4- Submit three RD3 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_L__ Apr. 6 - FD3 due [125 pts] You can submit it anytime during this period.
April 4, 2011
FD3
Yesterday's Tomorrow is Today
It felt like yesterday was the last day of twenty-ten, a night filled of alcoholic beverages for adults and sparkling cider for the twenty-one and under. Another cloudy black sky on a new year filled with smoke and flashes from all the different firework shows exploding along the shores, including a couple illegals you see in the neighborhoods here and there. I find that time is all around me like noise. Its everywhere, and I cant ever escape it. Time is such a tricky and an amazing thing. Just one tick of a second is a new minute, another tick is a new hour, an hour to a new day, a new day to a new year, new year to a new decade.Life can be measured in so many ways, there is no right or wrong way to measure life, just like how there is no right or wrong way to live life.[[THESIS]]If I had to measure my life, it would be with time and the moments time brings me. My life is time, it is tricky and amazing. [[THESIS]]
There is this song called "Seasons of Love" from the broadway musical called Rent. If you ever listen to that song they ask "How do you measure a year in the life," and answer "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife, In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes."The first time I saw Rent and heard this song was with my mother on our comfortable charcoal gray couch in our little Kahala town house. It was just around our dinner time, seven or eight o'clock during a cool spring night. I remember this night because my mom got me this play on DVD for my fourteenth birthday since she knows how much I love musicals. This play is not like the other musicals like West Side Story or Grease which has a Romeo and Juliet story line. This play deals with real life situations and how these people take the worst situations life could offer and continue to live and love. After two hours and fifteen minutes went by, my mom and I listened to the song one more time as it rolled through the credits. We were singing to it like we heard it a million times. As the song was playing I realized how this one song that is three minutes and seventeen-seconds can sum up a movie that is 135 minutes long. We wondered if there really were five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, so out came the calculator and all the numbers added up.
We were blown away that there is only 525,600 minutes in a year. If you were to put a minute count down for a year, you could literally watching time fly by. Imagine five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes times five, thats how many minutes a five year old lives. I find it interesting to hear about people who live their whole lives, trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to measure it. That is a lot of minutes trying to figure out how to measure life.
When I was in grade school I would go to my granny's appartment after school with my cousins and sister. When my mom was finished from work she would call me and say, "I'm leaving my office now, meet me downstairs in ten minutes." I would always make her wait either a couple minutes or five minutes accidentally. One day she was so upset at me after she waited for ten minutes, she told me loudly in her blue 2001 corolla, "When I tell you to come downstairs you have to time yourself using the same clock, because not every clock has the same time." A lesson I took to heart because never did I like it when she yelled at me, and I never made her wait again.
Since no two clocks are exactly the same time, I figure I need one watch or clock to follow from the strike of a new year till the end of it. For my christmas present a coupe years ago I got a stunning, bright yellow rubber band, with rhinestones lining the face, and glow in the dark hands, Juicy Couture watch. There is so much technology and different clocks I was not sure whether to set my watches' time according to my laptop, my pink smart phone, the cable channel on tv, from the numerous radio stations, or from my smallest house clock. I really wanted my watch to be as accurate as possible, deciding which clock to set my watch to was very difficult. There is this clock known as the universal clock that is accessible to any one who knows how to use google. It shows all the times of every time zone in the world. However, google users know that when searching for a specific thing, there are always umpteen million websites that have similar searches. Great, more different clocks to choose from. All the times on these websites don't have seconds either, just minutes. Every time I set a clock, I always wait till the number changes than hit save or push the little button in on the side of watches as fast as I can so that the seconds are almost the same.
The last day of the year, twenty-ten was almost over as my sister and I were watching a rerun of our favorite show called "One Tree Hill." This episode was about one of the girls who became really famous with her clothes line, is no broke and is trying to find inspiration. She finds a list she made when she was rich of things she has always wanted to do. One of the things was sky diving, so her boyfriend takes her in an airplane and their mark is coming up. Up in the air she wants to back out, but her boyfriend tells her this quote, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath way." My sister and I laughed, cause we knew it was from another funny movie called Hitch, and the girl in the show knew it too. I knew what my sister was thinking when we heard this quote, as we both started to sing this line from the song by Nicki Minaj, "I believe life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive."
Life isn't about precisely setting my watch on time, or knowing how many minutes I have in a year to make life count, its about moments that take my breath away. Life is always in the present, always moving, no stopping, like seconds on a watch. Every breath I take is right now, today, no one ever says they breath tomorrow. There is no tomorrow unless the world enters a black thickness of nothing, when everything just stops. So thats why with every breath taken, the world is still in motion, the today and the now. The present never rests, it doesn't matter if I'm awake or asleep. It's always breakfast or dinner somewhere in the world. I like to live today and for right now. The only minutes I worry about is the seconds ticking on my yellow Juicy watch. If tomorrow comes right now or in a week, or in the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes I know I can say I lived my life to its fullest of every second. There is no day but today.
_X__ Mar. 3- Intro to Paper #3: Personal Essay.
_X__ Mar. 7- Complete readings: all of chapter 12.
_X__ Mar. 10- Laulima Discussion 1: “Chimera“
_X__ Mar. 14- Laulima Discussion 2: “Notes of a Native Speaker“
_X__ Mar. 16- Laulima Discussion 3: “Under the Influence“
_X__ Mar. 18- Laulima Discussion 4: “Being Brians“
_L__ Mar. 29- Laulima Discussion 5: “Warring Memories“ and “Snakebit“
_X__ Apr. 1- RD3 due [50 pts]
_X__ Apr. 4- Submit three RD3 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_L__ Apr. 6 - FD3 due [125 pts] You can submit it anytime during this period.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
RD3 Yesterdays Tomorrow is Today
Cara Jean Kamehiro
30 March, 2011
RD3
Yesterday's Tomorrow is Today
It felt like yesterday was the last day of twenty-ten, a night filled of alcoholic beverages for adults and sparkling cider for the twenty-one and under. Another cloudy black sky on a new year filled with smoke and flashes from all the different firework shows exploding along the shores, including a couple illegals you see in the neighborhoods here and there. I find that time is all around me like noise. Its everywhere, and I cant ever escape it. Time is such a tricky and an amazing thing. Just one tick of a second is a new minute, another tick is a new hour, an hour to a new day, a new day to a new year, new year to a new decade.Life can be measured in so many ways, there is no right or wrong way to measure life, just like how there is no right or wrong way to live life.[[THESIS]]If I had to measure my life, it would be in time and the moments time bring me, because my life is time, it is tricky and amazing. [[THESIS]]
There is this song "Seasons of Love" from the broadway musical called Rent. If you ever listen to that song they ask "How do you measure a year in the life," and answer "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife, In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes."The first time I saw Rent and heard this song was with my mother on our comfortable charcoal gray couch in our little Kahala town house. It was just around our dinner time, seven or eight o'clock during a cool spring night. I remember this night because my mom got me this play on DVD for my fourteenth birthday since she knows how much I love musicals. This play is not like the other musicals like West Side Story or Grease that is a Romeo and Juliet story line. This play deals with real life situations and how these people take the worst situations life can throw at you and continue to live and love. After two hours and fifteen minutes went by, my mom and I listened to the song one more time as it rolled through the credits. We were singing to it like we heard it a million times. As the song was playing I realized how this one song that is three minutes and seventeen-seconds can sum up a movie that is 135 minutes long. We wondered if there really were five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, so out came the calculator and all the numbers added up.
We were blown away that there is only 525,600 minutes in a year, that seems like so little if you have a timer set for a year, literally watching time go by. Imagine five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes times five, thats how many minutes a five year old lives. I find it interesting to hear about people who live their whole lives, trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to measure it. That is a lot of minutes in ones life trying to figure out how to measure life.
When I was in grade school I would go to my granny's house after school with my cousins and sister. She lives in an apartment and when my mom was finished from work she would call me and say, "I'm leaving my office now, meet me downstairs in ten minutes." I would always make her wait either a couple minutes or five minutes accidentally. One day she was so upset at me after she waited for ten minutes, she told me loudly in her blue 2001 corolla, "When I tell you to come downstairs you have to time yourself using the same clock, because not every clock has the same time." A lesson I took to heart because never did I like it when she yelled at me, and I never made her wait again.
Since no two clocks are exactly the same time, I figure I need one watch or clock to follow for my whole life from the strike of a new year till the end of it. For my christmas present a coupe years ago I got a stunning, bright yellow rubber band, with rhinestones lining the face, and glow in the dark hands, Juicy Couture watch. There is so much technology and different clocks I was not sure whether to set my watches' time according to my Macbook air laptop, my Tmobile Mytouch 4G cellular phone, the cable channel on tv, from the numerous radio stations, or from my smallest house clock. I really wanted my watch to be as accurate as possible, deciding which clock to set my watch to was very difficult. There is this clock known as the universal clock that is accessible to any one who knows how to use google. It shows all the times of every time zone in the world. However, google users know that when searching for a specific thing, there are always umpteen million websites that have similar searches. Great, more different clocks to choose from. All the times on these websites don't have seconds either, just minutes. Every time I set a clock of mine, I always wait till the number changes and hit save or push the little button in on the side of watches, so that the seconds almost exactly the same.
The day of the end of twenty-ten my sister and I were watching a rerun of our favorite show called "One Tree Hill," and this episode was about one of the girls always wanted to go sky diving. So her boyfriend takes her in an airplane and their mark is coming up and she wants to back out, her boyfriend tells her this quote, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath way." My sister and I laughed, cause we knew it was from another funny movie called Hitch. I knew what my sister was thinking when we heard this quote, as we both started to sing this line from the song by Nicki Minaj, "I believe life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive."
Life isn't about precisely setting my watch on time, or knowing how many minutes I have in a year to make life count, its about moments that take my breath away. Life is always in the present, always moving, no stopping, like seconds on a watch. Every breath I take is right now today, no one ever says they breath tomorrow. There is no tomorrow unless the world enters a black thickness of nothing, when everything just stops. So thats why with every breath taken, the world is still in mooting, the today and the now. There is always something going on in today. It doesn't matter if I'm awake or asleep, its always breakfast or dinner somewhere in the world. I like to live today and for right now. The only minutes I worry about is the seconds ticking on my yellow Juicy watch. If tomorrow comes right now or in the next week, or in the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes I know I can say I lived my life to its fullest of every second.
30 March, 2011
RD3
Yesterday's Tomorrow is Today
It felt like yesterday was the last day of twenty-ten, a night filled of alcoholic beverages for adults and sparkling cider for the twenty-one and under. Another cloudy black sky on a new year filled with smoke and flashes from all the different firework shows exploding along the shores, including a couple illegals you see in the neighborhoods here and there. I find that time is all around me like noise. Its everywhere, and I cant ever escape it. Time is such a tricky and an amazing thing. Just one tick of a second is a new minute, another tick is a new hour, an hour to a new day, a new day to a new year, new year to a new decade.Life can be measured in so many ways, there is no right or wrong way to measure life, just like how there is no right or wrong way to live life.[[THESIS]]If I had to measure my life, it would be in time and the moments time bring me, because my life is time, it is tricky and amazing. [[THESIS]]
There is this song "Seasons of Love" from the broadway musical called Rent. If you ever listen to that song they ask "How do you measure a year in the life," and answer "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife, In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes."The first time I saw Rent and heard this song was with my mother on our comfortable charcoal gray couch in our little Kahala town house. It was just around our dinner time, seven or eight o'clock during a cool spring night. I remember this night because my mom got me this play on DVD for my fourteenth birthday since she knows how much I love musicals. This play is not like the other musicals like West Side Story or Grease that is a Romeo and Juliet story line. This play deals with real life situations and how these people take the worst situations life can throw at you and continue to live and love. After two hours and fifteen minutes went by, my mom and I listened to the song one more time as it rolled through the credits. We were singing to it like we heard it a million times. As the song was playing I realized how this one song that is three minutes and seventeen-seconds can sum up a movie that is 135 minutes long. We wondered if there really were five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes in a year, so out came the calculator and all the numbers added up.
We were blown away that there is only 525,600 minutes in a year, that seems like so little if you have a timer set for a year, literally watching time go by. Imagine five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred minutes times five, thats how many minutes a five year old lives. I find it interesting to hear about people who live their whole lives, trying to figure out the meaning of life and how to measure it. That is a lot of minutes in ones life trying to figure out how to measure life.
When I was in grade school I would go to my granny's house after school with my cousins and sister. She lives in an apartment and when my mom was finished from work she would call me and say, "I'm leaving my office now, meet me downstairs in ten minutes." I would always make her wait either a couple minutes or five minutes accidentally. One day she was so upset at me after she waited for ten minutes, she told me loudly in her blue 2001 corolla, "When I tell you to come downstairs you have to time yourself using the same clock, because not every clock has the same time." A lesson I took to heart because never did I like it when she yelled at me, and I never made her wait again.
Since no two clocks are exactly the same time, I figure I need one watch or clock to follow for my whole life from the strike of a new year till the end of it. For my christmas present a coupe years ago I got a stunning, bright yellow rubber band, with rhinestones lining the face, and glow in the dark hands, Juicy Couture watch. There is so much technology and different clocks I was not sure whether to set my watches' time according to my Macbook air laptop, my Tmobile Mytouch 4G cellular phone, the cable channel on tv, from the numerous radio stations, or from my smallest house clock. I really wanted my watch to be as accurate as possible, deciding which clock to set my watch to was very difficult. There is this clock known as the universal clock that is accessible to any one who knows how to use google. It shows all the times of every time zone in the world. However, google users know that when searching for a specific thing, there are always umpteen million websites that have similar searches. Great, more different clocks to choose from. All the times on these websites don't have seconds either, just minutes. Every time I set a clock of mine, I always wait till the number changes and hit save or push the little button in on the side of watches, so that the seconds almost exactly the same.
The day of the end of twenty-ten my sister and I were watching a rerun of our favorite show called "One Tree Hill," and this episode was about one of the girls always wanted to go sky diving. So her boyfriend takes her in an airplane and their mark is coming up and she wants to back out, her boyfriend tells her this quote, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath way." My sister and I laughed, cause we knew it was from another funny movie called Hitch. I knew what my sister was thinking when we heard this quote, as we both started to sing this line from the song by Nicki Minaj, "I believe life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive."
Life isn't about precisely setting my watch on time, or knowing how many minutes I have in a year to make life count, its about moments that take my breath away. Life is always in the present, always moving, no stopping, like seconds on a watch. Every breath I take is right now today, no one ever says they breath tomorrow. There is no tomorrow unless the world enters a black thickness of nothing, when everything just stops. So thats why with every breath taken, the world is still in mooting, the today and the now. There is always something going on in today. It doesn't matter if I'm awake or asleep, its always breakfast or dinner somewhere in the world. I like to live today and for right now. The only minutes I worry about is the seconds ticking on my yellow Juicy watch. If tomorrow comes right now or in the next week, or in the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes I know I can say I lived my life to its fullest of every second.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
An Alien in a New Galaxy
I will Be submitting a RFD2
An Alien in a New Galaxy
Cara Jean Kamehiro
1 March, 2011
FD2
Ever since I was a little girl, I have always imagined aliens to look like little green people with four or less fingers, big eye(s) or a bunch of little ones, and two short stubby antennas on their heads who fly around outer space in gigantic UFOs and speak different dialect tones. Aliens are said to be nonexistent, so I'll leave picturing an alien to your imagination.
I know such creatures do not exist so I could not believe my eyes when they stumbled across a computer screen that was attached to a television that showed the alien in his thick, liquid bubble, inside me. That was the only way to see him, otherwise he was an unknown creature to the human eye. Technology allowed me to see him, and with my hands and body I could feel him. He did not speak any tones yet, though he does yawn, swallow, hiccup, "breathe" and blink just like us humans. He did have only a couple fingers visible at that moment, but more were on their way soon. He has two big eyes that are closed, a tiny nose and small lips that looked just like mine. No hair on his head like mine, yet, but there were no antennas either. What kind of creature could this be that I am staring at. A UFO was his own spaceship that he just floated and swam in all day long. His UFO was his safety bubble with its own o-zone layer that protected him from all harm of the outer galaxy also known as his outer space. Though he does not fly around galaxies in my outer space, he does swim in a galaxy inside my space. [[THESIS]] Definitely an alien, could be the only word to describe him to some, but I like to call him my baby boy. [[THESIS]]
As the clock struck twelve the night passed and grew to the morning of February twenty-second two-thousand and eleven. I start to end my day, or so I thought, finishing my marathon of The O.C., a television show drama I love. One forty-five strolls along the clock and my eyes start to get super heavy. This baby makes me wobble and waddle like a duck strolling along a river bend. I slowly make my way over to a ship to take me to never, never land, and I realize just before setting foot on dock that there is water every where. Calmly, I walk back to the bathroom to check myself. I exit the bathroom for the second time and turn left to my moms room, where she was laying in bed doing her own Sudoku print outs. "Uhm, mom? I think my water just broke" I say to her as she springs up from her bed faster than lightning. I look at the clock and notice that my water broke at two in the morning. I quietly say to myself, "finally, the UFO is about to land in a new galaxy that was an unknown place to the alien. I am finally getting by body back."
My mom and sister run frantically around the house getting things together to go to the hospital, while I was moving at one mile per two hours, lollygagging to put my things together. I grab my pink Dakine backpack thats been bitten by my four year old bunny and stuff it with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, my phone charger, a stem cell kit, and a change of clothes to come home in when I get discharged. Feeling like I probably forgotten something, I grab my cheap, no brand name, yellow purse that has everything I need in it to get through a day or two. I grab a dark, vibrant, almost blood red towel and squeeze my light brown, Kona Wind brand, rubber slippers on my swollen feet and head out the door.
Finally, I am packed and the morning is dark like night. The air is cooler and thinner than an air conditioner, I love how it makes my skin feel so clean. The stars shone almost as bright as the orange street lights that lined both sides of the street outside my tan and beige colored Kahala town house. Two parallel lines of cars lined the street leaving absolutely no parking space except in front of the designated fire hydrants, leaving my sister, mom and I to walk to the back parking lot in a single file line to get to Lola. My mom's two thousand and nine, tomato red Corolla, that my mom drove tonight to get us to the hospital.
It is two thirty am when I check in at the pink hospital, known by the name of Kapiolani Medical Center for women and children. This is the same hospital where I was born nineteen, almost twenty years ago. Being at the hospital twenty years later, must have sent mixed feelings for my mom, since she was not the one going into labor but her baby of three was.
I was feeling weird with water still oozing from my baby's UFO. It felt like water was escaping all over the hospital's white tile floor. However, my presence did not seem to phase the young adults that were sitting in the waiting room watching the Disney channel, a television station designed for little kids. I giggled as I watched how entertained they were, because I must look the same way to my mom when I'm entertained by that station. I had a short wait in the waiting room that should not be considered a room. This waiting room was not like the waiting rooms you see on those television shows that was a separate room from the hallways with a door and windows, but a "room" with just a television and a handful of chairs in the corner of the labor and delivery wings entrance. I only had to sit there and wait no more than two minutes leaving me no time to mass text everyone the huge news.
After the short wait I arrived at my first room, that just so happened to be the same room I was in earlier last year for a check up. It is such a small room, it seems to be the size of half a bedroom. This roomed was filled with a sink, a bed, one chair, a wall full of gloves and supplies, and a television. Everything was happening so fast, it was as if the little alien was controlling the whole universe to make way for his grand entrance.
Getting in the hospital mood, clothed in my gown and finally lying in bed number one. Being hooked up to monitors and pricked by millions of needles draining blood and pumping fluids in my vessels. I finally get to finish mass texting everyone, or everyone that knew I was having a baby, which were the close friends and my family. In no time my nurse reentered with a black and blue wheel chair that looked like it was designed for a ten foot persons' torso. Moving to room 301, my bed number two was waiting for me just down the hall and around the corner. Kicking, kicking, kicking so hard, he was pumping all the liquid from inside me out. He must know that I was being wheeled to the room where he was going to make his grand entrance into his new galaxy.
This room was twice the size of my first room and way colder than any room I stayed in. Its bigger than my bed room at home, and bigger than any master bed I have seen with my own eyes. But all I could do now in this room was wait, and wait and wait, as he kicked harder and more often. It was still dark outside and he was still submerged in darkness. Nurses came in and out of my room every half an hour, leaving my mom and I no time to sleep, not that the alien would let me either. Sooner than ever it was light out and eleven o'clock came in no time.
My mom and I finished watching two new released movies for free on the hospital's television. Shortly after, I got the wonder drug to kill the pain, but getting it is the worst pain ever or the most abnormal feeling in the world. A sharp but dull pain that sends chills and spastic feelings up and down my spine and legs. I Thought I was going to break my nurse's finger as she told me to hunch my back, relax my shoulders and squeeze her finger when I felt the unusual pain in my spine. My nurse thought I would deliver around midnight, though the alien must have felt the pain from the shot on the back of his UFO because the delivery came sooner than anyone expected. Rather than waiting twelve hours, two hours went by with a lot of cramping pains from him pounding "get me out of here." Finally the last hour went by and my alien, my baby finally arrived at two thirteen pm.
The tinniest human from his UFO was the most quietest and cutest thing I had ever seen. Tones started to seek out of his little chest as he lays on top of me and holds my finger, grips it tight and gazes into my eyes bonding with me like he knew my face for years. He is all slimy, a grayish purple color, soft and squishy that if you did not know he was a new born you would think he was an odd purple alien with no antennas. I did not care what he looked like, just as long as he was mine, my flesh and blood, my one and only purple alien.
When he blinks his eyes he still looked like an alien. The movement was so slow, he looked almost uncomfortable as he squinted his whole face with every blink he took. His eye lids are so swollen and puffy I did not know what thin and transparent layer of skin closed over his eyes when he would blink his uncomfortable blink. His eyeballs are all black when he opened them and they had no white around it. With in minutes, he started to look different, more human like. He was no longer slimy, he gained color in his squishy skin and the unexplained sounds emerged from him started to sound like a cry. I continued to examine every microscopic detail of his body, from his hair on his head, to his eyelashes that were long for a newborn, to his extremely long fingers and toes.
I have seen him from a computer, a television screen, pictures of a 3D pixel face and he seemed like galaxies away, to a real life three dimension physical being, laying right in my arms in front of my eyes. I imagine, my own little purple alien crawling amongst us humans and slowly growing everyday, making our one UFO Earth his own personal galaxy waiting to be reborn again.
__X_ Feb. 4 – Intro to paper #2: Portraits
__X_ Feb. 7- Complete readings – all of chap. 13. Optional: “Cucarachas” by Madeline Sonik.
__X_ Feb. 10- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Lee and Simic.
_X__ Feb. 14- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Steinbach and Toth.
_X__ Feb. 18- Laulima Posting: Sample from Your Portrait.
__L_ Feb. 25- RD2 due [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
__L_ Feb. 28- Submit three RD2 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
__X_ Mar. 2- FD2 due [125 pts] Review the guidelines.
An Alien in a New Galaxy
Cara Jean Kamehiro
1 March, 2011
FD2
Ever since I was a little girl, I have always imagined aliens to look like little green people with four or less fingers, big eye(s) or a bunch of little ones, and two short stubby antennas on their heads who fly around outer space in gigantic UFOs and speak different dialect tones. Aliens are said to be nonexistent, so I'll leave picturing an alien to your imagination.
I know such creatures do not exist so I could not believe my eyes when they stumbled across a computer screen that was attached to a television that showed the alien in his thick, liquid bubble, inside me. That was the only way to see him, otherwise he was an unknown creature to the human eye. Technology allowed me to see him, and with my hands and body I could feel him. He did not speak any tones yet, though he does yawn, swallow, hiccup, "breathe" and blink just like us humans. He did have only a couple fingers visible at that moment, but more were on their way soon. He has two big eyes that are closed, a tiny nose and small lips that looked just like mine. No hair on his head like mine, yet, but there were no antennas either. What kind of creature could this be that I am staring at. A UFO was his own spaceship that he just floated and swam in all day long. His UFO was his safety bubble with its own o-zone layer that protected him from all harm of the outer galaxy also known as his outer space. Though he does not fly around galaxies in my outer space, he does swim in a galaxy inside my space. [[THESIS]] Definitely an alien, could be the only word to describe him to some, but I like to call him my baby boy. [[THESIS]]
As the clock struck twelve the night passed and grew to the morning of February twenty-second two-thousand and eleven. I start to end my day, or so I thought, finishing my marathon of The O.C., a television show drama I love. One forty-five strolls along the clock and my eyes start to get super heavy. This baby makes me wobble and waddle like a duck strolling along a river bend. I slowly make my way over to a ship to take me to never, never land, and I realize just before setting foot on dock that there is water every where. Calmly, I walk back to the bathroom to check myself. I exit the bathroom for the second time and turn left to my moms room, where she was laying in bed doing her own Sudoku print outs. "Uhm, mom? I think my water just broke" I say to her as she springs up from her bed faster than lightning. I look at the clock and notice that my water broke at two in the morning. I quietly say to myself, "finally, the UFO is about to land in a new galaxy that was an unknown place to the alien. I am finally getting by body back."
My mom and sister run frantically around the house getting things together to go to the hospital, while I was moving at one mile per two hours, lollygagging to put my things together. I grab my pink Dakine backpack thats been bitten by my four year old bunny and stuff it with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, my phone charger, a stem cell kit, and a change of clothes to come home in when I get discharged. Feeling like I probably forgotten something, I grab my cheap, no brand name, yellow purse that has everything I need in it to get through a day or two. I grab a dark, vibrant, almost blood red towel and squeeze my light brown, Kona Wind brand, rubber slippers on my swollen feet and head out the door.
Finally, I am packed and the morning is dark like night. The air is cooler and thinner than an air conditioner, I love how it makes my skin feel so clean. The stars shone almost as bright as the orange street lights that lined both sides of the street outside my tan and beige colored Kahala town house. Two parallel lines of cars lined the street leaving absolutely no parking space except in front of the designated fire hydrants, leaving my sister, mom and I to walk to the back parking lot in a single file line to get to Lola. My mom's two thousand and nine, tomato red Corolla, that my mom drove tonight to get us to the hospital.
It is two thirty am when I check in at the pink hospital, known by the name of Kapiolani Medical Center for women and children. This is the same hospital where I was born nineteen, almost twenty years ago. Being at the hospital twenty years later, must have sent mixed feelings for my mom, since she was not the one going into labor but her baby of three was.
I was feeling weird with water still oozing from my baby's UFO. It felt like water was escaping all over the hospital's white tile floor. However, my presence did not seem to phase the young adults that were sitting in the waiting room watching the Disney channel, a television station designed for little kids. I giggled as I watched how entertained they were, because I must look the same way to my mom when I'm entertained by that station. I had a short wait in the waiting room that should not be considered a room. This waiting room was not like the waiting rooms you see on those television shows that was a separate room from the hallways with a door and windows, but a "room" with just a television and a handful of chairs in the corner of the labor and delivery wings entrance. I only had to sit there and wait no more than two minutes leaving me no time to mass text everyone the huge news.
After the short wait I arrived at my first room, that just so happened to be the same room I was in earlier last year for a check up. It is such a small room, it seems to be the size of half a bedroom. This roomed was filled with a sink, a bed, one chair, a wall full of gloves and supplies, and a television. Everything was happening so fast, it was as if the little alien was controlling the whole universe to make way for his grand entrance.
Getting in the hospital mood, clothed in my gown and finally lying in bed number one. Being hooked up to monitors and pricked by millions of needles draining blood and pumping fluids in my vessels. I finally get to finish mass texting everyone, or everyone that knew I was having a baby, which were the close friends and my family. In no time my nurse reentered with a black and blue wheel chair that looked like it was designed for a ten foot persons' torso. Moving to room 301, my bed number two was waiting for me just down the hall and around the corner. Kicking, kicking, kicking so hard, he was pumping all the liquid from inside me out. He must know that I was being wheeled to the room where he was going to make his grand entrance into his new galaxy.
This room was twice the size of my first room and way colder than any room I stayed in. Its bigger than my bed room at home, and bigger than any master bed I have seen with my own eyes. But all I could do now in this room was wait, and wait and wait, as he kicked harder and more often. It was still dark outside and he was still submerged in darkness. Nurses came in and out of my room every half an hour, leaving my mom and I no time to sleep, not that the alien would let me either. Sooner than ever it was light out and eleven o'clock came in no time.
My mom and I finished watching two new released movies for free on the hospital's television. Shortly after, I got the wonder drug to kill the pain, but getting it is the worst pain ever or the most abnormal feeling in the world. A sharp but dull pain that sends chills and spastic feelings up and down my spine and legs. I Thought I was going to break my nurse's finger as she told me to hunch my back, relax my shoulders and squeeze her finger when I felt the unusual pain in my spine. My nurse thought I would deliver around midnight, though the alien must have felt the pain from the shot on the back of his UFO because the delivery came sooner than anyone expected. Rather than waiting twelve hours, two hours went by with a lot of cramping pains from him pounding "get me out of here." Finally the last hour went by and my alien, my baby finally arrived at two thirteen pm.
The tinniest human from his UFO was the most quietest and cutest thing I had ever seen. Tones started to seek out of his little chest as he lays on top of me and holds my finger, grips it tight and gazes into my eyes bonding with me like he knew my face for years. He is all slimy, a grayish purple color, soft and squishy that if you did not know he was a new born you would think he was an odd purple alien with no antennas. I did not care what he looked like, just as long as he was mine, my flesh and blood, my one and only purple alien.
When he blinks his eyes he still looked like an alien. The movement was so slow, he looked almost uncomfortable as he squinted his whole face with every blink he took. His eye lids are so swollen and puffy I did not know what thin and transparent layer of skin closed over his eyes when he would blink his uncomfortable blink. His eyeballs are all black when he opened them and they had no white around it. With in minutes, he started to look different, more human like. He was no longer slimy, he gained color in his squishy skin and the unexplained sounds emerged from him started to sound like a cry. I continued to examine every microscopic detail of his body, from his hair on his head, to his eyelashes that were long for a newborn, to his extremely long fingers and toes.
I have seen him from a computer, a television screen, pictures of a 3D pixel face and he seemed like galaxies away, to a real life three dimension physical being, laying right in my arms in front of my eyes. I imagine, my own little purple alien crawling amongst us humans and slowly growing everyday, making our one UFO Earth his own personal galaxy waiting to be reborn again.
__X_ Feb. 4 – Intro to paper #2: Portraits
__X_ Feb. 7- Complete readings – all of chap. 13. Optional: “Cucarachas” by Madeline Sonik.
__X_ Feb. 10- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Lee and Simic.
_X__ Feb. 14- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Steinbach and Toth.
_X__ Feb. 18- Laulima Posting: Sample from Your Portrait.
__L_ Feb. 25- RD2 due [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
__L_ Feb. 28- Submit three RD2 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
__X_ Mar. 2- FD2 due [125 pts] Review the guidelines.
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