Living in the Past

You might've heard the phrase "you can't live in the past".

I'm thinking "what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

But as I get older, I want to re-make the phrase.

You can live in the past once in a while but not all the time!



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1) You can't totally escape the past

I mean, you can try all you want, but you're not going to erase all your memories from the past. The only way you can do that is to get a concussion or take some drugs. But I'm sure you don't want to go that route!
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Throughout evolution, organisms had to take note of the dangers around them, otherwise, they're lunch.

As for humans, you have to take note of who's a danger towards you. Otherwise, if you keep going towards someone proven harmful to you, you're only going to take more abuse.

This is why people hold grudges. It's evolution's way of saying "You know this person is harmful, ACT LIKE YOU KNOW IT!"

Pretending that everything is OK will put you in additional danger!  

After all, gazelles don't approach lions like everything is just fine! Instead, gazelles hold grudges against lions. It's called survival!

Of course we're not lions or gazelles!  

But humans can only hold so much crap for so long!  Hold it in for too long, you will explode! 

This is why I tell my life stories on my blog.   Doing so have release all that negative energy out of me, and makes it easier to move on with life!

2) You still have to adjust to the times

In other blog posts I have mentioned an uncle who kept saying negative things about facebook even though he didn't even try it.

http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-debate-with-facebook-hating-uncle.html

That same uncle also complains about "there's no good music anymore" and also complain about the new cultural groups moving to his neighborhood. He also said our former neighborhood (Kalihi) is getting worse in crime (NOT TRUE AT ALL! ) 

Now, THAT guy is someone who spends too much time living in the past. He spends too much time being nostalgic about a glorious past that never was. He spends too much time being pessimistic about the present and the future.   

 
In other words, that guy's mindset is stuck in time.


And the funny thing is that his mom (my grandma) is more at peace with the changes in our community and our world than my uncle is.


That also reminds me of former classmates who complain about "the kid's nowadays" and "we don't have good music anymore".

Seriously, STFU!


I deal with kids all the time. Even though some of them are nuts, I really don't think they're worse than my generation.  I think my generation was worse, since there were more gang violence when I was growing compared to now!  I also think the new generation is less homophobic than my generation!

And this stuff about "we don's have good music anymore"?  Anyone who says that stuff is someone who is stuck in the past! 

I still listen to some stuff of my childhood and teen years. But I also  listen to some of the new music coming out. I love music from Bruno Mars ("Treasure" is my new favorite jam), Kesha, Flo Rida, Rihanna, fun, Macklemore, Monsters and Men, Icona Pop, Swedish House Mafia, and much more.

A few years back, I used to complain about "rock music getting more soft". No longer. For one thing, we got the new 101.5 FM on the radio playing hard-rock/heavy-metal.

Plus, times change.  Harder music (meaning heavy metal and gangsta rap) just doesn't speak to the younger generation like it did mine. That's not a bad thing at all!    That means the younger generation is growing up in better situations than my generation, and isn't that what we wanted for our kids all along!

3) Enjoy past memories and MAKE NEW fun memories

You don't want to be too distant from your good memories of the past.  It's good to re-visit your fun times from your childhood, teen years and young adulthood.

But if you catch yourself saying "life sucks now", STOP!

Find something fun to do! It doesn't have to be expensive. Take a walk around. Go to block parties when you got the time. Enjoy some of today's music. Call up some friends and do something!

And if you don't like where your life is going, start making new plans for the future.

So yeah, enjoy some old memories. Then get off your seat and Make Some New Fun Memories!

Life is too short to be miserable all the time!

Mercy for the former friends?

(note: all the paragraphs from the original post have been deleted! This post was originally a response to former friends that I had serious disagreements with, and I had posted names and photos of them. As far as I'm concerned, while we might continue to view the world through different lens, I felt it was time to take down personal info of those involved


I have kept a copy of the original post just for evidence sakes. Also, just in case trouble starts again. 

I have kept other blog posts in which I expressed disagreement with their thoughts without mentioning their names.  But as far as I'm concerned, I'm done with having this public rivalry with former friends.)

Chosing Your Own Path

It's great to have ambition.


However, there are always "party poopers" out there who come to you claiming to be "realistic".

They may say stuff  like

- that's a useless major
- are there enough jobs in that field
- why don't you find a more steady career
- just go with the flow


If you say stuff like that, then YOU might be THE unrealistic one.

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Let's look at "that's a useless major" crap.


People say this crap about majors in the arts, humanities (ie. philosophy, linguistics, etc), and social sciences (ie. sociology, anthropology, history, etc).

There's this stereotype that those majors only lead to "serving coffee and flipping burgers"! Bull-CRAP!


In real life, those majors do lead to  real-life opportunities for entrance into  graduate school programs in law, public administration, social work  counseling, and (my favorite) library and information science.

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What exactly is a "useful major" anyways?

Just because a major is in demand now, doesn't mean it will be that way forever.

For example, one of my high school classmates started his college career as a ICS (information and computer science) major. That was his passion. Plus, at the time, there were many computer/internet companies gaining prominence.

But then ............the tech bubble burst! 

When that classmate graduated, it was harder to find jobs in his field.

The same was true about finance majors, real estate agents, architects, (all supposedly steady career paths)  when the financial meltdown occurred in 2008.


What I'm trying to say is Nothing in Life is Guaranteed!



Those chumps who say stuff like "get a steady career", are the same chumps who don't believe in taking risks in life.  They don't understand how life works. They don't understand that in order to experience greatness, you must take risks!


Where there are any guarantees when Bill Gates started Microsoft?

Where there are any guarantees when Steve Jobs started Apple?

 Where there are any guarantees when Mark Zuckerberg started facebook?

 Where there are any guarantees when Russell Simmons started Def Jam Records?


  Those people took major risks. They risked failure, they risked bankruptcy, they risked humiliation. 

They also made businesses that totally altered their industries!



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People will also tell you accept the world as it is. They dont want you to rebel against injustice. Their favorite phrase is "go with the flow"


Did Martin Luther King go with the flow?

Did Susan B. Anthony go with the flow?

Did Nelson Mandela go with the flow?

Did the Founding Fathers go with the flow?


Hell no, they made their own flow!

They took major risk. They didn't only risk failure, they risked violent death. 





And yet, their contributions improved the lives of so many, that they are now eternal heroes! 

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So what I'm trying to say is Don't waste your life satisfying the "party poopers" who tell you to "go with the flow", "only choose steady careers", "that's a useless major", "dont let it bother you"  or other self-defeating nonsense. Those people are NOT your allies, they DON'T have your best interest in their hearts!

Nothing in life is guaranteed anyways! Ambition requires risk! Take those risks!


After all, you only live once!

Drones and GMOs

Sometimes, activists like to scream "ban this" and "ban that" anytime something has a side effect. But before you join their brigade, you might want to study the issue



1) Drones

Am I for or against drones?

Depends!


If we're sending out drones to bomb Al Quaida hideouts, then do it!

But if we're just sending out drones to take sides in someone else's civil war, then screw it, don't do it!


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In World War 2, we didn't stop the German or Japanese fascists by singing peace songs.

We bombed military targets.

Some bombs missed and killed innocents.

But whose fault was it?

It was the fault of the German and Japanese governments for starting wars in the first place.

While their people didn't like getting bombed by the US warplanes, they also understood that their own governments was at fault.

That's why after World War 2, the Germans and Japanese citizens just gave up with imperial impulses. They also didn't retaliate against the US after the war was over. They just re-built their country instead. They re-built it so well that they even sold their surplus cars and electronics to us.

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With drones, we damage the enemy with putting less of our troops at risk.

But we still should be careful about where to send our drones (and troops) to.

We shouldn't get involved in other countries civil war. 

It's best to keep our troops, drones, planes, whatevers out of the conflicts going in Syria, Mali or other troubled spots.


After all, we nation building to do at home.




2) GMO's

Am I for or against GMO's.


Depends.


Whereas many activists stereotype all GMOs as health hazards, I wont' even go there.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/project_syndicate0/2013/02/gm_food_golden_rice_will_save_millions_of_people_from_vitamin_a_deficiency.html

Finally, after a 12-year delay caused by opponents of genetically modified foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Over those 12 years, about 8 million children worldwide died from vitamin A deficiency. Are anti-GM advocates not partly responsible?

Golden rice is the most prominent example in the global controversy over GM foods, which pits a technology with some risks but incredible potential against the resistance of feel-good campaigning. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10 percent at risk for vitamin A deficiency, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes 250,000 to 500,000 children to go blind each year. Of these, half die within a year. A study from the British medical journal the Lancet estimates that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of 5 each year.

(more)

Similarly, it is argued that golden rice will not be adopted, because most Asians eschew brown rice. But brown rice is substantially different in taste and spoils easily in hot climates. Moreover, many Asian dishes are already colored yellow with saffron, annatto, achiote, and turmeric. The people, not Greenpeace, should decide whether they will adopt vitamin A-rich rice for themselves and their children.

Most ironic is the self-fulfilling critique that many activists now use. Greenpeace calls golden rice a “failure,” because it “has been in development for almost 20 years and has still not made any impact on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.” But, as Ingo Potrykus, the scientist who developed golden rice, has made clear, that failure is due almost entirely to relentless opposition to GM foods—often by rich, well-meaning Westerners far removed from the risks of actual vitamin A deficiency.

Regulation of goods and services for public health clearly is a good idea; but it must always be balanced against potential costs—in this case, the cost of not providing more vitamin A to 8 million children during the past 12 years.

As an illustration, current regulations for GM foods, if applied to non-GM products, would ban the sale of potatoes and tomatoes, which can contain poisonous glycoalkaloids; celery, which contains carcinogenic psoralens; rhubarb and spinach (oxalic acid); and cassava, which feeds about 500 million people but contains toxic cyanogenic alkaloids. Foodstuffs like soy, wheat, milk, eggs, mollusks, crustaceans, fish, sesame, nuts, peanuts, and kiwi would likewise be banned, because they can cause food allergies.

In other words, every food item has side effects.

You can spread awareness by labeling GMO foods. That's already being done in Europe.


If you don't like GMO foods, then don't eat it!


But if someone wants to take the risk and eat GMO food, then let them!


After all, pretty much everyone knows alcohol and tobbacco are dangerous, but people still consume them.


After all,  their body, their choice. 

What is an adult?

That was the first question that was asked in my substitute teacher training course.

Now that might sound like a stupid question.

But the whole point was that we were NOT to act like the students under our command.

We are no longer one of the kids. We shouldn't even think of trying to "fit in" with the kids.

After all, we are the adults!


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While that sounds very simple, many adults (even older ones) misunderstand that!

For example, one of members of Hawaii state senators Donna Mercado Kim.

 

Star Advertiser

Donna Mercado Kim

Her son was applying to law school.

Law school!

To even apply for law school, you had to already have earned a bachelor's degree from  a university.

In other words, if you are applying for a law school, you probably have been an adult for a few years already!

In other words, her son is old enough to apply, and do necessary follow-ups by himself!

After all, he's an adult!



And because he's an adult,  nobody else is allowed to gain access to his educational records without his signed permission!  That is federal law that has been around for decades!


Yet, Donna Mercado Kim still thinks she has the authority to nag the president of UH system about her son's application to the law school?

(Learn more at http://www.staradvertiser.com/newspremium/20130522__Kim_disputes_Greenwoods_account_of_pressure.html?id=208451821)


And even worse, her excuse is that she's just a concerned mother?


Fool, your son is old enough to do things on his own!

If he needs your help, he'll ask you! Otherwise back off!

Time to let your son be independent already! He's an adult!

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I'm also thinking about this "adult" thing because back in 2009, I met up with this former classmate that I used to hang out with but haven't talked to in a few years.

Well, that was the reunion year, so that situation in itself wasn't unusual.

But what was unusual was that guy seemed to expect me to have the same opinions, attitudes, etc from when we were still in high school.  And he seemed so shocked when some of my opinions and attitudes have changed!

Well duh, life experiences can do that to you!

Especially when you got a job in which you have some serious role model responsibilities. Especially when the first thing discussed in the job's  training session was "what is an adult?" 


Going through those experiences (and making stupid rookie errors and learning from them) can wake you up and force any person to start being mature and start having a mature perspective!

I just can't be making the same inappropriate jokes like I did when I was in high school. I'm too old for that!

It's just like what Charles Barkley mentioned in his book "I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It"

Random House

Charles Barkley's book

He mentions this "keeping it real" stuff and emphasizing that his reality is no longer being the kid from the projects. He think it's sad and pathetic when adults act like they're still the same person when they were 16. Barkley calls it "keeping it phony" and "BS"


Amen Charles Barkley!

Finally got a helmet again

After so many years of riding my bike without my helmet, I finally got myself a new one.

When I was a kid, I did have a helmet, but I out-grew that helmet and was too lazy to get a new one.


I mean, without a helmet, your head could feel the cool breeze as you ride around.


But without a helmet, your head is more vulnerable to impact.


And as I mentioned in an earlier blog post, one of my former students passed away from a skateboarding accident. He wasn't wearing a helmet.
(Learn more at  http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/04/one-of-my-former-students-passed-away.html )

Plus, I remember going over one of those Scholastic News magazines with a bunch of elementary kids. One of those articles mentioned about bike/skate safety, and off course, it mentioned a helmet.

Well, it's time for me to be the good role model. After all, the kids will see me riding my bike, whether I expect it or not!

It's time to learn from a tragedy of someone I know.

While I don't expect to try any stunts anytime soon,  danger can strike at any moment.

Time to be prepared!

The Rainbows are Back

In February, it was announced that the UH men's teams will all be just Warriors (no rainbows), while the UH women's teams will still be called the Rainbow Wahine!

(learn more at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/02/uh-sports-nicknames.html


Well, a whole bunch of long time UH fans got fed up with the Rainbow name being disrespected, fed up with June Jones getting rid of the Rainbow name,  fed up with their long-time traditions being pushed on the side, fed up with an Ohio man (aka Ben Jay, the new UH athletic director) over-looking Hawaii traditions, and fed up with this "rainbows are gay" stuff.


On May 3,  Stephen Chinen led a "Save the Rainbow" rally in front of Bacchman Hall (aka UH headquarters) 

 http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20130503_Rally_at_UH_to_keep_Rainbows_nickname.html

 http://www.staradvertiser.com/sportspremium/20130504_warriors_or_rainbows_let_the_people_decide.html

George Lee/ Star Advertiser

George Lee/ Star Advertiser

"Save the Rainbow" rally

The common perception about this rally was "this is a lost cause, get over it"

But guess what?  

This rally was NOT a lost cause

UH athletic director Ben Jay heard their message loud and clear!

Earlier this week Ben Jay reversed course and made it official

The UH men's teams will all be the Rainbow Warriors from now on!  

The UH women's teams will still be  Rainbow Wahine 

This has satisfied the old-time UH fans who have cheered the  Rainbows for decades, while keeping the hardcore Warrior name! 

However, there is the question of "why can't women's teams be warriors too?"

That is a perfectly legit question.

The next step in UH nickname revolution will be this:

Men's teams = Kane Rainbow  Warriors

Women's teams = Wahine Rainbow   Warriors

I hope that evolution comes soon!


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Some will say "rainbows are gay" and rainbows are soft"

Well, ever seen this shirt?

Enjoi

While that shirt had nothing to do with UH sports, it should be more than enough to defuse this stuff about rainbows are gay" and rainbows are soft!

And  this stuff about football players worried about opponents making fun of the Rainbow name? Well, football is a contact sport..........ACT LIKE IT! Show your opponents that Rainbows are "Gangster-ish" and not to be messed with!

The Oregon Ducks  dont have much of a macho name, but that didn't stop them from being one of the top college football teams in the last decade!

goducks.com
Oregon Duck

 Gangster-ish

and reppin one of the top college football programs

(note: the use of the word "gangter-ish" is in no way promoting actual gang violence. That should be obvious!) 

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Also, we'll still the macho H- tiki symbol (aka one of the coolest symbols in college sports)

 http://www.hawaiiathletics.com/sports/2012/6/18/GEN_0618120234.aspx?tab=uhtraditions

The H-tiki symbol

I already seen images going around on facebook showing the H-tiki symbol combined with the old UH  Rainbow symbol

 

Krater 96 facebook page

Not the official UH symbol

but it should be!

If that means UH shall hunt down whoever came up with that combo in order to compensate him/her, then do it now!

We should definitely keep the H-tiki symbol, and still honor the  Rainbow legacy!

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 As for Ben Jay, some said that his changing his mind means "he's not standing his ground" and "not being a leader"  

No fool, he's picking his battles wisely!

A smart  leader doesn't fight every battle out there!  A smart leader picks the right battles to fight, and walk away from useless battles!  

Ben Jay already got his hands full trying to get the UH athletic department fiscally sound. This is an especially sensitive situation, being that we pay higher travel costs than other colleges (location, location, location), we are trying to update facilities, and we don't want to take more money out of UH academics, nor do we want to take more money out of Hawaii's taxpayers!

Plus, UH-Manoa chancellor shooting himself in the foot about this "we might drop out of Division 1" nonsense. 

 http://www.kaleo.org/sports/could-uh-athletics-leave-division-i/article_930fd484-b5f6-11e2-9ff7-001a4bcf6878.html

“If we’re not breaking even in three years, I really have to look at whether we will continue Division 1A athletics,” Chancellor Thomas Apple said.

( I addressed that issue at http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/05/jason-collins-and-tom-apple.html  

And plus, the UH athletic business model is severely flawed. 

 http://www.midweek.com/dont-expect-uh-sports-profitability/

 By comparison, UH is behind some $11 million over the last six years total. How can that happen? By being in a smaller conference with tiny television revenue; being forced to pay not only its own travel but that of its conference opponents; having the poorest stadium deal in the nation (one that, in my opinion, borders on the criminal); receiving no money from merchandising, parking or concessions; and receiving only paltry sums as subsidies.

With all that to deal with, Ben Jay understood that "standing his ground" over eliminating the Rainbow was just picking a stupid battle.!