i haven't been writing journal entries for a while now. i suppose my life has been pretty eventless. i can't even quite remember when i last wrote on this blog about what's been going on in the real world (as opposed to just recording dreams).

i changed schools. i used to teach at wahiawa el, and last year, i decided to switch over to wheeler middle. the decision was kind of on a whim. i mean, there were reasons why i switched, but most of it had to do with the sense that it was time for a change. this last year has, for the most part, been good. but it has involved a lot of busy-ness, and whenever work gets demanding, a lot of the other aspects of my life get put on hold...

this summer was just a continuation of the busy-ness. i basically worked non-stop from the formal end of instruction of the 2022-2023 school year. i taught summer hub, and i also did the gencyber camp. i continued to teach classes at the acupuncture school. when some of those things started to end, then i had a lot of other responsibilities at home, things i had to repair. like i fixed the garage door opener, when the gear axle snapped. and i also repaired a leak in the second floor bathroom, as well as the collateral damage, which was the ceiling and part of the wall in the garage. i also worked a lot in the yard. i weeded everything (pretty much), and recreated the two hugulkultur planter boxes, and chopped down one tree near to the ground, and chopped another quite a ways. i also chopped out some of the long-standing roots in the back yard. i'm not done yet, but i feel relatively content that i've tried my best to get the yard under control, in the time that i've had...

now i'm at the point where a lot of things are done, or i am reaching my limit in so far as completing things... and i'm seeing the emptiness of life beneath it all. so i'm trying to return to the idea of doing routines, of pursuing a variety of interests, of keeping my life active and alive... i've also confronted the idea of desire, which is always in some sort of tension with death, and with the question of the purpose and point of life... at some level, there has to be an acknowledgement that there really is no ultimate point or purpose to doing anything, and yet, we must continue to do things if we are to survive and be vital... i don't do anything that contradicts my oaths and my loyalty to my family; but i understand the restlessness within me must be acknowledged... i cannot deny that certain desires exist within me. i can't pretend the ocean within me is still...

at the same time that i acknowledge this, i must admit that i feel distant from everything; from the world, from my heart. one of the reasons i feel compelled to record my dreams is that they seem unforced, and therefore authentic. they are traces of who i am, beneath the machinations of my thoughts, which are hungry and totalitarian. maybe even this current attempt to routinize things, etc., is a way to smother out the chaotic stirrings of my heart... i must maintain a semblance of order and progress at all times, it seems. no wandering about. never getting lost...

i have always had a longing. but even if the person/idea that i long for is purely fictitious, and impossible, i can't just rationalize and get rid of it... even if it's too late for me, even if it can never happen, a stupid and stubborn part of me still strays and wanders... i hate this, at times, but it is what i am. i cannot pretend that i am not chained to this...

i am tired. (i think i have always been tired) but i am functional. and for me, that is good. being functional and purposeful is good in my book... i only wish that i could be this AND be authentic, whatever that means. being authentic is difficult for me, not so much that i am afraid to show myself, but more because i don't even know who i am, i can't feel anything strongly me that i would dare to express... this makes me wonder whether i have a soul or a heart at all.

dream 7/29/2023

earlier today i had the same nightmare of it being the week of finals, and aside from the stress of prepping for those classes, there was that one that i had not attended all semester, that there was no way to prepare for, that i was doomed to fail... there was that dream this afternoon...

and then: tonight... i had many many many dreams... one was that i was in a house, in the bottom floor... it was a house in the wilderness of the ... of waialua? which isn't necessary a wildnerness... but it is kind of a wilder place, more country. there were no walls between yards. i suppose i imagined if i grew up there... like a volleyball net set up in an in between field, which would require making friends with the kids of the neighborhood to play... in any case, i lived in a place like that. tumbleweed. and then one night, i was downstairs, and there was a rustling, and in came two axis deer. actually more. except they weren't axis deer. they sort of shapeshifted in between, and turned out to be kids. i tried to take pictures. there were other people coming into the house as well, hunters, scientists... and they were chasing these special axis deer. and they ended up kind of sleeping in our downstairs... i was downstairs trying to finish some sort of painting, a painting of some kind of a 3d object, a face of sorts, and in many parts, i was using some reddish orange paint that i was running out of... and then, it seemed, everyone downstairs woke up, and they were in some sort of buffet line to eat, and as they were in the line, they were commenting on my work. i recall my aunty kiyomi bein gin that line, commenting loudly...

so then, there were other parts of the dream... there was a play that was being put on, and i supposedly was the playwright, only i wasn't exactly proud of the work. i saw an awkward moment in dialogue where they were = they were trying to kiss this character, this ferdinand frog, in order to make him into a prince...

at the same time, i was walking out during the interlude, into a college campus field. and at one point, there was a killer who was after me. adn running up fro,m the lower part of the field to where the play was supposed to continue, i overheard a white clad antonio bandares summoning people to kill me. i was trying to draw attention to this from the crowd, but no one seemed to understand. so i was walking up the field, over spiked gates, through random knick knacks... and all the while antonio and his friends were following me. there was a point where we assisted some child in a stroller or something, but all the while, the intent was clear, not to lose sight of me, because i was the one that needed killing...

dream 7/1/2023

i can't remember the front end of this dream... but at one point, there was this demonstration being done by these orange robed korean monks. i saw a pile of weapons, some very ornate. people were grabbing the weapons, and i was considering what to take. then, i saw the master demonstrate with one of his pupils. he did a sort of push-hands drill, and as he did it, he kept chanting "i am you and you are me." then, he came to me and did the same thing, only, at one point, he accelerated, and my chanting became faster and (i guess) angrier. he stopped me and said, no, you must not respond with anger. and then he moved on... the practice continued... (we seemed to be a large bunch of children)... and then at one point, there was some sort of alarm or bell, which signaled the end of the "period." i accompanied a large group of children down to the lunch area/room... i was a tallish monk amongst these children. at one point, i was told by a child to stay away, so i mockingly did so. then, when i reached the bottom of this sloping hill, i realized i was supposed to find a particular child (it was supposed to be kara, my sister's youngest). i saw her at the bottom of the slope. i then carried her, and we went to a food stand run by the monks. the food was mainly apple dishes... i recall trying to decide what to get her, when the dream sort of faded...