The day is almost out and baby is not even thinking about coming out. I have read thru couple of chapters of "What To Expect - The First Year".
Ji has been very calm today, no stress showing. Her belly, about 42-43 inches, did not prevent her from spending of three hours in the hair saloon getting her hair nice and curly. Mama is looking good! She has been asleep for a while now.
Time to go sleep and rest. Maybe tomorrow, the Labor Day, will live up to its name.

delete me

Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem 

What is a poet asking Apollo, 

What is he praying for, raising fresh wine in the Actiaca victory temple? 

Oh, not for the riches of Sardinia. 

He does not want the flocks of Calabriae, not ivory, or grains from the banks of Liris. 

Neither the gold coins. 

Campaniae vines Let to the fortune's lucky farmer's care. 

From the golden vase Syrian rug merchant Drinks now, 

for he must be gods' favorite Crossing the seas thousandfold with no harm. 

I, dear Apollo, take light olive 

Let me be happy with the little I have Love, 

good health and a clear mind that will not fail 

And when old age comes, let it be gentle 

And full of these songs... 

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65 - 8 b.c.e. (translation and interpretation Uki D. Lucas)

Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem
vates? quid orat de patera novum
fundens liquorem? non opimae
Sardiniae segetes feracis,

non aestuosae grata Calabriae
armenta, non aurum aut ebur Indicum,
non rura, quae Liris quieta
mordet aqua taciturnus amnis.

premant Calenam falce quibus dedit
fortuna vitem, dives ut aureis
mercator exsiccet culillis
vina Syra reparata merce,

dis carus ipsis, quippe ter et quater
anno revisens aequor Atlanticum
inpune. me pascunt olivae,
me cichorea levesque malvae.

frui paratis et valido mihi,
Latoe, dones et precor integra
cum mente nec turpem senectam
degere nec cithara carentem.

Thursday, August 28, 2003 23:16

One day, back in high school in Poland, my Polish language teacher, Mrs. Magda Tomalak, told me that people like me never graduate from universities. So far she has been right. Back then, however, I did not know it was because of the teachers that taught like her.

At this point I would like to pay my respect to my another teacher from Poland, Mrs. Maria Szura, an elementary school biology teacher and to my East-Asian Anthropology teacher, Dr. Janice Turner-Sacherer, from University of Maryland. Both shared a passion for their respective fields and for the teaching. Both inspired me for life. I only hope to see each one again, although I would be ashamed since I did not amount to accomplish much in my life, not a least by our society standards.






Sunday, August 24, 2003 08:36

Phaedrus, a ghost of Robert M. Pirsing's character in the book "Zen and the Motorcycle Maintenance", chapter nineteen, considers the Quality as the separate from either subjective and objective, and as the third identity, an event.
What he fails to notice is that a subjective opinion of an individual, the personal view, frequently overlaps with those of other people, especially in the same culture, where the sets of values are being uniformly indoctrinated. That common sense of the quality expressed by sufficient many becomes the objective quality.

The objective quality is in fact the result of the indoctrination and to a certain point of the internal "wiring" of our senses. Because of that, it can be said that it represents the classical mindset as the author calls it. If, somehow, it would be possible to subtract all the objective sense of the quality, what would be left will be the subjective sense of what he calls romantic mind. My intuition tells me there is not much of it. Only in the few moments of true self-soul-searching we find those minute differences, and express them in some form of abstract painting, sculpture or a poem that nobody else can understand, or, more often, in a scream, or roar, that comes out of our chest when we reached the metaphoric peak of the mountain we have been climbing.

I did not have the Internet until yesterday.

SBC is really an unorganized and divided company. None of the departaments has any pride in their work and they constantly push you off to another person. Their computer system is equivalent, too. They may have several addresses of yours as well as the names of your business. If you run into any problems be prepared to hear long menu options after which, you might assume that you have selected the right departament, but invariably you you are going to be transwered once, or twice, or disconnected without anybody calling you back.

It took from August 1 to August 28 to move my existing Internet connection, of that, it took only one day to actually phisically change the switch, the rest was procrastination.

I watched a program on Christina Aquilera today.

It is mind-boggling how sickly puritan the United States still is, how far behind Europe they are. I cannot even believe that they actually were pulling a plug on her videos, when she was all-the-rage elsewhere in the world.

Why is it that every teen boy browses porn pictures at any occasion and that you would be hard pressed to find a virgin high-school graduate, yet United States are so in denial of sex?

Everybody normal has sex and enjoys sex, if we humans were not, we would die-out long time ago. Admit it, get over it, live with it.

Don't worry so much about our youth, they will be better off with healthy approach to live than developing conplexes and denials.

Does not matter how much guilt you impress upon people, they will feel what all of us do feel and they will only live in the state of confusion.

You want teen pregnancy? Keep your daughter in the dark, she will find all she needed to know after she gets pregnant.

People wake up, dark ages ended a while ago in Europe will it take five hundred years for USA to catch up?

I have a deep respect for the music of both Madonna and Christina, I appreciate their statements as well.

Study, teaching and practice of buddhism

I have decided to openly pursue the study, teaching, and practice of buddhism.

It is of a little secret that I have been attracted to buddhism for at least the last ten years, but there were many things I had to get right in my mind, and in my life, to come to this stage of affairs.

Let me point out few major stepping stones without which it is meaningless to even talk about a daily practice. Those stepping stones will lead one to what can be called a home temple where one can fully understand the buddhist way to enlightement. Anyone is welcome, but all must make the effort.

1) The Way of Life.
Buddhism was originally meant to be, and shall be, a philosophy of life, a way to the enlightement, not a religion.

2) The Faith vs. The Understanding.
There shall not be any friction between practicing of buddhism and believing in any other religion as to the its faith. The buddhism is not about believing, but about understanding, or perceiving. That understanding comes on the logical, and the intuitive (a non-dualistic), levels. The choice of the religion to follow is one's personal and should be dictated by the conciousness. There are, however, harmful faiths that conceal behind traditions and religions. One should study much and develop a broad perspective.

3) Worldly Attachments.
It is contrary to the understanding of the buddhism to maintain celibacy, to renounce the World, or any such extremes. It is essential to embrace the World as it is and as the naturalists say it "to thread lightly". It is essential to understand one's own attachments and their effects. However, it is appropriate to question and abandon the attachments that are perceived as ill-natured. Buddhism is a middle path.

4) Karma.
The core of the buddhism is a full awarness of the law of causation. One smallest event causes ten thousand things to happen. Any affects all. One shall be always aware of that karmic law. At the same time one shall not fall into traps of logical dualism.

5) Good and bad.
There are neither good nor bad actions in buddhism, there is only suchness of those actions. Any action can cause positive and negative, or both, consequent effects, yet conciously bad actions leave their karmic mark and intuitively shall be avoided. It will be a sign of a good practice when good-natured actions will intuitively replace any ill ones.

6) Rules.
There shall be no commandmants, precepts, nor rules in buddhism. All teachings shall be taken as suggestions for one to meditate on and come to their full understanding. The follower of the buddhism shall not ignore the ancient teachings and study them in-depth, however one shall not follow mindlessly, nor literally, any of such teachings.

7) Compassion.
One shall develop a compassionate approach to the World as one cannot exist without the World. Onyone with this understanding of buddhism should propagate it thru the World in a bodhisattva fashion, such compassion shall be an agent and a messenger of the buddhism.

8) Daily practice.
The practice of the buddhism shall be one's daily life, not a mere visit to the temple, few minutes of a chant, yoga practice, sitting meditation, nor retreat in the nature. Those various practices may be integrated into daily buddhism, but if practiced in mindless vacum can be also harmful. One shall choose daily tasks to reflect their buddhist mind.

9) Training.
Mind does not exist without body and they are both same on one level. One shall train their minds as much as their bodies to achieve a radiant and healthy results. One shall follow the study, the works, the exercise and the appropriate diet.

10) Masters.
One shall take time to learn from old masters that came before, improve upon, respect their efforts and support their causes.

11) Worship.
No buddhist shall be considered a saint, nor be worshipped as such. The creations of the mind and symbols shall be taken as just such. Traditions and art shall be respected, developed, and protected for the future generations.

12) Home Temple.
All past teachings should be preserved and attempt shall be made to propagate many of them for all to come. It is a natural step for one to eventually retire from the daily life and dedicate one's time to the study, the practice, and the teaching at the home temple. Because the home temple provides a peacefull environment, more suitable for the study and the colaboration, it is recommended to support one, and eventually spend time in the home temple passing on the knowledge to the next generations.

Anybody looking for my blog on Google must have been a really presistent searcher, I am listed only on the page 5 of the results. Thank you for that effort!

I am back to the Internet World, SBC finally got their act together after a way too long for a "small business account" that I am holding.

I am resolved to read and study even more than I have ever done and write more. As I have always been a nerd, I got only one thing to say, "you have seen nothing yet, baby".

I have read today that the first year of the baby's life is very stressful on the parents.

Stress, depression, sleep depravation.

Dipers and feeding every 2 hours of the night, etc...

Since seems like the bulk of the effort will be falling up on me, I am preparing for the effort. I am entirely not sure what to think about the idea of stay-at-home dad. Will we eventually send off the baby to the daycare, yes, probably.

I am sure I want to help as much as I can for the first 2 months to let my wife re-bounce back to good health and to rest. We will see what to do later.

I hope I will experience the baby carrying as a good practice for myself. I hope I will grow mentaly and spiritually.

Remember the buddhist marathon monks of the Mount Hiei raising up after midnight and running 80 km daily.

The friend of a long time ago called me yesterday. It is so nice to talk to somebody familiar. It has been a real long time.

While in the circle of friends... another friend seems to be depressed... problems, problems.

I am in the public library in Evanston updating my blog and checking the eMails.

SBC disconnected my service couple of days ago, but not connected the new one, they promise they will have it up by the 15th (one more week).

Since I have a small business account, I asked the rep how would she conduct her business if she had her Internet turned-off for 2 weeks.

They suck!

I read a medical add today...

"Women weighing over 155 pounds were at higher risk of pregnancy when taking birth control pills containing less than 35 mcg of estrogen.
The average weight of women aged 20 years and older examined in United States is 152 pounds."

At the height of 5 feet, 10 inches I weigh 155 pounds, just like an average woman.

Pathetic me! Gotta find me a bag of chips somewhere...

For a past few weeks I was trying to motivate my younger siblings a bit.

It is pathetic to see how uninterested they are in their own future, how little self-esteem they have. They don't know yet that they don't have to compete with their peers, or be more intelligent than any of them. All that matters that they constantly work on their own interests and cultivate them early. If they find this out in college, it may be too late.

Both of them have a lot of potential, both are intelligent enough. My brother has a strong advantage of having a wonderful character and good work ethic.

Neither had any direction in their lives.

It brings back my previous note from February 06, 2002 (last paragraph).

PSEUDOTUMOR CEREBRI

Typically occures in (19 per 100,000) women 20 - 40 years old, mostly obese (80%).

Symptoms:
- swollen optic discs (normally a small, creamy, circle with sharp edges agaist red background)
- severe headaches, especially when bending/compressing the body
- vomiting, double vision, ringing in the eyes, and vertigo
- cerebrospinal fluid pressure above normal 7 - 20 cm
- normal reading (negative) in CT scan

Causes:
Cerebrospinal fluid pressure on the nerves, including optic causing inflamation. Connection with female hormones and overweight.

Prevention:
Keeping the weight and cardio-vascular system healthy by proper exercise and healthy diet.