155. Incognito and Loose Strings in Irvine and Lake Forest, A Mindset of Confusion

It's funny how every single time you enter a new zone of space, it's as if your mind automatically imposes this "web of time" upon space, trying to figure out "where you left off." I am driving through Irvine and my mind is going through flashbacks.

The hardest road is to develop your own voice, independently, and strategically implement this voice into society. So, I'm trying to start with some summer internships....

I just found out that I wasn't chosen for the Conservation Internship this summer. This really threw me off. I haven't been able to work for the last two hours. I have every right to have Electronocommunicatiphobia or ECP. Because usually there are time-bombs waiting in my email account, which ultimately explode in my face.

I started to choke ever since Robert Irion told me over a month ago that I would be competing with one of his UC Santa Cruz science writing students (UCSC and MIT have the best science writing programs in the whole country!). My participation in an internship is an option. For those students, and internship is mandatory. I knew that Sarah Simpson (a science writer and editor for Earth Sciences in Scientific America) called in and put in a good word for me. I was slacking in terms of following up, simply because I was stressed out from getting into graduate school at UC Santa Barbara. And now that I am in, this happens. I'm going through massive withdrawal. I'm following up with the other internships this Monday, and if those don't work out, I am offer to volunteer at Conservation and I would take initiative to raise stipend money myself. I have been meditating about that internship for over a year now, and that's not healthy. And when I get some fixation... it's hard to get it out of my head until I actually do it. My other options are Slate, the National Park Service at Point Reyes, and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington, DC. I am up for game for any of these opportunities.

Widygigs? What would you do if you got into graduate school? I realized this is a five-year, if not life-long pursuit.

This was supposed to be my spring break: stay in a position of innocent bliss. I feel like I'm being pulled forward too fast sometimes. I need to slow down and backtrack. Now that I am returning to UCSB, in order to move forward, I need to backtrack. I need to rewind the clock and do everything all over again... and this time... very well. That is all I have been doing: rewinding the clock.

Please be kind
Do rewind
All the tangled layers
Of Space and Time
Back to the point
Of origin
For where it begins
Is where it ends
Is where it begins
All over again.

Thanks to Michel Gondry for inspiring me. I only know him and his production team through a digital medium. As humane as it can get. I had a dream last night that I met Director/Screenwriter Gondry. It was a wonderful dream. It's an idealism I must work very hard to achieve.

As for a new environment... I have been working hard re-organizing files in my computer. It's like spacetime travel. I even composed a song called "an Event Horizons of Emotion / Massive Resurrection / I have returned to show what I've learned / I have returned to repent for my sins / an Event Horizons of Emotion / can be bottled into one experience?" Something like that. That's my mind around midnight last night. Pretty danged poetic. Cheezy too?

I am having a hard time focusing in Irvine because of the past, the present, and the future. I have written about the future: my rejection at Conservation. And other possible alternatives. The recent past? Well, I have been well-taken care of in Corona by my close aunt and uncle Jean and Chuck. Jean is my father's cousin, so technically they are second-aunts and uncles, but I'll be danged, they are some of the closest relatives I have got (besides my mom, dad, sister, grandfather, and granduncle). I am so thankful they have helped me out so much the past quarter--working in a room in their house is a wonderful alternative to wasting money at a Motel 6 (my last experience involved unexpected "phone sexual harrassment" from a guy who posed as a Motel 6 employee, so I have a bit of Motel 6 phobia at this moment). During the last week, Colleen came over (Colleen is Jean and Chuck's daughter who they had not contact with in a while) and that was a nice reunion. Sometimes though, it's tought to get close to family because sometimes people say things that are very hurtful. Two times ago, Jean made comments on my life--pertaining to the trade-off between pursuing an academic career versus getting married and having kids. Uhmmm. Getting married and having kids is cliche and is the root of environmental problems. So, uhmmm, I think I would kill myself if I went that route. I remember her saying, "Oh, you'll catch up later."

I appreciate people when they provide advice to me about how to improve myself. But I do NOT appreciate people who impose THEIR VALUES ON MY LIFE... AND TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Past situations? Well, Jean, for one, imposing her values on how I should live my life on what is the "right" thing to do in terms of career and family. Another situation recently happened. I bought a bike from a contractor named Richard (who is selling a house on Del Playa) who in the end of the phone call told me that "when you graduate from school, you will graduate into nothing." Richard wanted me involved in the making of his film: Foreclosure on Del Playa, which will document a case study of the poor practices of banks and the government in economic management the last few years. Booms and crashes of housing, etcetera. He wanted actors, beach babes, Isla Vista Halloween scene, and a splash of environmental messaging too. Uh-huh. He and his brother were very enthusiastic and were gung-ho about pursuing such a film. I started becoming less enthusiastic, and then he made a comment about "what I am doing with my life and screw academia" and somehow his venue has more significance than my own priorities. Huh. And I am not calling HIM back again. No frickin' way.

A third situation was the pushy personality of this owner of a house in Ellwood (Goleta) I was renting a room at. I was supposed to stay there the whole year but ended up moving out in the middle of spring quarter, partly because this guy was acting like he could control what I was doing with my academic life. This guy was stuck with his kids all day. I think I'd rather listen to professors and people who are "out in the field" and not raising kids 24-7.

So, then this week in Corona, when Colleen was present, Jean says out of the blue, "Oh, it looks like you've gained weight." First off, I already KNOW that. I wasn't eating well the last month or so due to subliminal stress with the graduate school situation. The last thing I needed was someone else to acknowledge my biomass situation. I'm presently deflating, thank you. Secondly, why did she have to say this in front of Colleen and Chuck? Jean has an ability to say tactless things in front of people that have been hurtful to me. Maybe I'm just too sensitive. Well, that type of comment would piss off any female.

Then Jean offered to cut my hair again. No, no, NO!!! I am already having problems with externalized gender identity (last week I was called "sir" again in the grocery store), so I'll be dxmmed I'm keeping the hair.

After Jean made these comments, my mentality went sour, and I wasn't particularly happy being in Corona. So I left, and here I am: Incognito in Irvine. Loose-stringed in Lake Forest. There are a few epiphanies I go through every single time I come to Orange County: (1) BMW. Mercedes. Lexus. Infinity. Subaru. Another BMW. Yes. I am the used Subaru. In the name of automobile pretentiousness and fake-blond girls with bug-eyed sunglasses. (2) The streets are wide here. (3) But the weather is great.

Then I have bad taste in my mouth because of recent past memories and loose strings. (1) Lillian and the neighborhood. Lillian Shaw is a real-estate agent in Lake Forest I know through my two good friends from UCSB: Kang-Kuen (Meg) and Kang-yu (Connie) Ni (Meg's now getting a Ph.D. in physics in Boulder, and Connie's getting a Ph.D. in mathematics at UCLA). I need to follow up with Lillian. She helped me during my year of struggle at UC Riverside (2005-2006). Then there's California Sound Studios, Jesse, Jeff Timons, etcetera. I need to follow up with them. There were some mis-understandings in the past that would be nice to resolve. And then? The last unresolved string is Matt-and-Mike situation. Matt Olsewski is a UC Irvine undergrad who had the "angelic heart" to help me finish my rock crab film by letting me use his UC Irvine account on a mac computer with final cut pro. He and his housemate Mike even went far enough to let me crash on their couch for a few nights. Matt, combined with the film, Waking Life, inspired me to create the song "Humanity Anomalous," which ultimately had use and meaning far beyond this anomalous experience. I met up with Matt a few times after the Blue Horizons program (in September) and then things started to get weird and sour. Haven't talked since. Males go through mental blocks and then they become rude and intolerable to be around. From angel to devil. Same with the B***t and S**h situation a couple of years back. After a while, there's method to the madness of human behavior (of opposite sexes, more particularly).

Interactions with male specimens are frustrating. You just want to be friends, but "evolutionary wiring" interferes with more rational transactions and then things get too close and/or sticky and then you need to take a step back and then you have a bad taste in your mouth. It's difficult to "just be friends." You ruined the relationship. There's no going back. That's the problem with time. The whole evolutionary ratchet. Second chances aren't really second chances. They were always based on the condition of the first failed trial.

Staying "platonic" is the best way to go. I learned the word "platonic" from Craigslist. You'd think I would know what it meant a long time ago, but I guess I am naive and untrained in some aspects of life....

Moving on. Now that I have written a little about these "loose strings" of Incognito in Irvine, I feel more focused and ready to resume organizing old files... a.k.a. "rewinding the clock."

Otherwise, Orange County is open county, an urban jungle left for me to explore....