yeedl

yeedl

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done with it	[Nov. 21st, 2007\|05:59 pm]
yeedl.blogspot.com if you need an invite, email me and ill get you one. i decided i like it more than livejournal.
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lavalava	[Oct. 19th, 2007\|11:03 am]
im wearing a green pocket lava lava right now, i got it for around 30$ Tala. its very comfy and fits my height. its a save 34, im a size 32. they dont ever seem to have any lavalavas that are 32 or lower for adults. i think the kid ones start around size 26? there could be a few reasons for this, but prolly cuz its like a wraparound, if its too big, just wrap it more. there is another reason also. heim gidolim miod miod...maybe ill get someone to take a pic of me in it. its very comfy. traditionally, samoans sit cross legged at the edges of a fale. sitting this way can make your feet fall asleep and get numb and make you think your foot'll fall off. samoans are used to it but us palagi aren't. anyway...the solution to the numb effect, samoans told me, is to wiggle my big toe. why am i telling you this? if a samoan asks you how you are o a mai oe, you can totally respond with "luelue le vae matua" whats this mean? "my big toe is still moving." this response means you are good or fine. its a positive exclamation of mood. so, next time a samoan asks you how you are, tell em your big toe is still moving, eh? turkey tails are banned in samoa: http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=34100 apparently, a turkey tail is like 99%fat and its been causing serious health issues in the country, like diabetes and high cholesterol. therefore, samoa decided to ban the import of turkey tail poultry in the country is imported. also, mutton flaps are huge in the country. i never knew what it was until a few days ago, when i saw some for sale. uhm. they arent the best of healthy foods, i can tell you that. but, they are very very popular here. these 2 meats have caused lots of disruption in the health of lots of the polynesian countries. i was told a scary percentage of samoans have diabetes. good, reliable statistics are not the easiest to come by, so i cant give you any. there is 1 dialysis clinic in samoa. samoa doesnt have malaria, but it does have dengue fever, which i reckon is the worst its got, which, comparetivly, makes me feel at ease w/r/t staying healthy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever the word is that there is no rabies in samoa. this is great, considering that there are dogs that are everywhere and they can get rather violent. i reckon a good comaprison would be with cats in israel, except dogs are scarier and tend to run after you if you are riding your bike or going for a run. we were advised to pick up a rock and yell angrily and that should do the job. samoans tend to have different views toward pets than we do... fa
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(no subject)

[Oct. 16th, 2007|08:58 pm]

malo!

cultural thing i didnt know existed in samoa til i got here:

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/pacific/people/hazy.htm

samoa's open market has nobody yelling. vendors are sitting on the ground, with tables 2 feet from the ground. its big, lots of products. not really any competition between people.

i asked for 1 starfruit for .50sene and i got 2, "one is for your friend." i asked for a small papaya and got a big one when i asked her to help me pick one out.

in america, i reckon, they'd want repeat customers. i was told that cheap product in samoa are at times easily parted with, if you are nice...

i experiened "white sunday" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sunday yesterday. we went to a congregational church for it. services were in samoan. hmph, maybe after the pictures are posted by other ppl from my group, ill make some comments, maybe give a lil stori.

this week is the first week of actual samoan language training. eek.

i had my first ava ceremony the day we got in town. http://www.sawg.ws/publications.htm

then i had some more ava i bought from the market. makes your tongue numb-ish. it tastes not so good, has a cloudy, maybe frapicuno colored look. it makes ppl mellow. i disliked the taste. its widely drank here. wasnt my cup 'o tea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava it was like 5USD for a pack that would make around 10cups, which, if you can drink, will make your mouth numb, like teeth etc.. and make you have a yucky taste...but, your tongue would be numb, so you wouldnt be able to taste the yucky. got-it?

so far, i reckon i needa learn a tad more about samoa before i start making some judgements, eh? the idea of westernization and the western world, well, put it this way, the fa'a samoa, even in the city, is readily apparent. the cops (i went around for a couple of days demanding to know wear they hid their guns if they had a lavalava. apparently, no guns in samoa that are readily apparent, altho, i hear in the villages, things might be different. kidey liharog chayot..., . nor are there death penalty. and the prison has, uhm 200ppl in them? and with good behavior you can visit your family on weekends if your crime isnt deemed overly offensive, altho, this isnt yet verified, ive just been told this.) and maybe half the city folk wear lavalavas also. faitala is the word for gossip. imma gunna be a yenta when i get back.

drugs, well, i think they relate to drugs similar to how ppl that dont know about them relate. many think that marijuana is on the level of meth, if they are aware of what that is. they are zero tolerance here. they dont have a military, NZ and australia handle that for them.

lots of the buildings were funded by govts like nz, aus, china and japan. ill get into china and samoa later. theyve got a connection that ive yet to fully explore, but it is a definite, huge connection.

american samoa is 8 hour boat or 1 hour flight. samoa and AS are heavily linked thru family ties, no real tension, so far thru my inquiry ive determined this.

time, lying, respect, humour, gender, history, youthfulness, old age are all looked at very differently than what ppl from the states are used to (the states, yea, i say the states now).

more for later. i havent posted anything with a pw just yet. so dont fret. i reckon in story mode, itll be pw'ed.

fa!

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samoa	[Oct. 12th, 2007\|09:03 pm]
talofa! quick summary: im going to make this blog pw protected(ish) so you need to email me or msg me on facebook and ask for the pw if you wanna see future posts. a good hint: it IS the password you think it is... long explanation: pc wants you to be accepted by the place you live. if you post something seemingly innocuous, someone in your place might read it and think of you differently and itll come back to hurt you. even if it doesn't seem offensive, to them, it just might be. people might not understand sarcasm or certain American specific references. ie, your mom jokes might make them think you are a psycho killer even tho you know it is just a joke that shows ppl you are a lamer. who knows. it doesn't matter. ppl associate things differently in different places and lots of misunderstanding can come from 1 thing that is looked at different ways. consequently, thatll hurt you in helping people if they think that you are a psycho killer when you say that yo mama joke. this different association thing is possible everywhere, and samoa is no exception. ill get into the different associations in my blog as time goes on. just accept it as a fact for now. is possible in a country like samoa that my service could suffer from someone finding the blog. samoa has maybe 4 or 5? netcafes, which is excellent. more and more younger people, especially in the city, Apia (pronounced ah-pee-ah) use the net, like the ppl around me in this netcafe are all under 16. technology is hittin samoa (w00t). i will probably be teaching some of this technology in samoa. so some of my students might love to google stuff and end up net stalking and finding my blog which s/he will print out, show my host family and before you know it, i've caused an international crisis. while i might think seinfeld is hilarious (it is hilarious, its a fact), some other country folk might reckon it a terrible show due to the vapid characters who are unwed and promiscuous (Samoa is a rather conservative country, but not in the way one might think an arab muslim country. ill get into that in the blog... its fascinating.) anyway, me pw protecting the blog isn't due to censorship cuz the pc doesnt want me to make fun of it. the pc promotes free speech and all that. the pc also promotes good successful service, and a blog might hurt that if the blog got out and something i said ended up offending ppl in my village. that would be terrible. im avoiding it. if the above isn't clear, soon ill have a cellphone, tomorrow (?) and you can call me and ill give you the dilly-o. anyway. samoa is amazing. get the pw. read about how samoa is amazing. ill be posting once a week i reckon, like in israel. maybe more at first and then less and less. tofa!
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mail	[Oct. 11th, 2007\|09:14 am]
Maxim Lapushin, PCT Peace Corps Private Mail Bag Apia, Samoa (Western/ Independent) South Pacific its expensive. maybe drop off stuff at my house and my parents will send it. quick story: i needed to send my certificate of naturalization to atlanta since i got it back in LA. i didnt have a chance to go post officing and readily assumed one awaited me in LAX. i got there with the certificate and the stamps i bought at the hotel gift store. i got to my terminal and didnt see any place for shipping. i asked some workers at 2 stores what the dilly-o was and they told me that since 9/11 (or is it 11/9 since im all international now?) there are no mailing places in the airport. i was frustrated. not wanting to bring it to samoa and mail it. not wanting to store it somewhere. my plans were ruined. so me and F decide to find someone leaving the terminal to ship something for us. this is harder and shaddier than it seems. 2 guys, wanting to ship something, but refusing to do it themselves. suspicious? so we stand and first i approach an older looking couple "excuse me, sir, sir" he keeps walking and doesnt even look at me. apparently, me, dressed in those great teva sneakers and nice button-down shirt, was too much bum for him. so me and F try to figure out who the perfect victim, err, helper, could be. i realize i can use the jewdar to figure that out. well, F was taken aback at this. i told him whats wrong and he was confused why i could get jews to do stuff for me. i told him cuz they are good listeners and are responsible, duh. later i told him i was a jew. he was offended and thought me anti-semite for a good 20minutes. i made it clear to him he could never talk about jews like i do, since thats anti-semetic. then i gave him the evil eye. then i said i was just kidding, paused a second, and said NOT. just picture it. it was good funny. we determined a younger couple was more likely to help us. we are white, so a white younger couple. not single guys between 30-50. so we sat and evaluated each person. then came great asian man. he had sandals and shorts and a polo. he was 20. he was college kid epitome. i went and asked him. "hey, sorry, this is a really awkward question. my name is max and i needa send this." "okay, sure, will do" "you sure? its no pressure, i mean, if you can't, you can't. i have money, let me pay you. hold on, lemme also give you my phone number." "no, im good, i got it." "i promise its only a peice of paper in the envelope, you can see it when you put it to the light." "yea, its light. i know its paper. i got it." and that was it. i got an american (asian-american.) to send a package for me from the airport. (evil grin/nice smile). i never even told him i was going to samoa, but i think mentioned there were no maildrops in the airport due to 911. maybe that appealed to his patriotic side. something emotional. he was great. who knows, he might even give me a call, dudes got my digits. i felt we had great rapport.
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reasons	[Jul. 23rd, 2007\|10:40 am]
I decided to do peacecorps for a number of reasons, some practical, some not, some good, some evil. I wouldn't say its any one reason, but rather a combination. Its better that way since if one reason I go gets punched where it hurts, well then, I'll have another reason to fall back on. Reason #1: I don't want to go to graduate school right after finishing undergrad. Reason #2: I don't want to get a crappy job or go job hunting for a job I'll only spend a year at since after a year I'd be ready to go to graduate school. Reason #3: I don't know what I want to do in graduate school. Reason #4: I want to get out of Atlanta. Alot. Reason #5: I think peacecorps will open many doors for me in terms of graduate school and job opportunities. Reason #6: I want to get away from consumerism and materialism as much as I can, though this is impossible, going somewhere like Samoa will help. Reason #7: I am insanely interested in living in another culture and experiencing it for a lengthy period of time. Reason #8: I have always wanted to help some people that lacked my opportunities. I've had good schooling, good life, and, perhaps, like doors have been opened for me, I can help open doors for others. Reason #9: Peacecorps is an amazing 27month volunteer opportunity where you do not spend much money of your own and you get so much back. Reason #10: I look forward to meeting people from other places, always have, and this will get it done, right quick. It just makes sense. I want, nay, need to help others, even for a short period of time (Is 2 years short or long? erm.). And, through helping I'll also be getting alot. Whats not to like? These reasons, some overlap, some don't. I quickly scribbled them, some will change, some won't. We'll see. Moreover, simply because the practical reasons outnumber the idea-based does not mean the idea-based are less significant. It is harder to articulate intangibles. Its probably 1/2 altruism and 1/2 selfishness. There you have it.
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pc	[Jul. 19th, 2007\|07:48 pm]
samoa: oct 10, 2007- dec 20, 2009.
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bp	[Jun. 19th, 2007\|03:48 pm]
i was at BP, early in the evening, buying a snack and drink. in front of me, in line, was this smelly, smelly man. he was 5"8, grey dirty, oily hair that looks as if he stole it off some roadkill. he was white and had scraggly facial that would be too extreme to term unkempt. dude was a mess. his jeans were fading and had black splotches interspersed between the blue cloth, making me recall a spotted leopard, except this guy wasn't cat-like in the least. his shirt was dark red, perhaps burgundy. it was a polo shirt, collared and all. he looked unpleasant. the smell coming from him was offensive. after i finished wincing, which i did by scrunching my nose and leaving my mouth slightly open and rubbing my nose, to make it appear as if i were avoiding a sneeze or my nose ached and needed a gentle rub, i began trying to figure out what that stench from him actually was. what i concluded quickly was that it wasn't any one thing. rather, it was a combination of a few things that, when combined, proved potent. perspiration was the first thing i could pick apart. it was as if i were a wine connoisseur trying to coax the various scents from a vintage. but, my subject was smelly oldman. next, i was positive i smelled hints of fish. i couldn't tell which fish since my smell scent isn't as attuned as it should be. but, leave it be, fellar smelled fishy. at that point, he was at the head of the line. dude made it there, all by himself. i was proud. he was buying malt liquor. i haven't any experience with malt liquor, but, it was a colt 45, a 40oz of malt liquor. it was urine yellow, the yellow you get when you haven't urinated in a while, like when you wake up in the morning. he took out abunch of pocket change, slung it on the counter and started counting it out. he finished counting. the lady counting was black but her english wasn't very good. perhaps she was Ethiopian, her skin was kinda light and her facial features were ethiopic. maybe she was Eritrean tho, so i didn't ask her if she was ethiopian, i don't need her giving me the wrong change when it comes my turn. neither did i ask her what country was she from since she doesn't seem american, because she'd think i was flirting with her, and i didn't want to come off like that. not cuz i wouldn't flirt with a black person, i would and have, but just because i didn't want to give her the satisfaction from feeling international. i know that satisfaction and i hoard it. i don't want others feeling it. i didn't ask out of spite, basically. the lady told the smelly-white-oldish guy he was 20cents short. this drink was his pleasure for the day. i knew it was. a 40oz of malt liquor after a day of hassling passerbys. the 40oz was his chief vehicle for relaxation. his inability to purchase the 40oz would ruin his day. he would curse life and feel sorry for himself if he left that BP without that 40. hell, he might even be suicidal. i didn't need his depression on my conscience. i lead a comfortable life, where i get to dissect smells and describe hobos. his life is one of difficulty, drunkenness and many other things liberals reckon they can remedy. i was busily trying to figure out that 3rd smell, it was eluding me since hobo-smells are sneaky. the guy turns to me and asks if i have a quarter, "you got a quarter?" hmm, maybe, gimme a sec. i stick my hand in my pocket, thankfully avoiding the pencil in my pocket that was sticking up, waiting to poke me and get me to bleed. i find the quarter. while i was scouring the pocket, i wasn't thinking if it was right or wrong to give a hobo money to buy booze to get buzzed. i just wanted to help this sorry looking guy. it was a sad situation and i knew i had a quarter somewhere. my desire to aid overshadowed my reason for that moment. my reason would have made me realize that contributing to a person's sorry state, effectively facilitating it, isn't the best idea out there. nonetheless, i gave the ethiopian the quarter. she took it and returned me a knicel. the lady placed the 40oz colt 45 into a paper bag. he took hold of it, turned to me, nodded and off he went. he didn't verbalize a thank you, which kind of annoyed me. i didn't think a nod was enough. but, its all he gave me and i took it, however begrudgingly. previously, before this incident, i never gave money to anybody in atlanta when they begged me for money. i always assumed that they would buy alcohol with it or some drugs and i didnt want to contribute to that at all. i always wanted to buy mcdonalds gift cards and whenever a hobo asks me for money, i'd give him/her the giftcard and my conscience for contributing to the social good would be relieved. i never actually implemented this idea. now, after this incident, i am forced to reevaluate why i avoided giving money to hobos, since, clearly, i have no trouble giving money to someone buying alcohol. perhaps it is due to my ideas of self-sufficiency. this hobo had collected almost enough money to get his drink. he had worked hard begging or whatever it is he did. now, he came to the BP to get his reward. but, he was short of being fully self sufficient. i just gave him a nudge. tho, if i had given him my quarter on the street, that woulda been a nudge also. rather, i think the real deal of it was seeing him actually use the money to get something that i always suspected hobos got. it wasnt pretentious. he was a hobo and he wanted to get plastered. i knew 100% where my money was going. this made me okay with contributing to his sorry state. or, maybe i gave him money cuz he mighta hurt me if i didnt. but really, i dunna why i gave it to him. oh well. i bought a 40 for a hobo, now how many ppl can actually say that?
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ideas	[May. 28th, 2007\|12:48 am]
1: every single time i go to home depot or lowes or walmart or ikea or any store that is huge and sells tons of products, i can never seem to locate any item with ease. i usually don't come with a huge shopping list to these places. more often than not, i need just one item out of their vast inventories. to locate it, i wander around, hoping ill see it. usually i break down at the end of an aisle, quickly recover, and track down a sales person willing to help me find some freaking gosh darn duct tape or shelves or duvets. i've done this so many times it is really frustrating. i haven't the patience to look around and then track a sales person. its a huge waste of my time (i can be blogging instead :-D). idea #1: a little kiosk near the entrance that has every product cataloged. you go to it, its probably a crappy computer of some sort, type in something like "wall paper" and it tells you precisely which aisle to look down. you can find stuff by brand name or product name or anything really. this would save time. barnes and noble has kiosks at a desk that tell you where they have books located so you don't have to wander like a dope or disturb an associate, why can't freaking home depot, the biggest store ever, have a kiosk of this sort? its so obvious. argh. 2: i use mapquest regularly, despite hating its interface. its bloated, but thats another post. it is helpful and good. interestingly, it always posts the estimated amount of time it should take for me to arrive at my destination. do these people at mapquest realize the time they provide is pretty much useless? i never know what to do with it. atlanta has terrible traffic on 285west in the mornings, so if my directions say go 285west, and i needa get their in the morning, the time is 100% percent wrong. the amount of time for a trip is necessarily contingent on the time of day the travel is done. duh. surely they know this, correct? why can't they query the hour at which i'll be departing and better tailor the estimated time and, golly, perchance suggest alternatives if the time is ridiculously long? now, i realize this would require mapquest taking in billions of bytes of traffic data and correllating it with routes and such. but this data exists, right? surely someone out there knows that for me to go from toco hills on a sunday morning to my house takes 20minutes while on a monday morning takes 35minutes? every single day i hear on the radio them telling me traffic information, saying how long a certain route is taking. the data is definitely out there. now stick the data into mapquest and tell me how long it'll take me to get home from sandy springs on a friday afternoon. okay, this would require a huge initiative on the part of mapquest, i understand this. i looked on mapquests website and they fail to explain where they get their estimated time from. i reckon they look at speed limits and figure out how long a mile takes and then spew that time out. but they don't tell you that, im just assuming this. they should totally stop this practice or be more clear with it, since surely the estimated time right now has never helped me. cmon now. 3: okay, this idea is zany, but would be awesome. there is a possibility that its already been done, but i've failed at locating it. i would love to buy or make a book of texture. this book would be filled with hundreds of different textures. each page would be a different texture and imprinted on the bottom corner would be the texture. there would be a sandpaper page. a hard plastic page. a silly putty page (level of difficulty 1000). a smooth wood page. a marble page (level of difficulty 1002). naturally, i bet books already exists with different fabrics. but this book would also have those also. so, a page made from cotton, one from nylon, one from silk yada yada yada, you get the point. one from iron, one from bronze. basically, it would be a texture bible, a compilation of sheets of tons of different materials. perhaps it would come in different volumes, organized logically, like: industrial materials, fabrics, or miscellaneous. i bet the miscellaneous would be the most popular due to its nutty nature. this book would take alot of work to make. it would be awesome. why would anyone want it? well, artists would want it in order to experiment with different textures. the misc volume would make an interesting coffee table book most likely. kids would dig the kids volume, it would have lots of soft and funky textures, like playdoh and cashmere and bubblegum(chewed and unchewed) and dried apples. the uses would create themselves once the book or books were released. it'd be an interesting project, you know, to compile a compendium of all the different stuff out there that feels a certain way. a book with 100 different types of "smooth" or "rough" would be nifty. okay, thats the idea people, get to work.
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idea	[May. 8th, 2007\|02:01 pm]
www.courttv.com looks wrong, it should share the t, it should be www.courtv.com. courttv.com should forward to courtv.com. this wouldn't matter, this matter of the T, but courtv is also a tv channel, and i just think sharing a common letter to both court and tv would make a good synergy. people wouldn't be able to think court...without adding a v, thereby making courtv. right now, if you go to www.courtv.com, it does not go anywhere, but google suggests you are looking for www.courttv.com. if i were enterprising, i would just go ahead and register courtv.com. i can imagine people assumning they share the t and trying to go there now. other examples of words that share letters, kaduregel, in hebrew. uhm, there are more, but regardless, i don't need more examples to emulate. the idea is right, the idea is there, now courtv needs to jump into it and get it good. another idea: i would pay 20dollars to see a one hour episode of seinfeld or arrested development or how i met your mother AS A DRAMA. cmon, an episode of seinfeld redone as a drama would be really strange. Next Week of Seinfeld: Elaine and Puddy on the rocks, Kramer tries to change the world, and George starts a new job at Krueger. Tune In! or, how about a spinoff from a comedy that is a drama. that would be less weird. The Kramer Chronicles, it'll detail how Kramer made his money and how he succeeded with women. i'd watch it. i love serious drama ala ER and Heroes. these spinoff's and comedies redone as drama could potentially be seen as parodies, i'll concede that point. but, this will go away after a wee bit and people will realize the shows of merit within themselves. a short film of it posted on youtube maybe would be a great way to start the trend. idea3 you know how when you walk, you walk a certain pace? but, when you walk and someone behind lays their hand on your back, you end up walking alot quicker, with more ease and it feels like you are walking with a jetpack? what if you could hire someone to lay their hand on your back as you walked or jogged? you would still get plenty of exersice since your limbs would have to move the same amount, yaknow? but you could joke and talk with this person and they could help you run. this would be especially useful to people wanting to lose weight or professional runners, like all kenyans are. okay.
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