Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in uzbekiemrys' LiveJournal:

Saturday, December 16th, 2006
12:48 am	A little forced relaxation. What a month. My dad and I left on the 16th of december and returned yesterday, the 14th of December, at around 4pm. I stayed with friends in Davis last night. There was intense construction starting around 8:30, but it was silent when I awoke around 10:30. It realy seemed like the whole deck was missing when I peeked out. Nah, back to sleep. Dad called around noon, and I told him I was 'on my way.' Famous last words. I open the door, and it's like a movie set. There are ladders, half painted deck on the right, half rotten boards on the left - and no walk way. There was also a conspiquis lack of construction workers. Turns out he won't let us use the ladders, and we just have to wait for a few hours or something maybe. Dad is... cross. =\ So I have a chane to LJ, a chance to email, to play video games, to just hang out. My friends stare in awe at the surreallity that is my life from time to time. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
3:19 am	Update I'm in Arkansas. It turns out the RV we came for had sat not for 5 years, but 12. We spent our entire budget getting the thing running, counting on the trees at pop's tree farm as an asset. We were lumber jacked. So here i sit in rural AK, with less than enough money to get the RV home (8 miles/Gal!!!) and out of resources and ideas. We're looking at storage, but it's proving to be prohibitively expensive. Why do adventures with my father always turn into misadventures? It looks like we may lose the RV, which is nuts making. If I can just get it home it's worth $5k-$10k. I may have another nervous breakdown at this rate. The good news is, my dad and I have really bonded. A lot. Too much maybe; it's been... weeks. Pop thinks my grandparents may loan us a few hundred dollars to get home. We'll see. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
2:31 am	On the road again. My dad and i are leaving today on a road trip. I'll post more as I find web access. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, May 6th, 2005
1:43 am	Jimmy Carter was a genious, or maybe precognitive. Or maybe both. The following is the first half of a speech by given by Jimmy Carter just before Regan's election and the Iran-Contra scandal. The vast majority of this speech was in general terms and I find it not only apt, but still applicable to our situation today. The speech was taken from www.pbs.org, and I believe it to be free and public knowledge. Delivered on April 18, 1977 by Pres. J. Carter. Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us. Two days from now, I will present my energy proposals to the Congress. Its members will be my partners and they have already given me a great deal of valuable advice. Many of these proposals will be unpopular. Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation. Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: pensive (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 30th, 2005
5:03 pm	Learning English in UZ How many times have you used a sentence structured much like the one you are reading now, and thought to yourself "Hmmm, was that the Past Perfect Continuous tense?" I mean really, English is insane. I was never much for doing home work in school, and that may be an understatement of sorts, but I don't remember coming away from classes confused or puzzled. Every once in a great while, I would go home interested, but never just confused. And while my spelling has never been good, or even acceptable, I feel I have a decent (if uneducated) sense of english grammar. =) Therefore I have to wonder how it is that I came away from countless years of Public Education, with no knowledge what so ever of verb conjugation (I can't even spell it), but perfectly aware that "The chariot had almost made it down to the gate when it suddenly lurched to the side, throwing a tumbling pike man to ground." It's not poetry, but it's a nightmare to an ESL student. Just remember, always use a verb's infinitive form as the verb root when conjugating. Whatever that is. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 19th, 2005
12:32 am	Buharaga bordik (we went to Buhara) If Samarkand was like a toasted bagel with lox, cream cheese, tomatoes, onions, and capers, and Khiva was like a toasted day old bagel, then Buhara was like a toasted day old bagel with just the right amount of cream cheese. Like so many things in this country (and other CIS countries), everything in Samarkand was beautiful, but left me wondering about the integrity of it all. I really appreciated Khiva for its ancient, decayed, medieval feeling. Of course some of that was a result of my inherent ability to suspend disbelief and my tendency to romanticize, but none the less, compared to Samarkand’s reconstructed Disney Land/Museum appearance Khiva was refreshingly old and sleepy, if a little derelict and only slightly rebuilt. Buhara is as old as Khiva (2,500 years old) and nearly as big as Samarkand (both in city size and scope of architecture), but is more of a restoration project than a reconstruction project. Because of its immense religious significance and rich history, Buhara seems to have had more time, money, and *most importantly* thought, put into it. We went to Buhara (I would have transliterated it as Buhoro or something) for a friend’s sisters’ wedding, and while in the region we wanted to see some of ‘ancient Buhara,’ and boy did we. We took an overnight train in from Tashkent (and I’m not sure I’ll do that again, I got less than 3 hours sleep I think) and arrived around 8am. We walked around Buhara city for about 6 hours enjoying both the first warm day of the year (maybe 85-90 degrees), and all the sights, sounds, smells, and commerce that the most holy city in Central Asia has to offer. Between looking at ancient structures, riding in crowded mini-busses (one had 15 people plus driver), walking all over hell and back, purchasing souvenirs, and walking around (did I mention walking??) we were pretty tired by the end of the day. Then we took a mini-bus to the village where the wedding was to take place. That min-bus started off with 16 passengers, lost one mid-trip (THAT was a funny story), then gained 2 more for a total of 18 people in something resembling a 6 wheel Vanagon. I’ll skip the details of the wedding, T wrote pretty much all that there was to say on that, and quite well at that. I’ll jump to the next day instead. It was a lot like the first day, only with more walking and even more amazing places to visit. We visited the Nakshbandi mausoleum/madrassah which our Muslim friend described as the second/Central Asian Mecca. I was awed and inspired, all the more so because we had to go to another mausoleum first. It’s considered traditional and polite/proper to visit Nakshbandi’s mother’s mausoleum first. We did a few other things, and jumped on a plane back to Tashkent that night. We’re sun burnt, tired, and scheduled to go someplace and do something first tomorrow, but I’m very happy for the opportunity to be a tourist and to get a little exercise in the sun. Off for 6 hours sleep, RWMH (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 9th, 2005
12:35 am	http://www.theferrett.com/purity2/return.php?ID=3736 Well, that's the first time I've ever posted results to a survey like that. =) Life's been busy, and posting hasn't quite drawn me in as much as I thought it might. Current Mood: drained (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 2nd, 2005
1:58 am	Longest entry yet! =) Just kidding. I did try to upload some pictures, but I think they want money first. I'll post later about having been a little sick for a few days, then preforming on cammera for state T.V. Current Mood: sleepy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 24th, 2005
1:06 am	second entry Just about every sunset here turns half the sky orange and yellow for the better part of 20 minutes. When you place the highly developed soviet skyline in the foreground -with its smoke-stacks, 20 story buildings, mosques, and partially finished buildings- it makes for a pretty intense scene. I’ve prolly taken twice as many pictures of the sunsets than I have of everything else here combined. The food situation here seems pretty unique. Though food in general seems to be less processed, fat and oil consumption (particularly in the winter) is very high. The oil, combined with the terroristic sense of hospitality, results in a guesting experience where one can expect to consume as much as 2,500 Calories in just a few hours. And pint of unfiltered vodka aids digestion, right? It is worth noting that mere weeks after deciding to stop drinking vodka (a gallon a month of vodka made my kidneys ache 24/7) I contracted my first case of bad stomach problems. 5 months into a 10 month trip, after having avoided even traveler’s sickness, I ended up in a hospital as a result of a bad case of Gastroenteritis. We now think it was typhoid fever. Bad stuff that. There may be something to the assertion that Vodka will both keep you healthy and cure anything you may end-up with. Though I still doubt it will help my allergies, I do believe that it dissinfects your intestines, for better or worse. It’s really amazingly pleasant in Tashkent this week, 65-70 degrees with clear skies and occasional cloud cover. Very spring-like. It’s interesting to watch the clothes come off, much like spring in CA; I’m especially interested in the way that more traditional Uzbek girls try to contend with the girls that sport 3 square feet of skirt and everything but their nipples. they seem to be wearing modest skirts with short-sleeve blouses, and sometimes a scarf covering the head and hair. Even though I only had one Uzbek teacher and no instrument lessons this last week or two, timing and T’s obligations have kept me from visiting the institute where I hold free English conversation sessions bi-weekly. Sickness, holidays, and traveling to Khiva resulted in my not attending but once or twice in the last 7 weeks. Oh well, I think I’ll start professional Tambour and singing classes next week. Off to bed at the early hour of 1am I go. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005
1:45 am	First real post What does one write about in a journal, much less an online journal? One’s self of course, but how, when, about what exactly, and why? Daily journals seem tedious, and are often less than engaging; but many people (myself included) may find it difficult to achieve any sort of regularity to their posts without updating daily. Always one to compromise, it looks as if I’ll try writing bi-weekly, during that 90 minute break between my business English and writing classes and my Uzbek language and conversation lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ll see, at least it’s a plan. Well, I’m here in Tashkent, UZ. What to say about that? There have been no camels, sand dunes, turbans, veils, explosions, revolutions (colorful or otherwise), or anything else even vaguely fantastic. I have seen some of the oldest architecture in the world, experienced new cultures, eaten (and even cooked) new and interesting foods, made new friends, heard music and instruments I'd never imagined, and decided to learn about subjects I’ve never even thought about before. Tashkent is huge, the biggest city I’ve ever lived in. There are more people in my one block neighborhood than in all of Pioneer, CA where I grew up. There are probably as many people in my section of the city as there are in Livermore. 2.6 million people is a lot of people indeed, and there are empty apartments everywhere you look. There are three subway lines, electric busses and trolleys on every major street, countless busses, hundreds (thousands??) of vans that run to anywhere you could possibly want to go, and taxis. And let me tell you about the taxis! First, fare tends to be about 10-12 cents per km. I mean wow. Second, there are so many taxis that upon walking to the street one need not whistle, or even wave to catch a taxi. One finger extended well hail 1-3 taxis in 10 seconds flat during the day. Further, on busy streets you need not even raise a finger, simply making eye-contact with the driver of a car *any car what so ever* will result in an instant taxi. Cars, and to a greater extent gasoline, are so relatively expensive that not stopping to see if the person is going the same direction is virtually unheard of. In a word, public transportation here is un-believable. The flat rate of 15 cents for most public transportation is a bargain, all the more so when you consider the way that people drive here. You know those people that drive so aggressively, so haphazardly, that you just want to scream; those people that cut you off on the free way, going twice the speed limit, so they can be in front of you at the traffic light at the end of the off-ramp? This is worse. The only good thing I have to say about driving conditions here is this: When *everyone* drives like a drug crazed maniac with nothing to live for, your average driver tends to be very, very aware indeed. Another of my favorite things about Tashkent is being a pedestrian. It’s much like Manhattan or Jersey, where your likely to be honked, screamed, or swore at for crossing the street in such a way that makes a driver have to slow down (note: playing Frogger in traffic is perfectly acceptable, even necessary at times. Because things are so hectic, the idiotic practice of erratically and spontaneously change lanes without warning or forethought is almost universally avoided, thus making traffic work a lot more like one of our favorite quarter sinks). The hairiest part about being a pedestrian in this city is defiantly intersection crossing. For one thing, there is no pedestrian faze in the light cycle; there are no walk/don’t walk lights (or crosswalks more often than not for that mater). Also, the light cycle goes Red, Yellow, Green, Yellow, Red here; traffic lights give drivers a 3 second warning before the green light, so they can be in the intersection when the light turns green. That’s extra tough on us pedestrians, the lack of protected-lefts results in a unique, L.A. style, multi-car end of the light cycle left turn. Cars line up 2-3 deep and 3-7 across in the middle of the intersection (traffic squeezes by on each side without so much as a honk, it’s as normal as standing in the center of the street while cars pass you on each side going 20-50 miles an hour) and cross oncoming traffic in groups of 3 or more until the light changes and the remaining 5-10 cars jump across, just missing the group of cars that are already interring the intersection from another direction. You may have noticed that there is no point in that cycle where a pedestrian can assume any degree of safety. Frogger ensues. Well, it's late, and I have to wake up somewhat early tommorow. I’ll write more in a few days. Current Mood: awake (9 Comments |Comment on this)