ロゼッタ石碑

an unfortunate tennis ball related accident on friday left my poor vgn-z750d crippled albeit in a temporarily usable shape. 24hrs later, the lcd screen on the z finally gave out, and half the screen was rendered unusable. my normal reaction to these things is to kick myself and mope for about a week, but seeing as how the instrument which in itself is the very essence of my sustenance was significantly compromised, i had to think quick.

a quick call to sony support (my old nemesis) revealed that the repairs would cost up to 700 dollars; weighing all my other alternatives, i decided that as costly as it is, this would be my only and best option at the moment, bit my lip and sent the laptop in for repairs.

but then came the question of what i were to do for the 2-3 weeks i’d be without a portable form of computing necessary for my work and research — i considered using the computers at work and solely relying on the computer labs there, but then i realized this would probably not become such a feasible option when i have to work late nights.

then the cliche “i’ll sleep on it” actually became of some use — waking up some 12 hours later, i realized that one solution would be to buy an interim computer, or a disposable computer of sorts which i could use until my computer comes back from repairs. then i realized that this would be the most opportune chance to buy myself a netbook and probably the only way to justify spending two and a half bills on yet another toy i probably don’t need.

so thanks again president kennedy, for your conveniently conventional words of wisdom, and allow me to introduce the newest member of the amano uji, the asus 1005ha:

aint she a beaut?

When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

き‐き【危機】
大変なことになるかも知れないあやうい時や場合。危険な状態。「経済―」「―を脱する」

【機】
〔音〕キ
〔訓〕はた
〔意〕①はた。はた織りの道具。「機織・機業・孟母断機」
　　　②からくり。複雑なしかけ。細かいしくみ。「機械・機関・発動機・飛行機」。特に、「飛行機」の略。「機首・機長・搭乗機・三機編隊」
　　　③細かいはたらき。「機能・機根・心機・有機・無機」
　　　④他人にはうかがい知れない細かい事柄。「機微・機密・軍機」
　　　⑤物事の起こるきっかけ。きざし。はずみ。しおどき。「機を見るに敏びんなり」「機が熟す」「機会・機先・機縁・時機・危機・臨機応変」

whereas many linguists will and have disagreed with the definitiveness of the former president’s remark (mainly under the pretense that the main lexical entry attributed to “機” in Chinese no longer equates to “opportunity”) i do agree with the sentiment that one should try to see more than the negative even in the most disadvantageous of situations.

life, after all, is too short to keep moping about things that are out of your control, is it not?

(work in progress)

philosophers and legal scholars alike have continuously plagued their mind through the ages over the idea of parens patriae, or the idea that the government should act as the “parent of a nation”; that it step in as the legal guardian or parent of its people where and when it is deemed necessary. although this idea in modern criminal law generally applies to child custody cases–where a child with no/indeterminate/inappropriate guardian is placed under the custody of government protection/intervention (i.e. social services)–the idea of the government presiding as a “parent” of its citizens when deemed necessary, or involuntarily making decisions regarding the welfare of its citizens where citizens are deemed unable to do so, is not an unfamiliar concept to the mind of any legal scholar.

whereas this issue can be further expanded to apply to other theoretical fields of legal and political science (i.e. the liberty vs. security debate, federalism vs. republicanism and etc.) and be elaborated upon in many articulate and florid ways pertinent to the field of law, one limerick of a “lighter vein” seems to explain this issue best:

My doctor has made a prognosis
That intercourse fosters thrombosis
But I’d rather expire
Fulfilling desire
Than abstain, and develop neurosis.

ウィキペディアより

サウダージ（Saudade、サウダーヂあるいはサウダーデとも） は、郷愁、憧憬、思慕、切なさ、などの意味合いを持つ、ポルトガル語およびガリシア語の語彙。ポルトガル語、およびそれと極めて近い関係にあるガリシア語に独特の単語とされ、他の言語では一つの単語で言い表しづらい複雑なニュアンスを持つ。

There are other words in other languages which have a similar meaning. Saudade relates to the Italian malinconia, in which one feels an interior satisfaction because it is impossible to find something, but one never stops thinking that one is searching for it. It is an incompleteness that one unconsciously wants to never completely resolve. Saudade relates to the French regret, in which one feels a hard sentiment, meaning hardful, but in nostalgic sense. Saudade relates to the Spanish extrañar, in which one feels a missing part of oneself, which can never be completely filled by the thing you can’t have or get back. The word can also be translated by the Spanish expression “echar de menos”, which would be roughly an equivalent to the Portuguese one “ter saudades”, missing something or someone. The Greek word that comes close to translating saudade is νοσταλγία (nostalgia). Nostalgia also appears in the Portuguese language as in the many of other languages with a Indo-European origin, bearing the same meaning of the Greek word “νοσταλγία”. There is yet another word that, like ’saudade’, has no immediate translation in English: λαχτάρα (lakhtara). This word encompasses sadness, longing and hope, as ’saudade’ does.

In Albanian, a direct translation of saudade is the word mall, which encompasses feelings of passionate longing, sadness, and at the same time an undefined laughter from the same source. Other variations which give different nuances to this word are: pëmallim, përmallje, etc.

The Torlak dialect of Serbian has the expression that corresponds more closely to the Japanese and Greek examples below, but can be compared to saudade in a broader sense of longing for the past. It is жал за младос(т) / žal za mlados(t) i.e. “yearning for the bygone”; since the dialect has not been standardised as a written language it has various forms. The term and the concept has been popularised in standard Serbian through short prose and plays by Vranje born fin-de-siècle writer Borisav Stanković.

One translation of “saudade” into Dutch is weemoed; a fuzzy form of nostalgia. In the Romanian language, the word dor bears a close meaning to “saudade”. It can also stand for “love” or “desire” having a derivation in the noun dorinţă and the verb dori, both of them being translated usually by “wish” and “to wish”. However, although the word dor has a complex meaning, it still does not encompass the full meaning of “saudade”. Dor is derived from the Latin dolus (”pain”), the same root as the Portuguese word dor, also meaning “pain”. In Welsh, Saudade is said to be the only exact equivalent of the Welsh hiraeth and the Cornish hireth. Esperanto borrows the word directly, changing the spelling to accommodate Esperanto grammar, as saŭdado.

The Finnish language has a word whose meaning corresponds very closely with saudade: kaiho. Kaiho means a state of involuntary solitude in which the subject feels incompleteness and yearns for something unattainable or extremely difficult and tedious to attain. Ironically, the sentiment of kaiho is central to the Finnish tango, in stark contrast to the Argentine tango, which is predominantly sensuous. There is a religious context for kaiho in Finland as well; a sect of herännäiset or körttiläiset more familiarly, has central to their faith a kaiho towards Sion, a unity of faith, and a connection with God, permeating their central book, Siionin Virret (Hymns of Sion). However, saudade does not involve tediousness. Rather, the feeling of saudade accentuates itself: the more one thinks about the loved person or object, the more one feels saudade. The feeling can even be creative, as one strives to fill in what is missing with something else or to recover it altogether.

In Korean, keurium (그리움) is probably closest to saudade. It reflects a yearning for anything that has left a deep impression in the heart – a memory, a place, a person, etc. In Japan, saudade expresses a concept similar to the Japanese word natsukashii. Although commonly translated as “dear, beloved, or sweet,” in modern conversational Japanese natsukashii can be used to express a longing for the past. It connotes both happiness for the fondness of that memory and goodness of that time, as well as sadness that it is no longer. It is an adjective for which there is no quite fitting English translation. It can also mean “sentimental,” and is a wistful emotion. The character used to write natsukashii can also be read as futokoro 懐 [ふところ] and means “bosom,” referring to the depth and intensity of this emotion that can even be experienced as a physical feeling or pang in one’s chest~ a broken heart, or a heart feeling moved.

In Armenian, “Saudade” is represented by “կարոտ” (karot) that describes the deep feeling of missing of something or somebody.

The Arabic synonym for Saudade is وجد (Wajd), a state of transparent sadness caused by the memory of a loved one who is not near, it’s widely used in ancient Arabic poetry to describe the state of the lover’s heart as he or she remembers the long gone love. It’s a mixed emotion of sadness for the loss, and happiness for having had loved that person. In Turkish, the feeling of saudade is somewhat similar to hüzün[citation needed].

In Ithkuil, the root x-ḑ is equivalent to saudade.

ter saudades da sua terra (da pátria)
to be homesick;

matar saudades
to cheer oneself by the sight of someone or something one longs for;

dê-lhe saudades minhas
remember me to him;

tenho muitas saudades dele
I long to see him, I miss him very much;

deixou muitas saudades a todos
his going away was regretted by all, everybody misses him

the story

私は私を、はぐれる訳にはいかないから
いつかまた逢いましょう。その日までサヨナラ恋心よ

あなたのそばでは、永遠を確かに感じたから
夜空を焦がして、私は生きたわ恋心と

I can’t keep misleading myself
so farewell, o love, until that someday when we meet again

I’d rather you not talk to me if you’re just going to lie
because the fact of the matter is, you’re moving on
the girl that was staring back at me was no longer a lovely woman
at least let me savor our end with a smile

If tears could overflow and melt sadness
I wish I could drink those drops
I’ll never be able to forget you
as long as this dignified pain continues to pile up in my heart

Forgive me, o love, my sweet dreams have been washed away with the waves
so farewell, o love, until that someday when we meet again

With each passage of time, I learn about you more
and with each passage of time, I’m confused about you more
For some reason I try to compare the fading of love to the evening sun
as a certain saudade remains in my heart

If I could absolve responsibility for words that spur emotions in my heart
I’d become like a mute clam that lives in the bottom of the ocean
I wish I could go back to the ocean without being bothered by anyone
Let me quietly think of you

Forgive me, o love, your naive expectations only keep tearing me apart
Please tell her… I’m lonely…. I’m okay… I’m lonely.

The classic story repeats itself
Hellos and Good-byes, tears and laughters, love and hate

Forgive me, o love, my sweet dreams have been washed away with the waves
so farewell, o love, until that someday when we meet again

I felt the certain existence of eternity next to you
so let me singe the starry sky in my heart, as I have lived with love in my heart

「不運なことにジーコに遭いまして、一年間ロカビリー生活を過ごしました。」
ナイツ　塙
ヤホーのちょいアップグレードバージョンの感じ。やっぱナイツの音ボケは何回聞いても飽きない。

あと最終結果発表寸前の「今年もCMの後です」もいい加減やめてほしい!

energy efficient micathermic heater:

$40

kotatsu:

$400

a puffy down jacket from y-3:

$440

realizing that you’ve overcompensated for the cold, but rationalized by reminding yourself that you’re going to be warm all winter anyway:

priceless

there’s some things in life you just can’t rationalize yourself into peace of mind after getting buyer’s remorse; for everything else, there’s always retail therapy.

i’m not saying that i’m actually for or a big fan of corporal punishment, but the more i’m having to deal with college kids who don’t seem to know how to conduct themselves against other people, the more i’m starting to think that beating some sense into them might not be a bad idea after all.

one event that has especially fired this sentiment into me was the sudden and abrupt departure of a housemate of mine, who was subleasing a room in the house until december with another friend of mine. she had previously mentioned that she was wanting to move out after november and did mention that she was looking for places to stay for the next semester, to which i told her to keep me posted because at the time i was interested in moving out of my current room as well.

one thing about this particular (ex) housemate, is the fact that she’s not very sociable and didn’t venture out of her room too much; her roommate (my friend) used to be around the house a lot, but found himself a girlfriend and was also not around too much, which left us clueless as to what’s going on about/in that room.

so come december, when it came time for rent, i sent both of them a text message telling them it’s time to pay rent — my friend (her roomate) responded and told me he’d come back home the day i told him i’d need the check by to pay rent, but the housemate in question did not.

curious, and a little worried, i tried repeatedly to call her and find out where she is so we can get our rent check together to the landlord — i called her and left her texts on her phone with no avail; and asked a few mutual friends to try calling her and see if they could get in contact with her — also without success. so when the day came to finally pay the rent, my friend (the housemate in question’s roomate) came back to his room for the first time in two weeks, only to see that the housemate’s belonging’s were all moved out and was missing from the room.

puzzled and shocked at the situation, we both tried again to reach her through all means possible: facebook, phone/texts whatever, but she didn’t respond — but since rent is rent, and the landlord asks no questions and what/how as long as he gets the money, my friend (the housemate’s roommate), being the responsible guy decided to pay the other half of the rent (265 dollars) seeing as how he was the only one who had technically/or would be living in the room in the event such a thing happened.

(on a side note: our current housing situation is that everyone is on an unofficial monthly lease, so it’s designed in a way that anyone can leave at the end of the month so long as they’ve found a replacement and they’ve fully notified the other housemates of his/her departure.)

frustrated, we came back after paying the rent angry but decided to keep the issue on the afterburners since there’d be nothing we could do so long as she keeps avoding contact. two days after paying rent, however, i received the following email from her:

To whom this may concern:

The agreement was that I would move out by December 5th. I also notified Scott and (roommate) before the 5th of November that I would be moving out before December 5th ( more than 30 days), I also reminded Berdin before Thanksgiving break, whether or not you chose to acknowledge this is beyond my concern. I do not have to pay for December, therefore I will not pay for December, so leave my friends, people I associate with, and me alone.

Sincerely,

flabbergasted, this is the reply i sent back.

1. if you had actually notified me and berdin that you were moving out, then we would not have been harassing you or your friends — the fact that berdin came back and was wondering where you were pretty much tells you that neither he nor I knew that you were moving out.

2. if you had really told us that you were moving out and if an agreement was already put into place, why did you go to such great lengths to avoid making contact with me, berdin, and the rest of the housemates?

3. even if you somehow think you’ve excused yourself from paying for december’s rent you still need to pay for PG&E and Water/Waste for the month of November.

4. we don’t really care that you chose to move out, and we would have been fine if you had told us ahead of tiime and made it perfectly clear that you were moving out — as i have mentioned before, i don’t think 265 measly dollars is worth all the trouble you’re putting yourself and us into.

but the fact that you didn’t make yourself clear and the fact you chose to avoid contact with anyone in the house during the week we’re supposed to pay rent when an update on such a situation would have been appreciated, is what’s bugging me at least.

i do remember you talking about maybe moving out after november but you never made any definitive statement at least to me, and the fact that berdin didn’t know and was surprised to find all your belongings gone after he came back after spending some two weeks out of the house also suggests that you did an insufficient job in notifying the residents of your departure.

so for all of you who thought the above was tl;dr:

NEXT TIME YOU PLAN ON DOING SOMETHING THAT AFFECTS OTHER PEOPLE MAKE SURE YOU LET THEM KNOW AHEAD OF TIME SO PEOPLE DON’T GET CONFUSED OVER SHIT LIKE THIS.

and cut the formal bullshit — you’re like the least responsible person i know with your “oh i’ve never written a check before”, “oh i must written out my check but forgotten to sign it,” and “oh maybe i won’t get noticed if i move all my shit out during thanksgiving without telling anyone.”

keep your 265 dollars and i really sincerely hope your new housemates are a little more tolerant about bullshit than we are.

Best,

Scott.

yes i do understand that murphy’s law exists and people will take advantage of “unofficial monthly leases,” and yes i do realize that i could have been a little more mature in the email, but let’s face it — if your child is 21 years old and doesn’t understand that paying rent is serious business, you’ve failed as a parent.

我が友よ
　requiescant in pace
　　　永遠に

consider the spanish word “esperar”:

esperar
transitive verb
1 : to wait for, to await
2 : to expect
3 : to hope

…whose french equivalent, is the word “espérer”:

espérer
transitive verb
1 : to hope for
2 : to expect, to trust

hoping is waiting.

スペイン語で「待つ」ことを「esperar」といいます。ラテン語の「sperare」から同じく派生したフランス語の「espérer」はもはや「待つ」という意味としてはほとんで使われてなく、主に「何かを望む、何かを希望する」を意味するようになりました。

つまり、「望むことは待つこと」です。