5/18/2020

the date just changed. i'm actually writing at the end of my sunday. literally, it is only 1 minute and 15 seconds into monday... but whatever.

today was dominated by my nephew's graduation. i made a sign (and did a pretty decent job of it, if i do say so myself). that pretty much took up most of my morning. and then, well, after working half-heartedly on a few aspects of my routine, then we actually went over to the street to wave and hold up the sign at just the right moment, when my nephew passed in the passenger seat of the car. it was nice, albeit brief. upon our return home, it was the same old stuff, until we headed over to my parent's house to eat dinner with the graduate. i know, technically, it's not allowed, but i'm pretty sure we're clean, and my parents are clean, or we would've had something by now. (okay, that's not a real justification, but whatever).

at my parent's house, i was for the most part not really listening or paying attention to much of anything. tinkered with the piano for a time. my parents were eventually watching a show called kirin ga kuru, about oda nobunaga's death or something (most of these historical dramas are about the three rulers of japan: nobunaga, hideyoshi, or tokugawa... or else, they're about the chushin gura (of which my ancestor is one). anyway, i had just read some story about nobunaga, or at least somewhat related to him, and to hideyoshi... it was a fictional account of a blind masseuse (by junichiro tanizaki), talking about how he had served oda nobunaga's beautiful sister, and how the ruthless nobunaga ordered the killing of his own sister's son (because he was a threat to succession or something)... and how hideyoshi was the reluctant person who carried out this deed; even though he lusted after oda nobunaga's sister... and how, oddly enough, hideyoshi was eventually to marry lady ochacha, the daughter of nobunaga's sister, who (as the narrator says) was the spitting image of her mother...

the story on tv was about mitsuhide or something, and i kinda got lost in my parents' explanation of it all. one cool thing was that my father recited something which is probably taught to all kids in japan as common historical knowledge, this three line "poem" which describes the different philosophies of these three famous generals... how to get a bird to sing? nobunaga would kill it, hideyoshi would get it to want to sing, and tokugawa ieyasu would simply wait.

anyway, after that, for some reason, my dad showed me this little shrine thing containing an accordion style booklet, with calligraphy detailing our family's lineage. he said it only went until his own grandfather, and that he had neglected to update it. i think he meant to entrust it to me or something, although my japanese is very minimal, and i wouldn't know what to do with it. "am i supposed to chant sutras to it?" i asked, and he kind of chuckled at that. he himself doesn't do anything of that sort...

i feel kind of ashamed about stuff like that. my grandma (on my mother's side) probably would have hoped that i would carry on the tenrikyo religion in our family. i probably would have, but my uncle seemed really possessive of the ewa beach house and the little shrine there. i don't know. not that having the shrine would have meant anything fundamentally different; i could still have done the daily prayers and such... but i guess having something physical would have- i don't know- tied me to that past. and that obligation. in any case, i haven't done the prayers in, like, forever... i think i didn't exactly agree with aspects of the religion, especially those having to do with set roles of men and women... i think the religion was tied to my fantasies of having a japan-born wife, honestly. that, and this idea of japan as this summer country... i don't know, i guess some fantasies die hard. i guess some motivations to do "religion" and be spiritual, are often tied to some not so holy ulterior motives. i honestly think at times that the women are a kind of conscious draw... but in any case, i haven't done much at all in the religion. and i likely won't.

i've always felt i was closer to buddhism anyway. i don't believe in anything institutional, or ritualistic. at least i don't think i do. but i do believe in meditation. not that i've seen tangible results... but when i feel messed up, muddled, or confused in side (and usually with me, that's accompanied by this vicious seething hatred of myself) then i end up meditating. or, let me amend that... i usually speak to "god", even though more often than not, what that actually means is i'm talking to my grandma... and often plead with her for clarity... and then, maybe, if i'm still not able to drop off to sleep, then i meditate. meditation for me isn't about the endpoint, even though maybe secretly it is. it's more a process of repeated recontextualization. like, my mind gets drawn or trapped in a certain pattern, and then eventually, i see myself getting entrapped, and there is a moment where i am not so attached to my mental cogitations, and then i forget and get entrapped again. it just keeps repeating... the notion, though, is that i start to see my mental machinations, and hopefully, the fixations, the patterns, start to thin out. and then, there is... what?

*****

kids are maybe seen as an extension of ourselves... so maybe if they don't succeed, is that a failing on my part? should i take responsibility for it? at this point in the game, i kind of despair about it... or rather, i'm pretty fatalistic about it. i mean, i will intervene, but it is always in a weak kind of way. i no longer feel compelled to "fix" things... am i being selfish about things? lazy?

*****

i'm thinking about really growing my hair out, and tying it up in a man bun. like a samurai or something. i wish, at times, that i had the air of a samurai. a kind of cutting glare. but i'm too soft, really... i am too merciful. and lazy... but at least, maybe, i will look- different? the wife gave approval to the idea...

*****

i liked a couple of notions that i heard in billy collins's masterclass. this idea that the strength of a poem is measured in the silence that it creates... and this other idea, that a poet is essentially trying to get out of the trap that he has created...

5/16/2020

today was another kind of low energy day. i did a sort of rush job on a farewell present for someone who's retiring from our school, and then blitzed over to whitmore village to deliver it. after that, most of the day was kind of blah. i did go shopping with lynn, and got a few things i needed (although i forgot about something critical, another something for someone else who's leaving my school). my feelings are kind of ambivalent about contributing to that particular someone's farewell, but i do think that people need my help. my wife thinks i shouldn't, there once was a time when i felt really low, like quitting from my school, due to this sense of ostracism that i felt, and this from people who up until then, i felt had my back. i guess i kind of forget about it, i mean, i don't ever, not really, but i get over it, and i function. but anyway, my wife thinks i shouldn't do anything more. but i guess i am still a sucker, a "helper." so i guess i will end up helping anyway.

*****

i had a thought about how we keep imagining that the attentions of another will somehow remake us. like maybe if someone were interested in me, then i would suddenly be interestING. but hey, i've been around this bozo long enough to know that, well, i'm not particularly fun to be around. i abide in deep silences. i'm always secretly compelled by this hidden mission or something inside my head. i can't really relax and have fun. i always imagine, that maybe with the right someone, it would be different. but it's all a lie, it's all a fiction...

sometimes it seems different, if it appears that i could make someone happier. but really, how long would that last? in the end, the illusions and the "misunderstandings" surrounding each and every one of us fade, and we are left with- well, with ourselves.

so i was thinking about this with relation to my conception of the "switch" that i had a couple of days ago. and how attention or no attention, the fixation is- seemingly inescapable. well, as gi joe says, knowing is half the battle. maybe awareness of this ridiculous fixation is part of how i dislodge myself from it. that is the hope, anyway...

*****

i think last night, i was fixated on... well. it's hard to say. but let's just say it's strange how certain appetites can seem eternal, they can seem to make promises of time stretching forever, but then once they reach a certain point of satiety, then all of a sudden those promises seem banal and silly... and then you are left with a kind of disappointment. because all of a sudden, you no longer want anything particularly much. and then you are left wondering, is life just about wanting things? about wanting and not getting them, or wanting and getting them? is want what stretches us into time?

what if, deep down, i don't really want anything?

*****

currently, i'm off track as far as writing "stories" or "poems" or anything formal. when i write in the notebook i've started, it's just a mad rush to put my thoughts down onto paper. i would say it's not as restless as that "writing down the bones" author spoke of, but it is still a kind of compulsion. i feel better about that kind of writing, because it seems truer. it doesn't allow pauses. i hate pauses. pauses are the discontinuities that force you to question yourself. to hate yourself...

i was thinking that a lot of what i am is infected by this insinuation, this despising voice... it hurts. and so i hide. i depart and i hide. i just want to live, with no pain. feeling the plenitude of being, blind if necessary. i don't want to see, because seeing hurts. seeing is shame. that's the underlying truth. maybe everything i am or do is in response to this fundamental pain. and that's where this whole salvific notion comes from, that maybe in the attentions of the right eyes, i could be redeemed. transformed into something that is free from any reproach. something that is immune.

i suppose that that's one of the reasons i don't like interacting with people nowadays. i can suffer my own illusions when i'm working with myself, but sometimes when i interact with people, all of a sudden, my whole narrative, my whole edifice that i've built up in my head, it just tumbles to the ground, and i'm left feeling incredibly stupid and empty. and i hate that feeling. i hate that more than anything in the world...

i just want to feel normal... easy. that's really all i want.

5/14/2020

i was feeling kind of down today, unmotivated... a bit tired, i suppose. i'm not sure why. there are little things that kind of set me off, and make me tired. interacting with other teachers, sometimes, makes me feel like this. it is the endless nature of the work. i don't know. in some respects, i have lost motivation. i mean, i just think certain things are fake, and much ado about nothing. i suppose as a younger teacher, i may have gone with full gusto into such things, but not so much nowadays. nowadays, i often see teaching as work, and i also see the learning accomplished by students as work. i don't pretend so much that it's supposed to be pleasant. i mean, it is, or can be, but it only comes after overcoming certain barriers within oneself, and then getting the "wheel" turning... i don't know. maybe i'm just kind of dark nowadays.

*****

i had an image, or an inkling, yesterday.

i took lynn over to kailua beach. and while i was treading water with her, i had this idea... there was a part in my kappa story, about how i would go to swim practice at rec i, and how the coach there was really mean, he would threaten to throw a slipper at our heads if we put our hands down while we were treading water... something like that. not sure what it had to do with my brother, really, but it was a tangible experience to talk about... anyway, i kind of thought about having an imaginary teacher, who taught me how to tread water... at that point of panic when the ground would suddenly drop off, and you could no longer stand on the bottom of the sea... what would you do? and how i was whipping my hands around swiftly and flutter kicking to keep myself up... and tiring myself out. and someone, this voice, tells me to slow down, just pace myself. and i do that. and then, when i was tired, i would just lie on my back and float. and the sky would open up above me... the blue sky in all its majesty... and, come to think of it, i could return to the image of the bowl. how sometimes i could look up into the sky and imagine that i was plastered on the roof over a vastness, and imagine that things were actually upside-down, and that i was suspended over this tremendous distance...

but i guess i lose myself. it was only an image.

oh yes, i imagined that as a child i had the ability to speak to toys. and that i could talk to the broken toys that my older brother had abandoned. that smiley caterpillar thing. i used to always feel sad for broken toys. created for a purpose, to spread joy, or something like that, with painted smiles on their faces (they couldn't help but smile)... but then neglected, broken, thrown away. this caterpillar thing, its plastic body was cracked, and eventually all you could see was its rusted metal spine. and i felt so sad for it. there was no redeeming it, so it was destined to be destroyed and forgotten, as are so many things... also, i remember owlie, my "stuffed animal." it had water bells inside its large belly. one of its eyes was missing. the other, a round patch, had a closed eye. i wonder if the other eye was open? and who destroyed that eye? i remember by brother tore my donald duck stuffed animal, tore the neck off it, and it had to be stitched. i think i loved it all the more for its wound... but in the story, i would imagine all of the toys broken, that i inherited... something like that?

*****

i can't compete. i won't compete.

there is this issue of false dichotomies. when you are locked in a duality, it may seem that freedom lies in "flipping the switch." like, if you are turned on, then the way out of the trap is to turn off. but that's actually false freedom, and it only affirms the trap of the duality... it is not breaking out of that duality at all.

so my decision to efface myself (because i cannot win the attentions of the world around me, and because i cannot prove myself worthy of anything), that decision or quest to efface myself only affirms the trap of that duality... the duality of worth/worthlessness, or attention/no attention. it's always just a pretend maneuver. like, how the errant knight goes off into the wilderness, peregrination, to "disappear," but it is only to win the affections through his suffering... it isn't true "effacement." same with me. all of my "struggles" are only so that i can ultimately win a measure of worthiness. my walking away is not a walking away from the need for affirmation. it's just a delay tactic, to see if i can circle around and win more upon my return...

how is it possible to really break out of that trap? and not simply flip the switch? but completely break it?

*****

oh yes, i have to remember, tomorrow i have that agriculture thing meeting...

oh well, i don't have anything else really to talk about.

5/12/2020 (part 3)

yes, i'm writing in my blog a third time today. it's actually part of my next "rotation." here are all the things i do in each rotation (or try to do...): i do some ab ripper x exercises (like 3 of them, because that's all i can tolerate, and not lose my motivation). then, i draw a portrait of a picture i find online. after that, i do some basic boxing, thai kickboxing, and judo drills. i don't really know why. i guess it's just to get myself moving. before, i used to do taijiquan, but i've realized or seem to feel that a lot of the moves, while graceful, have no implicit meaning or appliclation, and hence, ring somewhat hollow for me. i guess as an aging man, that sort of thing should be appropriate for me. but i guess i no longer believe in it as a practical, practiceable martial art... so anyway, after the martial arts stuff, i play songs on the piano. they are songs that i used to play, when i was younger... no, let me amend that. only one of them is from when i was younger. it even has the notation that my old teacher, mr. sam adams, used to write in (or have me write in). poetic statements and imagery to help me to visualize or "feel" different parts of the song. anyway, that song is the "first arabesque" by debussy. i also play nocturne in e minor (?) by chopin. and i have been trying to play the song that my brother used to practice early in the morning, a song that sort of haunted me: "rustle of spring" by christian sinding. that latter has been proving to be difficult because it keeps switching between odd intervaled notes (i don't know the technical way of saying this): like, in parts, i will have to play 7ths, or 6ths, or 5ths, etc., switching back and forth. anyways, those are the three songs that i play regularly. i also have been trying to play "dancing in the moonlight" by king harvest, although it's gotten to be somewhat boring due to the simplistic repetition of it. i suppose i could make it more challenging by attempting to sing along with the piano playing... but i don't know. anyway, after playing the piano, i'm supposed to go running with the dog. however, i sort of stopped doing this, partly out of laziness, but also partly because i'm starting to notice that our dog musubi is slowing down, and that i shouldn't push him to run at my pace any more... by the way, i am super out of shape. just a quick sprint up the hill of our street gets me winded. or, to be more precise, i don't usually feel it going up the hill, but immediately after, turning the bend and going downhill, i think i start to feel it. it's as though my heart and breath have geared up for the challenge of going uphill, and then the sudden disappointment of that downhill segment makes me feel "the chain rattling" within me. i also notice that i have a kind of wheeze on my exhale. i think that if i got more in shape, then that wheeze would diminish, or even perhaps vanish. at points in time when i was more in shape, like when my son and i were doing judo, then i notice that a lot of that wheeze would go away...

anyway, after running, then i read a chapter in some book. for a long while, i was reading "a tale of two cities" by charles dickens, but i recently finished it. so now, i've picked up margaret atwood's "the handmaid's tale," and am trying to proceed through that. after all, i did listen to her masterclass, and found her to be an excellent teacher. so far, i've read two chapters in the book, and i love her writing. she is very plainsong (as she puts it), but direct. some of the images (which all are purposeful, and striking) are extremely evocative and deeply meaningful to the plot. her prose, in fact, borders on poetry to me...

so after reading a chapter, then i do one more big physical thing, which is p90x. i've been doing segments of different workouts, like the shoulders and arms workout, or the chest and back workout, or the legs and back workout. nothing big. just a little something to keep me going. like today, i did 6 exercises out of the legs and back workout: 4 leg exercises, and 2 pull up (back) exercises... after the p90x workout, then i listen to a "class" in masterclass. right now, i've been listening to billy collins, a poet. i appreciate his take on poetry, although i do feel he's a little- how should i put it- formulaic? but then again, how would one teach poetry, without some sense of structure? some set perspective? i guess without eyes, you can't really teach...

so then, after the masterclass thing, then i write in my blog (which i'm doing right now). then, after that, i try to write in my story. for a while, i used the nanowrimo website, and would just time myself for about 30 minutes (i'm so wimpy right now), and then enter the new word count. but then i decided to write in a notebook instead (following both margaret atwood and billy collins- and also neil gaiman, btw). and it's not really possible (or easy) to get a word count from that. so instead, for the past two cycles, i've just made it my task to write a page or two (now, two) in the notebook... still, kind of disappointing crap, but one must hope that by continuing the process, things will get better.

after the writing, then i practice japanese. that's gotten to be a real bear. i'm working on the level 3 (probably grade 3) kanji, and that set has about 200 kanji. so instead of trudging through all 200 and getting most of it wrong, i've just gone through this process of reviewing the ones i missed before (writing them 3 times each), and then writing about 30 that i don't know each time i cycle through. my hope is that i will gradually pick up more and more of that set of kanji. in fact, on this most recent pass, i was able to write 8 of the kanji based on their meaning. i know, whoop dee doo, but it's a start. (i'm already proficient in the first 240 kanji!).

after japanese, then i do something in khan academy. i'm going through the html and css class. i really like the teacher, pamela, who is fun and easy going. i just listen to one "lesson," and then do one related project.

after that, i read 5 chapters in a couple of manga: one piece, and berserk. i'm really falling in love with berserk, despite its gory reputation. i appreciate the pacing of the story. and the main character, i find to be extremely sympathetic.

recently, i've tagged on meditation to my routine. so i meditate for 30 minutes.

and then, it's back to the start again!

*****

in between, i kind of go and check out the plants.

and that's it. that's been my routine of late, in between the daily work tasks of trying to contact and work with my students... or attend online meetings...

*****

i'm hoping to break through the planks of reason, as emily dickenson put it. i want to reach a place of plenitude. you know when you have a vivid dream? that's how i want to feel when i write. it's so clear and believable to me, even if it is mad, that it is a simple matter to write everything down. i imagine i would feel compelled to write everything down. not this frustrating trickle, this drip drip drip of putting words to paper... empty of inspiration, vapid words.

oh well, i feel that that's enough for today!

5/12/2020 (continued)

so my 9:30 was a no show. i used the extra time to check out my aquaponics plants. for some reason, although initial growth was strong, there has been a drop off. now, i notice certain leaves of certain plants are paling. i know that some of it may be because there hasn't been a regular ebb and flow cycle with the plants, due to clogs in the stand pipes, etc. i try to monitor that as much as i can. but i guess some other things could be low nitrate, for some reason. i also am aware of other nutrients that may not be present in my aquaponics systems. i was thinking, for example, of getting phosphorus stones, or of supplementing with fertilizer. i know that one aquaponics lady recommended supplementing with chelated iron, which i never did. but i think i will try to write something about all possible deficiencies, as well as all possible pests, from my perspective. i have already had to contend with powdered mildew on my cucumber plant. i used neem oil, sprayed it on all the places where i could see the telltale white spotting, and i seem to have conquered, or at least diminished, the problem.

the hydroponics plants seem to be doing well. i'm considering starting a second batch, but i have to wait until the plants (which i've grown from seed) are ready. i need to wait until the true leaves (not cotelydons) have formed... i'm considering trying that nutrient film technique eventually, and maybe using the remnants of the rain gutters as the water transport canals. but that will be later on.

i still have to fix both of the rain catchment systems. one definitely can capture water when it rains, but it has a leak. i'm still not sure if the leak comes from where i put the little faucet in, or if there is a crack in the bottom of the barrel (at one point, i did drop the barrel pretty hard on the ground, and it looked as though there were spiderweb cracks on the bottom). i will use some kind of sealant to prevent any leakage. the other one must be sealed too, but for some reason, nothing is ending up in that barrel. i don't know if there is a blockage further up in the rain gutters; i suspect not, since at one point, i did hear water dripping into the elbow that i set up. but for some reason, no water is actually ending up in the barrel. maybe i set up the elbow attachment to the barrel such that the water is not ending up into the barrel's hole, and is instead, going somewhere else... but i'm not sure.

*****

writing has become something of a problem. i don't know what i'm trying to say. and i guess what i end up writing sounds so contrived that it really loses me as a writer. i simply don't want to write it. and the further in i get, the more artificial it seems. i guess i could just stick to writing feelings out. the frustrations i have. but that hardly makes a story. it is more a situation, dialogue, action, that make a story. and not a lot of shit happens in my actual life. that's why i make stuff up. i try to make stuff up to represent or augment or highlight the situation... but a lot of it is fake, and the fakeness, the contrivances, show.

but part of the problem with my brother's story is that my feelings are at once too strong, and too ambiguous. how is it possible to communicate ambiguity without falling into the trap of saying nothing at all? and how is it possible to write about what cannot be written about? how to avoid sounding whiny or preachy? it all frankly wears me out.

oh well, better get back to the grind. surprisingly, it's almost 11, and i have another meeting to attend...

5/12/2020

it's morning, on a tuesday. i will be starting my sessions with students soon. normally, by my cycled routine, i usually write in this blog sometime in the evening. but for some reason, the way things turned out, i'm writing this now, in the morning.

not much to report. i think i'm doing better with my drawing. it used to be difficult to draw faces, still is, frankly, but i think i'm getting better at it. in particular, a difficulty is, for some reason, making eyes symmetrical. well, not exactly symmetrical, because when you really look at and draw eyes, you find that they are anything but... but what i mean is, drawing eyes so that they "look right," and look true. when i do a face, i usually go on something of a journey. i notice in the last portrait that i drew, i started somewhere in the neck, then went up to the lips, then one side of the nose (usually the shadowed side, because it provides me more shapes to work with), and then one eye (usually the right eye, right from my perspective, not the right eye of the actual face)... and then i started to begin the right forehead... it's only then that i begin to attack the left side of the face, sometimes from the bottom up, sometimes from the top down... the left eye is a test. if i can pull off making it "look right", then the entire face is imbued with a sense of realism...

i guess i'm always doing what they call a contour drawing, that is, drawing edges. but if you really think about it, there are edges to almost everything. sure, there are edges that are soft, and those are difficult to capture via a line. but you can basically draw the shape of, say, a shade of color. that's what i do. it's how i "capture territory" when i draw... eventually, i would like to explore color, but that seems it's own empire. right now, i just do a passing job at capturing what they say are values. that is, i put more weight or darkness on certain things, and less on others. the most fun is keeping things white. if there is so much brightness as to make things indistinguishable, then the best thing to do is to leave it alone. sometimes, there's a magic in this. for example, in the most recent portrait i did, there was a reflection on the iris, so much so that it would not have been true to the image to draw the edge of the iris. so instead, i left the edge out, and almost made the reflection an extension of the white cornea. but the overall impression was that that blank space that i had put in was a reflection of light. i guess the eye understands and translates the image appropriately- if you are true to what you draw.

i wish writing were similar...

oh well, it's about 9:25, so i'm going to set up my meeting with my first student... be back later (maybe).

5/9/2020

today is saturday.

en route to target, shopping with my wife... she made a comment, or rather, passed on a comment. she told me that my mom thought i was too proud. and then that led me to this rambling discourse about the anger that i held inside of me... anger, primarily at my brother. but also, anger at my mother for repeatedly entreating me to "kowtow" to him, in order to bring the family together... anger at my family for concealing the crime, the disgrace, and promoting a hypocrisy, or lie, that allows one (my brother) to live admired and respected, while my sister went to jail... the reversal of it all. how i hate it. even now, it makes my blood boil...

and it's killing me.

as in the car with my wife, i admitted, i don't know how to forgive. i don't think i want to. part of it's the fact that no one knows about it. everybody accepts the status quo. and i am supposed to keep the secret too (although i risk it every time i write in this blog)... the concealment is part of what causes that anger to seethe within me... it only grows and grows. it consumes everything. it fills me with tension, with restlessness...

i think, at times, that that is what keeps me from truth. but to get there is difficult. it means a kind of surrender that i'm not willing or able to commit to. i mean, i feel as though i've surrendered, and been humble all my life. and it leads only to more resentment and abuse...

of course, if i were thinking zen, then i would admit that i hadn't gone far enough. that i hadn't experienced the radical humbling that completely effaced and dissolved the self... but i am afraid. there, i feel, is the way of death. and it is through the gauntlet of more and more fracturing, more and more destruction of who i am. the monuments i have built to my self...

*****

i still imagine...

when all the doors are closed... what purpose is there to live?

i am hoping to push things, to stir things, to settle things... and thence, perhaps, to see the depths? the clear depths? the waters so clear you can see fathoms deep to the ancient buried drowned secrets? and the wonderment of who you are, of who i am?

those places, in dreams, that allow me to access the underwater worlds. i must visit and explore. and find out who i am...

*****

billy collins spoke about his writing process. like margaret atwood, he foregoes typing directly into the computer. i now understand why. while it may seem productive to be able to type fast, and delete all errors... like you are going directly to the final product... well, in doing that, you erase the entire process of writing. the mess of it.

yesterday, during the nanowrimo timed writing, i neglected to continue the "kappa noodle" story, which, to be honest, is snarling in on itself, and becoming unwieldy and complex... and basically just wrote a 30 minute bitch fest. i was complaining about a lot of things... also writing a lot of unsavory fantasies... it was really a bunch of trash. i am not sure what i intended with it. but it probably felt like the better thing to do than to try to confine my thoughts to a dead, inspire-less amalgamation of words...

believe in process, above all else.

*****