NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

This was originally posted on the website Guamology which was run by the Muna Brothers, Don and Kel, but closed down recently after a two year run. I was a writer for the website, sometimes posting every week or so, sometimes once a month. It was a very fun and very informative website and I was happy to help build it since it started in 2008. I cut and pasted a few of the posts that I didn't have records of because they were on my old laptop which was stolen last year. I decided to share one of my painting posts below: ************************* Welcome to another installment of the Joy of Painting! Where I take pictures and write up the progress of a painting that I am making, to go beyond the surface of an artwork, and get into the evolution, the beauty, the struggle of making it. This week’s segment is dedicated to Sarah , who requested that I try out watercolor this time around. The joy in this post’s title is in quotes because watercolor isn’t always a joy for me. Its

I finally got to watch both parts of the epic Chinese war movie Chi Bi the other night. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it is directed by John Woo, and was released a month before the start of the 2008 Olympics and was meant to be a show of China's movie-making force to the rest of the world. It is the most expensive Chinese film to date and now its highest grossing film as well. The title of the film Chi Bi translates to "red wall" or "red cliffs" in English, and is based on the battle of Chi Bi which took place almost two thousand years ago, and is infamously chronicled in the story Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the video game series Dynasty Warriors . To give a little bit of background on the event. This battle takes place prior to the Three Kingdoms era in Chinese history, and is actually a key reason why China had a three kingdoms era at all. During this period the Han dynasty is coming to a close, and different figures are vying for c

I am a video game geek. And you can tell this not just by how many times your wallet or bank account is drained because of the deep, craving need to own a certain video game or system, but also by how many time your schedule gets completely thrown out of whack because your mind got lost in playing a video game, or even though you knew you were running late, you convinced yourself that one more level or now in the case of games like Rock Star Band or Guitar Hero , one more song. Since I returned to Guam to start working on my dissertation, there have been many moments where my schedule has gone awry because of the fact that video games are such a tempting distraction. Another way in which you can identify if you are a video game geek is if you use video game metaphors or references to describe the world, sometimes even to non-video game adept audiences. There are some ways in which once arcane video game geek knowledge or fanservice has wormed its way into popular culture. I remember