NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I remembering going out with someone, where just about everything I was attracted to about her, she was terrified and anxious about. It was a weird abrupt sort of relationship. One that I sometimes reflect back on and still feel puzzled about.  For example, I felt attracted to her because she liked to read. But after we began going out, I soon realized that for her, reading was something she did alone and didn't talk about it with others. None of her friends would read for fun and so she became incredibly anxious when I would want to talk to her about what she was reading and what I was reading.  She loved when I picked out books for her and gave them to her, thinking about what I felt she might enjoy reading, given the places she was at in her life. But she wouldn't talk to me about what she was reading and she would shut down if I tried to talk to her. For me, I love books and love reading, and I read things I never talk to anyone about and read things that I love to talk to

Mafå'tinas este na "manga" gi i un lugåt nai umasodda' i guinife-hu yan i chatguinife-hu siha. Magof hu na måtto tåtte i Berserk na manga. Puede ha' mohon ti pau dingu yu' ta'lo. 

Estaba guaha tres na manga ni' hu gof tataitai yan hu tattitiyi kada simana pat kada mes. I fine'nina "Naruto." I mina'dos "Gantz." Yan i uttimo "Berserk." Gi entre este na tres i fine'nina ma tutuhun "Berserk." I yiyinga' tumutuhun ayu gi 1990. Para Naruto matutuhun gi 1999 yan 2000 para Gantz. Lao pa'go Naruto yan Gantz esta munhayan. Makpo' Naruto gi issuen 700 (lao ma fa'tinas ensigidas un nuebu na series) yan makpo' Gantz gi issuen 383 (taya' nuebu na series para este, lao olaha mohon na guaha). Achokka' "Berserk" i mas amko', guiya i mas nateng lokkue'. Gi 25 na sakkan, matto gui' gi issuen 342 ha'. Ya guaha na biahi i yiyingga' ha fa'tinas unu na pat dos na issues gi unu na sakkan. Lao magof yu', sa' gi Fanuchan'an, put fin, ma na'huhuyong regulamente "Berserk" ta'lo. Hu diseseha na sina ma konsigi mo'na taiguini, sa' sen y

After months of nothing there are finally some new issues of Berserk.  I only read 3 mangas, Gantz, Naruto and Berserk. The other two are released regularly and are slowly moving towards their conclusions as a series. Berserk is supposed to be in a similar twilight phase, but sometimes there are months between chapters. The excitement of the plot itself has long since dissipated as the characters and the investment in the story becomes to fade in my mind since it has been so long since they last visited me. The most recent issues of Berserk don't continue the main story arc, but instead give us a view of the main character Guts when he was a child mercenary. The story is interesting, although it is only three issues long, but I look forward the main story arc being kick started again. I was so happy to be reading Berserk this morning that I decided to do something I haven't done in quite a while. I took the latest issue of Berserk and translated it into Chamorro. It was f

Este i ettimon na post-hu para este na såkkan, pues mandisidi yu’ na este na post teneki tahdong yan dongkålu. As the last post of the year, I thought I’d make it big, deep and personal. The image above is from the manga Berserk . As you can guess just from this image alone it is a fairly violent manga, with plenty of blood, guts, gore, depravity, etc. But every once in a while, when the main character (featured above) Guts is particularly enraged and actually does go berserk, the artist Kentaro Miura will draw a simple but ghastly image. These images set the tone for the carnage that follows. It is for this reason that they are almost more violent then the actual depictions of creatures and people being sliced in half. The stark black and white image, has a way of not only powering up the images that follow, but the reader as well, preparing their gaze, communicating through what are sometimes the most simplistic of images, the pure, sublime emotion that is about to be released. Som

I don’t have cable anymore, but I was able to watch live President Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance lecture the other day. Like most things about Obama, my reactions were very mixed. There were parts I was impressed with, parts I agreed with and enjoyed, but also plenty which I disagreed with and thought was foolish. The speech was very long and so since its final’s week and I have plenty of grading to do, I can’t go in depth into my thoughts or critiques about it, but I can write about some major points from the speech. Fine’nina, gof ya-hu na put fin i Presidenten i Estådos Unidos, malate’. Esta mampos o’sun yu’ nu i chatlenguahin Si President George W. Bush. Guaha nai ti hu komprende taimanu tumaiguihi, na ayu na taihinasso na låhi, inilihi ni’ i taotao Amerikånu (Lao annai hu hasso put i hinasson i taotao Amerikånu, siña hu lakomprende). Having an intelligent US President is not something to dismiss, but something to (even if just a little bit) cherish. When George W. Bush was in

Earlier this year in May, I helped organize and participated in an event called Chule' Tatte Guahan or Reclaim Guahan. It took place on May 23rd and was an all day event at Skinner's Plaza, that featured music, art, information and activism. For me personally, it was an important event because it represented the first time that I was working on an event such as this on Guam. I've helped organize big and small conferences or activist events in the states, but never something like this on Guam. For most of the organizers, who became known as "Guahan Youth," they underwent a similar experience. Some had returned recently from living or going to school in the states. Others had been involved in different grass roots or activist groups locally but never been on the frontline, never the main faces or the main voices, or most importantly those whom the main responsibility would fall upon. I was very involved early on, when the original idea was to try to lobby the Guam

For those of you who may not already know it, I'm a big fan of manga and anime. This doesn't mean I'm an otaku or anything (although normals sometimes call me one), but just that there are a handful of titles or franchises which I really read carefully and follow closely. For instance, in July I wrote a long post about how two of my favorite mangas to read, Gantz and Berserk were going on hiatus for a few months. My geek guts started showing when a simple post about how much I'll miss them ended up being a discussion about the aspects of killing God or Gods in the mangas, or the way in which the main characters seemed to be challenging the very order of things, and how exciting it was to try and see an author make that possible. (Este mina'hasso yu' na hu nisisita umespiha kao esta mana'fanhuyong i nuebu na issue Berserk. Esta maloffan dos meses gi iyo-na hiatus, pues sina esta makpo'.) For a few years now I've been translating manga, most notabl

The gof na'chalek lao gof na'triste lokkue' book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut ends with the following paragraph. If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who. For those of you who don't know the book, you should read it, it is a tragic commentary on everything from religion, to colonialism, to the fallacy of objective science. At this point the whole world has been radically altered by a substance called ice-nine, which when is touched to water changes its composition so that it can be solid ice even at room temperature. The protagonist is stuck on the island of San Lorenzo, surrounded by the once ocean, which is now a world of tornadoes. He ha