eric and i were emailing back and forth about going fishing, and google put this ad in gmail for him:

Imagine reaching for an apple on a tree and having your hand suddenly impaled by a metal hook that drags you—the whole weight of your body pulling on that one hand—out of the air and into an atmosphere in which you cannot breathe. This is what fish experience when they are hooked for “sport.”

http://www.fishinghurts.com/index.asp

lol.

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i would end up here:

i’m guessing you’d end up somewhere similar:
http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

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my sister’s going to cambodia next week with the peace corps and will be there for 27 months teaching english and helping underdeveloped communities. my mom sent out a press release on monday and the paper interviewed my mother, sister and her tutor yesterday. it’s a headline article on the press telegram’s website.

Poly High grad is among first Peace Corps volunteers to be assigned to the nation.
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
Article Launched: 01/24/2007 10:47:22 PM PST

LONG BEACH - Since her freshman year at UCLA, Emi Caitlin Ishigooka had carried around an application she had found on campus for the Peace Corps.

For much longer, she had carried in her head the exotic stories of her mom, Bridget Dole, about the Peace Corps volunteers Dole had met in locales such as Palau, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Truk and other Pacific islands in 1971.

Soon Ishigooka will have her own stories to tell.

The 23-year-old UCLA and Poly High graduate was chosen to be one of the inaugural group of Peace Corps volunteers assigned to Cambodia.

In a week, Ishigooka will depart San Francisco for learning and adventure in a faraway land.

Joking about her mother’s influence, Ishigooka says, “She’s kicking herself for it now.

“I tell her, `It’s your fault, you filled me with all your stories.”‘

“Now that she’s really going, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut,” Dole says with a laugh. “I’m very proud and nervous. I’m probably more nervous for myself. I’m going to miss her so much.”

Ishigooka is one of 30 volunteers who will leave for Phnom Penh Jan. 31. After three months of training in Cambodia’s capitol, the volunteers will disperse to rural areas. Like
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Ishigooka, they will teach English as a second language to high school-aged children. For two years, Ishigooka will live with a host family and immerse herself in her job and the culture.

“Growing up in Long Beach and going to Poly I was exposed to so many cultures that it spurred my interest,” Ishigooka says.

Giving of herself is nothing new to Ishigooka.

Ishigooka volunteered with the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina and was stationed in Galveston, Texas, shortly after Hurricane Rita struck.

Ishigooka has also volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, was the chair for philanthropy at her sorority at UCLA and volunteered at Community Hospital in Long Beach.

To prepare for her assignment, Ishigooka has been spending the last three weeks receiving Khmer language lessons from Nanh Toun.

On a Wednesday afternoon, Ishigooka and Toun sit together in Toun’s upstairs apartment on 17th Street near Poly High. On a couch beneath a picture of the Angkor Wat temple complex taped to the wall, Toun and Ishigooka work through the Khmer alphabet from a first-grade level book.

Toun patiently guides Ishigooka through subtle sound variations in the Khmer language. Occasionally, he gives her phrases and tips for conversation that she jots down in a notebook.

Toun’s daughter, Nancy, was a first-grade student of Dole’s at Jackie Robinson Academy, a foreign-language intensive school. Now the elder Toun is getting a chance to return the favor.

Toun says when he was in refugee camps in Thailand, he taught Khmer to orphans.

Like so many Cambodians, he bears the scars of the civil war and subsequent Khmer Rouge genocide. In Toun’s case, the scars are literal. He was struck in the head by shrapnel while attending high school in 1974 and is disabled by partial paralysis on the left side of his body.

“I think she will do well,” Toun says of Ishigooka. “A lot of people will be very happy. They want to learn English from Americans.”

Toun also says he expects Ishigooka to learn much about the world from her assignment.

Dole agrees.

“It broadens your view of the world any time you travel,” Dole says, “especially when you go to a developing country.”

In joining the Peace Corps, Ishigooka is among a growing number of younger adults who are signing up for volunteer organizations nationally.

According to the Peace Corps, which was established in 1961 to counter growing Chinese and Soviet influence in developing countries, applications last year were at a 30-year high. Surprisingly, 2007 is the first year the Peace Corps is sending volunteers to Cambodia.

Although the Cambodian government and Peace Corps reached an agreement in 1994, fears of perceived political instability and a shortage of funds kept projects on hold until now.

Although in its early years, Peace Corps volunteers were most likely to work in fields and provide basic technological help to build communities, today 43 percent of volunteers teach, while only 6 percent are involved in agrarian work.

The focus of the Cambodian-Peace Corps project will be the teaching of English. In Cambodia, where illiteracy is widespread, especially in the wake of the slaughter of intellectuals by the Khmer Rouge, English is considered a key to gaining employment in tourism and other industries.

But the social component of the Peace Corps remains strong.

“It’s expected that you’ll work in community development,” Ishigooka said. “Once we get adjusted, we assess the needs of the community. Basically, that’s a major component.”

Because she is among the first generation of volunteers in the country, Ishigooka says: “I guess I get to be a trailblazer. I don’t have to fill a mold.

“On the other hand (the villagers) may not know exactly why I’m there. I guess I’ll have to create my own role.”

After her stint, Ishigooka said she may return to school to study either public policy or international development.

But, she adds: “It’s hard to see in the future when this could lead down so many paths.”

One person already planning to beat a path to her daughter’s door is Dole.

“I’m hoping to go visit next December,” Dole says. “We may have Christmas in Cambodia.”

Greg Mellen can be reached at greg.mellen@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1291.

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_5081944

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last night i bumped up my max chest press and did 2 reps @ 205lbs, and then pulled out 2, 8-rep sets @ 185. i’ve been making some strong chest/back increases in the last month or so. i had kinda been in a plateau situation for the last few months, but recently i’ve started doing core workouts with takako every other day, i’ve been keeping a log book of my workouts so i know exactly how much i can do, and taka’s been making me 2 shakes a day. i also switched from champion pure whey protein, to EAS max milk which is a full recovery shake:

ingredients:
Whey Protein Concentrate
Whey Protein Isolate
Calcium & Sodium Caseinates
Micellar Casein
Colostrum
Glutamine Peptides
Taurine
Lipid Blend
Dairy Lipids
Sunflower Oil
Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs)
Coconut Oil
L-Carnitine
Mono and Diglycerides
Creatine Potentiator Blend
Creatine Monohydrate
Betaine
Arginine
Methionine
Boron

… i bet it’s the colostrom or boron that’s making the difference :)

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so i’ve been playing zelda almost nonstop on the wii since i got it last week. the game let me rename the characters, so i figured i might as well name my horse taka.

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i was reading on cnn.com about how obama is setting up a ‘presidential exploratory committee’ to see if a presidential bid is viable. i really like obama, he’s very charismatic and very well spoken and from the short articles i’ve read he seems very intelligent. at the end of the article i saw these poll results:

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted on December 5-7, Obama trailed only Clinton when registered Democrats were asked who their top choice for the party’s presidential nominee would be.

Clinton was the No. 1 pick for 37 percent of the Democrats polled, while Obama was the choice of 15 percent of those surveyed. Former Vice President Al Gore was the only other potential candidate who enjoyed double-digit numbers, with 14 percent.

Gore has said he does not plan to seek the 2008 nomination.

The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

37% of registered democrats would nominate mrs. clinton?!? with only 15% for obama, and edwards not even in double digits?!? you guys are too fucking idealistic and need to start nominating people that can win a presidential race. hilary clinton will not win the presidency. 1 because she’s a woman, 2 because she’s a bitch. maybe as someone’s running mate, but not as the frontman. and at a distant second is a black guy. i know it seems to work in 24 but in the real america there are a lot of racists and people that would be uncomfortable with it. i would like to think he could win, but why run with an idealistic candidate? again as a running mate that’d be great, but who does that leave as a presidential candidate? gore came in #3 on that cnn poll, but he’s not even planning on running? anyway, you guys frustrate me.

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holy shit! last night’s episode of 24 was insane! it’s crazy how that show has no qualms about killing off it’s main characters or blowing up nuclear devices in los angeles. anyway, if you haven’t seen last night’s episode and plan to, please don’t read on…

last night curtis (who’s been jack’s right hand man in the field since day 4) threatened to kill the terrorist that jack was working with, and whom the president had just granted immunity. i guess when curtis was in the middle east, the particular terrorist in question beheaded some of the members in curtis’ unit. so just before curtis could put a bullet in the good? terrorist’s head, jack shot him in the chest. we don’t actually see him die, so maybe he’ll make a miraculous recovery, but he looked pretty dead to me. jack was all broken up and told the president that he couldn’t go on… until the damn terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb, taking out valencia and i imagine surrounding cities. that got him outta his funk, and next week, i bet he’s gonna kick some ass.

last night they also killed off kal penn of harold and kumar fame. i thought he’d be a main character, especially because he seemed somewhat conflicted with his terrorist ways, but yep, just before he could kill some kid, the agents raided his place and shot him. the fall of taj? kekeke.

i also like the recurring theme in this series so far of dying for nothing. jack almost dying for nothing when the us government gave him up to get the location of the wrong terrorist, that terrorist on the train that only was able to blow himself up, the electronics guy that got his head bashed in by the dad because he wanted a little more money, etc. etc.

anyway, i can’t wait until 11am!

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just after christmas, me, mike, ben and taka were walking around south coast plaza and stopped in a gamestop to play the wii. they had the zelda game which after trying and failing at for 5 minutes i gave up on, and also gave up on the wii.

then this past saturday before costin’s show, we were at ben’s house and i tried the wii sports games and they were super fun and easy to control, and taka was all over it so i decided i should get one after all. yesterday after not waking up until around 1p and then not being dressed until four-ish (nursing a mean hangover), we went to best buy and they practically laughed at me when i asked if they had any wiis.

so today at lunch i stopped by best buy and circuit city with similar scoffing from similarly unfriendly salespeople, and then went across the street to toys r us and they had 13 of them :) the guy said that the shipment arrived only half an hour before i got there and that they’d prolly be sold out in an hour. lucky me.

they didn’t have any of the controllers in stock, but the super nice salesman at tru told me about some game called ‘wii play’ (i guess it’s a collection of mini games or something) that comes with an extra controller for only $50, so i bought the $5 reservation card and’ll pick up the game and controller on wednesday <3!

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who knows about the validity of this article, but according to it, the bit torrent site thepiratebay.org wants to buy sealand, a 500 meter island, 7 miles off the coast of england.

Recently it was made clear that this country is for sale. To make sure the owners will be kopimistic and that the country won’t be governed by people that do not care about its future, we have come up with a plan. With the help of all the kopimists on Internets, we want to buy Sealand. Donate money and you will become a citizien.

i’m totally donating $10 to get my pRon and warez and have dual citizenship at the same time ;)

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/01/12/Pirate_Bay_plans_to_buy_its_own_country/

and a brief history of sealand… wtf, this can’t be real?!

http://www.sealandgov.org/history.html

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