Spring Quarter 2003 is officially over, and I have officially 19 units in the bag. I’m incredibly pleased with the work I accomplished this quarter, and even though I get all of only three days to enjoy it, I’m just ecstatic with the results. As for only having three days to enjoy it, Summer Session begins Monday, and I’m taking 10 units of English and Political Science. Already got my books, which always a good thing. I read through two of my texts for Polisci, but I haven’t touched my English stuff. I heard English 1A is pretty intense, but since my polisci course is only five weeks and the professor pretty much moves at a fast pace even in his physical classes, the virtual one is bound to be even faster, since he’s squeezing twelve weeks into five…

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For those of you not paying attention, this is finals weeks for me. Four classes of finals, to be exact, in which my hard work results in some decent grades (I hope). I’ve already completed my philosophy, history, and math finals, and I even got my professor to post my math final for me tonight. I got a 79% on the final exam (shit, one point less than a B!), and that brought my overall average up to a 75% which means I pass with a C! I made it into Math 105! Hooray for me. I think I may actually get one A, two Bs, and the C from math, which means my GPA is around 3.0 for the quarter. Tomorrow’s the Japanese final, for which I spent some time studying for, and am shooting for at least a B on, hopefully an A, but I won’t press my luck. My midterms have been A, B, B, so if my final is a B, then my average is a B and my final grade is a B.. which I’m more than happy to receive.

Time for sleep!

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Back in April, I posted my midterm essay. Since then, I’ve been participating in various discussions, both online and off, about my faith. I finally sat down and wrote my final essay, I thought I would share it with everyone here.

The first question that’s asked is, “Why did I choose Buddhism?” To be honest, I have had the opportunity to explore other religions in the course of my life, most of them with a tremendous following in the Western hemisphere, such as the various sects of Christianity, Judaism, and even some secular faiths. Rather than follow suit with the exploration of other Western religions, I decided on Buddhism to further my exploration of Eastern culture. A lot of my preconceptions about this faith come from my memories of reading about the story of Siddartha, along with some of the more popularized and quite probably false tenets of the faith. My knowledge of the methodology behind the faith is equally as limited.

I visited two facilities in San Jose; one led me to visit another. The first of the two was the Pao-Hua Buddhist Temple, which practices Chinese Traditionalist Buddhism. When I arrived at the temple, I did not know what to expect from my visit there, though the office said I could visit any time between eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. I spent some of my time visiting the various different altars they opened up to the public, which were spread out in an almost deliberate fashion. Each one seemed to have a distinctive difference in statuary, offerings, and writing. My understanding of the Chinese written language is limited only to those pictographs which are also common in my studies of the Japanese language, and it was unfortunate that I was not versed enough in the Chinese language to understand the significance of the altars. I watched as many people kept coming and going; driving up to the temple, visiting the alters while also carrying sticks of incense, praying and kneeling before the altar, and then leaving the temple. There was no order or any sense of reason behind their actions that I could observe as I stood in the middle of the courtyard watching them move around me. I made contact with one of the members of the temple, and they directed me toward a nun, who then helped me get in contact with a monk. However, my discussion with the monk was limited to simple questions, for her understanding of the English language was even more limited than my Chinese. She did provide me with the address of another Buddhist church, to which I was very grateful, and I immediately departed for Japantown.

Most of my time was spent at the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin in San Jose’s Japantown. I made an appointment to speak with Reverend Gerald Sakamoto in his office on Fifth Street, just to the north side of the main temple. He welcomed me graciously and we retreated to his private office so that he could answer my questions. As with the Pao-Hua Temple, he invited me to attend Sunday services, however, my work schedule prevents me from doing anything other than work every Sunday. I thanked him for the invitation, and we settled in to have what would end up being an hour and a half of questions and answers about the Buddhist religion.

My first question was, “What is the basis of Buddhism?” He recounted to me the story of Shakyamuni Buddha, and his departure from the life he led as Siddartha Gautama to follow the path that is now known as Buddhism; the pursuit of enlightenment through the understanding of the Four Noble Truths, as well as the Eightfold Noble Path. The First and Second of the Four Noble Truths is that life is suffering, and that this suffering is caused by our attachment to ego. The Third Noble Truth states that it is possible to gain freedom from this suffering by understanding the true nature of ourselves and the cause of the attachment to ego. The Fourth Noble Truth lies in the Eightfold Noble Path. The path is simply a set of eight guides on the journey to enlightenment: right views, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.

The tradition that the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin follows is called the Jodo Shinshu tradition, which is based on the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra, the Meditation Sutra, and the Amida Sutra. These three sutras are known as the Jodo Sanbukkyo or Three Pure Land Sutras. The differences between the Chinese Traditionalist Pao-Hua and the San Jose Betsuin lay in the fact that the Betsuin observes a Westernized form of Buddhism, complete with Sunday services that include sermons, choirs, and other Protestant-like traditions to appeal in a broader sense. It also gives the Japanese community a sense of participation in a group, rather than individual contributions, providing them with an outlet to communicate and discuss their ideas with others in social functions and get-togethers.

Reverend Sakamoto also brought the Buddhist religion into context when discussing recent events; we discussed a general Buddhist perspective into the war in Iraq. The Buddhist ideal that life is sacred serves as a basis for a pacifistic mindset, but seeking enlightenment through understanding is often difficult when violence is being employed to further what could be considered an unenlightened agenda. Of the Four Noble Truths, war is an unenlightened means to an egotistical end. We defend because of our attachment to that ego, and therefore can no longer see things in their authentic state. We only see what we wish to see, and how can understanding be gained from such a perspective?

The discussion left me with so many more questions, but I had taken up enough of the reverend’s time for that day. I will be personally pursuing a dialogue with the reverend if he’s willing to indulge me. When I had written my midterm essay, I explained a great deal behind my perspective for not pursuing a faith. After researching Buddhism, I think there are possibilities I did not previously know that are available for me to pursue and assist me in continuing my personal exploration. I look forward to walking a new path after having been idle for so long.

The unexamined life is not worth living. It’s an interesting statement to make, for it does not say to whom the life should be examined by. Ourselves? Others? Society? Is it for others to examine how one lives, or perhaps bring judgment as a result of the examination? Is it just enough for us to examine our own lives and judge them as we see fit? In the sense of intelligence, it would seem to me that only the individual can examine and judge his or her own life. Within religion, we have found ourselves inundated with beliefs, ideas, and faith in the sense that the path we walk is the correct one. But that’s a statement without qualification; for if one walks a path and determines it to be the correct path, if others walk a different path, are those alternate paths equally as correct? For them, yes.

Examining our lives is the fundamental way we can look within to understand ourselves. The first question often becomes, “Who am I?” Is it important for us to determine that identification in a sense of definition by action? Or is it enough to recognize ourselves by personality and character? Or, do we allow others to define ourselves and accept that definition as our own? I contend that no one can truly know another to the degree that one knows him or herself. The personality and desires that drive it are the sum of experiences unique to each of us, and therefore the path that we choose must reflect that personality’s desires. This is why there are so many different kinds of paths available, each leading toward a goal that is the desire of the personality.

This planet called Earth has a population of over six billion people. Even in a day and age where the numbers were substantially less, the amount of cultures and subcultures provided regions of the planet with such a diversity that allows for different perspectives to be considered when examining those ideas and beliefs. To every religious group, there’s a faction, usually small, but often very loud, that endows itself with the duty of seeing to it that their way of life is protected from the influences of other cultures or ideas. To be ideologically pure to the original structure of their belief system, by policing everyone and either calling attention for the purposes of social persecution or perhaps they wield some sort of structural power and use it to further a political agenda that might be contradictory to the ideals they teach.

In my research of Buddhism, I found that the methodology may differ, but the message is the same: How you conduct yourself is as much important as how we treat those around us. Respect and understanding are just two parts of journeying toward enlightenment, and seeing things for what they are, in their authentic state.

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I made the pre-finals pass around my classes, to try and gain some sort of understanding of exactly where I stand without having to guess and then guess incorrectly. I found out that in Math, I need to get a B or better in order to pass with at least a C and move on to the next math level. An A would give me a shot at a low B in the class, and that would be even better for me as far as my GPA is concerned. My Japanese professor says I cannot get any lower than a B, with my current coursework and extra credit turned in. Even if I tank the final, I still get a B. But I want an A History looks like an A, Philosophy a B (possibly an A if I turn in two or three extra credit assignments). I’m not sure exactly how much work I want to do for a philosophy grade, when it’s just a GE course, but I’ll give it a shot.

Here’s hoping to a very quiet Saturday, so I have time at work to study…

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As the subject says, yesterday was my birthday. I’m now twenty-seven years old, though I honestly did not feel it much. It was kind of an interesting day, filled with meals, drinks, and other assorted activities. I find a certain sense of timing in the fact that I did a little personal exploration the day before, which is going to be the subject of my philosophy final essay due on Monday morning. The point of the final in my philosophy class was to visit a center of worship that I’m not familiar with. So I chose to visit a Buddhist temple; one of the many located within San Jose. I ended up making a visit to two such temples.

The first was a Chinese Traditionalist temple, located on McKee Road in San Jose. It was less of a temple and more of a monastery; complete with monks, nuns, and other entrants upon the religion’s caretakers. I was instantly taken with the design of the temple and the amount of people coming and going. Unlike other places of worship, the activity level of this temple was constant in worshippers arriving, observing their rituals, and then leaving. A steady steam of people entered and departed as I was there, just taking it all in. However, while I was looking forward to exploring the religion a little more, I discovered that there was a tremendous language barrier preventing me from asking any deep questions and having them understood. I wish my Chinese was as good as my Japanese… but they were kind enough to point me toward the Japanese temple in San Jose’s Japantown. I know the San Jose Japantown very well, but I did not know there was a large temple on Fifth, just up half a block from Jackson. I made myself an appointment to speak with one of the reverends, and then went to lunch.

When I returned, I met with Reverend Gerald Sakamoto, who was very friendly and welcomed me into his office. I had a lengthy spiritual discussion about the methods behind Buddhism, as well as the basis for it. It was, for lack of a better term, enlightening. It had me thinking about the way in which I view my own faith (or lack thereof), and whether or not the true faith I’ve been seeking has not been for one of a deification but a sense of open-minded behavior. I learned about the four noble truths, and the eightfold noble path. Buddhism seems more in line with the perspective I hold within myself, and although it’s a Japanese community, the Reverend invited me to attend services if I desired. Unfortunately, services are on Sunday, and I’m usually working. The differences between the two temples seemed to me to be that one was Westernized while the other was not. I’m not saying I’m going to jump into with both feet, but if it should strike me so, then I’ll investigate it a little more. I digress…

My birthday was pretty fun. I had lunch with my family at my favorite Japanese restaurant, and they proceeded to embarrass me with pictures of me as a baby. But I remember a lot of the events when the pictures were taken, the memories came flooding back to me when they came into view. Then Todd and friends took me out to dinner at my second favorite Japanese steakhouse, where we proceeded to laugh and carry on for a couple of hours before we closed the place down and went home to sleep.

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Finals in less than two weeks…

This week has gone by pretty quickly. I got my math exam score back on Monday, only to see that I got a 69% on it. Fortunately, the rest of the class faired worse, and so my math instructor offered a math follow-up exam to allow some of us to regain some points by proving mastery of certain parts of the exam. I think I only missed one on the follow-up, so the others will hopefully gain me more points in the long run. Even if I only get half, I still make a B on the exam, and I know I didn’t miss that much. Then again, I didn’t think I did so poorly on the original exam, so what do I know? I’m not too worried about the finals in any of my other classes. I’m assured to grab a B in both Japanese 3 and Philosophy, a possible A or at least a high B in History. Math’s really the only one I’m stressing about right now. If I don’t pass Math with at least a C, I’ll have to take Math 105 at another college, like West Valley. And I really hate West Valley.

Today, I started my permanent shift at eBay. I really like it over PayPal’s NOC; not that I don’t miss certain aspects of working at PayPal. I really liked being able to walk over to people’s cubes and cornering them into giving me answers. The interaction between those groups and I is something that’s very essential in carrying out my responsibilities. It’s kind of cuts both ways, though; they’re about as helpful in my PayPal issues as I am to their eBay issues. I feel rather like a foreign exchange student at times, watching the flurry of activity around me but unable to really contribute anything of value without detracting from the focus of resolving the issue at hand. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll get to a point where there won’t be a problem of my participation. Tomorrow, in fact, I’ll get started on training on the job as much as possible, and handling some of the more minor issues pertinent to eBay.

The other aspect of working at eBay which has gone unmentioned since I started is the Stephanie variable to the equation. It hasn’t been much of a problem, really. At least, not as much of one as I prepared myself for. After the initial trepidation and anxiety, I realized it was all for nothing. I look at her, and there’s nothing there, emotionally, any more. We had something of a quick discussion before training on Monday afternoon, and the conversation fell flat after a few minutes of initial banter. I felt bad, because there really used to be a connection there between us, on a friendly level. Now, I’m not even sure if that’s there anymore. The responses I got on Monday afternoon before and after training was pretty clear: go away. It was probably because she was working on stuff, but eh… point is, I really don’t care. I’m here to do a job, and go home. Anything above that is irrelevant, and I can maintain my professionalism just as well as she can. Sometimes, I wonder if my being here has any effect on her, but then I just remember how it all ended, and I’m reassured that she’s just about as indifferent to it as I am now. Even more so, maybe… But it’s best to not dwell on the past and more forward.

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predicate

95%











aiko

94%











avagoyle

94%











nixnivis

92%











koma_chan

88%











kaibara

87%











sensacola

87%











mephron

84%








How compatible with me are YOU?

Gee, Jeff… I didn’t know you cared that much…

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Educational Plan in Chronological Order

Fall 1999

MJ: Beginning Japanese (JAPN1)                 5.0 B
MJ: Special Projects in Japanese (JAPN36X)     2.0 A

Winter 2000

MJ: Beginning Japanese (JAPN2)                 5.0 B
ND: College Band (MUSP30)                      2.0 A

Fall 2000

MJ: Special Projects in Japanese (JAPN36Z)     4.0 A

Winter 2001

ND: Introduction to College (CNSL50)           1.0 P
A4: Introduction to American Politics (POLI1)  5.0 D

Spring 2003

A2: Beginning Algebra (MATH101)                5.0 B
MJ: Beginning Japanese (JAPN3)                 5.0 B
R2: US History (to 1877) (HIST17A)             5.0 A
A3: Comparative World Religions West (PHIL25)  4.0 A

Summer 2003

A1: English Reading/Composition                5.0
R1: Introduction to American Politics (POLI1)  5.0

Fall 2003

A2: Intermediate Algebra (MATH105)             5.0 W
A3: Intermediate Japanese (JAPN4)              5.0 I
MJ: Intermeditate Conversation I (JAPN13A)     3.0 W
A3: Introduction to Music Theory (MUSC3A)      5.0 W

Winter 2004

A2: Elementary Statistics (MATH10)             5.0
MJ: Intermediate Japanese (JAPN5)              5.0
MJ: Intermediate Conversation II (JAPN13B)     3.0
A5: General Principles of Biology (BIOL10A)    5.0

Spring 2004

MJ: Intermediate Japanese (JAPN6)              5.0
A4: Crosscultural Perspectives (SOCS20)        4.0
A5: Introduction to Astronomy (ASTR10A)        5.0
A1: English Critical Reading (ENGL1B)          5.0

Summer 2004

?

Fall 2004

MJ: Advanced Composition (JAPN25A)             4.0
A3: Language of Film (FTV2B)                   4.0
A4: Introduction to Economics (ECON1)          5.0
A4: US History (1877-Present) (HIST17B)        5.0

Total: 126 units.

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Area 1 - English Communication
(4-5 units per group)

  Group A: English 1A (5) - Summer 2003
  Group B: English 1B (5) - Summer 2004

Area 2 - Mathematical Concepts & Quantitative Reasoning
(4-5 units)

  Math 101* (5) - Spring 2003
  Math 105* (5) - Fall 2003
  Math 10   (5) - Winter 2004

*indicates this course is not eligible for credit within Area 2.

Area 3 - Arts & Humanities
(12-15 units, at least two classes from each group)

  Arts: Music 3A   (5) - Fall 2003
        Film/TV 2B (4) - Fall 2004

  Humanities: Philosophy 25 (4) - Spring 2003
              Japanese 4    (5) - Fall 2003

Area 4 - Social & Behavioral Sciences
(12-15 units, three courses from two disciplines)

  History 17B        (5) - Summer 2004
  Social Sciences 20 (4) - Spring 2004
  Economics 1A       (5) - Fall 2004(?)

Area 5 - Physical & Biological Sciences
(9-12 units, one from each area)

  Physical Science: Astronomy 10A/10L (5) - Spring 2004
  Biological Science: Biology 10A/10L (5) - Winter 2004

CSU Graduation Requirement: US History, Constitution, & American Ideals

  Group 1: Political Science 1 (5) - Summer 2003
  Group 2: History 17A         (5) - Spring 2003

Total Units by completion Fall 2004: 77 IGETC units + 34 major-related units = 112 units.

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I signed up for summer courses Wednesday morning. But yesterday morning when I ditched Japanese to go to my Math professor’s office hours, she mentioned that she might be teaching an on-site Math 105 over the summer, and despite my vacation plans, she said I could take her section if I wanted to. It’d be nice to do a math section over the summer and get it out of the way then, instead of waiting until fall to take intermediate algebra. She remarked that if I continue to use the math I learned in 101, that it would be easier for me to transition to statistics in the fall than having to review for two-three weeks of beginning algebra in the fall.. and I would get my math out of the way faster. I’m considering this, but so far her name isn’t listed among the instructors for summer session so I guess I wait until she can tell me yes/or on Math 105. Again, it’d be an on-site class which means I’ll have to go in everyday for 5-8 weeks. And Foothill’s campus is like the sun in the summer. Half of me wants to do it just to get to stats in the fall and not have to worry about math anymore, and the other half of me just wants to stick to the plan I had made for myself. What do you guys think?

I got my midterm grades from my classes:

Beginning Algebra                (Math 101)      C
Beginning Japanese               (Japanese 3)    B
US History to 1877               (History 17A)   A
Comparative World Religions West (Philosophy 25) B

I can bump the C up to a B if I manage to ace the final in Math. I’m not too worried about the other classes and the hardest part of History is over. I handed in my second term paper with three minutes to spare.

Reading and Composition and Introduction to American Politics (to erase the D I got in it last time).

0424 ENGL-001A-04W LEC TBA          TBA    STARER   ONLINE
0933 POLI-001.-02W LEC TBA          TBA    WOOLCOCK ONLINE

Intermediate Algebra, Intermediate Japanese, Beginning Japanese Conversation, and Introduction to Music Theory.

1635 MATH-105.-01  LEC 8:00AM- 8:50 MTWThF SWAGERT  5620
1511 JAPN-004.-01Q L-L 9:00AM- 9:50 MTWThF TOMITA   6502
1513 JAPN-013A-01Q L-L 8:15PM- 9:35 MW     TSUMURA  MCD5
2366 MUS -003A-02W LEC TBA          TBA    ROBERTS  ONLINE

What’s on tap for Winter? How about Elementary Statistics, more Intermediate Japanese and Intermediate Conversation part two, and General Principles of Biology (Biology 10A/10L). Spring and Summer 2004 will hold the final Intermediate Japanese (Japanese 6), with Public Speaking, Crosscultural Perspectives for a Multicultural Society (Social Sciences 20), and Introduction to Astronomy (Astronomy 10A/10L). Over the summer, I will be taking English 1B. I still need one more arts class and one more social/behavioral sciences course… I’m thinking about maybe doing a Film class, and economics for fall 2004, while also doing beginning reading/composition for Japanese to keep up my skills.

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