Does it seem funny that, at this point, Daylight Savings is completely taken care of for most of us? My phone adjusts automatically - as do all phones. My computer magically knows the same, the cable box too. The only clock in my life that I have to adjust is the one in my car - which is 18 years old and by industry standards a dinosaur (that I'd have no other way, to be clear). It seems on the verge of being an outdated standard, to my mind - the hour ahead and back has never so much affected how I wake up, and since it changes on a Sunday, most of us just find that we've woken up a little later than normal. Without all the hustle and bustle of changing clocks, what good is Daylight Savings anyway?
Something of note - I am so incredibly productive on weekends when I don't work. If I have Friday and Saturday off, I'm going to get so much done and feel so much better about myself. It's not just spring break that did it, either: there's just a really comforting availability of about 15 daylight hours that is not normally there. For the first time in a while, I feel caught up, even ahead, and as if I can make it through the next couple of weeks of classes with some amount of aplomb.
Today I've had the fun of doing things I wouldn't normally have time and energy to do, too. I've made some French bread loaves for later, given the dog a bath, gotten good feedback on my editing project, gone grocery shopping, and experimented with Brian's fabulous camera and gorgeous lenses. Now if only I can think of summer as being an extended vacation (yes, which it is) and not a breeding ground for my craziness, I could have days like these all the time.
3.13.2011
3.08.2011
Theory Creeping Into My Daily Life
Memories taint everything they touch. The second a memory is formed, be assured that wherever, whenever, whatever it associates with will never - quite - be the same. Brian Rotman's book "Becoming Beside Ourselves" discusses the "ghosted user" projected by every medium, and I'm starting to think that memory is the same. When I walked down the street with my best friend a few weeks ago, taking her to the last birthday party she would have in Columbia, there are a couple of things that stick out to me: my arm in hers, the sound of our boots on the sidewalk, the guys repaving the Bank of America parking lot. And I think that, at least for a little while, every time I walk by that parking lot and wander down that street, a little part of me will snap back to that awesome night.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
2.22.2011
Mostly Pessimistic Thoughts
Sometimes I catch myself reminiscing over little snippets of my New York trip. I've not glamorized it so much yet that I don't remember all the angst and frustration - remember how I hated it, even? - but there are moments and emotions that I still look back on fondly. I remember laying in my top bunk with the breeze blowing against my back from my bay window, and I remember a mixed feeling of helplessness and independence. That's a strong emotion. It's beautiful and tragic all at once, when you feel both like you're accomplishing something amazing but also as though you're right on the verge of being in way over your head. I think that's an emotion that I experience regularly right now. I'm happy, I'm thrilled that things are going the way they are, but I feel as if I'm far too close to the deep end.
This U.S. history class has really shaken my worldview. The awful, atrocious things that America has done absolutely blows my mind. Not even the slavery, the exploitation of women and children, the lynchings and prejudice that lasted well into the 20th century (which seems as if it should have been the pinnacle of modernity). Things like the way we gained Hawaii, for instance. The U.S. government basically set into motion a series of events that they knew would lead to a revolt, and American sugar planters took over the government from the Hawaiian queen. Even some of Teddy Roosevelt's political moves just shock me - I was aware of a lot of the awful things that America has done over the years, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.
It's not fair to say that without a nod towards some of the awful things that humanity as an entity has enacted on each other. It's nothing unique to Americans, it's unique to humanity itself. There's an innate kind of cruelty specific to people that even our closest evolutionary relatives don't have. Animals may eat their young, but it's with none of the same malice that the Spaniards tortured people with during the Inquisition. It's disheartening, really.
I have just the most amazing friends and family. In all seriousness, I can't imagine how I would make it without them. Last night, my sister and Casey hauled most of my belongings from my apartment to the new house. Troopers, the both of them, and all I did in return was give them some chocolatey non-coffee. I wish I could really express my thanks in some more meaningful way, other than just to say that I cannot imagine a life without the kind of people that I've been lucky enough to become close with.
I need to start thinking of "Brian's place" as "our place." That's going to be a shift. I'm four days away from having no other place to go, but I still just keep thinking of it as "his place." That's crappy from a personal standpoint, but I also need to learn to take ownership of it just so I can feel like I have something of my own.
This U.S. history class has really shaken my worldview. The awful, atrocious things that America has done absolutely blows my mind. Not even the slavery, the exploitation of women and children, the lynchings and prejudice that lasted well into the 20th century (which seems as if it should have been the pinnacle of modernity). Things like the way we gained Hawaii, for instance. The U.S. government basically set into motion a series of events that they knew would lead to a revolt, and American sugar planters took over the government from the Hawaiian queen. Even some of Teddy Roosevelt's political moves just shock me - I was aware of a lot of the awful things that America has done over the years, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.
It's not fair to say that without a nod towards some of the awful things that humanity as an entity has enacted on each other. It's nothing unique to Americans, it's unique to humanity itself. There's an innate kind of cruelty specific to people that even our closest evolutionary relatives don't have. Animals may eat their young, but it's with none of the same malice that the Spaniards tortured people with during the Inquisition. It's disheartening, really.
I have just the most amazing friends and family. In all seriousness, I can't imagine how I would make it without them. Last night, my sister and Casey hauled most of my belongings from my apartment to the new house. Troopers, the both of them, and all I did in return was give them some chocolatey non-coffee. I wish I could really express my thanks in some more meaningful way, other than just to say that I cannot imagine a life without the kind of people that I've been lucky enough to become close with.
I need to start thinking of "Brian's place" as "our place." That's going to be a shift. I'm four days away from having no other place to go, but I still just keep thinking of it as "his place." That's crappy from a personal standpoint, but I also need to learn to take ownership of it just so I can feel like I have something of my own.
2.21.2011
More General Frustrations
I have one of the most pointless, frustrating jobs I've ever imagined. On the few days when I feel some sense of accomplishment or fulfillment, more often than not I'm told that, although I did something correctly, I need to do it again a different way for boss number three. And then halfway through that, I need to do it a third way for boss number four. I've worked places where the communication was heinous - nonexistent - but this more or less trumps them all. I'm all tied up by red tape, and anytime I do anything at all, I'm constantly afraid that someone else in a higher position than me is going to demand that I do it again, differently.
Bureaucracy and politics may, in fact, be the root of all evil. Not even state and federal politics (that one's a given), but just interpersonal politics that make all kinds of little things difficult. Or maybe my world is just too small - that's entirely possible. When all of the important people in your life know each other as closely as you know them, or closer, you're stuck in situations where you know more about each of those people than you want to know, and your role in the middle essentially boils down to "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I can't make everyone happy in this situation, and the real problem is that it's my fault for allowing myself to slip in the middle. Stupid, stupid.
My commitment - no, that's not the right word. My drive tends to waver or fade depending on certain circumstances. Being sick for so long certainly didn't help. I got sick, am still a little sick, and can't focus on anything simple for very long, much less Foucault and Freud through a feminist theory lens. Also the aforementioned situation leaves me feeling . . . an aversion. When I'm disillusioned by something (an easy task, as I'm sure is evident by this point), I feel far less desire to get things done. That's such a character flaw. I need to find my own drive and stop relying on others'.
This thesis is starting to really overwhelm me. I was sent back some revisions today, and although I'd totally expected an entire wall of blue to take over my three pages of notes, there were questions on there that, as far as I know, have no answers. Here's an example: "And this he means neurophysiologically, yes? In which case, you think of it in terms of the performative (a la Butler)." Oy. Butler confuses me, neurophysiology confuses me, and performativity (although Brian is currently ensconced in its grasp) confuses me. I'm learning, and so help me I'll have all of this at least tenuously in my head by tomorrow, but it's a brutal realization when your thesis no longer makes any sense to you.
Bureaucracy and politics may, in fact, be the root of all evil. Not even state and federal politics (that one's a given), but just interpersonal politics that make all kinds of little things difficult. Or maybe my world is just too small - that's entirely possible. When all of the important people in your life know each other as closely as you know them, or closer, you're stuck in situations where you know more about each of those people than you want to know, and your role in the middle essentially boils down to "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I can't make everyone happy in this situation, and the real problem is that it's my fault for allowing myself to slip in the middle. Stupid, stupid.
My commitment - no, that's not the right word. My drive tends to waver or fade depending on certain circumstances. Being sick for so long certainly didn't help. I got sick, am still a little sick, and can't focus on anything simple for very long, much less Foucault and Freud through a feminist theory lens. Also the aforementioned situation leaves me feeling . . . an aversion. When I'm disillusioned by something (an easy task, as I'm sure is evident by this point), I feel far less desire to get things done. That's such a character flaw. I need to find my own drive and stop relying on others'.
This thesis is starting to really overwhelm me. I was sent back some revisions today, and although I'd totally expected an entire wall of blue to take over my three pages of notes, there were questions on there that, as far as I know, have no answers. Here's an example: "And this he means neurophysiologically, yes? In which case, you think of it in terms of the performative (a la Butler)." Oy. Butler confuses me, neurophysiology confuses me, and performativity (although Brian is currently ensconced in its grasp) confuses me. I'm learning, and so help me I'll have all of this at least tenuously in my head by tomorrow, but it's a brutal realization when your thesis no longer makes any sense to you.
2.20.2011
Moving Woes
I get bizarrely melancholy whenever I move. It doesn't matter if I'm moving somewhere better (which I clearly am) or whether the circumstances are sort of forcing me into it - the fact that I'm ending a chapter of my life, and beginning another chapter, breaks a little piece of my heart. I know it makes no sense, but once I've become used to the circumstances I'm in, the idea of changing them goes against everything in me. Maybe each apartment is an incarnation of me - a little part of me that I'm leaving behind. Or maybe each of my apartments have been a manifestation of my personality, so moving out feels like a slow deconstruction. Whether or not I can put my finger on it, the melancholy, the reminiscence still looms large whenever I start putting belongings in boxes.
I think I'm going to change this blog around, and hopefully can start channeling some of my terror towards this (more constructive) venue. First of all, clearly I don't live in Brooklyn anymore. So I think it's important to label more what it is - "Theories on Life of a Soon-To-Be College Graduate," or something to that effect. All of my life that isn't concerned with finishing my thesis and keeping a half-step ahead of my classes is now concerned with figuring out how to cope with the crushing weight of my future. And those are just on days when I'm not constantly asking myself "why did I choose this major? Why am I not in the business school? What possessed me to go into the arts?"
Taking a break from the complaining for a moment, I'd like to mention that Brian has been so incredibly supportive through all of this. I know by this point he has little desire to talk through all of my life issues - that do pertain to him, but that don't get a lot easier even when you agonize over them - but every time I want to talk it over, he's game for it. He's told me that it's not over if I move, but that if I want to go somewhere else I could, and should. He's told me that if I want to go to grad school in another state, he'd have no problem going with me so long as that school had a decent rhetoric program. I don't know what I did to deserve him - no, actually, I know I never could have done anything great enough to deserve him - but I'm so intensely grateful for the crazy set of coincidences that led us to each other. I hope I'm half as good to him as he is to me.
Oh Sarah. Congratulations, dear one, on getting into your top school. I am so very happy for you - you deserve everything good that's about to come your way. Thank you for always listening when I'm frustrated or scared, for always supporting my crazy ideas (encouraging certain TA-baiting ones), for always being a great friend. I know what you're going through, all the anxiety that comes from moving to a brand new city, and I hope I can help you through it as much as you helped me, although I know you won't need it.
Where does a film studies major even start to find a job?
I think I'm going to change this blog around, and hopefully can start channeling some of my terror towards this (more constructive) venue. First of all, clearly I don't live in Brooklyn anymore. So I think it's important to label more what it is - "Theories on Life of a Soon-To-Be College Graduate," or something to that effect. All of my life that isn't concerned with finishing my thesis and keeping a half-step ahead of my classes is now concerned with figuring out how to cope with the crushing weight of my future. And those are just on days when I'm not constantly asking myself "why did I choose this major? Why am I not in the business school? What possessed me to go into the arts?"
Taking a break from the complaining for a moment, I'd like to mention that Brian has been so incredibly supportive through all of this. I know by this point he has little desire to talk through all of my life issues - that do pertain to him, but that don't get a lot easier even when you agonize over them - but every time I want to talk it over, he's game for it. He's told me that it's not over if I move, but that if I want to go somewhere else I could, and should. He's told me that if I want to go to grad school in another state, he'd have no problem going with me so long as that school had a decent rhetoric program. I don't know what I did to deserve him - no, actually, I know I never could have done anything great enough to deserve him - but I'm so intensely grateful for the crazy set of coincidences that led us to each other. I hope I'm half as good to him as he is to me.
Oh Sarah. Congratulations, dear one, on getting into your top school. I am so very happy for you - you deserve everything good that's about to come your way. Thank you for always listening when I'm frustrated or scared, for always supporting my crazy ideas (encouraging certain TA-baiting ones), for always being a great friend. I know what you're going through, all the anxiety that comes from moving to a brand new city, and I hope I can help you through it as much as you helped me, although I know you won't need it.
Where does a film studies major even start to find a job?
10.25.2010
What if I'm beautiful and I'm intelligent, but I'm neurotic as hell and no one will ever be able to truly accept my crazy? What if people can project whatever they want to on me, and they see the awesome girl that they want when in fact I'm just as ugly and frustrating as any other girl on the inside? What if I find myself in my underwear obsessively cleaning my house and trying not to look in the mirrors because I'm suddenly unhappy with my body? What if I lose the best thing in my life because every now and then, inexplicably, I have to really work not to randomly cry? There's a distinct terror in not knowing whether you're normal or not.
Heidi gave me the most brilliant, perfect way to make my senior thesis interesting again. I can't even tell you how much of a weight that is off my mind. It also gives me an opportunity to do something that is somewhat unheard of in arts programs - debut a failed project. Basically what she wants me to do is to use the video I shot in New York in conjunction with the blogs that I wrote on the same days, and if possible, the texts from those days as well. I show essentially how the video failed me, and that for my purposes in my particular time, text was the better medium. While it is in fact undoing a lot of the things that Brian's working to do in his PhD program, it really makes my project not only more interesting to me, but more original in general. It's such the better plan - I'm quite excited now.
Chainsaw noises behind my house again. There are nights when I'm none too comfortable coming home to my little ghetto apartment in crackhead-land.
I think sometimes it's incredibly obvious when I've been splitting up my blogs - when one part was begun one night and the next part was written the next day. Some of this is intensely personal, and sometimes I think I shouldn't post it.
Heidi gave me the most brilliant, perfect way to make my senior thesis interesting again. I can't even tell you how much of a weight that is off my mind. It also gives me an opportunity to do something that is somewhat unheard of in arts programs - debut a failed project. Basically what she wants me to do is to use the video I shot in New York in conjunction with the blogs that I wrote on the same days, and if possible, the texts from those days as well. I show essentially how the video failed me, and that for my purposes in my particular time, text was the better medium. While it is in fact undoing a lot of the things that Brian's working to do in his PhD program, it really makes my project not only more interesting to me, but more original in general. It's such the better plan - I'm quite excited now.
Chainsaw noises behind my house again. There are nights when I'm none too comfortable coming home to my little ghetto apartment in crackhead-land.
I think sometimes it's incredibly obvious when I've been splitting up my blogs - when one part was begun one night and the next part was written the next day. Some of this is intensely personal, and sometimes I think I shouldn't post it.
10.20.2010
Musings Over a Few Days
Check out this quote by Michel Foucault (my new forced philosopher of choice):
"My problem is essentially the definition of the implicit systems in which we find ourselves prisoners; what I would like to grasp is the system of limits and exclusion which we practice without knowing it; I would like to make the cultural unconscious apparent. Therefore, the more I travel, the more I remove myself from my natural and habitual centers of gravity, the greater the chance of my grasping the foundations I am obliviously standing on. To that extent any trip - not of course in the sense of a sightseeing trip nor even a survey - any movement away from my original frame of reference, is fruitful."
This is an incredible, succinct explanation to why the distance, the chaos of New York was so inspiring for writing. I was everyday forced to examine those ideologies and assumptions that I stand on - that we all stand on, differently - because it was so far removed from my normal, even from the circumstances and situations that *built* my ideologies and assumptions. It's really an incredible quote, and the more I look at it, the more I realize why the inspiration, the wonder that was New York completely faded when I came back here. Honestly, it's bizarre how quickly I fell back into South Carolina. Rapidly, mercilessly, like I hadn't missed a beat. Maybe for a split second my ideologies were challenged by familiar sights after an unfamiliar period of time, but it was incredibly brief. I was already back in my South Carolina mindset by the time I'd spent my first night back.
There's nothing quite as wonderful as having someone to believe in you more than you believe in yourself.
So it's pet peeve time. If this blog were called "Rachel's Pet Peeve of the Day," it would much more easily be a daily post. I know a lot of you love me maybe not for my snark, but at least along with my snark, so here goes: entitled people. Entitled people irritate me to no end. I hope to God that when it's all said and done, people can say that I was at least thankful for all the things I was given. I don't deny that I've been given many things in my life, but I dearly hope that I've expressed my gratefulness for them in most of those cases. Here's the thing, though - don't walk into my coffee shop thinking that my only purpose in this world is to serve you. Don't come in with daddy's credit card, run up a twenty dollar bill, and the conveniently forget to tip. Or even just look up from your cell phone for a second, make eye contact with me, and thank me for the time I've taken to make you that fancy coffee drink that you think you need. Courtesy, people. It's not that difficult. Throw me a bone.
"My problem is essentially the definition of the implicit systems in which we find ourselves prisoners; what I would like to grasp is the system of limits and exclusion which we practice without knowing it; I would like to make the cultural unconscious apparent. Therefore, the more I travel, the more I remove myself from my natural and habitual centers of gravity, the greater the chance of my grasping the foundations I am obliviously standing on. To that extent any trip - not of course in the sense of a sightseeing trip nor even a survey - any movement away from my original frame of reference, is fruitful."
This is an incredible, succinct explanation to why the distance, the chaos of New York was so inspiring for writing. I was everyday forced to examine those ideologies and assumptions that I stand on - that we all stand on, differently - because it was so far removed from my normal, even from the circumstances and situations that *built* my ideologies and assumptions. It's really an incredible quote, and the more I look at it, the more I realize why the inspiration, the wonder that was New York completely faded when I came back here. Honestly, it's bizarre how quickly I fell back into South Carolina. Rapidly, mercilessly, like I hadn't missed a beat. Maybe for a split second my ideologies were challenged by familiar sights after an unfamiliar period of time, but it was incredibly brief. I was already back in my South Carolina mindset by the time I'd spent my first night back.
There's nothing quite as wonderful as having someone to believe in you more than you believe in yourself.
So it's pet peeve time. If this blog were called "Rachel's Pet Peeve of the Day," it would much more easily be a daily post. I know a lot of you love me maybe not for my snark, but at least along with my snark, so here goes: entitled people. Entitled people irritate me to no end. I hope to God that when it's all said and done, people can say that I was at least thankful for all the things I was given. I don't deny that I've been given many things in my life, but I dearly hope that I've expressed my gratefulness for them in most of those cases. Here's the thing, though - don't walk into my coffee shop thinking that my only purpose in this world is to serve you. Don't come in with daddy's credit card, run up a twenty dollar bill, and the conveniently forget to tip. Or even just look up from your cell phone for a second, make eye contact with me, and thank me for the time I've taken to make you that fancy coffee drink that you think you need. Courtesy, people. It's not that difficult. Throw me a bone.
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