Entries this day: Illegal_aliens Last_day Work_irony meditation train_home

Illegal aliens

12:51pm JST Tuesday 24 June 2008 (day 13971)

James sent us (me, Dude, Fred, Jesse), as a red herring, an email saying illegal aliens are a blight in the US, etc. (Here's a copy of the email in Snopes)

Not knowing (at first (*)) James was just trying to see how we'd react, I composed my reply:

You guys remember The Sneeches, by Dr Suess?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Stories#.22The_Sneetches.22

I believe that the details of who moved across which borders with what
skills are ultimately of no consequence, just like stars on Sneeches.

What I see in the world: a bunch of humans who are being taught by a
disruptive minority that some humans are worth more than others.  As a
result, those who are "worth more" try to keep the disparity (even
though it's a sham), and humans who have been taught they are less
valued want to become worth more.

For example, there are a low percentage of humans are using up a huge
percentage of the world's resources.  (so called 'first world
countries')..  And there's a tiny percent of humans who loudly claim
(through media) that the first world humans are more important than
the other humans.

We are also taught to discriminate based on monetary wealth,
education, body size/shape/color, beliefs, etc.

I will readily admit that I've succumbed to some of these false
beliefs.  I've got prejudices against people who I see as "fat" and
"uneducated."  As a result, I all-but-panic at the idea of becoming
fat, and I shame myself around only knowing English.  (I know some
Japanese, but I think it's "not enough," etc.)

Several enlightened beings have suggested that we are all human, and
would benefit from loving each other equally.  I tend to agree with
this idea, but sometimes I'm at a loss as to how I can do this.

I think, "man, how can I help the no-star sneeches get stars?"  But I
realize that's too big of a task.  My task is simply to be conscious
and live in integrity with myself and people around me, so I try to do
that as often as possible.

(*) While I was writing, Dude replied with the reference to Snopes and James replied that he was just looking for our reactions.

Since it turned out my reply was just preaching to the choir, I decided to post it in my journal. No need to waste good time spent/wasted at work.

Last day

2:33pm JST Tuesday 24 June 2008 (day 13971)

Hmmm; this smells like it might be my last day at this work in Shibuya. I just met with 井上さん and told him all I know (it's all in the wiki) and during the meeting he was like, がんばります (I'll do my best) and stuff, and I realized, "oh.... this is me passing my brain cells to the next worker," though more realistically the work was just passed to me from him for a bit, and I've passed it back. Basically the website has only 20,000 users and very few paying clients; the software was installed on the system before it was ever finished (or even fully tested).. I'm not so sure that this business is going to survive.

3:00pm JST

Yep. Last day.

I'm gonna walk over to see Malik (sp) with whom I interviewed a couple of weeks ago.

3:30pm JST

In about 2 minutes, we decided to have a chat tomorrow at 4pm.

Work irony

5:03pm JST Tuesday 24 June 2008 (day 13971)

Nice irony here on my last day of work. I was happily working on U-Cow's and Marcus Lion's websites when 井上さん asked me to update a file in SVN. Basically he wanted me to change all occurences of test.ourtestserver.jp and test2.ourtestserver.jp to test.ournewtestserver.jp and test2.ournewtestserver.jp.

The change was trivial, so, even though it would benefit the company if someone who would be here knew how to make the change, I made the change and committed it to SVN.

"Okay; I committed it to SVN."

Two seconds later, I did an SVN status, and it said server not found.

I'm not sure if this was directly related to them making the change, but the not-found server was ourtestserver.jp, on which our SVN server is running. I told them to outsource it. I have a sneaky feeling that they're about to have three disparate working directories and a dead SVN repository to which they can't connect.

I hope it all gets resolved soon.

meditation

10:36pm JST Tuesday 24 June 2008 (day 13971)

Nice meditation night tonight. Kevin was MC (as Helma is in Holland), and Mia was his counterpart (as Kevin is MC). I paired with Mia to do heart sharing, and it felt really nice. Didn't even touch nor say a word. Just awesome.

Mia and Denise rolled out right afterward, and Kevin and I stayed at Romi's for a bit Kevin talked about the balance he's struggling to capture with his book writing, and he shared some stories of other adventures that I imagine I would like to have experienced.

The first sitting tonight was for an hour, and I fell asleep about 10 times during it. Just crazy how quickly that happens. I'm open to a solution.

We did a candle meditation, which basically amounts to a staring competition with a candle. Kevin said after we close our eyes (even after watching for just a short moment), we can see a little remnant of light (memory?) on our retinae. He said it's good practice to see how long we can maintain awareness of that light remnant. Try to extend it... so I may do that. (tonight?)

train home

10:41pm JST Tuesday 24 June 2008 (day 13971)

Just departing Shibuya, and there's a group of youths who are trying to keep their friend upright in the seat. I'd say she's dangerously drunk/otherwise intoxicated, but perhaps she's better than the drunks I see sprawled on the sidewalk from time to time.

They did carry her onto the train, so not much better.