Kitada_Kiyomi's Xanga

Friday, January 14, 2005

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 23:29:26 GMT

I have discovered my new Cause of the Week!

For completely selfish and self-preserving purposes, I would like to take this moment to encourage all of my multi-ethnic brethren to register as bone marrow donors. And especially for my own self-serving purposes, I would like to encourage Japanese-Swedish mixed Asians to donate (jk).

The fact of the matter of the matter is that while there is only an incredibly small number of minorities registered to donate bone marrow, there is an even smaller number of multiethnic individuals registered. And as much as modern PC thought tries to tell us there is nothing to this whole "race" thing, the cold hard reality is that when a child is born to two ethnically different parents, and it turns out that that child needs a bone marrow transplant, the chances of them getting a match with other family members is almost nil, and with there being so few ethnically mixed registered donors, the chances of them finding a match and having their lives saved is almost non-existant. And being an American of mixed descent, I find it a little scary that if I am ever in need of tissue or bone marrow, the current system almost needs an act of god for me to be able to find a match.

The registration and typing itself only requires one vial of blood. On the grand scheme of things, that's less than the doctor takes if you have to go to the hospital (trust me, I know. I had the flu a few weeks ago and the lab managed to take four vials of blood over the course of three hours). And while the procedure to actually remove the bone marrow is incredibly painful (you have to get the epidural and all), there are a couple things to think about. First of all, even though being registered and having someone find a match puts you in this moral bind between your own desire to avoid pain yet to also be able to help another person live, there's the fact that even if you were not registered, it wouldn't prevent that other individual from getting sick.

Yet if for some reason you are opposed to this registration or procedure, I am not going to sit here trying to preach you into adhering to my own personal beliefs, just as I would hope that even if you were to disagree with me, you'd still be able to see my point of view.

It is just my hope that if you've never given thought to registering as a bone marrow donor, this little post might make you think about the great benefit you could give to another human being. Though it's wonderful to dream of someday creating a new medicine, or performing a heroric dread to save millions, it's another thing within the grasp of all to take an afternoon (only an hour or so, even counting transit time), to register as a bone marrow donor.

Who knows, if you're mixed, and you encourage a few mixed people around you to register with you, and they the encourage a few, you might not only be setting yourself up to be able to more easily receive a donation if you ever need it, but you might be able to save lives by increasing the donation pool.

Either way, with all that corny sentiment, please take the time to look into registering.

http://www.psbc.org/community/programs/default.htm

^^^^check it out!!! \(^-^)/

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:56:04 GMT

Life hasn't been good so far. I'm trying to get better, but it's not going well. Life is hard, work is hard...but worst of all, life is lonely. Today I finally told one of my friends about my problems, but the new problem is that he's in China. He's due to be back in July, I miss him. I feel kinda bad about making my problems his, but I desperately need someone to talk to. I have no one I can collapse in front of, and stop being so perfect. I can't even stop being perfect for my parents because they're just so "proud" of me.

Ugh, another monday tomorrow...goodie. Oh well, can't control time yet...need to work on that. Later.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 21:12:04 GMT

I wish my parents hadn't had me. They wanted children, but I don't think they wanted me. I was never good enough for my Mom, and all my Dad ever did when he wasn't ignoring me was telling me how ugly, stupid, and generally bad I was. They love me because they have to, because it's what looks right to the rest of society. They had me because it was expected of them to have children, becuase they were in the correct point in their life and socioeconomic bracket to be worthy of procreation. I wish they'd just skipped me.

They've always been nice to my brother, no matter what he does, they've had nothing of praise for him. I don't understand what I ever did to them, why they could never be nice to me. I've worked my entire life to make them happy, but was never good enough for them. And now, I don't know how to make myself happy. I wish my parents would stop caring, I wish they could just understand that I don't want to live anymore. I live my life currently so taht no one who I associate with would care of I died. Except for my parents, no one would really be affected if I stopped existing. I wish they would just stop caring, I wish that I could just die without hurting anyone. I don't want to live anymore, but no one will let me die.

People always tell me the most selfish thing to do is commit suicide, but what about making someone continue to life when they have absolutely zero pleasure in life. My life is pain, disappointment, and abandonment. I want people to stop caring, I want to be allowed to end my life, I have nothing to live for. I simply want to end it now, instead of spending the next few decades faking pleasure in life, only to suffer alone inside my own head.

I want to die. I want to just go to sleep and not wake up one morning. I want it all to be over. I want to kill myself, but I also don't want those around me to be hurt.

Someone just shoot me, please.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Sun, 02 Jan 2005 00:03:17 GMT

And now, a for a moment of extreme geekiness:

It's eight o'clock, Saturday night...and I am sitting at home watching Star Trek. And although this may seem like a completely looserish way to spend my Saturday night, it's actually kinda nice to just sit back and relax like this (especially since I hate cigarette smoke, and Saturday nights at bars are especially smokey).

And with that lovely intro, here is a Star Trek rant. (Yes, I admit that I can do these, and I am perfectly confident in my geekiness.) But this rant is not the classis Kirk vs. Piccard argument (and by the way, Piccard is infinately cooler). Instead, here is the question of a Kiyomi-style Star Trek rant: Does Start Trek have an obligation to stretch and challenge the boundaries of gender and racial roles depicted on television?

Let's begin. When Star Trek first came out, it was the first mainstream television show to feature as full-time cast members a Black woman and an Asian American man. On top of that, one character was also Russian, a fact that is probably lost on many young people now adays, but more notable when the show first came out during the middle of the Cold War.

With these characters, Roddenberry was showing a picture of the future different from that put forth by many of his contempoaries. Instead of depicting a future where all ethnic minorities have suddenly disappeared, or where white males have managed to maintain their strangle-hold on all positions of power, Rodenberry's future (though unremarkable in 2005) was near revolutionary for its time.

The next Star Trek series to come out was admitedly less notable in the ethnic and sexual make-up of its characters, with the possible exception of casting a woman as the ship's doctor and a Black man as chief engineer. And all this with the only other Black man on the ship being so done up in makeup that all you could gess was that he was a Klingon who stood a little too close to the sun-lamp. Indeed, the only recurring Asian American character barely made any appearance, and then she was only the ever-safe Japanese woman married to the white man, and participating in nothing more daring than being the preschool teacher. For this second series, unfortunately, although it did have some individual good messages from episode to episode, did fall short of the legacy started by George Takei and Nichelle Nichols.

The third spinoff in the Star Trek series did make a better attempt challenge social ethnic and gender rolls, casting a Black man as the commander of a space station, but again fell short in giving Asian Americans any notable role besides (again) being the Japanese wife of the white man (incidentally, the same character).

And while I am not universally opposed to these unions (afterall, I am the product of one, though I think my own parents should never have had children), it does disturb me that the Asian woman and the white man is the only multiethnic pairing widely accepted in America, but still seen as a progressive way for producers and writers to bring minorities into their plotlines.

The only other major character of any shade of color (and we're not counting the blue and green guys), is the doctor, the actor himself being half Middle Eastern. To note, he is the only regularly occuring multiethnic character I can think of, even though (thinking logically) it'd make sense to see more multiethnic individuals in the future. I mean, look at what's happening to America now, what do you think it would realistically look like however many centuries from now.

The fourth in the Star Trek series took the role of pushing social stereotypes to a further extent, though at times at the sacrifice of good plotlines or compelling writing. Asian Americans finally made a comeback, with a Chinese American cast as "Ensign Kim." I have often wondered why this character had to be Korean, since there is never any reference to that made in the series, but perhaps it was seen that some audience might find Japanese characters hard to believe if not bound in matrimony to a white male, and a Chinese character would be too confusing, as all the Klingon characters seem to also always have Chinese names.

And unfortunately, our Korean male character still seemed to have to go through the series as the quintisential geeky Asian guy. Good at science and math, but unable to take any real leadership and eternally lost in all matters concerning sexual relations.

Casting of black characters in this series, unfortunately, seems to have turned into more of a joke, with a Black Vulcan called Tuvok (You'd just about expect him to come out with his own rap record.)

Notably, though, this series finally did cast a Latina character, though being half Klingon, that is made more a point of than the fact that her last name is Torres.

And finally, to the most recent Star Trek show, incidentally taking place before even the original series. (And let's leave aside any comments about technology showing up in the show or special effects, that's for another geek-out session).

In this show, we have finally reached a point in our social advancement as to allow an Asian woman to appear in the show in a capacity beyond just being the appendage of a white male. Just to note, though, a Japanese woman played by a non-Japanese American actress. My friends tell me I should stop demanding more, and just be pleased with the fact that there are more than zero Asian Americans on television (and we're not counting Chinatown wait staff and prostitutes).

Be all this as it may, final verdict on the most recent Star Trek series is still pending, though I a still not too impressed. Perhaps someday, my kid or grandkids will be able to watch a TV show staring a cast that looks like them. Then again, we can always take my brother's solution to the entire thing. He plans to marry a white woman and have white kids, then he won't have to worry about then being biased against as minorities, or having no good role models on television.

But in conclusion, Star Trek started out as just a silly show with a side message that tried to make social statements, and over the decades has morphed into a silly show trying to make social statements, to a silly show trying too hard to make social statements, and finally it now seems to a silly show (period). Maybe someday we'll be able to have Star Trek Excellsior, and finally let Capt. Sulu back into the limelight.

And in all defense, I don't consider myself a Trekkie. It's just that growing up, if my parents wanted me to see a positive Asian American role on TV (and they did not consider waiter, prostitute, or beaten wife a positive rolle), they only had so many options.

And now that you've all lost all respect for me, I'll sign off for now. Bye bye.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 18:59:09 GMT

How many of you here have seen the movie Ocean's Eleven? Well, if you haven't, skip reading the rest of this paragraph and go out and rent the movie. It's a good flick, worth seeing. But for those of you who have, you know that scene where the Black British guy is watching the building being imploded on TV, and you can see the thing actually falling down in real life through the windows behind him in the background? Well, if you don't remember, that's what the scene was.

Well, to make a long story longer, last night I was watching the fireworks over the Seattle Space Needle on TV and trying to figure out why my TV was having such a strange echo. At about the same time, I happened to look out my window and realized that the strange echo wasn't my TV.

Now, I like to think that I am a relatively intelligent person. Relative being the operative word here. And for some reason, it had never occurred to me that if you can see the space needled from your window during daylight hours, it stands to reason that when they're shooting fireworks off the thing at night, that you'll also be able to see that. Don't worry, after I made my discover (and in my defense, it was only about one minute into the fireworks), I proceeded to turn off the television and just watch the fireworks out of my window.

Now, the kinda sad and pathetic thing was that I had to be all by myself while watching these things. I've been single now for a year...the longest I've been single since I was about fifteen. Sure, there have been some guys around, but no one that's actually been the "boyfriend," or for that matter, who's wanted to be. Granted, though, this isn't entirely for any failure on my part to find a boyfriend. Honestly, I haven't been looking, or guys who have presented themselves (creepy bible-thumping Christian white guy my brother says reminds him of a fish) have just been too nauseating to even contemplate. Normally, I'm Ok with the fact that the closest thing I have to a man in my life right now is my boss who is just about as infuriating as a boyfriend, but it's different on New Years. And as much as I try and avoid all this Hallmark fake sentimentality, I'm just gettin' sick and tired of sleeping by myself! (Hell, at all else it's winter and gettin' kinda cold out.) jk

But complaints and accounts of my selective stupidity aside, HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone, and I hope you look forward to dealing with me in 2005 as much as I look foward to annoying you all. Think about it this way, though, most people who try to commit suicide are eventually successful, and I'm up to three tries, so eventually I may be checking out of all this, so just enjoy my company while I'm around. Take care, and peace out!

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:30:14 GMT

Yippee! Done with work for one year. My desk is clean, old files put into "the big filing cabinet in the sky," and for the first time I have actually seen the surface of my desk. And nothing really to worry about until January 3rd.

In other news, a third of our American staff has quit as of today. Well, a third if you just count people. I think if you're going for total mass of americans in the office, it's more like 38%. And just before you think that there was some mass exodus of Americans from my work, let me just note that even before this guy left, there were only three of us in the office. Now there are only two, and only one and a half white people if you really want to get down to it. Oh well, doesn't really matter, except that there are now just fewer people who will be around to get my spazzy American sense of humor.

Drat, I'm gonna miss the guy! Now I'm gonna have to start working on my Japanese sense of humor, and that mostly just consists of stupid puns.

Oh, and so there's been this catastrophe of biblical proportions in Asia, and all us Americans can first offer is a measly 15 million dollars. Now they're saying they're gonna send as much as 500 million, but still, that's nothing compared to the 13 billion set aside for the hurricanes that hit Florida. They're predicting close to a hundred thousand dead, and that's not even taking into consideration those that are going to starve or die of disease in the aftermath.

But there are a lot of arguments that can be made against sending more money. The vast majority of people affected aren't Americans, and our first fiscal priorities should be to those that provide the funds. Plus, these are the kind of expenses that can't be planned, and so were therefore not factored into whatever budget proposals were put together. Plus there's the fact that we have over twenty billion invested in the reconstruction and war in Iraq. And then there's the ever-present question: Do we actually have any motivation to provide large amounts of aid, especially with the fact that the only benefit beyond helping save thousands of lives is that our overall reputation on the international arena will be improved. But what does that matter, especially with the current national trend of ignoring the opinions and desires of other nations.

It seems that with all our fiscal planning, we'd rather give tax cuts to people who don't need them than to have a financial plan that will give us enough leeway to help save lives.

And even Asia aside, we don't even have the current resources and ability to properly equip our soldiers. What kind of screwed up priorities is this country showing?

And within all this, I can't help but recall a 9-11 special I saw on TV when I was in Japan. It was an interview with this lady (who I'd never heard of) but who had apparently received some kind of award for a picture she took of the smoking buildings. In this blurb, one thing featured was her discussing the war in Iraw with a group of her neighbors. I can't remember the state, but it was somewhere in the legendary "bible belt" of the true "American heartland."

One thing of course brought up during the course of this conversation was if a war for gasoline and oil is worth the sacrifice. Of this coversation of about five people, four of them stated the opinion that even if the invasion of Iraq was only to obtain control of the oil reserves, it was still worth whatever the sacrifice. To quote one man, "I think it's worth it so I can afford to drive my truck."

Now, I try not to be biased against that portion of the country, and I know that of course not all people hold that kind of opinion. But the fact of the matter is that not all people outside the US know this. Just like we think that all Japanese men are leacherous workaholics lusting after pre-pubescent school girls because that is the only picture that we ever see, many Japanese think that all Americans are truck-driving, gun toting warmongers.

Either way, even though the picture of Americans on the glbal scale may not be entirely deserved, perhaps we need to work to get a few people on our side, more willing to help improve our standing. Bush isn't going to be president forever, and eventually we may want to once again have something other than adversarial relations with our international partners.

But I'm done with my quasi intellectualism for now (Too many brain-cells killed by work today.) I'll make another attempt later (lately I've been feeling that my once insightful rants have become much too sophomoric [notice nice use of SAT vocab]). And so bid farewell to the banality, at least until next time.

Peace out, and give money to the Red Cross.

(But just food for thought, since the Tsunamis hit on 12/26, reports are coming in that the dead are estimated at about 80,000. Now just think about it, during WWII, when the US firebombed Tokyo, deliberately targeting civilians, 110,000 people died in one night. No one was ever penalized for this war crime. Some reports of the Nanking Massacre place the death in the hundreds of thousands, numbers that Japan disputes to this day. While acts of god kill in mass numbers, they are nothing compared to acts of man. Just food for thought.)

And thus was my "moment of attempted insight" for the day. Good night.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:55:31 GMT

Christmas is over for another year, and once again I have somehow managed to survive.

It's not that Christmas is all that stressful for me, it's mostly that between all the family politics, by the end of it I feel like I'm well-practiced to handle middle eastern peace talks of some kind. At least when I was a little kid everyone could pretend to play nice...then again, there was a lot more alcohol around when I was a little kid. I'm not a proponent of alcoholism, but I really think my family doesn't drink enough.

And to just top off the entire Christmas experience, I was sick all weekend. Oh well, at least I didn't have to spend it counting pieces of paper like last year.

In other news, I am having serious questions about my future. Right now, about all I do is the equivalent of a glorified secretary. And the tasks I'm assigned could probably be performed by some kind of higher primate...ok, fine I admit it, lower primate. I spend all day hitting buttons on the computer, and the damn thing doesn't even give me a food pellet. At least the hamster's smart enough to only hit the buttons when he gets fed.

I think my main problem is that I'm selectively lazy. I'm working now because school takes too much work. Or at least I'm thoroughly burnt out of school for right now. Although I'm jealous of all the free time my wonderful college-attending friends have, I do like the fact that my work doesn't have to follow me home.

Oh, and speaking of work following me home! There's another thing that I can blame on my parents. Growing up, my Dad was basically working twenty-four hours a day. He'd leave for the office at about six in the morning, get home at around ten, and then, being a doctor, be "on call" all night. And now that I have finally entered the workforce, I find that I am doing just about the same thing. I have my work e-mail hooked up to my computer at home, and I even have it notify to my cellphone when there's an incoming e-mail. I was sick on Monday, but was still up half the day taking care of things via E-mail. Even when I go home, I check my e-mail almot compulsively. And the most horrible thing of all is that I don't really think this is strange behavior. In theory, I work at a job that stops at five o'clock, but in all practicality (what with the fact that half of our stuff is done with Japan), it could be done twenty four hours a day. It's just as well they close our office at nights, otherwise I'd probably still be trying to do filing at three in the morning. I think this is one of the major reasons I don't have a boyfriend, right now I have to deal with too many whiny men to want to come home to one also.

And speaking of that, I had to listen to my grandmother lecture me about getting married and finding a husband (or maybe that was the other way around...oh well, I'm tired.) Man, this being a grown-up thing has gotten old already. If I'd known this was what it'd be like to be an adult, I'd have stayed a kid longer. Most of my friends are older than I am, and they're still kids.

But at this point, it's too late. Well, there's always graduate school to reinvigorate my Peter Pan syndrome. Until then, I might as well enjoy a world where the homework is optional. Peace out, and don't get any grey hairs. Bye Bye

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 01:00:09 GMT

Well, today I'm definitely feeling better than I did yesterday (or I guess it was technically earlier this morning). For starters, I don't feel quite so much like the hopeless failure I felt like earlier.

Yet still, I started my day as this wonderful sniveling mess. I was such a mess in fact, that my boss took it upon himself to sit me down and grill me about what's going on in my life. Dammit dammit dammit. While I feel perfectly fine broadcasting my dirty laundry on the internet, it's completely another thing to have to try to explain to my manager that I suffer from chronic depression. And on top of that, just to add insult to injury, I had to explain to him what depression is.

But to make a long and boring story short and boring, I've decided that even if for some reason I have no future, I might as well enjoy the present because there's nothing else I can really do about it at this point. Plus, who knows, maybe I'll end up finding a future...boy, did that just found painfully corny.

In other news, this guy that I know made this comment today. He said that I should get past the ethnic stuff...unfortunately the, beyond the whole "identity" issue, the biggest problem is that most of my jokes are based on some perverse non-pc Asian crack. I'll have to come up with all new material.

But oh well, I ramble. I'll write more later when I'm not being distracted by the television. Mostly I just wanted to let everyone know I'm not about to nix myself anytime soon. Take care!

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 02:55:00 GMT

Do you ever get that feeling you have no future?

Well, that's how I've been feeling lately. Besides the fact that I've been feeling physically unwell for about the past two months, there's also the fact that I've been in this horrible depressed slump. And all this "holiday cheer" crap has definitely not served to assist in rectifying the situation.

When I was a teenager, I tried to kill myself three times. And although to this day my father insists that that kind of behavior is perfectly normal to all teenagers, I still can't help but feel that it could perhaps indicate some deeper behavioral troubles. Since leaving the wonderful drama that was my teenage years, I have managed to refrain from what had been an almost yearly pattern of failed or half-assed suicides. Don't be too pleased, this was not the result of some resolution of my own psychological difficulties, rather it was that I realized how miserable the deaths of people close to me was making me, and I didn't want to inflict that same amount of pain on my parents or all these other people who seem to somehow still see value in my continued existence. At this point, I very literally live to make other people happy.

Don't get me wrong, I do have momentary joys in life, but when all the laughs are over, and I am once again alone with my own thoughts, all that remains is the bleak landscape of utter solitude that awaits me. And to top that off, there is the obvious fact that this is all my own fault. I realize that I purposefully try to keep people at an arms distance. Afterall, I've been abandoned by people and had those close to me die so often that at this point I really have zero incentive to open myself up to someone. Plus, I don't want to tell those around me when I'm having problems, it would disappoint them. People around me seem to think I'm so together, so capable, so in control of everything (and I do admit that part of this is also my own fault). But they just don't realize how much pressure this puts on me. They think I can handle anything, that I am capable of anything. All this means is that when I reach my limit, when I have to stop and ask for help, even if they do give me assistance, it's not the same as if someone they expected to fail has asked them. They will note how I have not met their expectations, and be disappointed.

Everyone wants me to be perfect, and I am too weak and scared to not be. I am too terrified of their anger, their indignation, their pity, their disappointment, I am too scared to ever allow myself to stop trying to please every person around me, because doing so would risk abandonment.

But I also have to face the fact that that is what makes me happy now. I don't know what else brings me pleasure in life anymore. Even things that make me happy now are also under such circumstances as to simultaneously drive me to tears.

I have been so lonely since I lost Zach. I think he was the last person who I felt safe failing around. I could turn to him when the brittle superglue on the otherwise precariously balanced house of cards that is my life had shattered and everything was a plain old mess. And I felt safe confiding my failures in him because he would never fail to call me a doofus and try to tell me where I screwed up; but he would also never again mention my shortcomings when I had learned what could be learned, managed to collect all my cards, and once again set about trying to cheat the delicate balance of the universe.

When I broke up with the boyfriend I was living with, he was there. When I would panic about the 20 page term paper due the next week that I hadn't even started researching, he was there. When I almost flunked out of college, he was there.

Now I have no one. Now I have to be perfect for all six billion some odd people on this entire planet. If I fail, they will lose faith in me, they will abandon me, and I will be even more alone than I already am. And as bad as it is now, I know I do not wish to be more alone than this.

And now I have to go to sleep, to wake up tomorrow morning and set about again being perfect for all the world. Smile on cue, answer everyone's questions, please the entire rest of the universe. At least this way, I can feel slightly less alone.

I am terrified to be alone, yet too petrified to let people close. I don't think I can go on like this.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 00:45:51 GMT

I want to die. Yep, it's that time of year again.