107. Yesterday Was a Four-Year Reunion Between Dr. Armand Kuris and Vic, Song Called "Tails to Heads"

I suppose it was an Oprah-Winfrey moment. Why does television have to cliche-ify every single unique, meaningful human experience? Set the emotions aside, move on, do something about it... dumb, dumb emotions not good for science but needed because dxmmit I'm a human being (female, to make it worse), but overall I'm just glad I am still alive to come to the point to finally give Armand the 3 units I owed him. Or maybe it was 6. It was the evening of January 30, 2008, in between 5:30-6pm. Marine Science Institute, Armand's new office, formerly Kevin Lafferty's. It touched me so much to see my collage of invertebrates and parasites still up on the door. Goodness man, I thought some students were going to over-ride that work with something even more impressive. I looked at it, amazed it was still there, but then stepped back in disgust, realizing that I now have a Nikon D80 (over an archaic Olympus Camedia) and lots of photographic experience (awards, publication, and paid jobs), and well... the collage needs some major revamping. Tsk, tsk, tsk... I am in continual self-disgust of my own art. I suppose that means I'm evolving. Good sign....

I thought I was going to be graduated from CCS at that point, but I still don't feel graduated. I think I'll be stuck in CCS for the rest of my life. But I don't mind, because it's not a bad deal to be stuck in a world of people who allow infinite creative and intellectual freedom. I'm just wondering whether there are other CCS's in the world. I wish the whole world were one giant CCS. *Sigh.*

I wanted to show Armand and all those people from CCS and my UCSB undergraduate experience all the amazing things they have done for me, who've marked my mind (permanently) and shaped me up to who I am today... not that it's an impressive sight. But hey, I'm still alive, eh? I made nearly all my necessary mistakes out in the world the past four years (healthy intellectual outcrossing), and now I'm ready to focus and plug on through. I'm ready to be a specialized generalist at UCSB. I'm ready to work with all the people who rescued me in the first place. People who gave me a reason to believe in Authority--not "believe." Wait, this ain't religion here.... I don't go to UCSB to Question Authority, which I was forced to do at UCLA and UCR. I go to UCSB because it's the only place where I can Trust Authority and Question Reality. That would be a very nice bumper sticker for CCS UCSB: Trust Authority. Where can you do that nowadays, except here? And my dad. I trust him too.

Tails to Heads

There was a wound in my mind's heart

so deep

so sooo deep

There was a gloom I held so long

I could no longer keep

no longer keep

And all the Wiseones I thought I was shunned

I flipped the coin for them to become

what I build upon

I build upon

I build upon

I build upon

I flipped the coin from Tails to Heads

and I can now stand on their shoulders instead

of being in light of their darkness

time healed my mistakes, and so I confessed

Bandaids of distance no longer cured

and so I faced up to my pains of the past

and placed a sealed patch to rooted core

'til spacetime's logic no longer had gaps

intertwined

unrsolution

and solution

was resumption

to interact

to resume

to interact

continuum

to interact

bridgin' the gap....

And so my gaped fabric

now all stiched

and so my grungy

coined patch polished

To shine at last

durable from core

once darkness

to its tips

from tails to heads

tails to heads

tails to heads

from tails to heads

I reversed what they may have thought of me

and showed them who I am, can truly be

just another piece of your puzzle

the one you rescued... long, long ago...

From the current of self-destruction

stretching out your hand,

and you saw in me... some hope...

Some hope... tails to heads

tails to heads

tails to heads

hope never left

from tails to heads

hope never left

from tails to heads....