Sunday, July 8, 2012
Forever is composed of nows: Part II
Things that I have "learned" about Paris:
I know that Rennes, where I spent 5 months in 2004, is no metropolitan. I know this. And that is why I love it and want to go back. All the same-and I can't help but to compare-I am so surprised by the presence of English in Paris. I hear it ALL the time. I see Brits and Yanks right and left. It is tourist season, yes. I am aware of that. But this impression began in Switzerland even. I couldn't believe being able to get along without honestly knowing a lick of German. To be honest, it is kind of sad.
When I lived in Rennes, I spent 5 quite silent months amongst anyone who wasn't a foreign, English speaking student. I had to. There were a few Frenchies who had done studies abroad to England or the States, but it was mostly Americans and Irish that I hung around if I wanted to communicate at all. One in ten of us had a cell phone. Internet only existed in the campus library and at internet cafés. It may be unfair of me to compare a Rennes of 8 years ago to a Paris of today, but I can't help but feeling as though I have been witness to a huge cultural shifting. Globalization through the internet and the media has happened, right before my eyes. Of course kids still learn English at school as they have been for the past 30 something years. But I think it is safe to say that in the last 10 years or so, everything has changed. And is still.changing. Culturally, linguistically. It's kind of sad. I come to France to experience a culture and a history that is different from my own. That gap between French and American mentality, so impassive, I wonder if it will always remain that way. I don't want our cultures to understand one another simply because one has obliterated the other. Perhaps that is dramatic. Perhaps we'll give it another 10 years and see.
My internship here entails two kinds of work: setting up visits with old people who are lonely and need the company or someone to accompany them on little outings, and biweekly meetings with a group who have come from hard times and few means and have made a sort of family for themselves amongst others like them. I'll be talking a lot more about my work, schedule, visits, and of course, the people, for the rest of my stay here. For the sake of this topic however, I'm gonna just limit myself to one anecdote.
Three days of the week I spend my afternoons doing visits with Carin. You will likely hear much more about her. She is, I believe, somewhere in her 60's, from the Netherlands, and a French Professor. She has come here for 3 weeks, leaving behind her husband as she has done the past 3 years to come here and renew her French. She is fiercely independant, gets around on a bike, goes to concerts almost nightly, has a beautiful singing voice and a way with the people here. Perhaps needless to say, she is already likely to be one of my heroes. In any case, we had a visit Friday. The woman we visited, Mme Marechal, collected books of French culture, mostly about impressionism. She knew so much but the craziest thing is she has never traveled. Ever! Anyway, she uses art as a kind of therapy to help her deal with the solitude, but, most especially, the lack of solidarity she feels and the changes in the country. The city she grew up in and has lived in most of her life is such a different place. It has evolved, not just with the effects of time on her culture, but by other cultures on her culture. In case you aren't aware, immigration is a huge phenomenon in Europe. I should google some statistics but I'm feeling lazy. What I do know is that 8.1% of the French population are immigrants. What I also suppose is that most of these immigrants live in the larger cities: donc, Paris et Marseille.
I think the best way to summarize is using Carin's words, which she used to help me understand Mme. M's distress. Carin watched after her mother, who recently passed, go through a similar struggle: in the Netherlands, there are entire neighborhoods which are now entirely full of immigrants. Natives no longer live there. But all this has happened only over the past 20 years or so. Which translates a lot of change in only a short amount of time. And the older generation, the ones who shaped the cities as we have them today in many ways, are too old to move away out of such neighborhoods. Or it doesn't make sense for them to. But it takes so much energy for them to live, that tackling this unfamiliar is a daunting task. And so they live further isolated, not just by age but by culture.
So in summary, I am beginning to see how Paris, this city that I love for its age and richness of history, is also a city that encapsulates change. It's a striking juxtaposition.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Forever is composed of nows.
Things I forgot about Paris:
1) it is HUGE.
My parents would hate it. Having come from the quaintness of the Swiss Alps, I am inclined to agree with them. Former time spent in Paris (a handful of days in 2004 and an evening and morning in transit in 2009) were spent, naturally, as a tourist. I didn't wander far from the city's heart as there wasn't much of a need. And even if I had, I probably took its oceanic span for granted. You can't appreciate the stretching of the strands of metro lines, metro cars overflowing at nearly all hours, this vitality, and the noise which never sleeps, the pockets of "Places"-monuments, parcs, shops, mini centers in their own rights-until you have inhabited Paris. That these things exist, and what's more not as part of your tourist adventure but as every day life is, or at least has been in my case, uncomprehensible until they make up part of your everyday life. And so, perhaps I forgot it's size. But perhaps I am also finally learning it for the first time.
2) ça pue!
And I mean, it REALLY smells. The French, bless their hearts, have two verbs for "smell" One you might use to describe the smell of food- pastries, pizzas, kebabs, café-that of course make the Paris experience complete. That is the verb 'sentir'. That same verb could be used to describe perfume, wine, and cigarettes, the other scents that register as being typically French (the last two especially for me). But, you will notice, that is not verb I used. The second verb is 'puer', which IS the verb I used and which means, quite simply, to reek. Obviously the English language has two verbs to describe smells as well. But whereas reek is probably not part of the common vernacular, puer totally is.
So what smells? Well, the Metros, mostly. So much so that if you type ça pue into google you get this article which comes up first. The title, basically: Why on earth does it smell so awful in the metros of Paris. Yeah. I've actually been meaning to look that up. Turns out that rotten eggs smell has already been officially acknowedged. And analyzed and tested in fact. But besides the rotten egg smell you've got the smell of urine. Skimming the article indicates it's cat urine. I know better. My days in Rennes served as amply proof that the French don't use bathrooms. At least not the men. Any bush, wall, door or the 8 inches between paralell parked cars can serve as an appropriate spot to let nature take its course. I am quite positive that the Metro would be no exception, though I have yet to see with my own eyes. I'm not really keen to be proven right in this case though so let's just hope you have to take my hypothetical word for it.
This tradition of peeing in public spaces is a long standing one. One of the few things I retained from highschool French days was my teacher recounting how horrible some of the old castles, manors, museums, etc (can we say Versailles?) still smell to this day because the corridors were used as bathrooms. I don't know how elaborately Madame went into detail while informing us of this, but I do know that I had and still have a very elaborately clear picture in my head of Marie Antoinette and her entourage lifting their skirts to the wall on the north while the men took care of things on the wall to the south. I'll admit, I was a pretty prissy, prude student back then. So if that was one of probably 5 things I retained from highschool French (one of the other involves Catherin Medici, cupboards, and poison, though I can't remember how they relate) you can understand why 1) I am now convinced that students will only actually remember the things that aren't important or that you mention in passing and don't really want them to remember, especially highschool students and so 2) I have no desire to teach highschool French 3) but if I were to teach I would collect every stereotypical-bordering-on-complete-mythological story so that at least my kids would have nourished their imaginations because I have little hope of getting them to remember verb conjugaisons. Which probably makes me a horrible teacher. But only hypothetically. And only for highschool students. Incidentally, I have no desire to google and confirm this supposed pee tradition. I'll take the fiction.
My friends thought it was funny when I came back from Rennes trying to explain to them that the woman holding her small dog on a leash wasn't a stereotype. It was real, dang it. When people think of Paris they think of the city of lights, naturally. But really, it's a city of hundreds, nay thousands of small dogs. This very day in fact I saw this girl walking with hers. Upon arriving at an intersection (I don't know why the intersection was any more dangerous than the sidewalk but that is her affair), she swooped him up with a practiced flick of a wrist. No more than that, I swear, and she was carrying him with her across the dangerous busy sweet. In case you were wondering, the thing probably weighed about the same as my lunch. And he was on a harnass.
But the thing is, this city of small dogs is also a city of small dog excrement and wee puddles. The small factor is significant because it makes it harder to see and thus harder to avoid. Except when it rains. And then it expands. And runs. And, well, you get the smelly picture.
And well then of course you have the smell of humans in tight, warm quarters. Some of whom have loosened standards of hygiene comparatively. I'll just leave it at that. I don't know why this is something that always surprises me. But it does. Everything is so sterile where I live. Where most of us live, I imagine. Paris gets me feeling OCD when I think about all the filthy things I come in contact with throughout the day. The pollution and cigarette smoke itself has me taking out my contacts once, if not twice a day to remove irritating particles and whatnot that cling relentlessly to my lenses. Sometimes it is refreshing to be reminded that we are more like animals than the machines we've allowed to take over our lives. The word 'animal' can have a really derogatory association. I don't mean it that way. I mean it in the way that animals are sentient, that they are free (I know I'm romanticising) and that they are almost always in communities. That's all.
(I don't mean to start out with the unpleasant things. It's just that sometimes, those are the sensations that hit the hardest, and somehow, end of carrying the essence of everything else. And everything else is pretty magical. So much so that I don't know where to start.)
3) la musique!
In a word: accordians. But also, so much more. Mostly on the metros, often on the streets. I don't know how the Parisians feel about it but I love the bombardment of live music as I travel. It's magical, simply that.
4) red is relative
I think this a phenomenon common to most large European cities, but I had forgotten and am quickly relearning the fact that a street is fair game, no matter what color that little walking man is. Pedestrians here aren't just assertive, they are plain rebellious. But no one seems to really mind. The expression 'share the road' (which I can never here without Samwise's voice in my head) is never more true. Cars are definitely keen to share the road to pedestrians, ever ready to yield in case of overly zealous rebel. But by 'road' they mean the foot-wide perimeter of space around you. No need to have your life flash before your eyes 15 times a day. Keep calm and carry on.
Things that I have "learned" about Paris:
I know that Rennes, where I spent 5 months in 2004, is no metropolitan. I know this. And that is why I love it and want to go back. All the same-and I can't help but to compare-I am so surprised by the presence of English in Paris. I hear it ALL the time. I see Brits and Yanks right and left. It is tourist season, yes. I am aware of that. But this impression began in Switzerland even. I couldn't believe being able to get along without honestly knowing a lick of German. To be honest, it is kind of sad.
When I lived in Rennes, I spent 5 quite silent months amongst anyone who wasn't a foreign, English speaking student. I had to. There were a few Frenchies who had done studies abroad to England or the States, but it was mostly Americans and Irish that I hung around if I wanted to communicate at all. One in ten of us had a cell phone. Internet only existed in the campus library and at internet cafés. It may be unfair of me to compare a Rennes of 8 years ago to a Paris of today, but I can't help but feeling as though I have been witness to a huge cultural shifting. Globalization through the internet and the media has happened, right before my eyes. Of course kids still learn English at school as they have been for the past 30 something years. But I think it is safe to say that in the last 10 years or so, everything has changed. And is still.changing. Culturally, linguistically. It's kind of sad. I come to France to experience a culture and a history that is different from my own. That gap between French and American mentality, so impassive, I wonder if it will always remain that way. I don't want our cultures to understand one another simply because one has obliterated the other. Perhaps that is dramatic. Perhaps we'll give it another 10 years and see.
My internship here entails two kinds of work: setting up visits with old people who are lonely and need the company or someone to accompany them on little outings, and biweekly meetings with a group who have come from hard times and few means and have made a sort of family for themselves amongst others like them. I'll be talking a lot more about my work, schedule, visits, and of course, the people, for the rest of my stay here. For the sake of this topic however, I'm gonna just limit myself to one anecdote.
Three days of the week I spend my afternoons doing visits with Carin. You will likely hear much more about her. She is, I believe, somewhere in her 60's, from the Netherlands, and a French Professor. She has come here for 3 weeks, leaving behind her husband as she has done the past 3 years to come here and renew her French. She is fiercely independant, gets around on a bike, goes to concerts almost nightly, has a beautiful singing voice and a way with the people here, and is already like to be one of my heroes. In any case, we had a visit Friday. The woman we visited, Mme M, collected books of French culture, mostly about impressionism. She knew so much but the craziest thing is she has never traveled. Ever! Anyway, she uses art as a kind of therapy to help her deal with the solitude, but, most especially, the lack of solidarity she feels and the changes in the country. The city she grew up in and has lived in most of her life is such a different place. It has evolved, not just with the effects of time on her culture, but by other cultures on her culture. In case you aren't aware, immigration is a huge phenomenon in Europe. I should google some statistics but I'm feeling lazy. I think the best way to summarize is using Carin's words, which she used to help me understand Mme. M's distress. Carin watched her mother, who recently passed, go through a similar struggle: In the Netherlands, there are entire neighborhoods which are now entirely full of immigrants. Natives no longer live there. But all this has happened only over the past 20 years or so. Which translates a lot of change in only a short amount of time. And the older generation, the ones who shaped the cities as we have them today in many ways, are too old to move away out of such neighborhoods. Or it doesn't make sense for them to. But it takes so much energy for them to live, that tackling this unfamiliar is a daunting task. And so they live further isolated, not just by age but by culture.
So in summary, I am beginning to see how Paris, this city that I love for its age and richness of history, is also a city that encapsulates change. It's a striking juxtaposition.
1) it is HUGE.
My parents would hate it. Having come from the quaintness of the Swiss Alps, I am inclined to agree with them. Former time spent in Paris (a handful of days in 2004 and an evening and morning in transit in 2009) were spent, naturally, as a tourist. I didn't wander far from the city's heart as there wasn't much of a need. And even if I had, I probably took its oceanic span for granted. You can't appreciate the stretching of the strands of metro lines, metro cars overflowing at nearly all hours, this vitality, and the noise which never sleeps, the pockets of "Places"-monuments, parcs, shops, mini centers in their own rights-until you have inhabited Paris. That these things exist, and what's more not as part of your tourist adventure but as every day life is, or at least has been in my case, uncomprehensible until they make up part of your everyday life. And so, perhaps I forgot it's size. But perhaps I am also finally learning it for the first time.
2) ça pue!
And I mean, it REALLY smells. The French, bless their hearts, have two verbs for "smell" One you might use to describe the smell of food- pastries, pizzas, kebabs, café-that of course make the Paris experience complete. That is the verb 'sentir'. That same verb could be used to describe perfume, wine, and cigarettes, the other scents that register as being typically French (the last two especially for me). But, you will notice, that is not verb I used. The second verb is 'puer', which IS the verb I used and which means, quite simply, to reek. Obviously the English language has two verbs to describe smells as well. But whereas reek is probably not part of the common vernacular, puer totally is.
So what smells? Well, the Metros, mostly. So much so that if you type ça pue into google you get this article which comes up first. The title, basically: Why on earth does it smell so awful in the metros of Paris. Yeah. I've actually been meaning to look that up. Turns out that rotten eggs smell has already been officially acknowedged. And analyzed and tested in fact. But besides the rotten egg smell you've got the smell of urine. Skimming the article indicates it's cat urine. I know better. My days in Rennes served as amply proof that the French don't use bathrooms. At least not the men. Any bush, wall, door or the 8 inches between paralell parked cars can serve as an appropriate spot to let nature take its course. I am quite positive that the Metro would be no exception, though I have yet to see with my own eyes. I'm not really keen to be proven right in this case though so let's just hope you have to take my hypothetical word for it.
This tradition of peeing in public spaces is a long standing one. One of the few things I retained from highschool French days was my teacher recounting how horrible some of the old castles, manors, museums, etc (can we say Versailles?) still smell to this day because the corridors were used as bathrooms. I don't know how elaborately Madame went into detail while informing us of this, but I do know that I had and still have a very elaborately clear picture in my head of Marie Antoinette and her entourage lifting their skirts to the wall on the north while the men took care of things on the wall to the south. I'll admit, I was a pretty prissy, prude student back then. So if that was one of probably 5 things I retained from highschool French (one of the other involves Catherin Medici, cupboards, and poison, though I can't remember how they relate) you can understand why 1) I am now convinced that students will only actually remember the things that aren't important or that you mention in passing and don't really want them to remember, especially highschool students and so 2) I have no desire to teach highschool French 3) but if I were to teach I would collect every stereotypical-bordering-on-complete-mythological story so that at least my kids would have nourished their imaginations because I have little hope of getting them to remember verb conjugaisons. Which probably makes me a horrible teacher. But only hypothetically. And only for highschool students. Incidentally, I have no desire to google and confirm this supposed pee tradition. I'll take the fiction.
My friends thought it was funny when I came back from Rennes trying to explain to them that the woman holding her small dog on a leash wasn't a stereotype. It was real, dang it. When people think of Paris they think of the city of lights, naturally. But really, it's a city of hundreds, nay thousands of small dogs. This very day in fact I saw this girl walking with hers. Upon arriving at an intersection (I don't know why the intersection was any more dangerous than the sidewalk but that is her affair), she swooped him up with a practiced flick of a wrist. No more than that, I swear, and she was carrying him with her across the dangerous busy sweet. In case you were wondering, the thing probably weighed about the same as my lunch. And he was on a harnass.
But the thing is, this city of small dogs is also a city of small dog excrement and wee puddles. The small factor is significant because it makes it harder to see and thus harder to avoid. Except when it rains. And then it expands. And runs. And, well, you get the smelly picture.
And well then of course you have the smell of humans in tight, warm quarters. Some of whom have loosened standards of hygiene comparatively. I'll just leave it at that. I don't know why this is something that always surprises me. But it does. Everything is so sterile where I live. Where most of us live, I imagine. Paris gets me feeling OCD when I think about all the filthy things I come in contact with throughout the day. The pollution and cigarette smoke itself has me taking out my contacts once, if not twice a day to remove irritating particles and whatnot that cling relentlessly to my lenses. Sometimes it is refreshing to be reminded that we are more like animals than the machines we've allowed to take over our lives. The word 'animal' can have a really derogatory association. I don't mean it that way. I mean it in the way that animals are sentient, that they are free (I know I'm romanticising) and that they are almost always in communities. That's all.
(I don't mean to start out with the unpleasant things. It's just that sometimes, those are the sensations that hit the hardest, and somehow, end of carrying the essence of everything else. And everything else is pretty magical. So much so that I don't know where to start.)
3) la musique!
In a word: accordians. But also, so much more. Mostly on the metros, often on the streets. I don't know how the Parisians feel about it but I love the bombardment of live music as I travel. It's magical, simply that.
4) red is relative
I think this a phenomenon common to most large European cities, but I had forgotten and am quickly relearning the fact that a street is fair game, no matter what color that little walking man is. Pedestrians here aren't just assertive, they are plain rebellious. But no one seems to really mind. The expression 'share the road' (which I can never here without Samwise's voice in my head) is never more true. Cars are definitely keen to share the road to pedestrians, ever ready to yield in case of overly zealous rebel. But by 'road' they mean the foot-wide perimeter of space around you. No need to have your life flash before your eyes 15 times a day. Keep calm and carry on.
Things that I have "learned" about Paris:
I know that Rennes, where I spent 5 months in 2004, is no metropolitan. I know this. And that is why I love it and want to go back. All the same-and I can't help but to compare-I am so surprised by the presence of English in Paris. I hear it ALL the time. I see Brits and Yanks right and left. It is tourist season, yes. I am aware of that. But this impression began in Switzerland even. I couldn't believe being able to get along without honestly knowing a lick of German. To be honest, it is kind of sad.
When I lived in Rennes, I spent 5 quite silent months amongst anyone who wasn't a foreign, English speaking student. I had to. There were a few Frenchies who had done studies abroad to England or the States, but it was mostly Americans and Irish that I hung around if I wanted to communicate at all. One in ten of us had a cell phone. Internet only existed in the campus library and at internet cafés. It may be unfair of me to compare a Rennes of 8 years ago to a Paris of today, but I can't help but feeling as though I have been witness to a huge cultural shifting. Globalization through the internet and the media has happened, right before my eyes. Of course kids still learn English at school as they have been for the past 30 something years. But I think it is safe to say that in the last 10 years or so, everything has changed. And is still.changing. Culturally, linguistically. It's kind of sad. I come to France to experience a culture and a history that is different from my own. That gap between French and American mentality, so impassive, I wonder if it will always remain that way. I don't want our cultures to understand one another simply because one has obliterated the other. Perhaps that is dramatic. Perhaps we'll give it another 10 years and see.
My internship here entails two kinds of work: setting up visits with old people who are lonely and need the company or someone to accompany them on little outings, and biweekly meetings with a group who have come from hard times and few means and have made a sort of family for themselves amongst others like them. I'll be talking a lot more about my work, schedule, visits, and of course, the people, for the rest of my stay here. For the sake of this topic however, I'm gonna just limit myself to one anecdote.
Three days of the week I spend my afternoons doing visits with Carin. You will likely hear much more about her. She is, I believe, somewhere in her 60's, from the Netherlands, and a French Professor. She has come here for 3 weeks, leaving behind her husband as she has done the past 3 years to come here and renew her French. She is fiercely independant, gets around on a bike, goes to concerts almost nightly, has a beautiful singing voice and a way with the people here, and is already like to be one of my heroes. In any case, we had a visit Friday. The woman we visited, Mme M, collected books of French culture, mostly about impressionism. She knew so much but the craziest thing is she has never traveled. Ever! Anyway, she uses art as a kind of therapy to help her deal with the solitude, but, most especially, the lack of solidarity she feels and the changes in the country. The city she grew up in and has lived in most of her life is such a different place. It has evolved, not just with the effects of time on her culture, but by other cultures on her culture. In case you aren't aware, immigration is a huge phenomenon in Europe. I should google some statistics but I'm feeling lazy. I think the best way to summarize is using Carin's words, which she used to help me understand Mme. M's distress. Carin watched her mother, who recently passed, go through a similar struggle: In the Netherlands, there are entire neighborhoods which are now entirely full of immigrants. Natives no longer live there. But all this has happened only over the past 20 years or so. Which translates a lot of change in only a short amount of time. And the older generation, the ones who shaped the cities as we have them today in many ways, are too old to move away out of such neighborhoods. Or it doesn't make sense for them to. But it takes so much energy for them to live, that tackling this unfamiliar is a daunting task. And so they live further isolated, not just by age but by culture.
So in summary, I am beginning to see how Paris, this city that I love for its age and richness of history, is also a city that encapsulates change. It's a striking juxtaposition.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
So this is what one does having finished finals and has nothing to do, no reason to go to bed early, but also guilt over just staying up late and watching movies: recycle homework!
I'll get more into the particulars of highlighting this flash of a semester. I'm feeling more mechanically inclined than creatively at the moment so I'm going to get started on something I told myself I would do once the semester was over: translate my photo projects for my French class and post them here.
Photography, you ask? French? Why yes. That's exactly what I thought. This unlikely pairing of a college course that blessedly fulfilled grad requirements were responsible for bringing to life one of my favorite college courses to date.
Remember how 2 years ago I bought myself a DSLR camera to justify my summer exile to the states? And remember how I was going to take classes and learn how to use it so that when I finally went abroad I would be able to use it to take fantastic pictures? Well the truth of the matter is, I didn't really learn how to use it until I was pretty much forced to. I'm sure that doesn't sound familiar at all, right?
I know I've mentioned my critical theory class from last class that I loved. This photography class was taught by the same teacher and not only did it force me to get comfortable with my camera and with the idea of pretending to be all artsy-fartsy, but it gave me a fantastic introduction to the history of photography and photographic discourse. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sensing a nascent hobby here. Possibly a new obsession. Which means, naturally, that you can expect to hear more from me on this account. If you hear from me, that is.
So this was my first project. The assignment was to write a short cohesive essay with 5 equally cohesive and well sequenced images. I didn't know where to start or how to use my camera so my friend C gave me a concise tutorial and took me to a warehouse next to the train tracks behind our neighborhood that would have been a breeding ground of boxcar children dreams realized amongst other more likely troublesome games and fantasies had I actually grown up here. It was night. Snowy. Muddy. My friend kept saying how "beautiful" everything was and I kept trying to figure out what he was talking about and if maybe in his vocabulary "beautiful" was synonymous with "cold", which is definitely not the case for me. The result was the 2nd image. It didn't necessarily inspire this essay. The photo that inspired it (a shadow of a fence) didn't make the cut. But it was a start, a start to looking at things the right way, which we also talked about in class.
Victor Hugo said: "When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.”
I'll get more into the particulars of highlighting this flash of a semester. I'm feeling more mechanically inclined than creatively at the moment so I'm going to get started on something I told myself I would do once the semester was over: translate my photo projects for my French class and post them here.
Photography, you ask? French? Why yes. That's exactly what I thought. This unlikely pairing of a college course that blessedly fulfilled grad requirements were responsible for bringing to life one of my favorite college courses to date.
Remember how 2 years ago I bought myself a DSLR camera to justify my summer exile to the states? And remember how I was going to take classes and learn how to use it so that when I finally went abroad I would be able to use it to take fantastic pictures? Well the truth of the matter is, I didn't really learn how to use it until I was pretty much forced to. I'm sure that doesn't sound familiar at all, right?
So this was my first project. The assignment was to write a short cohesive essay with 5 equally cohesive and well sequenced images. I didn't know where to start or how to use my camera so my friend C gave me a concise tutorial and took me to a warehouse next to the train tracks behind our neighborhood that would have been a breeding ground of boxcar children dreams realized amongst other more likely troublesome games and fantasies had I actually grown up here. It was night. Snowy. Muddy. My friend kept saying how "beautiful" everything was and I kept trying to figure out what he was talking about and if maybe in his vocabulary "beautiful" was synonymous with "cold", which is definitely not the case for me. The result was the 2nd image. It didn't necessarily inspire this essay. The photo that inspired it (a shadow of a fence) didn't make the cut. But it was a start, a start to looking at things the right way, which we also talked about in class.
Victor Hugo said: "When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.”
Of course it sounds better in French. As does my essay. But I'm going to share it so that I can share my journey of learning to understand the art of seeing:
The word 'train' can evoke a variety of images, memories, feelings. Didn't our lives begin with toy trains in our hands, regardless of whether we were a boy or a girl. There are trains that encircle the Christmas trees of our childhoods, trains at the zoo, at Disneyland. As children, we dream of trains, without really
realizing that, for most of us, trains aren't really a part of our everyday life. Once we have grown up, trains represent not only an era that is lost but also a childhood, equally passed, equally lost. However, while still young, was it this sense of nostalgia that drew us to those trains. Or did that joy come from the anticipation, the discovery that physical displacement offered us?
In France, among other countries, this joy is still experienced although it might be rendered banal by daily necessity since the French actually use trains to get around. Looking at the trains in France, you might look for this sense of nostalgia embedded in things past but you would end up stumbling inevitably upon modernity, or rather, a current usefulness. However, if you were to look at the train tracks you would find the traces of voyages which date back perhaps hundreds of years, seeped in this sense of nostalgia in spite of a current use of trains in France and despite a rare and more commercial not at all personal use here in the United States. All the same, don't train tracks also summon those impressions of anticipation, of movement forward, always forward? The word "track" (in French 'chemin', which means 'path') itself isn't a static word; movement or change, rather, is implicit in the word itself.
I particularly wanted to capture the same ambivalence and the same impressions evoked by the train tracks that find themselves projected on my daily path. A path with, I admit, is often marked by a whistling of trains.
For those of you who want the original French, le voila:
Le mot "train" peut évoquer une variété d'images, de souvenirs, et de sensations. Nos vies n’ont-elles pas commencé avec des trains à la main comme jouets, soit fille ou garçon ? Il y a des trains qui encercle l'arbre de noël de l'enfance, des trains au zoo, au Disneyland. Enfants, on rêve des trains, sans se rendant compte que, pour la plupart d'entre nous, les trains ne font pas parties de la vie quotidienne. Une fois que nous avons grandit, les trains nous représentent non seulement une époque perdue mais aussi une enfance perdue. Pourtant, dans notre jeunesse, est-ce que c'était ce sens de nostalgie qui nous attirait aux trains? Ou, la joie venait-elle de l'anticipation, de la découverte grâce au déplacement physique?
Le mot "train" peut évoquer une variété d'images, de souvenirs, et de sensations. Nos vies n’ont-elles pas commencé avec des trains à la main comme jouets, soit fille ou garçon ? Il y a des trains qui encercle l'arbre de noël de l'enfance, des trains au zoo, au Disneyland. Enfants, on rêve des trains, sans se rendant compte que, pour la plupart d'entre nous, les trains ne font pas parties de la vie quotidienne. Une fois que nous avons grandit, les trains nous représentent non seulement une époque perdue mais aussi une enfance perdue. Pourtant, dans notre jeunesse, est-ce que c'était ce sens de nostalgie qui nous attirait aux trains? Ou, la joie venait-elle de l'anticipation, de la découverte grâce au déplacement physique?
En France, parmi d’autres pays, cette joie est encore connue quoique peut-être rendue banale par une nécessité quotidienne puisque les français se servent des trains pour se déplacer. En regardant des trains en France, on chercherait peut-être ce sens de nostalgie mais on finirait par y trouver plutôt la modernité, ou au moins l’utilité. Mais en regardant les rails on trouvera les traces des voyages qui datent parfois des centaines d’années d’où provient cette nostalgie malgré un usage courant des trains en France et malgré un rare usage plutôt commercial et pas du tout personnel aux Etats Unis. Les rails de chemin de fers ne rappellent-t-ils pas tout de même les impressions d’anticipation, du mouvement en avance, toujours en avance ? Le mot « chemin » même n’est pas un mot statique ; un mouvement ou plutôt un changement y est impliqué.
Je voulais surtout capturer la même ambivalence et les mêmes impressions évoquées par les rails de chemin de fer qui se trouvent projetés sur mon chemin quotidien. Un chemin qui, j’avoue, est souvent marqué par un sifflement de train.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
More Adventurous
Quoting myself from December of 2010:
So I guess next year I can just twiddle my thumbs and wait for 2012 so don't be sorry if you don't hear from my uneventful self. Too bad the world will end that year. (But at least it fits the pattern, right?)
What pattern, you might ask? Just this silly superstitious pattern I've "identified" in which the major events in my life fall on an 'even' year.
I think it's funny that my prediction rang true; well, in part: I have very little postings to boast of. But what I didn't expect was such a departure from the norm. Because (for reasons previously listed) 2011 was actually a big year. Possibly a bigger year than 2010, if I dare speak in relativities. It was a year of new beginnings and necessary endings, which I usually tend to mark by dates and plane rides or road trips and foreign sidewalks. I can't identify this year's endings and beginnings in the less abstract picturesque. Yes, I did move to Provo, and yes this provided me with a new landscape in which to view myself and others around me; but there is so much more to it than that. Does it help any to say that I have never in my life felt so old? Or that I have never, either, felt so, so young? Count on me to deal in binaries.
I know that 2011 is a year I will be grateful for perhaps unlike many others. I felt like the end hit me before I could write up my Christmas cards and send out emails and letters of thanks. A package I meant to send last year is still sitting in the back of my car: that's two years and counting that my poor time management and distaste for postal offices have gotten the best of me. But I can't help but shake this old year happily off and leave it behind to whither. As I read in Les Lettres Chinoises this last semester: un fleur qui ne meurt pas n'est pas un vrai fleur.
A flower which doesn't die is not a real flower. (Kinda gives you the chills, doesn't it?)
2012 is already well in bloom. And I can't help shaking this feeling that has haunted me since last (or rather, before last) December that this, ladies and gents, is MY year. Don't ask me how. It just is. I can taste it.
And actually, I have proof too.
Week number 1 of 2012 has included:
Lord of the Rings in Bluray
Having my bff visit my Provo hood from Texas.
Hot Pots
Poppin' a squat (This may not be noteworthy in your book. I don't blame you.)
A barefoot run in the middle of nowhere. By the light of the moon.
Going commando and bra-less for several hours. (That's like the waterless equivalent to skinny dipping, right? And no one would argue that skinny dipping wasn't exciting.)
Spanish class! And I'm already back to thinking in Spanish. If you count saying "priamos" as thinking in Spanish (French: prions + Spanish: oramos = priamos!)
Two new recipes.
A date.
My debut as a karaoke star.
A made bed every day.
Temple with roomies.
Snow! After weeks of clear skies.
Let's just say that the other 51 weeks have a lot to live up to. Also, did I mention that this year is leap year? Cuz it is. I don't think I need to get into just how cool that is.
I'm posting my resolutions under a monstrous liar post. At least the particulars. They could be summarized by the title of this post and by this quote:.
This year, I want to change the way I am towards others by changing the way I think toward others and toward myself. To think generously, in a word. That's my kind of new adventure.
So I guess next year I can just twiddle my thumbs and wait for 2012 so don't be sorry if you don't hear from my uneventful self. Too bad the world will end that year. (But at least it fits the pattern, right?)
What pattern, you might ask? Just this silly superstitious pattern I've "identified" in which the major events in my life fall on an 'even' year.
I think it's funny that my prediction rang true; well, in part: I have very little postings to boast of. But what I didn't expect was such a departure from the norm. Because (for reasons previously listed) 2011 was actually a big year. Possibly a bigger year than 2010, if I dare speak in relativities. It was a year of new beginnings and necessary endings, which I usually tend to mark by dates and plane rides or road trips and foreign sidewalks. I can't identify this year's endings and beginnings in the less abstract picturesque. Yes, I did move to Provo, and yes this provided me with a new landscape in which to view myself and others around me; but there is so much more to it than that. Does it help any to say that I have never in my life felt so old? Or that I have never, either, felt so, so young? Count on me to deal in binaries.
I know that 2011 is a year I will be grateful for perhaps unlike many others. I felt like the end hit me before I could write up my Christmas cards and send out emails and letters of thanks. A package I meant to send last year is still sitting in the back of my car: that's two years and counting that my poor time management and distaste for postal offices have gotten the best of me. But I can't help but shake this old year happily off and leave it behind to whither. As I read in Les Lettres Chinoises this last semester: un fleur qui ne meurt pas n'est pas un vrai fleur.
A flower which doesn't die is not a real flower. (Kinda gives you the chills, doesn't it?)
2012 is already well in bloom. And I can't help shaking this feeling that has haunted me since last (or rather, before last) December that this, ladies and gents, is MY year. Don't ask me how. It just is. I can taste it.
And actually, I have proof too.
Week number 1 of 2012 has included:
Lord of the Rings in Bluray
Having my bff visit my Provo hood from Texas.
Hot Pots
Poppin' a squat (This may not be noteworthy in your book. I don't blame you.)
A barefoot run in the middle of nowhere. By the light of the moon.
Going commando and bra-less for several hours. (That's like the waterless equivalent to skinny dipping, right? And no one would argue that skinny dipping wasn't exciting.)
Spanish class! And I'm already back to thinking in Spanish. If you count saying "priamos" as thinking in Spanish (French: prions + Spanish: oramos = priamos!)
Two new recipes.
A date.
My debut as a karaoke star.
A made bed every day.
Temple with roomies.
Snow! After weeks of clear skies.
Let's just say that the other 51 weeks have a lot to live up to. Also, did I mention that this year is leap year? Cuz it is. I don't think I need to get into just how cool that is.
I'm posting my resolutions under a monstrous liar post. At least the particulars. They could be summarized by the title of this post and by this quote:.
This year, I want to change the way I am towards others by changing the way I think toward others and toward myself. To think generously, in a word. That's my kind of new adventure.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Brand New Pair of Wings
I am feeling a point of departure at hand as far as this blog is concerned. As you might have noticed, the past few months flew by before I could take a pause long enough to take it all in.
I have a lot I want to say (surprise). But I find myself spending too much time deliberating between not having the time to commit it to writing in the first place and then auto-censuring myself as I consider what I want to say and to whom. Much as I like to hold to the egocentric belief that people care what I have to say, most of what I want to say is to everyone. And yet no one. Mostly to me: the simultaneous everythingness and nothingness of me. I also should say that I find myself wanting to write in French.
All various explanations of why, with so much to say, nothing has been said. And now the eternal question of a blogger who, like a friend who has been away for a long time, doesn't know where to even start. There is no beginning in all this, though I sometimes wish that there were; that I could pinpoint and place in time, like words on the first page of a book. It's no secret to anyone that I think of my life as a book. Nor that I sometimes foolishly judge the quality of that life by how interesting the various episodes would be to read. But I feel like I'm repeating myself here and that this is a reoccuring theme or topic on these electronic pages and that no one really needs to be told this because it is probably a universal truth: novels, journals, and blogs would not exist otherwise.
So maybe I'll start with a chapter. It would be titled (and here I shall refer to myself in the 3rd person, just to make things weird for everyone): Brand New Pair of Wings.
I wrote the above over a month ago, toward the end of September. About a week ago I was reading this article about History for my Critical Theory class, a course which, by definition is designed to make us think more. Yeah, well, some of us don't need to learn how to think more, we need to learn how to think less. As is manifest in the fact that most of these amazingly intelligent theorists whose works we are reading lived lives of debauchery and usually ended up killing themselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again: some people are just too smart to function. And I don't know about you but I'd rather be functioning that brilliant. I mean, let's be practical. By extension, I'd also rather be living. As a matter of principle.
Lucky for me, I don't think I'll ever really have to choose between the two, no matter how much I learn. As far as I'm concerned, brilliance demands a sort of disregard for, or the ability to see beyond, conventions that I just don't have. As far as I'm concerned, brilliance comes down to creation. Look at Steve Jobs, for example.
Anyhow, back to me thinking too much. I must say that there is something entirely more productive in this line of thinking than in my usual near obsessive compulsive analysis/worrying. But I think that the fact that I am now thinking about so many different things-in this as in my other classes, not to mention in conjunction with a handful of other rather foreign experiences-that I have barely the time to think things through, let alone document them. Which is a real shame, really, because I actually feel like I have something productive to say versus the usual mumbo jumbo that goes on here.
Going back now to my passage from September and the article on History. The irony is that my desire to literacize (neologism is my best friend) my life by assigning chapters with titles is completely in line with Hayden White's theory on History. He writes on the writing of history and on the narrative form(s) involved. To summarize, he basically contends that history-its perception as well as the writing of it-is a literary act; that the facts do not and cannot speak for themselves.
To really drive this point home, I'm just going to directly quote the article. You'll see why it's pertinent in the duration of a few lovely paragraphs.
"The fundamental meaning of all fictions, their thematic content, consist, in Frye's view, of the "pre-generic plot structures" or mythoi derived from the corpora of Classical and Judeo-Christian religious literature. According to this theory, we understand why a particular story has "turned out" as it has when we have identified the archetypal myth, or pregeneric plot structure, of which the story is an exemplification. And we see the "point" of the story when we have identified its theme.
The events [in a history] are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by characterizations, motific (see, other people make up words too) repetition, variation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies and the like.
How a given historical situation is to be configured depends on the historian's subtlety in matching up a specific plot structure with the set of historical events that he wishes to endow with a meaning of a particular kind."
Some kinds of the plot structures he mentions are romances, tragedies, satires. You know, the kind of categorization you learn in highschool. Basically, these are the narrative structures by which we frame, not only history, but also our lives.
And here's the kicker. "We do not live stories," he tells us "even if we give our lives meaning by retrospectively casting them in the form of stories."
Isn't that what this whole blogging/journaling/facebook status-ing thing is? It's us giving our lives meaning by retrospectively casting them in the form of stories. Not only that, but WE are our own historians and we choose the narrative emplotment for our own stories. Our lives aren't inherently satirical or tragic until we choose that plot form with which to frame our lives.
This reality was especially fascinating to me. Not only am I writing a paper about it, but I am also procrastinating the writing of that paper by writing this blog entry about blogging about the assigning of narrative form to my life. The circle of life, my friends.
The reality that we retrospectively cast our histories seems yet another explanation as to why this blog has been neglected of late. I have this tendency, especially of late, to think of certain things, certain events going on in my life as being "pivotal". I also have the obsession with analyzing (again retrospectively) the moments in my life and in others lives' when "everything changed". And as I've been having so many awesome experiences these past few months, it's as though I can't decide which facts to suppress, which to subordinate. It's as though I'm still trying to identify the plot under which my life is currently framed. Not knowing how my "story" is going to turn out, I don't know how to cast the story. I feel like there are all these pivotal things but how can I know, just yet?
I should probably insert here, for the sake of unabashed authenticity that this whole narrative casting thing explains PERFECTLY my (and a great number of girls, and well, guys I know and probably ones that I don't know as well) obsession with a "good story" when it comes down to "relationships". (Yeah, that's right, that word did just make it onto my blog. I've been a closet lover of analyzing relationships up to this point but I'm ready to set the record straight. You probably saw right through me anyway.) Back to this "good story" nonsense.
I may be the exception here but how many times does the "idea" of a relationship, the fact that it looks and feels and acts like a relationship does and should, contribute to our "buying in" of the relationship? I mean, there are symbols, gests, which for us cast our relationships into certain narratives. The narrative of "the one" for example, the narrative of "love at first sight", the "Mr. Darcy" narrative where you can't stand the person at first but insults, passion, and most of all chemistry get the best of you and before you know it you're looking the narrative of "happily ever after" squarely in the face, and let's not forget the "meant to be", that one's the most dangerous. (Meant to be what, exactly? Never underestimate the damage done by lack of semantic precision) Not gonna lie, I am totally guilty of saying to myself in frustration "but this isn't how it's supposed to look, this is a LAME story" or I can't even figure out which narrative to cast for the thing and so I oscillate, not knowing how to feel without the narrative to allow me to feel thus.
Let's not get carried away with the whole R word crap. I do have a paper to write, after all. The point that I'm trying to make here I guess is that I'm still struggling for a narrative in which to cast my current ongoings. Maybe it is the giant unheaval that is, for once, of a more permanent nature (versus summer escape plans), but I feel like I've been going through a lot of growth lately, some of it painful. Some of that growth has been the mere recognition of the fact that I have a lot of growing up to do.
Right now, I have a set of facts that I don't know how yet to emplot necessarily. I present them for your enjoyment and for the sake of my procrastination:
I am an aunt. My baby sister has a baby. She is an amazing mommy. He is my favorite.
When I think of the "idea" of school, the image of a bench behind the U of U library floats to my mind. And somehow, I relive those feelings (which yes, I am not sharing) associated with that image, that bench, and a few moments from years ago, almost everyday.
This summer, for unidentifiable reasons, constituted some of the hardest few months of my life. Probably my life has been easy and well, everything is relative. Hopefully, they have made me softer around the edges.
I moved in June. I move in August. I made the right choice both times. (A shout out to my roommates, with love).
Somehow I manage to do everything I need:
All of the (just) above, when I think about it, literally amazes me. So much worrying for nothing. On my mirror are written the words "Avec Dieu, tout est possible". I'm pretty sure that is the only rational explanation I have.
I learn so much, everyday, from so many people, many of whom are my peers. There is not enough time to write all of life's lessons.
All of these things and so many more, are, I feel, changing me; though I don't know, can't feel, how or to what end. But I want to get them out, like Zeus throwing out stars to be caught in the night sky, so that later, maybe much later, I can connect the dots and see a constellation.
Or two.
I wrote the above over a month ago, toward the end of September. About a week ago I was reading this article about History for my Critical Theory class, a course which, by definition is designed to make us think more. Yeah, well, some of us don't need to learn how to think more, we need to learn how to think less. As is manifest in the fact that most of these amazingly intelligent theorists whose works we are reading lived lives of debauchery and usually ended up killing themselves. I've said it before and I'll say it again: some people are just too smart to function. And I don't know about you but I'd rather be functioning that brilliant. I mean, let's be practical. By extension, I'd also rather be living. As a matter of principle.
Lucky for me, I don't think I'll ever really have to choose between the two, no matter how much I learn. As far as I'm concerned, brilliance demands a sort of disregard for, or the ability to see beyond, conventions that I just don't have. As far as I'm concerned, brilliance comes down to creation. Look at Steve Jobs, for example.
Anyhow, back to me thinking too much. I must say that there is something entirely more productive in this line of thinking than in my usual near obsessive compulsive analysis/worrying. But I think that the fact that I am now thinking about so many different things-in this as in my other classes, not to mention in conjunction with a handful of other rather foreign experiences-that I have barely the time to think things through, let alone document them. Which is a real shame, really, because I actually feel like I have something productive to say versus the usual mumbo jumbo that goes on here.
Going back now to my passage from September and the article on History. The irony is that my desire to literacize (neologism is my best friend) my life by assigning chapters with titles is completely in line with Hayden White's theory on History. He writes on the writing of history and on the narrative form(s) involved. To summarize, he basically contends that history-its perception as well as the writing of it-is a literary act; that the facts do not and cannot speak for themselves.
To really drive this point home, I'm just going to directly quote the article. You'll see why it's pertinent in the duration of a few lovely paragraphs.
"The fundamental meaning of all fictions, their thematic content, consist, in Frye's view, of the "pre-generic plot structures" or mythoi derived from the corpora of Classical and Judeo-Christian religious literature. According to this theory, we understand why a particular story has "turned out" as it has when we have identified the archetypal myth, or pregeneric plot structure, of which the story is an exemplification. And we see the "point" of the story when we have identified its theme.
The events [in a history] are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by characterizations, motific (see, other people make up words too) repetition, variation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies and the like.
How a given historical situation is to be configured depends on the historian's subtlety in matching up a specific plot structure with the set of historical events that he wishes to endow with a meaning of a particular kind."
Some kinds of the plot structures he mentions are romances, tragedies, satires. You know, the kind of categorization you learn in highschool. Basically, these are the narrative structures by which we frame, not only history, but also our lives.
And here's the kicker. "We do not live stories," he tells us "even if we give our lives meaning by retrospectively casting them in the form of stories."
Isn't that what this whole blogging/journaling/facebook status-ing thing is? It's us giving our lives meaning by retrospectively casting them in the form of stories. Not only that, but WE are our own historians and we choose the narrative emplotment for our own stories. Our lives aren't inherently satirical or tragic until we choose that plot form with which to frame our lives.
This reality was especially fascinating to me. Not only am I writing a paper about it, but I am also procrastinating the writing of that paper by writing this blog entry about blogging about the assigning of narrative form to my life. The circle of life, my friends.
The reality that we retrospectively cast our histories seems yet another explanation as to why this blog has been neglected of late. I have this tendency, especially of late, to think of certain things, certain events going on in my life as being "pivotal". I also have the obsession with analyzing (again retrospectively) the moments in my life and in others lives' when "everything changed". And as I've been having so many awesome experiences these past few months, it's as though I can't decide which facts to suppress, which to subordinate. It's as though I'm still trying to identify the plot under which my life is currently framed. Not knowing how my "story" is going to turn out, I don't know how to cast the story. I feel like there are all these pivotal things but how can I know, just yet?
I should probably insert here, for the sake of unabashed authenticity that this whole narrative casting thing explains PERFECTLY my (and a great number of girls, and well, guys I know and probably ones that I don't know as well) obsession with a "good story" when it comes down to "relationships". (Yeah, that's right, that word did just make it onto my blog. I've been a closet lover of analyzing relationships up to this point but I'm ready to set the record straight. You probably saw right through me anyway.) Back to this "good story" nonsense.
I may be the exception here but how many times does the "idea" of a relationship, the fact that it looks and feels and acts like a relationship does and should, contribute to our "buying in" of the relationship? I mean, there are symbols, gests, which for us cast our relationships into certain narratives. The narrative of "the one" for example, the narrative of "love at first sight", the "Mr. Darcy" narrative where you can't stand the person at first but insults, passion, and most of all chemistry get the best of you and before you know it you're looking the narrative of "happily ever after" squarely in the face, and let's not forget the "meant to be", that one's the most dangerous. (Meant to be what, exactly? Never underestimate the damage done by lack of semantic precision) Not gonna lie, I am totally guilty of saying to myself in frustration "but this isn't how it's supposed to look, this is a LAME story" or I can't even figure out which narrative to cast for the thing and so I oscillate, not knowing how to feel without the narrative to allow me to feel thus.
Let's not get carried away with the whole R word crap. I do have a paper to write, after all. The point that I'm trying to make here I guess is that I'm still struggling for a narrative in which to cast my current ongoings. Maybe it is the giant unheaval that is, for once, of a more permanent nature (versus summer escape plans), but I feel like I've been going through a lot of growth lately, some of it painful. Some of that growth has been the mere recognition of the fact that I have a lot of growing up to do.
Right now, I have a set of facts that I don't know how yet to emplot necessarily. I present them for your enjoyment and for the sake of my procrastination:
I am an aunt. My baby sister has a baby. She is an amazing mommy. He is my favorite.
When I think of the "idea" of school, the image of a bench behind the U of U library floats to my mind. And somehow, I relive those feelings (which yes, I am not sharing) associated with that image, that bench, and a few moments from years ago, almost everyday.
This summer, for unidentifiable reasons, constituted some of the hardest few months of my life. Probably my life has been easy and well, everything is relative. Hopefully, they have made me softer around the edges.
I moved in June. I move in August. I made the right choice both times. (A shout out to my roommates, with love).
Somehow I manage to do everything I need:
- I have not missed or been significantly late to any class.
- I make dinner almost every night with real, delicious, and healthy food, and it is one of my most dreaded and yet favorite moments of the day. Funny how once school started I suddenly became a chef.
- I am not behind (though not ahead) on homework.
- I am back to running 3 times a week and have found my stamina again. The feeling: gorgeous. I have suspicions that the reason I feel sick often despite gluten free (and recent sugar free) eating comes down to my running. I have imaginary conversations with me and various doctors telling me I need to find something else. They always end with me yelling at them, rolling my eyes, or slamming the door. Various degrees of defiance. Such imaginings only bring home to me the fact that (probably because it is so mental) I love running. And I won't be told to stop. Especially by people who only exist in hypothetical conversations in my head.
- I have more of a social life than I have had in years, even though sometimes that just entails me staying on campus late on Friday nights chatting with other student instructors. Shout out.
All of the (just) above, when I think about it, literally amazes me. So much worrying for nothing. On my mirror are written the words "Avec Dieu, tout est possible". I'm pretty sure that is the only rational explanation I have.
I learn so much, everyday, from so many people, many of whom are my peers. There is not enough time to write all of life's lessons.
All of these things and so many more, are, I feel, changing me; though I don't know, can't feel, how or to what end. But I want to get them out, like Zeus throwing out stars to be caught in the night sky, so that later, maybe much later, I can connect the dots and see a constellation.
Or two.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Checkity check check check
Self-compelling obligation is a two-edged sword.
I'm referring, naturally, to chocolate. You see, as Dove so wisely put it, keep the promises you make yourself.
Setting your mind to doing something and actually accomplishing it is one of life's finest feelings.
But (Beforeyouknowitit'sallfuss.) the lengths one goes to to accomplish said goals can be frightening. Which is why realisticivity is so important.
In case you haven't inferred, I set out to write on this blog once a month. I wrote it on a list. Cushioned boldly between a half-dozen other seemingly possible-but-lacking-realisticivity things.
Isn't the English language great? You put hyphens between sentences and all the sudden you have an adjective! A sentence long adjective!
The moral of the story, which I know, has been enthralling, is that never in my right mind with hours of homework in front of me and hours of lost sleep behind me, would I undertake to write a blog post.
But I promised myself. And I actually have a lot I want to write about.
So, here I am. This is my post:
I will write it tomorrow.
(Maybe).
Friday, July 15, 2011
Pass me the polyjuice potion
To really set the scene for this blog, I think you should know that I am writing from a bathroom.
A conversation I just had:
Sister: "What are you doing here?"
Me: "Typing."
Sister: "Why?"
Me: "Because I am too lazy to move."
In case you were wondering, I am definitely NOT on the toilet. I just moved my computer to the bathroom counter today so that I could avoid boredom while getting dressed and doing my makeup. Consequently, getting dressed and doing my makeup took well over an hour. Bathroom acoustics, you see.
And I didn't realize it until I was actually done writing this thing that the fact that I am in the bathroom is really ironic, given some references made here. True Hogwarts fans will figure it out.
Now, let's do this thing.
I have come to a few harsh (re)realizations this week.
1) I have little internal self control. My self control goes as far as putting myself into auto-constraining situations; imposing upon myself a rigorous work schedule, a race deadline, a limited grocery list, a restaurant full of nothing with gluten in it that smells better than its gluten free alternative menu items. Without the initial imposition however, this is what happens:
When I set my own hours 8 AM comes far too early. Before noon and I'm either eating breakfast or fixing lunch, getting on the internet then taking an afternoon nap because well, I deserve it. After that, I have to check to see that nothing happened on the internet or on my phone while I was sleeping. Then I have to decide what to make for dinner, recipe browse while I listen to music and get lost in a song or two that I put on repeat five or six times, decide that I will let myself be inspired at the grocery store and that it would probably be a good idea if I put a bra on, make a delicious dinner that makes me want to photograph and blog all about it, at which point I check the internet to find out when that next photography class is, write a post-it note that I will lose within 24 hours, avoid the computer though because I have to work, when conveniently I find an opportunity to hang out or run because I need to invest in my social life and my physical health and then look it's time for bed and this goes on every day until Saturday and now when people actually want to hang out I have to tell them, no, I'm sorry, I have a whole week's worth of work to do. Tonight. Wow, I'm such a winner.
When I go to the store, I usually end up with some new expensive health or gluten-free product that will change my life or else a bulk bag of chocolate covered: dark chocolate caramel chews, cinnamon bears, acai + blueberry goodness, or pomegranate seeds. And I tell myself that said bag will last me weeks, no, probably like 2 months, and is worth paying the $10 I just saved by not going to that movie with friends. I'm lucky if whatever bag I caved for lasts the week.
When I don't have a race deadline, I find that my stomach hurts an awful lot. Or my foot. Or my head. Or maybe I should do pilates or yogo to get ready for running. Except that I probably should have done that this morning and well, now it's too late, I'm already showered and well, it's really hot outside anyway. Strangely enough, the only time it's convenient to go running is when I should be working on Saturday night. But it's twilight and really I shouldn't push myself or run too long because it's getting late and could be dangerous.
And let's not talk about going to restaurants. If there is pizza or pastries involved, I am gone before I walk in the door. And then of course I am sick two days following.
2) All of these problems have solutions (make a list, deadline, and don't go out to eat ever again) except the first and probably most crucial. Because come September, I will be a student again. Which means essentially setting my own hours. If you just read the former paragraphs, you may understand why my recent track record does not exactly inspire confidence. My trick back when I was a student the last time (just, oh, you know, 5 little years ago) was to exile myself to the library or at my work, and not allow myself to come home until the work was done.
3) That exiling tactic for productivity only worked because my phone didn't get service in the library. And my job was talking on the phone, so when I stayed late from work, the last thing I felt like doing was picking it up again.
4) And this is perhaps the most disturbing realization: Facebook did not exist when I was in college, at least not in it's matured form. Nascent, it lacked the following dangerous features: chat, wall activity, and, the most potent: the fil d'acualité. The best part: now that I have a laptop and smartphone, this infamous distraction is accessible at all times that I am in class and "studying" with a simple tap. I am unequipped to deal with that kind of temptation!
All these realizations culminated in the following: If I was Harry Potter and the upcoming school year was my Voldemort, I would most certainly die a slow, unforgiving death at his hand. Probably somewhere in 5th book, when my lack of self-discipline makes me miserable to read about and pretty much ruins things for a whole bunch of other people involved.
In short, I needed and still need (they need to invent a tense that entails that a past tense as well as an ongoing present) to get a hold of myself. Really, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if I could just stop being Harry and be Hermione instead because she's perfect, brilliant, prepared, never distracted, incapable of procrastination, immune to the lure of petty gossip and wall posts, highly logical, genuinely courageous, and well, mostly just really self-disciplined. And really, who wants to read about Harry anyway?
You should know that I scoffed to myself when I read about programs such as RescueTime that block the internet and certain sites, popup reminders letting you know you are doing distracting stuff and to get back to work, let you setup goals, time slots, schedules, and send you a weekly report on how productive you have been compared to other users. "Honestly" I told myself, "has it really come down to this that people actually have to invent and pay for a program that forces them to have self-discipline."
Now, as I am looking myself in the bathroom mirror, (yes, I'm still here) nodding my head, the only person I'm scoffing at is me: "Yes, you have really come down to this".
Except that I'm far too stubborn and too cheap to admit to a need for such a program. I'm about to reform myself. Single-handedly. In true Hermione and Regina Spektor style, I shall be my own heroine. Thank you very much.
Step one in my recovery program is to curb the addiction. In following with a tradition I unintentionally started last summer, I'm going off of facebook for not one but TWO WEEKS.
Heroic, I know.
Here me out: this week marks the beginning of my life without deadline-imposed work. I have essentially 30 hours I will need to put in from now until Sept. 1. For me, that's basically the same as unemployment. I'd like to see you unemployed and not in school and then stay off facebook for 2 weeks. No, but really. I would love to see how it's done.
Last year's theme of facebook deprivation was Walden. Guess what, I never read it. This year, I'm going with something more practical: Wizards.
That being said, Facebook, I have one word for you: Expeliarmus!
A conversation I just had:
Sister: "What are you doing here?"
Me: "Typing."
Sister: "Why?"
Me: "Because I am too lazy to move."
In case you were wondering, I am definitely NOT on the toilet. I just moved my computer to the bathroom counter today so that I could avoid boredom while getting dressed and doing my makeup. Consequently, getting dressed and doing my makeup took well over an hour. Bathroom acoustics, you see.
And I didn't realize it until I was actually done writing this thing that the fact that I am in the bathroom is really ironic, given some references made here. True Hogwarts fans will figure it out.
Now, let's do this thing.
I have come to a few harsh (re)realizations this week.
1) I have little internal self control. My self control goes as far as putting myself into auto-constraining situations; imposing upon myself a rigorous work schedule, a race deadline, a limited grocery list, a restaurant full of nothing with gluten in it that smells better than its gluten free alternative menu items. Without the initial imposition however, this is what happens:
When I set my own hours 8 AM comes far too early. Before noon and I'm either eating breakfast or fixing lunch, getting on the internet then taking an afternoon nap because well, I deserve it. After that, I have to check to see that nothing happened on the internet or on my phone while I was sleeping. Then I have to decide what to make for dinner, recipe browse while I listen to music and get lost in a song or two that I put on repeat five or six times, decide that I will let myself be inspired at the grocery store and that it would probably be a good idea if I put a bra on, make a delicious dinner that makes me want to photograph and blog all about it, at which point I check the internet to find out when that next photography class is, write a post-it note that I will lose within 24 hours, avoid the computer though because I have to work, when conveniently I find an opportunity to hang out or run because I need to invest in my social life and my physical health and then look it's time for bed and this goes on every day until Saturday and now when people actually want to hang out I have to tell them, no, I'm sorry, I have a whole week's worth of work to do. Tonight. Wow, I'm such a winner.
When I go to the store, I usually end up with some new expensive health or gluten-free product that will change my life or else a bulk bag of chocolate covered: dark chocolate caramel chews, cinnamon bears, acai + blueberry goodness, or pomegranate seeds. And I tell myself that said bag will last me weeks, no, probably like 2 months, and is worth paying the $10 I just saved by not going to that movie with friends. I'm lucky if whatever bag I caved for lasts the week.
When I don't have a race deadline, I find that my stomach hurts an awful lot. Or my foot. Or my head. Or maybe I should do pilates or yogo to get ready for running. Except that I probably should have done that this morning and well, now it's too late, I'm already showered and well, it's really hot outside anyway. Strangely enough, the only time it's convenient to go running is when I should be working on Saturday night. But it's twilight and really I shouldn't push myself or run too long because it's getting late and could be dangerous.
And let's not talk about going to restaurants. If there is pizza or pastries involved, I am gone before I walk in the door. And then of course I am sick two days following.
2) All of these problems have solutions (make a list, deadline, and don't go out to eat ever again) except the first and probably most crucial. Because come September, I will be a student again. Which means essentially setting my own hours. If you just read the former paragraphs, you may understand why my recent track record does not exactly inspire confidence. My trick back when I was a student the last time (just, oh, you know, 5 little years ago) was to exile myself to the library or at my work, and not allow myself to come home until the work was done.
3) That exiling tactic for productivity only worked because my phone didn't get service in the library. And my job was talking on the phone, so when I stayed late from work, the last thing I felt like doing was picking it up again.
4) And this is perhaps the most disturbing realization: Facebook did not exist when I was in college, at least not in it's matured form. Nascent, it lacked the following dangerous features: chat, wall activity, and, the most potent: the fil d'acualité. The best part: now that I have a laptop and smartphone, this infamous distraction is accessible at all times that I am in class and "studying" with a simple tap. I am unequipped to deal with that kind of temptation!
All these realizations culminated in the following: If I was Harry Potter and the upcoming school year was my Voldemort, I would most certainly die a slow, unforgiving death at his hand. Probably somewhere in 5th book, when my lack of self-discipline makes me miserable to read about and pretty much ruins things for a whole bunch of other people involved.
In short, I needed and still need (they need to invent a tense that entails that a past tense as well as an ongoing present) to get a hold of myself. Really, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if I could just stop being Harry and be Hermione instead because she's perfect, brilliant, prepared, never distracted, incapable of procrastination, immune to the lure of petty gossip and wall posts, highly logical, genuinely courageous, and well, mostly just really self-disciplined. And really, who wants to read about Harry anyway?
You should know that I scoffed to myself when I read about programs such as RescueTime that block the internet and certain sites, popup reminders letting you know you are doing distracting stuff and to get back to work, let you setup goals, time slots, schedules, and send you a weekly report on how productive you have been compared to other users. "Honestly" I told myself, "has it really come down to this that people actually have to invent and pay for a program that forces them to have self-discipline."
Now, as I am looking myself in the bathroom mirror, (yes, I'm still here) nodding my head, the only person I'm scoffing at is me: "Yes, you have really come down to this".
Except that I'm far too stubborn and too cheap to admit to a need for such a program. I'm about to reform myself. Single-handedly. In true Hermione and Regina Spektor style, I shall be my own heroine. Thank you very much.
Step one in my recovery program is to curb the addiction. In following with a tradition I unintentionally started last summer, I'm going off of facebook for not one but TWO WEEKS.
Heroic, I know.
Here me out: this week marks the beginning of my life without deadline-imposed work. I have essentially 30 hours I will need to put in from now until Sept. 1. For me, that's basically the same as unemployment. I'd like to see you unemployed and not in school and then stay off facebook for 2 weeks. No, but really. I would love to see how it's done.
Last year's theme of facebook deprivation was Walden. Guess what, I never read it. This year, I'm going with something more practical: Wizards.
That being said, Facebook, I have one word for you: Expeliarmus!