Unfortunatly, the organization I work for cannot support part time GRA-ships anymore. I was promised to work for them for four years, and I only got to do one. In addition, my advisor wants me to change over before next year to a different one, because he is going to lose his job too :(
Thankfully, I will still be working at Hawaii State Hospital, albeit for free. Also, they gave me a few months' notice. I had to take out a great deal of loan money to cover my non-resident tuition. My idea of going through school without debts now seems pretty ridiculous. I love UH's program but I am worried about having to change advisors mid-year, and all of the drama of finding funding. This is the reality of grad school... one day at a time.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Beautiful Hanauma Bay...
I was lucky enough to see this wonder of the natural world on Sunday. The bay, curved like an oar, earned it the name 'Haunama' hundreds of years ago. Now transformed into a snorkler's paradise, it is a thousand times less garish than the beaches of Waikiki. Even with the twenty minute educational video, and the unappetising prospect of hanging with tourists, it truly was the best snorkeling experience I have ever had.
The waves break fiercely upon the rocks, and to go out there you have to have fins of steel, but Glenn and I braved the underwater storm. Once there, I saw images of indescrible beauty. The triggerfish were about four to five feet long. The parrotfish were huge images of the scrawny creatures in Waikiki, about four to five feet as well. Everything seemed beautifully megafauna-esque. The overfishing and polution in Waikiki does not allow the fish to grow as big as they are here, I suppose.
The most wonderful part of the Haunamabay exeperience was the sea turtle I observed for a full ten minutes. These wonderful animals are small and agile swimmers, and very docile. Underwater, one can swim right next to them without disturbing them. The coral was alive, and healthy, and bright yellow, and to see the turtle feasting off sea grass right next to it was a psychadelic light show of yellows and greens.
Glenn enjoyed the live mongeese even more than the fish I think! We heard hissing, turned around, and there were the little Rikki-Tikki-Tavis that I had never seen before. Ferret-like, but much furrier and longer of body, they truly were amazing. They were rooting in the trash cans like raccoons (that were thousands of times cuter).
I long to return to what is so far my favorite spot on the island.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Data Update
Aloha,
I am finishing up my work with the Hawaii AMHD Conditional Release Report. It is fascinating for me to see the way the Hawaiian legal system is run. It is very sad to me that the main course of mental health is through arrest and the jail system. I am finding out very interesting things about people on Conditional Release throughout the island, including quality of life and diagnosis data. I will let you in the blogospere know when it is finished!!
I am finishing up my work with the Hawaii AMHD Conditional Release Report. It is fascinating for me to see the way the Hawaiian legal system is run. It is very sad to me that the main course of mental health is through arrest and the jail system. I am finding out very interesting things about people on Conditional Release throughout the island, including quality of life and diagnosis data. I will let you in the blogospere know when it is finished!!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Difficult (But Worthwhile) Summer Reading...
'The Kindly Ones'- Jonathon Littel
I am a squeamish reader by trade. I couldn't even make it through 'American Psycho.' So why did a book that read similarly to this but dealt with Nazi atrocities during WWII intrigue me so? I think it had to do with the mastery of Jonathon Littel, who penned this epic novel. I truly think anyone interested in either this war, the legal system, or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder should read this amazing book at once.
Since I am from a strictly Jewish family, and my grandmother is a survivor, I have heard only heartbreaking and anguishing tales about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is reffered to now almost as some sort of unbelievable event, or some maudlin tale, or else it is used in unfair historical comparisons such as "Bush was Hitler." Mind you, Bush was a fool of a man, certainly, but he did not believe in mass genocide of an entire "race" of people.
"The Kindly Ones" strips away all the nonsense about the actual events of war, and tells it EXACTLY like it is. Littell researched extensively for five years, and the narrative covers the beginning of the war in Germany all the way to its end. The protagonist argues at the beginning that "I am a man, just like you!" To argue for the "humanity" of the narrator, an effete SS Soldier who is homosexual and likes to read Flaubert while marching, Little gives the readers two sides of an enigmatic and tortured soul who at the end of the novel is simply making lace at a Parisan factory, living out a farce of a marriage and a generally boring life.
What divides critics on the novel is not, in fact, the painstaking detail given to the beauracracy of the SS and the Jewish atrocities. Rather, it is the "humanizing" of the protagonist by giving him family issues, severe PTSD, and sexual practices that most people would rather not read about, thus giving it the unfortunate label of "Nazi Porn." I think, however, that this objection to the novel is extremely unfair. What could be more inhuman then having no desires, or fears, or secrets, no matter how loathsome they may be? As a psychologist, I was perhaps not as offended by some at the protagonists' shameful actitivies. Rather, as the book progressed towards more and more surreal fantasies, I was taken with how accurate this view of repressed sexuality could be. In addittion, having worked around severe PTSD people even today with the Iraq war, nothing could be more relevant than the effects of severe PTSD that the protagonist experiences, although the degree of it is exaggerrated for effect.
The truth of the matter is that people have these doubts because the book argues two (seemingly contradictory things): 1. The Germans were not evil, because they were merely acting in a manner that they believed to be right. 2. The SS soldiers harbored secrets that turned them into monsters. However, a good look into these arguements shows them both to be true. 'The Kindly Ones' argues simply that if a nation, or a person, commits a crime, no matter how unspeakable, then he/she should be judged according to all the facts. If they are guilty, then they should be punished. However, some who commit unspeakable crimes will always escape the axe... but they will not escape themselves. The fall out from World War II has had a profound effect on the German cultural psyche, and indeed there was a time when it was impossible for the Holocaust to even be taught in schools to German schoolchildren. As Shakespeare (and Littel) argue, "All are punished." Whether the punishment is psychological, physical, cultural, or otherwise, the solution of murder always has a price.
These digressions aside, the protagonist caught in a Greek tragedy of his own making is clearly a metaphor for Germany itself. As he falls into delusions and madness, so does the Third Reich come crumbling down around his ears.In the beginning of the book he is certain about his ideas and the solution for killing Jews, at the end he is no longer so sure that he did the right thing. And in the end, punishment does come for him (but not in the way he expected.) Germany was torn in two by the end of the war, but for many the axe never fell upon them. For the clever, the crafty, and the desperate, there was always another way to find a meal (as evidenced by the sinister Dr. Mandelbrod in the book.) Like Germany, the narrator finds a way to return to peace and quiet, but is always haunted by the past, which has set a hold in him and never lets him free.
In conclusion, if you want to read a different kind of WWII story, something that you may have never thought of considering before, 'The Kindly Ones' is an excellent book to start. Having read this work of fiction, I now feel that I am truly ready to read far more horrifying works, such as Mein Kamp, simply because they are true.
I am a squeamish reader by trade. I couldn't even make it through 'American Psycho.' So why did a book that read similarly to this but dealt with Nazi atrocities during WWII intrigue me so? I think it had to do with the mastery of Jonathon Littel, who penned this epic novel. I truly think anyone interested in either this war, the legal system, or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder should read this amazing book at once.
Since I am from a strictly Jewish family, and my grandmother is a survivor, I have heard only heartbreaking and anguishing tales about the Holocaust. The Holocaust is reffered to now almost as some sort of unbelievable event, or some maudlin tale, or else it is used in unfair historical comparisons such as "Bush was Hitler." Mind you, Bush was a fool of a man, certainly, but he did not believe in mass genocide of an entire "race" of people.
"The Kindly Ones" strips away all the nonsense about the actual events of war, and tells it EXACTLY like it is. Littell researched extensively for five years, and the narrative covers the beginning of the war in Germany all the way to its end. The protagonist argues at the beginning that "I am a man, just like you!" To argue for the "humanity" of the narrator, an effete SS Soldier who is homosexual and likes to read Flaubert while marching, Little gives the readers two sides of an enigmatic and tortured soul who at the end of the novel is simply making lace at a Parisan factory, living out a farce of a marriage and a generally boring life.
What divides critics on the novel is not, in fact, the painstaking detail given to the beauracracy of the SS and the Jewish atrocities. Rather, it is the "humanizing" of the protagonist by giving him family issues, severe PTSD, and sexual practices that most people would rather not read about, thus giving it the unfortunate label of "Nazi Porn." I think, however, that this objection to the novel is extremely unfair. What could be more inhuman then having no desires, or fears, or secrets, no matter how loathsome they may be? As a psychologist, I was perhaps not as offended by some at the protagonists' shameful actitivies. Rather, as the book progressed towards more and more surreal fantasies, I was taken with how accurate this view of repressed sexuality could be. In addittion, having worked around severe PTSD people even today with the Iraq war, nothing could be more relevant than the effects of severe PTSD that the protagonist experiences, although the degree of it is exaggerrated for effect.
The truth of the matter is that people have these doubts because the book argues two (seemingly contradictory things): 1. The Germans were not evil, because they were merely acting in a manner that they believed to be right. 2. The SS soldiers harbored secrets that turned them into monsters. However, a good look into these arguements shows them both to be true. 'The Kindly Ones' argues simply that if a nation, or a person, commits a crime, no matter how unspeakable, then he/she should be judged according to all the facts. If they are guilty, then they should be punished. However, some who commit unspeakable crimes will always escape the axe... but they will not escape themselves. The fall out from World War II has had a profound effect on the German cultural psyche, and indeed there was a time when it was impossible for the Holocaust to even be taught in schools to German schoolchildren. As Shakespeare (and Littel) argue, "All are punished." Whether the punishment is psychological, physical, cultural, or otherwise, the solution of murder always has a price.
These digressions aside, the protagonist caught in a Greek tragedy of his own making is clearly a metaphor for Germany itself. As he falls into delusions and madness, so does the Third Reich come crumbling down around his ears.In the beginning of the book he is certain about his ideas and the solution for killing Jews, at the end he is no longer so sure that he did the right thing. And in the end, punishment does come for him (but not in the way he expected.) Germany was torn in two by the end of the war, but for many the axe never fell upon them. For the clever, the crafty, and the desperate, there was always another way to find a meal (as evidenced by the sinister Dr. Mandelbrod in the book.) Like Germany, the narrator finds a way to return to peace and quiet, but is always haunted by the past, which has set a hold in him and never lets him free.
In conclusion, if you want to read a different kind of WWII story, something that you may have never thought of considering before, 'The Kindly Ones' is an excellent book to start. Having read this work of fiction, I now feel that I am truly ready to read far more horrifying works, such as Mein Kamp, simply because they are true.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
FIRST FRIDAY DJING!
Come out and see me!
6-7 pm, outside Mercury Bar, KTUH Booth.
I will play Flosstradamus!!
<3
6-7 pm, outside Mercury Bar, KTUH Booth.
I will play Flosstradamus!!
<3
Thursday, June 25, 2009
PIKTURES
I uploaded a lot of pics from San Francisco and from Las Vegas and Utah.... the ultimate vacation. They can be found at: www.facebook.com/rpolokoff
Monday, June 15, 2009
MUSIC BLOGGGG
Also,
I have a new KTUH playlist BLOG. Like to hear it, hear it goes....
http://storiesfromthecityktuh.blogspot.com/
I have a new KTUH playlist BLOG. Like to hear it, hear it goes....
http://storiesfromthecityktuh.blogspot.com/
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