Yoga

Went to a yoga class for the first time with Kyrsten, Kerry and Monika. It was great. I think I may just have to go more often. The whole experience was quite enjoyable; the attitude of the teacher was one thing which made it so positive, but also the feeling you get after you do something beneficial for your body is unmatched and is one of the reasons I love karate so much. I was surprised just how many of the movements were the same as what we do for our warmup in my dojo. When I think about it, however, it's not such a surprise, as karate's origin can be traced back to India about a thousand years ago and traveled through China to it's most recent incarnation in Japan (with a major stop over in Okinawa, where it was heavily developed and became, for the most part, what it is today). Still, if it is the case that much of the traditional warmup practitioners still do for karate is so closely related to yoga, it just goes to show that the techniques must be pretty close to perfect, otherwise you would expect to see great change over such a large period of time.

Can you say sweltering?

My god, it's hot out there. I just finished biking from James Bay to UVic to talk to the librarians and also get my photo taken for my student ID (which I can't pick up till Aug 30th... silly buggers). When I got there I parked my bike by the campus centre and washed myself down in the bathroom; I was drenched. Sweat still seeping from my pours I decided I'd better sit down in the shade for a bit to let my body turn off the water works before I went to interact with anyone. There are countless places to sit on the campus and I found a nice little spot without much traffic and just sat listening to the birds while I cooled down. Drank some water to try and rehydrate myself as I knew I had lost at least a few hundred milliliters from the ride. There were some bird sounds I couldn't recognize, so much so, I questioned whether they were real birds or not, but they must have been. People watching at the university is going to be an interesting pastime I can tell already. When I was ready I got up and strolled, at a slow pace, since the heat was stifling and any movement brought the sweat back to my brow, towards the library. I looked up what was required before I could get my picture taken for my ID and I had already registered, so it was back to the photo ID/Information booth in the campus centre and in about five seconds I had my picture taken. It's going to be amusing having a sweaty photo of me on that thing for the rest of the year, if not longer. Then I walked back to the library to ask about subscriptions to more online journals. I got a really helpful lady at the take out counter (there was no information desk) and she detailed the system they use for ordering journals. Apparently the library has no direct say in what they order. Each faculty has their budget and the library liaison decides what to subscribe to. Her suggestion was I talk to my faculties secretary to find out whom that individual is and then hunt them down and badger them (her final remark was, "Good luck."). This was exactly what I needed to know, but at the same time, it wasn't really what I wanted to hear. It seems it's going to be harder to get the subscriptions I want than I was hoping, as whenever there is specific departmental budgets involved there is always in house politics. Oh well, I'm fairly good at coercion (or so I'd like to think), I'll make a trip to see this liaison when I get a chance. I'm in no rush, but I do want to get the papers necessary for my research. Time to email David Chalmers and ask what journals I should be interested in. Suffice it to say, even though I'm hot as hell and the bike ride was deadly, I enjoyed the trip and I'm looking forward to biking to karate and pushing myself a little further.

There is no unconscious!

Many philosophers assume that because something is not in our awareness it should be considered unconscious. They, at the same time, argue that volition and intentionality are two of the main components of consciousness and that without these, consciousness is incapable of being causally related to our behaviours. Some take it so far as to consider consciousness an epiphenomenal construct; meaning that the brain causally creates consciousness, but consciousness cannot be the cause of any event within the brain. This is absurd, as an obvious expample of awareness, synonymously (in regular cognitive/philisophical discourse) consciousness, affecting what is typically considered an unconscious event occurs in yogi's whom are able to, on demand, change various aspects of their autonomic functioning: e.g. changing the temperature between the palm of their hand and the back of their hand by a few degrees celcius, or changing the rate of their heartbeat. If this is the case and I have read many documented cases in which this has occured in a controlled labortory setting, it flies in the face of epiphenomenalism. Now back to the issue of there being no unconscious. Yogi's have expanded their awareness (I will from here on in seperate awareness from the traditional conception of consciousness, as I want to reserve that term for the entire phenomenon that takes place within the brain) to the point they are able to alter what has traditionally been considered unconscious events. A slippery slope starts to take shape when a line in drawn as to what should be considered conscious. It seems that the only reasonable conclusion is that all information processing occuring within the brain should be considered concious (perhaps expanding it even further to all information processing period) and that awareness should be conceived of as a property of that phenomenon in which volition and intentionality are other qualities made possible by awareness and not defining elements of consciousness.

Japanese Slang Term for the Week

Again, randomly chosen by a flip through the book:

Manzuri. "ten thousand rubs"
slang: Female Masturbation.

useages and variations:

Aa! Atashi manzuri ni wa aki aki da wa! Hommono no chimpoko hoshii yo! I've had enough of playing with myself! I want some real dick!

Atashi neru mae ni maiban kanarazu omekosuri yaru! I always bang my box a bit before I go to sleep at night!

Atashi monogokoro tsuite kara zutto ateire shite'n no yo. I've been finger-fucking myself ever since I can remember.

Atashi odoroichatta! Ken no ijirimawashikata umain da mon! Futsū no otoko wa shiranai no ni sa! I was surprised Ken was so good at playing with my twat! Guys usually have no idea!

It's amsuing, apparently the word manzuri derives from the colloquial word for male masterbation, senzuri, "thousand rubs." Even the word implies women take more effort. I personally think it has more to do with your average males incompetence.

Skasome fest

Went to ska fest on Friday, or was it Saturday; no it was Friday. The days intermingle when you're up all night and sleep the next day. We consumed about all the wine we had around, which was a substantial amount. Cara had just a couple of beers, which was enough for her, but Monika and I had almost two bottles of wine each (which perhaps shoulda been enough for us, heh), since Kerry left early to meet John at Steamers and only had a glass or two.

While Cara, Monika and myself were sitting on the porch a loud bang came from above and a bottle of wine dropped to the ground in front of us. We all looked, wondering what was up just as a voice came from above and said, "That was for you guys, and was meant to be a much smoother delivery." We just laughed and I figured I should run down and get the bottle. I got down there and thanked the people for their kind offering, not sure why they had done so, not even Monika knew what had precluded that gesture, but suffice it to say, we weren't about to complain. We left before we had finished off all the wine, taking some in a rinsed out beer bottle for the walk downtown.

All jovial, we walked with a hop in our gait and by the time we got there it was pushing 10pm. The line wasn't atrocious, but I would say we waited about half an hour to reach the door. It was packed inside, but the music was well worth it in my opinion. Also the company was good fun, there were a few people I was introduced to by Kerry, one in particular was Marc, who had heard of me apparently, as he had just recently broken up with a old roommate of mine, Michelle. He seemed like a good guy and obviously there had been no hard feelings between Michelle and himself, which isn't hard to believe, as she's quite a special person; one it would be hard to be find anything to dwell on about.

The night rolled on, as does time when you're having fun. Jen showed up after she got off work, so around midnight. She always brings a good energy to the group and I was glad to see her. Bakaar showed up with the car and wanted to give her the keys, but she wouldn't have any of it, as she was already getting on the way to having a few drinks and he doesn't drink. He was on his way to Legends, and we were going to meet him there once we spent a little longer at the ska festival. About thirty minutes later we left for Legends, but when we got there the bouncer told us it was a celebrity party, as there was a celebrity golf tournament in town and only special guests could get in. I always find it amusing that these celebrities book Legends for their events; it's really not that nice a place, even the Red Jacket would be more appropriate in my mind.

Suffice it to say, Bakaar wasn't there, as he isn't a celebrity any more than we are, so we figured it was time to check out Boom Boom Room. Now, I hadn't been there in a couple years and with good reason. This is hoochy central of Victoria, but it's an experience in and of itself, so I wasn't about to complain. We got in, still had to pay cover at one am, but we were on a mission. It was just how I remembered it and thankfully we only spent a short time there.

All in all it was a great night. We got back to Monika's place and crashed there. Woke up in the morning and the whole apartment was like a sauna. Deadly I tell you. With a headache and my stomach disagreeing with what I had put it through the previous night, I walked to Rising Star bakery (or whatever it's called now) in Cook St. Village and bought myself a spinach and feta croissant and a pesto and cream cheese one. Ate them both on the rest of the walk home. Sat on my couch, went to watch some tele, but decided sleep would be much more beneficial, so I walked to my room flopped down on the bed and slept untill 7:30pm. I felt so much better after that rest and I've been reading articles from the Journal of Consciousness Studies since. Ahhhhh the life:)

Of course there's always more to tell, like how we lost Cara before we took off to Legeneds and were worried for the rest of the night if she had been able to make it home, but for the most part reason prevailed and we knew she was capable of taking care of herself. It's funny when both parties have cell phones and yet you can't contact them. And John and Kerry almost got in a fight when they went out for snacks at three am on their way back to the appartment. Strange stuff indeed.

my 'tone'

Apparently I have a tone when I talk to people. It always catches me off guard when someone (e.g. Peter today at work) suddenly stops taking part in a conversation with no reason given and gets up and walks away. I asked what was wrong; apparently my tone was causing him stomach pain. I immediately apologized for my 'tone', which was completely fabricated by his perception of my voice, as I was not giving him any kind of attitude, but merely having a conversation about something which we agreed upon, other than one specific aspect. He allowed his perception of my side of the conversation to get to the point where he was physically sick from it and then proceeded to leave right in the middle of something I was saying. Without an apology back, I have to say I'm still upset at his attitude (quite, really). I'm sure he's sufficiently aware of it, as I said very little after we went back to work and I am not one that can hide anger/frustration well. Thankfully there was only a short time left in the day. I'm quite insulted when people leave in the middle of a conversation, especially when I can tell something is wrong (and some think that’s fucked up). Why he was incapable of telling me he was feeling upset about the way I was talking is beyond me. Why do people imagine these things and then make themselves upset over something that doesn't even exist outside their own minds? I don't think I'll ever figure that one out.

Then to top it off, on my way home I was coming from Cook st and the light turned red at the corner, I cut into a gas station and saw a bus coming along Fairfield rd, so I slowed to allow the bus to get ahead of me enough so that I could merge onto the road and I did. The driver puts on his right turn signal just as I get onto the road and stops in the middle. So I accelerate, thinking he must be waiting for me to go past, as the stop isn't for another fifty feet or so. I get to the light of Fairfield and Vancouver waiting my turn at the four way stop. The bus pulls up beside me (apparently he had no one to drop off) and I hear the driver open his window and start talking. I can't hear a word he's saying as I have my headphones on playing music, so I take them off and ask what it was he was trying to get at. He says, with a 'tone', "You came off the sidewalk there didn’t you?" I respond, "No I was coming out the driveway of the gas station." He says, "No you were on the sidewalk weren't you?" I respond with the same again. He says, "You're going to die."

"So are you." At this point, I was getting a bit frustrated, as the part about the sidewalk riding had gone on longer than I've described, not to mention I was in a bit of a mood from my previous altercation with Peter, he responds with, "You are too young to die," as he goes to close his window I manage to get in, "and you're too old to find a new job." He opens his window again to start back into me and I just say, "Fuck off," and wave my right hand with a downwards stroke in dismissal and take my turn at the stop. Bye asshole. *shakes head*

And the first word is *drum roll please*

NAMA. "raw"
slang: Condomless.

Atashi nama dewa shinai! Datte ninshin shitaku nai mon! I'm not gonna do it without a condom! I don't wanna get pregnant!

Warui kedo, atashi namajaku yaranai! Hai kondomu! Sorry, I only suck dick if you wear a rubber! Here's one!

my favorite I'm come across so far is: Kuradishonaru gyaru nante deto shitaku nai. I don't wanna go on a date with such a nerdy girl.

Chosen at random, each and every tuesday night.

hmmph

Been since last karate class I posted. Wonder if that's a coincidence? Once again, and from here on in, every time I go to karate will be a good night. The kinda high where you could do anything and it would all be the same good. That should make some sense, but perhaps it's a bit too far fetched.

One thing I noticed today was that UVIC has access to the Journal of Consciousness Studies and I've been drooling over that journal since I found it ages ago. First article I read was by J. J. C. Place, someone who is fairly big in phil of mind. He's a proponent of mind/brain identity theory to a large extent, arguing against Chalmers, who brings a strange kind of dualism into his 'naturalistic dualism'. One which I tend to agree with, but I find it hard to believe in emergence. I feel myself forced to agree that there is only one substance, but I don't agree that things just emerge from the brain then coalesce and create our mind. One thing that I have to point out though is that, a complex system such as the brain, could be described by a dynamic system of equations creating chaotic attractors who's boundary conditions could be described as being emergent from the chaos. In that sense, perhaps supervenience has a foothold in my mind. Tons of articles to read.

If only I knew chaos theory, heh.

The Joy

I went back to karate after a long hiatus today. I haven't felt that good, bad, tired, energetic, sweaty, thirsty and downright happy in a long time. I could explain why I felt each of those things at once, but suffice it to say; I've missed it! I can't wait till Tuesday for the next class and then the following Friday, then the next Tuesday again, then Friday... you get the point.

One of the things that made it so special was getting to see the people I had trained with after so long. Thor (Tandy Sensai), Bill, Don, Eugene, Drew, were all there and I felt right at home. They all went out for the traditional beers after training, but I'll have to join them on Tuesday as I just wanted to get home and hope for plans to fall into my lap (which they haven't yet, other than spiderman2 tomorrow). The questions were all welcome: "Where have you been; were you in town this whole time; What have you been up to since we last saw ya?" I secretly (or not so) love being in that situation. Where people show interest in you and seem pleased to be able to find out about what's been happening to you over the last little while. I spend so much time listening, seldom do I get to tell my story (it's just not that interesting day to day, but in extended time periods I can find gems).

The joy of karatedo. I think I'll close this post with what we say at the end of training each day.

One: I will work towards the perfection of character.
Two: I will uphold the true path.
Three: I will foster the spirit of endeavour.
Four: I will respect courtesy.
Five: I will guard against brute courage.

Happy Birthday Kyrsten

*cue birthday music*

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Kyrsten, happy birthday to you.

Happy 24th birthday babe. I love you!

Silly quizzes

I took a personality quiz Kyrsten had on her site. It's quite amusing. The link is: Better Personality Quiz

My results were quite enlightening and personally I feel they describe me perfectly. They are as follows and you will agree with them!

Wackiness: 52/100
Rationality: 48/100
Constructiveness: 50/100
Leadership: 64/100

You are a SEDL--Sober Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you a dictator. You prefer to control situations, and lack of control makes you physically sick. You feel you have responsibility for everyone's welfare, and that you will be blamed when things go wrong. Things do go wrong, and you take it harder than you should.

You rely on the validation and support of others, but you have a secret distrust for people and distaste for their habits and weaknesses that make you keep your distance from them. This makes you very difficult to be with romantically. Still, a level-headed peacemaker can keep you balanced.

Despite your fierce temper and general hot-bloodedness, you have a soft spot for animals and a surprising passion for the arts. Sometimes you would almost rather live by your wits in the wilderness somewhere, if you could bring your books and your sketchbook.

You also have a strange, undeniable sexiness to you. You may go insane.

Budo

I've been practicing my sensai's karatedo shindokai again. I have room in my backyard in which I can do my movements. It's been quite rewarding, I realize just how much I missed it and the people I did it with. Practicing alone is not the same as with sensai and my sempai's (I was a white belt while all the others were black except Don, whom should have been). Also, I only have a few items, such as my karate waza checklist that sensai gave us while we were still training together to go from and this, I feel, isn't enough, as many of the kata and techniques are slipping from memory, or totally gone.

I was able to find Thor sensai's email and I asked him if I could obtain his notes on his style. I hope I'll get a response back; it's been so long since I spoke to any one of them. Those couple of years I practiced with them had a major effect on my world-view and it had much to do with the philosophy of Budo, which is the way of the warrior. Of course, to us westerners that sounds like it should be about violence, but the reality of it is much different. I found a few articles on the internet about Budo and took this from this site: Okinawan Koryu Karate.

Zaha Sensei often says that the ultimate goal of budo is to win without fighting your opponent. Thus, one should not make enemies-you must love your opponent and respect him. To accomplish this, you must be disciplined and have self- confidence. Gentleness and severity must live together in you.

As you can see, the philosophy is much different from what you might assume from something that seems so violent. The focus of martial arts is not to hurt or defeat an opponent, but to incorporate them into yourself, to understand that all events (emotions and thoughts included) have universal effects on all beings and matter (if there is even a need to separate the two). In this way you will win without fighting, but not only do you win, so will they. Unity is the goal of Budo, not separation. If you feel sad, so will I. Your happiness, is my happiness. This is what is meant when the goal of Budo is not to make enemies.

Tired I am

But I registered for my spring semester today. I wasn't aware that I could do so. At Camosun you only register one term at a time. So, here is the course list this time round:

In:

Chemistry 102 - Fundamentals of chemistry: II
Psychology 315 - Introduction to Neuropsychology
Psychology 335 - Infant+Child Development
Biology 190B - General Biology: II

WtList:

Psychology 300B - Statistical Methods: II

Canada Day

I had an amusing time during Canada day last night. I wasn't planning on doing anything of consequence and in some respects that's about what went down. However, it was of more consequence than sitting on my ass playing America's Army all night.

Monika got off work at her usual time and gave me a call to see if I was still up to going to a Iron Maiden cover band at Lucky. Then she informed me that it was ten bux and neither of us being rich (or even in the black, well I know I owe at least half the planet money), felt it was a good idea, so the plans changed, wine and charles became involved, along with an excursion to the downtown core to watch the crazies do their crazy things.

I jogged to monika's place, something I wasn't sure I could do, as I haven't gone for a run in ages. While I was making my way through the park a car drove by and a girl leans out the passengers window and yelled, "I want to have sex with you!" I just laughed and kept on truism' expecting shit like this during a full moon and a day with so many people out at once.

I reached monika's and ran into Sean (her roommate) and a girl, possibly his girlfriend, but I can never be sure. They had originally been part of the plan to head to Lucky, but were now going to Evolutions. I was pretty sweaty and Sean astutely asked if I had run. Right then monika arrived and we went up to get ready and drink some wine and call charles to try and find out his whereabouts. We got ahold of him and he had just dropped his crew off at their respective locations and was ready and willing to meet us wherever. Of course, we just had him meet us at the pad and it didn't take him much longer than fifteen minutes to show up. Once he got there, it wasn't long before we headed out.

Monika had shown me how to make a balloon animal in the shape of a dog and we brought them with the plan to give the simulacre to random people we ran into. We walked aimlessly around for awhile chatting about this and that, having a good time and ended up at legends with the foreknowledge that there would be some interesting people-watching opportunities. This was the first place I saw a person with a bloody nose who had obviously been punched quite effectively in the face. While we were standing in the crowd a boy came up to us (I use boy, as legends doesn't have any men who go to it) and asked for a light. I had forgotten my lighter so monika lent him hers. We traded silly banter and a couple girls he was with came up and as monika had already left her dog on someone's windshield, I felt I should pawn mine off on someone. I just turned to the girl who had approached and asked if she wanted it. She took it kinda amused and I told her I had made it. She just replied, "yeah I saw you just a moment ago." I was like, "no, I mean I made it." Still she said yeah I know I saw you making it, but with the tone which implied she was being facetious. I just laughed and let he believe that I was incapable of making something which took a whole 2 minutes to learn. She quickly turned and handed it to her friend who thought it was pretty amusing and I thought to myself, "mission accomplished."

We decided to head back towards the core and in the general direction of monika's, it was getting late and I had to work earlier the next morning, so home was starting to cross my mind. We were walking towards hush and all of a sudden a fight broke out. This guy was beating on another guy lying on the ground, he started to kick him while down, which just wasn't cool and a few people started yelling for him to stop. The guy got up, face covered in blood, nose broken, perhaps worse, and tried to get away, but the one who was wining wasn't done and decided to keep throwing punches. More people protested. Finally it seemed to break up and some people asked if the guy needed help then the aggressive bastard came running back and started beating on him again. Someone tried to pull him off, but he just threw punches at whoever got near. Just as it was getting totally out of hand (as if it wasn't already) the police showed up and we just moved on. What is it that drive moronic to act that way? What is it that didn't allow me to stop the piece of shit who was obviously going way beyond winning the fight? I'm still upset at myself for not stepping in sooner. I could have very quickly stopped the drunk, but something kept me back. It'll take some time to figure that one out, but one thing I know, if I'm in that situation again I won't hesitate to intervene. That doesn't mean getting in a fist fight. I could have held him to the ground without much trouble until police came.

Either way, we headed out and worked our way down to evolutions. At this point it was closed; the time was around 2:30am and we decided we were a bit peckish, so we tracked back to QV's. Ahhhhh, good ol' QV's. The memories always come flooding back in when I step in there. I had the Shanghai noodles and shared it with monika. We sat and had our mandatory clash of the stubborn one's. Charles just sat there amused, as so many before him and eventually just said, "let's change the topic." At this point it was getting pretty chilly (at least I was in my tee-shirt) and we decided to head on home. I said my goodbye's, even though I would have loved to have kept hanging out it would have been even more insane than getting two hours sleep. All and all it was a pretty interesting night. I'm always glad when I manage to convince myself, even in the face of my own strange urges to stay home, to go out. Until next Canada day.

Registered in four; waitlisted in one.

So my course list from uvic will be as follows (pending any changes, however doubtful that may be, other than I hope to no longer be on the waitlist eventually):

In:

Psychology 300A - Statistical Methods
Psychology 323 - Advanced Biopsychology
Philosophy 304A - Theoretical Logic:I
Biology 190A - General Biology I
Lab for Biology

WtList:

Psychology 345A - Drugs+Behaviour:Principle