543. Uh-oh, Vic's Brain Dumping::: Philosophisizing on My Return to Blogging, Autonomous and On Leave of Absence

I cannot believe that I have reached this point. This blog is the first blog I have written in ... perhaps 7 months. It is frightening (and traumatizing) to think about what has happened these past 7 months, but I can say that... this is the first blog I am writing on "leave of absence" from the Bren School at UCSB, so perhaps I may be writing with some new layers of consciousness, or maybe with some new sense of freedom--I am writing, and this is my voice, in absence of the 800 pound gorilla of academia clenching to my back. I am temporarily on break from the school that studies the "environ-mental" and now I have to engage in self-medicating my "mental."

It is also funny though, in these last few months of leave of absence, I have been approached by five or so people in my social sphere, and they were all wondering how I was because I was no longer writing any blogs. They encouraged me to continue writing, and they very much enjoyed my entries (strange! I know I am Victoria Anonymous, someone out in the world of 7 billion people wanting to read my blog! Ha ha ha). Perhaps my writing blogs is being enjoyed by friends and family who equally enjoy my *live* company--oh, there's that girl who endlessly rambles on about funny things, all the way from photographic composition to fisheries adventures to the California state budget to school committee drama to her dental work to the strange dream she had last night to the next cartoon she wants to draw. One way or another, I feel thankful that these individuals approached me and stated that they appreciated my blogs, and hope that I resume my "streams of consciousness." (I just learned a few days ago that "stream of consciousness" types of writing are actually acceptable in the literary world--consider Ulysses and The Invisible Man and even kind of All the Pretty Horses [at least the setting descriptions)]. I suppose this whole return to blogging is a re-focusing process, as well as a confidence problem... or also an artistic dilemma.

The more and more I have learned about the cartoon world and comics industry, the more I have come to realize that the sole expression of the Self through words placed in a linear-line-by-line format on a page, page after page after page... is very limited. Everyone uses words all the time, and so the combination of words placed line by line on a page now apppears to me to be equally cliche. I am starting to no longer view language, solely written stories, as art forms, but merely text messages or emails that anyone can write to anyone else (I told my advisor Oran that in this world where everyone text messages, from 5-year-olds to 80-year-olds, anyone on the street thinks they can become the next great writer... so I myself have given up on the idea of being a "writer" or one morally and financially supported by society, because practically everyone now is in the "competition pool" for this position (and the competition pool is so fierce that even people PAY literary agents to read their writing or pitch a story for merely a few minutes! And how could a literary agent have any sense of authority or command of such a spectrum of fields related to the environment?! I am in serious doubt of the sense of authority and expertism that literary agents portray, given their position of power in determining who becomes the "next great writer" and who doesn't), and plus when someone says they are a "writer" I laugh and say, "You just told me that you let your mind breathe; I would be disturbed if you didn't write otherwise").

I am starting to realize that the more combinatory the story becomes--e.g. combining words with pictures with music, etc, in which these elements occur in simultaneity, the more original, the more unique the artistic piece can become. And also, increasing combinations in complex simultaneity can eliminate a vast majority of the "writers" and now the pool of "talented multi-media storytellers" is actually, very small. So now, I no longer consider my written language as an attempt toward art, but merely a form of self-therapy, behavioral therapy, so that I can help understand myself, my thoughts... so that I can engage in stream of consciouness... and perhaps I can communicate a few ideas to a known group of trusted people out in the world. But writing now is psychological therapy toward self understanding. My most favoritist creative writing professor, Barry Spacks, would disagree with me--he tends to perceive writing as an art form, and so he will always perceive my work as art form though I perceive it as therapy. The reason why I am on leave of absence right now is that I had been perceiving my writing as an attempt toward art and scholarly-scientific work rather than treating it as therapy form. Now? I'm paying the price with my health. Yet if I layer my stories anymore, perhaps I can say I am attempting to hybridize self-therapy with a valiant reach toward creating art that can be appreciated beyond my family and friends. But, right now, I have given up on creating "art" all together. Everything I do for the next few months... up to a year (whether writing or visual or musical forms or motions)... are strictly for self-understanding, self-organization, and self-therapy.

Man, I have become repetitious, and yes, I have become a selfish bastard with my work (or is it "bastardette"?), but I have to: it's a matter of mental health and survival. It's a matter of desperation. Dr. Steve Ino at UCSB told me last quarter at UCSB's Counseling Center: whatever you do with your writing and drawings, never consider it to be selfish--it's called "self-care." So, I'm learning. One time I told Sarah, a science journalist in Riverside, the first time I write or create anything, the first audience is only myself, and then through rounds of advice and editing, the audience expands otherwise--to the appropriate individuals or groups the story is intended for. Sarah said that this mentality of interacting with a perceived audience is very healthy. So, first round, it's a one-man band (errr, one lady show), but then again, I consider my single mind to be an ecosystem of motivations, desires, voices, organisms with unique characteristics and behavioral traits. So even though it may seem like the first round of my "talking" to myself may be a one-person audience, I feel like I'm speaking simultaneously to an internal disjunct chorus that is trying to coordinate itself. I was trying to make a cartoon for my friend Julie R. last quarter: "Grad School: Ecosystem-Based Mental Management!"

Enough said. Much more to explore on this issue. Maybe I should leave these thoughts for the shrinks. But then again, my most wonderfulest of my friends and family are my "shrinks;" they're just not all that "official."

I can also say the last 7 months, I have learned a lot about several political issues in the marine and terrestrial world, not only the politics of the environmental issues themselves, not just the endless politics of academia (which I sincerely need a break from::: UNPLUG ME!), but even the politics of "generating stories" about these environmental issues, or any issue in particular. The politics of how literary folks, cartoonists, journalists, academics, film crews function, so-to-speak, in which the more I know, the more I realize that I want to work with a very small group of people with whatever stories I tell. Minimizing bureaucracy entails more self-responsibility and labor, but also constructs more self-control and overall efficiency. I would rather work much harder on a project knowing that I had more control rather than someone controlling me. As I have said a bazillion times to myself: "I'd rather be a slave to my own ideas than the slave of others."

So, I'm continuing to learn about myself. The more I learn about political issues (that affect people that I personally know), the more I feel a bit scared to talk or write about what I know, or the more I doubt what is appropriate to include or not included in a blog. Which is probably one major reason I have not been blogging lately--I suppose I had to confront this issue myself. I think this self-censorship process has been happening since my initial participation in the south coast Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) process. I will just say that the whole arena of stakeholders involved in marine environmental issues is much more connected and incestuous than I thought--and perhaps a little bit in a disturbing way (when a single funding source pours in money into the entire spectrum of professions--from scientific research to education/entertainment to policy and politics, in order to better choreograph these often-time disjunct, autonomous universes, I would become a little bit worried). Well, it's not that I'm being "censored" by anyone in particular, but whatever I say, I have to be VERY careful and very ARTICULATE about what I say. But would that be necessary? Would it be necessary to have a "Fisheries WikiLeaks" because many things going on in the marine world is so "under-the-radar" to the public? Even under the radar among pertinent stakeholders who are directly affected?

An example of "under the radar." About a week ago I spoke over the phone with my Cousin Mike, who wanted to know all about the MLPA process I have been in tune with (as if I had a fetish following a particular athletic team, except it's a political process, not sports, what's the difference?); and after explaining to him the nuts and bolts of this public-private partnership, the stakeholders involved, the outcomes, and the current state of the process, Mike was appalled that he did not know that any of this was happening. He also didn't know that public-private partnerships could exist and be held unaccountable to the public vote. That California Citizens did not vote for this political process to occur, or be okay with. Mike was thinking about maybe he could invent some new cool gadget like an iRobot or iPhone5 or something and then he could earn gobs of money and then he had nothing else to do than meddle with the California State Government and re-wire the bureaucracy as to however he saw fit, as long as he was a private individual dumped a bunch of money on the state, demanding its reform. And no, my cousin Mike has no ties whatsoever to environmentalism. He's just a wickedly smart dude who keeps me on my toes, and I'm extremely proud to admit we are related (family acquisition through a marriage!).

But then again, what should I be scared of talking about? First amendment rights, right? Maybe I should just call things out "as they are." Tell the "truth," like what a scientist is supposed to do. Observes the world, and states his/her findings. Except I have found out there are frequently multiple versions of "truths" or "truthy-isms" and it's better that I just consider stories as merely stories (whether scientific or not) and not observable realities held by nearly all citizens, and just say okay, "Here's my story, dot, dot, dot. And it's just another of 101 stories on the same topic, so why in the hxll would anyone listen to me anyway?" There is so much information transmission in the world today that whatever stories I tell will be drowned out by information overload anyway.

I do say it's quite funny. The other day I had a discussion with my quasi-religious mother (religion, fate, spirituality, what's the difference?!), and she questioned me about a particular "end of the world" issue as a "scientist," and I told my mother flat out, in a very instinctive, impulsive way, as if I went through a very long, quasi-subconscious internal discussion with myself the last few months that rendered an autonomic response, "I am NOT a scientist." I can practice some scientific forms of thinking (left-brain linearities), and I have been raised by my scientist Dr. Bubsy (ha ha, my dad), but given arbitrarily constructed cultural and bureaucratic definitions, restrictions, boundaries of what a "typical" scientist is, and that my right brain gravitates toward reflexive, multi-layered, visual, synthetic, contextual thinking rather than strictly rational, computative, linear reasoning that denies the presence of self-perception and socioecological context that can influence anyone's research agenda, hence I am NOT a scientist. I do not think that "scientists" would survive to well in the world outside academia, which requires a sense of multi-dimensional, intuitive thinking that goes far beyond gaining knowledge by reading the bottomless pit or accumulated coral reef of "scholarly literature" and being a tweaker with a particular, specialized research project. So, as you can see, I am so bitter, I really need a leave of absence. I can't even call myself a "scientist" anymore, even though I know all about scientists and know how they think, and I interact with them a lot. And sometimes they drive me nuts.

Well, I'm beyond that box. It's funny to even say that "scientific thinking" is actually a very restrictive form of thinking, even though supposedly science is to "expand knowledge," only very limited forms of knowledge. Even my fisherman friend Bob stated that if scientists continue to perceive environmental problems strictly as "scientific problems" and not "human/social/perception" problems--err, multiple problems in simultaneity--then scientists won't get anywhere with their goals and agendas. They will continue to hit intellectual walls and roadblocks, and their audiences will not be all-inclusive.

So, then, if I'm not a scientist, then what am I? What should I call myself? Besides, "Victoria Anonymous" and "Victoria, Fud. The more you become an expert at one particular thing, the more and more you become an idiot with everything else." Yes, yes, besides that, let's just say I'm a "multi-media storyteller" who has academic strings attached, trying to bring out the best of academia in my stories and really get to see what theories actually do map out onto a physical reality we can all agree upon. Though we all know that much of the narratives in the university seem to be abstract, esoteric blobs that cannot take concrete shape or function when letting them run loose outside the academisphere. But I have discovered many jewels in the haystack....

Oh, I know it's horrible for me to "talk about myself,"--I am having a moment of self-consciousness here--but that is partially why I am on leave of absence. I have the CRICs disease: the Chronically shifting Relativistic Identity Crisis, and part of the goal for the leave of absence is to better understand this disease I have, and the shrinks say it's for "self-care." Identity exploration, like what humanities people seem to do. Except in this case, the notion of identity relative to the "environment." I should be okay. Since all my writing has a basis for psychological therapy, I should be open and willing and accepting that my own Self is a part of the picture of all the things I write. It's a necessity for me to plug in and stay tuned to myself. *Sigh*

I guess so far in this post, I have discovered two new Laws of Lacunacea (and of course, every new rules has exceptions). (1) The more I know about political issues that directly affect people I personally know, the less willing I am to be open and express the ideal form of freedom of speech. Maybe it just reflects that my own social sphere and social consciousness is changing. And the second law I have picked up by observing and dealing with harsh encounters within the abrasive perimeters of Hollywood (why do I feel the film industry is like some form of intellectual war zone? Well, perhaps it's the only landscape on this planet where ideas can be valued at millions of dollars, and everywhere else, each new idea we have is worth close to zero). So, the second law is: (2) The more money you get paid, the more you lose your freedom of speech. This is a general truth, unless someone provides funding to an independent individual (not an individual embedded within any corporate bureaucracy) that is completely "no strings attached" or "We give you money because we love you for who you are, and we want you to continue being who you are."

I guess the final question here in this blog is: What does it mean to go on leave of absence? (And to shamefully state, for the THIRD time, once from UCLA, once from UCR, and once from UCSB). First of all, a problem is a problem when you perceive it to be a problem. What I perceive to be a "problem" is not necessarily what other people perceive to be a "problem." Many problems in the world exist as "distant chatterboxing characters on televisions or computers" to most people, but I have faced four "systems" of problems that were either by birthrite, partially acquired, or took a level of sophistication to perceive: (1) my birthrite, inherited problem of wildfire ecology, in relation to my father's (the scientist's) research (2) my quasi-acquired, quasi-biological problem of anorexia and attempting to understand the relationships between mental disorder and "environ-"mental disorder, (3) the somewhat problem of understanding the university as a "landscape," in which every one of us was promised that the university would teach us about the "universe" and our place in it, but when any particular student attempts to go "department hopping," each specialized discipline is perceived more so as a historical accumulation of intellectual trash largely dictated by power structures, that renders no coherent, composite picture of the world we live in and try to interact with, and how was I going to sort through all this intellectual trash to find the necessary tools in order to find a way to contain, define, and solve any particular "environmental problem" in the world, first with my own health, second with my father, and third with California fisheries... (and now the state's broke, who really knows if anyone is getting their money's worth at the university?) and (4) my "matured state" problem in which I had to develop a level of perceptual accuity to see and comprehend, is all things related to California fisheries, evolution of ecosystems and social systems through time, particularly the Marine Life Protection Act process. Four massive suites of problems in my life that may be perceived as "distant" issues in most people's lives but have come to occupy intimate, personal spaces in my mind.

I guess the whole goal here is the individual and collective pursuit of exploring and manufacturing the "truth" (though we all know even truth changes all the time, because systems change). Truth being some form of universal perception of understanding of our contextual existence. So, first I started with science. I thought that scientists were the smart dudes and babes who were to discover the "truth." But I soon discovered, scientists--among many other intellectuals, such as Malcolm Gladwell (his disclosure statement here) and Vladimir Nabokov (Lectures on Literature) and The Gonzo Scientist series--worried about the notion of "objectivity:" that potentially it was possible to explore the system of study for what it truly was, independent of human perception of the system, or independent of human value and motivation, and independent of the context of the system. The only "legal" mode of objective thinking was complete left-brain, linear "logicality," and through this venue was the discovery of "truth." And then, I started to realize this goal of "truth" was a total joke (only rendering a limited, partial truth) as I started to feel mentally restricted, trapped, essentially--all these layers and spheres started to form around me, the humanly perceiver of any particular system of study, and the actual inter-related context of the system of study in space and time. I didn't know it at the time, but my mind was trying to find an alternative view (or views) of exploring "the truth"--and alternatively more complicated--and instead of blocking out all the layers and spheres and variables--as all these modern scientists do nowadays--that the more inclusive that I tried to perceive myself and my relationship to a particular system of study, the closer I was toward achieving a level of truth, though this truth is now much more personalized, it is an acknowledgment of personalization embedded in an a mapping exercise of the universal/collectivism. These layers and spheres and "acquired lenses or points of view" evolved more coherently through my continued education of science, social science, and humanities courses, trying to find a conceptual configuration--trying to find internal conceptual places for every thought that came from every possible discipline I encountered. Truth in my mind led to INCLUSIVITY, REFLEXIVITY ("Gonzo science"), CONTEXTUALIZATION, NARRATIVE, QUALITATIVE MATRIX VIEWS, BRIDGING KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION, and SYNTHESIS rather than EXCLUSIVITY, EXTERNALITY, REDUCTIONISM, NARROWING, SPECIALIZATION, QUANTIFICATION, LINEARITY, etc. One of my first cartoons has Terra screaming, "Don't shove me in a box! I'll create my own box!" or even with cartoons: "Don't shove ideas in a fixed-sized box. Let the ideas define and shape and size the box." Because all science was doing to her was trying to narrow her into a subset of a subset of a subset of a subset of a subset of a subset of a system. Oh, what other lovely words I could place here? I'm asking the same simple questions here: What do people know? How and why do they know it? And how does this knowledge influence their actions? All related to human-environmental relationships. And supposedly these simple questions mean that I'm epistemologizing and that I worry about ethics. Ecopistemologist, to be corrected. I'm the first one, because I invented the word anyway, and I am very proud of that. And besides my suffering a sense of constant information overload, being overwhelmed with chronic change, not having the ability to freeze or slow down time, breeding a sense of panic, stress, paranoia, sleep deprivation, poor eating, teeth pain, etc--physical manifestationS of psychological distress--and besides all this, I came to realize, that given today--that the pursuit of science is embedded in a massive bureaucratic context (whether in the university or industry), where my dad told me, "Science is 50% people, 50% politics, and something you do in your spare time," I was wondering whether any scientist or any individual drowning in some massive bureaucracy would really have a sense of autonomy, individuality, and develop a sense of truth, independent of the "invisible academic 800 pound gorilla" that lives on every researcher's back, exists in every professor's mind?"

So, besides pure stress and panic and physical pain experienced through and induced by my desperate, primordial, reptilian brain , I actually have a philosophical underpinning for leave of absence: the attempt to see a truth merely through the politics of my own mind, independent of an 800 pound academic gorilla on my back. And I have up to a year to figure this out. I was thinking, perhaps I was doing the "Thoreau-Into-the-Woods" thing, like what Michael Pollan was trying to do, which is kind of difficult when you were born and raised and currently live in southern California (but northern California is ONLY a few hundred miles away, so I have no excuse to go chum up with black bears in the Sierra Nevada), so the closest I can be to becoming an enlightened hunter and gatherer around this part of the planet is to be something like a gypsy freeganist type, and continue hanging out with fishermen! The goal this year is to experience my mind and my life and my environment by maximally unplugging myself from the system, from "The Matrix" of information and resources (except I'm not doing any bullshxt daredevil "Into the Wild" or "127 Hours" or "Deadliest Catch" crxp, which I think is totally sensationalizingly dumb, my being a female and conservative adventurist and acknowledging it is very important to venture into humanly unpopulated landscapes with at least a buddy system, whether scuba diving or boat-riding or mountain hiking. And I still feel entitled to being jacked up by Starbucks coffee, my staple luxury that is only financially affordable given that every cup of coffee I purchase must be accompanied with at least tw0 50-cent refills. But 85% of all my clothes are old, full of holes, and came from Goodwill or the Old Navy end-of-the-year sale where everything was around 75% off original price, making brand new clothes equal in monetary value to that of used Goodwill clothes. Funny how those things work out.

I have come to realize it's better to explore the truth through the mere politics of my brain--explore personal truths--an investigation not highly accepted in Objective Academia where the Personal and the Self don't have much of a Place, especially in the realm of science. Just me and my mental ecosystem. Woohoo! Now I need to re-configure my inner wirings with the outer world.

Last week I had a talk with my advisor Oran about the leave of absence. I told him that when I was in high school, I thought I was stupid because I would be very slow in finishing my homework and completing my exams and writing my essays, and I'm still a bit slow to this day. It took me about five years after high school to start realizing that I wasn't "stupid" or "dumb" or "slow," but I was processing the world differently. I wasn't trying to memorize or computationally, linear process information. I was trying to visualize the world, visualize knowledge, all this time. I was trying to grow a virtual "tree" in my head. That knowledge did not exist in mere words and numbers, but knowledge had a sense of place, relativistic location. That there was a place, a space and a time for every thought. And here I am now. I have been overtaken the last few years, blasted with information--frantically foraging across several disciplines--and not everything is processed the way how I need it to be processed: visually, cognitive maps. Not only visually, but also through written words, through sounds, through the generation of personal stories. I need time, time to slow down, so I can slowly, deliberately process all this information to let it have conceptual meaning within me. It sounds strange, but visualizing the world is my healing process. It transforms intellectual trash into landscapes of meaning. So, it's funny, my road of environmental media, though I'm fighting for it to be an academic discipline, and I will fight a long road ahead of me, that multi-media production also needs to be welcomed as an academic endeavor, perhaps even with a "peer review" process--not a Hollywood industry or journalistic endeavor--though I'm fighting this road as an academic discipline, this road has psychological roots, to my being right brained, toward my core mannerisms of processing information, toward my personal routes of coping and healing and self-therapy. I walk a dangerous road, where the personal and academic are severely intertwined--and it's more so dangerous for me because, here I am again, turmoiled, in pain mentally and physically, and again... on leave of absence. *Sigh* I wonder how I will ever be able to function "normally" in the world. I have to work so gxdxmn hard to channel my positive energy into the positive, desirable places. It's been so hard to find these spaces, but it has been worth the fight. I don't have much else of a choice.

My friend Hector tried to console me yesterday. He explained to me that "Back in the day, like in the 1960s, when the University of California wasn't in a financial pinch... or slump... students used to go on 'leaves of absence' all the time, either for breaks or for saving money while trying to get their degrees. But now the university has added intense layers of bureaucracy to make it difficult to go on leave of absence." I said, "Ya, like I had to have evidence that I am partly a nutcase in order to go on leave--I REALLY need to go on leave though. If I were back in the 1960s, I would have been on leave of absence since April of 2010!" Hector agreed that a leave was necessary because I couldn't function otherwise, if I had stayed. But nevertheless, he consoled me, but I still don't feel so hot about myself right now. Like yesterday, I was trying to write a simple blog, and I ended up barfing out 20 pages single spaced on how I got into this whole "marine, fishing" thing in the first place. I couldn't believe I never had a personal discussion with myself about this... until now... on leave... where I finally sense my own autonomy and independence of thinking from university bureaucracy (I was just thinking that science funding sources give researchers money for testing hypotheses, not asking questions, meaning you have to have an existing agenda before asking for money, rather than leaving the process an open-ended inquiry. I come to trust Dr. William Cronon's viewpoints more and more every single day). I feel like now I can think and talk about things that probably are not good to talk about while being in the U--now I can be free and uncensored like the main character is the "Turko Files" of KUSI News in San Diego, who calls out bullshxt when he sees it: "That ain't right! You can't do that! That's not fair!" Turko is very good at getting people involved in solving multiple problems around the city of San Diego.

And now that my cartoon characters Terra and Buz of Biologically Incorrect feel my sense of freedom from being on leave of absence, they both have the license to cite Cartman from Southpark: "I say what I wanh! I say what I wanh! I say what I wanh! What-evah! What-evah!" and "Myanh, myanh. Myanh. Myannhh. Screw you guys, I'm going home!" "What-evah!" Happy ending to ending my blog hiatus. Happy endings to new beginnings of mental barfing on blogs! Woohoo hoo hooo! :-)

Key Words: blogging, storytelling, limits to writing, leave of absence, stream of consciousness, writing as therapy, censorship, Fisheries Wikileaks, information overload, science versus storyteller, define science, CRICs disease, identity exploration, exploring truth, truthy-ism, 800 pound invisible gorilla, 101-legged squid, environmental media as an academic pursuit

477. The Mysterious Grant from the Bren School, UC Santa Barbara... Case Resolved! THANK YOU!!!

I bet this will happen once and only once in my life, but sometimes little magic wands and tooth fairies do exist in the psychologically barbaric, cold-shoulder universe of large-scale university bureaucracy... and bureaucracy in general....

Take for a example... a grant... I received... that I only knew about... since two days ago... through a phone call with Corlei... the graduate student liaison at Bren.... Ya, like WTF! Pardon my crass language, even guised in acronyms! Before yesterday, this is what I knew: someone in the Graduate Division waived their magic wand around September 20 or so and waived my fees and tuition. Wow. That's weird. The billing note stated it was a "graduate internship" or something. Uh-huh. Okay. What the hoo haa hay is this? Whatever. I didn't pursue this any further (I just thought maybe this was an administrative error and that ignorance should be bliss in this circumstance). I just secretly cried with joy to know that I had health insurance for the quarter.... And I still took out two loans at first... I call them "Obama loans"... both of them from the Federal Government. It's beautiful money and it's worth borrowing.... I'd do anything for Obama! Like, SERIOUSLY! Then it was down to one direct, subsidized loan....

And so, I basically had the "hxll month" of October in which I was non-stop living without any down time to reflect. I was "holding my mental breath," and in all honesty, I feel that I need to hide away and "puke" for a little while. So, here I was... in Riverside... and I called Corlei because I had a couple of concerns in terms of my interactions with certain professors... one is not an "open, transparent" relationship in which I can be completely uncensored and revelatory... and the other relationship is concerning simply because this professor is on sebatical... so I feel completely horrible and guilty for bothering him. And so Corlei pops the question, "Did you get your check?" And I was like, "What check?"And she proceeded to explain to me how Dean Haston sent me an award letter about a month ago, stating that I received a "block grant" (?) from Bren that would help with tuition, health insurance, and basic living expenses. And I was like, "WHAT?!" Corlei advised me to pick up the grant/check as soon as possible and then we set up an appointment for November 16. Huh. Weird. Plain flat out weird.

So, the first question is... how did I feel (Yes, oh yes! I am a psychologist to myself!)? I felt stunned, but in a dulled way. I didn't jump up and down, as if I received a National Science Foundation fellowship, like I did back in April of 2003 (stone ages, I tell ya). I didn't feel like I was struck by lightning, but I kinda sorta felt I won some really crooked lottery game. Sort of, that was only 1% of my feelings. The truth is, in the past year, I have been a "shadow of Bren." A rather elusive creature, one who lurks in the building at night or during weekends. One who goes in and out for brief meetings and then splits to work in the blank slate environment of Kinkos (over a festid, library). I don't know. I've been feeling like some vile, base graduate student organism, even more loathsome than any slimy or scaly reptile, perhaps equally as hideous as that vertebrate parasitoid Alien in the Alien-series movie. Why? Because I'm just this little "kicking-n'-screaming rebel from CCS," a flat out stubborn b#@* about pursuing "environmental media" or the synthesis of science and multi-media storytelling to more holistically explore and address coupled-human-environmental systems. I always saw myself as a "problem child," "a muckracker" to the Bren community, simply because I was pushing boundaries of their definitions of "interdisciplinary" (I mean, physically, not lipservice-acally). As a symbolic experience of interaction, I remember my first day of school at Bren back in the Fall of 2008, while we grad students were all introducing ourselves to each other, and when I said "I'm Victoria. Environmental Media Ph.D." I saw the eyes of Dr. Keller (water quality expert?) bulge out, his brows elevate almost as far as they could biomechanically lift. And he seemed shocked, but in a pleasant sense, transmitting a telepathic signal of 'What are you doing HERE? But here you are, so welcome aboard.' with his gestalt sequence of succeeding facial expressions. *Sigh.* By that point I felt like a timid mouse that came out to see some light, 'cuz they said they'd be some cheez for me to eat.... Now maybe I'm this rat in the shadows. Anyhow, nevertheless, my advisor Oran. "an intellectual fishermen who has beckoned me to cast my web long and far into the nooks and crannies of this UCSB campus" has been so supportive in my experiences thus far. But I know deep in my mind and my heart, that the only way I'm going to survive in this community for FIVE LONG YEARS is (1) TANGIBLE PRODUCTIVITY. "Don't talk. Just do. And deliver final projects without necessarily anyone's expectations of them. Leave a trail of tangible, physical work." and (2). EXTERNAL VALIDATION. "Seek external validation and build communities outside of Bren such that when it comes to be any form of Academic Judgment Day, Bren faculty cannot deny that I had received official acknowledgments from external academic parties." The goal is to leave the Bren experience accomplishing my personal goals and not having a single professor shake his or her finger and scold me "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" simply because it hasn't been done before in such a such a new way, even though it makes complete common sense to pursue it (I have dealt with that mentality for close to 6 long months last year, and I am FED UP with that!). It's the most HORRID, wretched experience for a professor to tell me "you can't do that!" Professors, especially those on your committee have some level of mastermindful control over you and the contents of your head, and so it's really important for the professor NOT TO PUT YOUR MIND IN A PRISON. Your committee needs to guide you, let you grow, and if they need you to specialize, they need to be expert tricksters to make a graduate student's head become self-filtered, self-focused....

So, here I am, strategically trying to carve out an academic existence as an "environmental media oddball" with obscure strategies. And here I WAS, all summer of 2009, flipping out about 12 times, surviving through five more overt panic attacks (about 1.5 weeks of wasted time, mind, and energy) simply because (1) my NSF fellowship was about to be over (2) I've been stood up from three different departments in concern of TAships, and many TAships are being reduced to 25% (3) the University of California is financially crumbling top-down, thanks Mr. Swartzebooger, Yudolf and the executives rest (4) I was going to have to familiarize myself with the student loan syndrome.... So... I have psychologically suffered all summer... and the last month I have learned to live "cut down" and "more frugally," and suddenly... to realize... that I received a GRANT from Bren?

By this point, I was crying. Some tears in my eyes are about to appear right now. My psychology is a wreck, and I have a few more months to stay floating before I go financially on the "negative side" of student loans. Taking student loans though was a huge benefit because it made me realize (1) that I was truly motivated to the very core to pursue my road in environmental media and (2) that I will have to truly start considering the notion of "financially floating" when pursuing this Ph.D. track. It has been a good month in that sense. This whole "mental readjustment" to real-world finances.

The money I received from National Science Foundation was very impersonal. Some random assortment of scientists made some decision to give me money because I was some undergrad who already knew how to scientifically write and design my own plant vegetation experiments. I never put a face to the money; it just came flying over from Washington DC and it was coming from people's taxpayers dollars. NOTE: I want to make sure that taxpayers realize that they are truly investing in a good resource when they are investing in maintaining a minimal salary for my existence. I can tell great stories that might help them "laugh, then think," then break their routine and try something excitingly, and fearfully new.

But now, the money came from a "more local source." It came from the Bren community. And it's a much different sensation. Deeming myself as an "academic outcast," or an "academic who has a hard time being with other academics, and likes to bathe herself in the real world," I am now starting to question this identity, this self-perceived or self-constructed label of "outcast in the shadows." On a very fundamental level, though environmental media is not a mainstream pursuit at UC Santa Barbara, I somehow felt... appreciated for existing. Appreciated for pursuing this road... appreciated for whining and griping and kicking and screaming and transferring three different schools... all for just to follow my core dreams? Appreciated... appreciated.... I'm not sure about "accepted," but at least appreciated. Appreciated enough such that I can survive at least one more quarter without going under financially.

Upon learning of this grant, I went to Santana's mom-n-pop chain Mexican restaurant of the Inland Empire and ordered a $6.50 tray of chicken nachos and enjoyed 2/3 of it in the wee hours of a chilly-desert Rivesidian night. The other 1/3 went to my father's lunch the next day. I wished I shared the nachos with Jules and my family, but they were all asleep. I told Jules I will buy him a small carrot cake for his retroactive birthday (he was impressed that I received a grant and I didn't even have to catch a single fish! He works so hard wakes up 3am in the morning almost every day to go catch lobster and fish; I feel lazy and wimpy). I will take my sister on a boat ride for Christmas, and I will terrorize my mother and father with whacky presents from the 99 cents store for the holidays. My mother was terrified and she told me she will give me a list of things she wanted, just to prevent my giving her a venus fly trap or a plastic tube of candy with a twirling plastic monkey on top. I must celebrate! One more quarter without debt!

At the core of my visceral existence, there is a primal, desperate character of Victoria that screams "I am a stubborn b#@* and don't even think about trying to budge me from where I'm heading." This visceral self is an unstoppable, super-muscular, reptilian godzilla type that can't deal with prison bars or walls in front of her line of intended action. So, I've been learning to live with this visceral self since age 19 or so.... and yes, this primal, desperate Victoria has been taking the more "emotionally sensitive, rational Victoria" on such interesting adventures. Sheesh!

Thank you, Bren.

I will give Dean Haston a copy of "The Mountain's Last Flower" and inform her that I can do a small run print of my work the last year or so (poetry, short stories, novella, film), for exposure around the Bren community. It would be nice to get other people's feedback. Especially since they're a part of my school.

I need to figure out how to be notified about important issues outside the realm of email, because I truly have ECP or electronocommunicatiphobia.

This human society is Biologically Incorrect! Victoria's Mental Ecosystem to be continued... one more quarter... without being in debt....

414. Inspired by Jill Sattler Atmospheric Photography / Advice on a Website Copyright Statement

A PDF of the above copyright statement can be found here:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/copyrightstatement.pdf.

I have come to a point in space and time in which I feel that the quality of my work has improved to a point of professionalism, and though I am not officially employed anywhere (e.g. a newspaper outlet), I myself have come to realize I cannot build any further if I do not come to grips with my past: what exactly are the nuts and bolts and lego blocks I built upon to reach a state of professional quality and unique style. No one can build anything solid on rubble. I gotta be a phoenix rising from the ashes, eh?

Instead of the past continuing to haunt me as a swirl demons refusing to rest, I decided to come to terms, to grips with it. The demons never go away.... The issue is that this massive pile of rubble consists of tiny, little demons that need to be reflected upon and sorted out. For example, an idea called "Jill Sattler."

A few months ago, I was fortunate to meet a very artistic, knowledgeable, well-established, enthusiastic, spunky woman by the name of Jill Sattler. I happened to sit right next to her at a Starbucks at the corner of State Street and Victoria in downtown Santa Barbara (to which I found out retroactively that she religiously goes to Starbucks on Sunday nights) and we ended up sharing our art portfolios and ideas about art and science for a couple of hours! So much for getting any work done. I had been very inspired by her body of work I would call "Atmospheric Photography," and I am now attempting to understand what this term means in my own photographic work. Sure, of course, there is the atmospheric (cloudy / landscape / broad horizons) component to my work, but it's also about constructing an integrated experience of the photographer and all elements of the photograph. All components of the photograph are in place--for example, if one person takes a picture of a person in a certain type of environment, that person blends in with the backdrop such that the individual becomes an integrated part of the landscape and the photograph as whole. I think Jill Sattler's approach to art very much embody "environmental media," but then again... doesn't everything in the universe embody "environmental media"? It's all how you define "environment." Oya!

Jill Sattler's website is at http://www.jillsattler.com. While we pareused through the virtual-internet representation of her self, we encountered a copyright statement. Professor Sattler provided quite a bit of advice on how to design a copyright statement; she actually received advice from a lawyer. I basically mimicked the copyright statement used by Dr. Sattler even though it sounds so harsh and my work isn't exactly valued economically by society (and I am okay with that)!

It's funny how so many times I had discussions with individuals about copyright statements and protection, and for some reason, after listening to Jill Sattler, everything became clear in what needed to be done. She was the last straw that convinced me to construct a copyright statement.

One little demon laid down. And one tiny idea off my to-do list. A million more ideas to go, eh? Ya....

376. Poem / Song Called "A CHESS of Fish," Coupled Human-Environmental SystemS (CHESS), and Identity Crisis of Environmental Media Graduate Students

Poem / Song called CHESS of Fish. I placed it first because it's the shortest and the catchiest of the three documents in this blog. I wrote it right before I wrote the final draft news journalism article on Dr. Chris Costello's research "Sharing Fisheries Wealth for Ocean Health." Oooh! It rhymes! And... I read this poem to Dr. Barry Spacks' poetry class last Monday. It was fresh off my plate, so I was excited about it. In the scheme of the three poems I read: Matrix of Metaphors, Purpose or a Process, and CHESS of Fish, it was well received. Dr. Spacks informed us that we should assume the highest of intellect of our readers, and we shouldn't footnote anything in the poems, but "CHESS" is a splended exception, since it's such a cool acronym that does not stand on its own. I quickly asked Dr. Spacks about my "knowledge set" for poetry. I didn't know who Burkowski was (some bar-based poet, women, the whole Hollywood of poetry), but most of the students don't even know what a tunicate is. So, can anyone give anyone a guilt trip for knowing anything or not knowing anything. Should I know existing poets, or should I know knowledge of the world that can feed into novel poetry? I will continue to invest in learning about tunicates and rhyolite, but some investment of being exposed to existing poets. I would rather expand my palate beyond the literature of existing poets.

PDF file for CHESS of fish: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/2.CHESSofFISH.pdf.

Short Story / Screenwrite Scene in the Grocery Store between Terra, Buz, and a bag of "organic" Oreo Cookies. The piece is entitled "Humans are Connected to the Environment? A Discovery of the Obvious." I wrote this after I wrote the Fisheries Information Network (FIN) first set of notes. I sent it to a few of my friends in the lab and my father. My dad, knowing Terra and Buz very well, had a huge belly laugh. He said the "oreo cookie" situation really worked and amplified and tangible-ized the absurdity. *Whew* He also felt very bad for Buz who had to deal with Terra's out-of-control existentialist rant in the middle of the grocery store.

PDF FILE for the screenwrite for "Discovery of the Obvious" is right here:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/4.humanenvironmentconnected.pdf.

Short Blurb on "Identity Crisis of Environmental Media Graduate Students." Page 1.

Short Blurb on "Identity Crisis of Environmental Media Graduate Students." Page 2.
PDF file for the Blurb:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/7.identitycrisisenvironmentalmediagr.pdf

It's funny. I am putting all this material on my blog. It keeps coming out. I work very hard. One day it will have a "better" place, "better" meaning other people may put it somewhere other than this blog. Maybe one day some people will absorb to some degree the things I think about. Like I said, a writer's work is only appreciated after he or she is dead. Going based on that null hypothesis, I need to continue to work, because that is how I survive. That is how I stay mentally sane.

At the root of all of this, it's only for sanity and survival... through the desire to care and attach myself to others and my surroundings.

283. Ecopistemology and Comparative, Multi-media Storytelling

Well, ever since I started attending the workshops of Shelly Lowenkopf in Montecito, my mind started to rapidly organize in terms of "mechanisms of storytelling." I started to realize that if I belonged in one line of human storytelling (literature, music, acting, film), I started to realize that the central organizing mechanism of human perception of Reality is through Writing (paralleled with my cartoon drawings mental mappings). If I belong within a "group" within any industry of storytelling, it would be in writing. I started to realize most of the rest of the characters are layers stemmed from writing, and those people are mostly puppets. If you want to meet pure intelligence and people who manipulate reality, best chill with the writers. Took me three years later to find myself rooted in writing once again. When I branch out into multi-media projects, I will say, first and foremost I am a Writer/Cartoonist. After that, I am a writer who composes and records music. Not, I am a "musician." After that, I am a writer who makes movies. Not, I am a "film-maker." I had such a hard time getting together some form of coherent body of information in "comparative storytelling," and I could only do it from the frame of reference of writing. Not film. Not public speaking. Not music. Not elaborate, multi-layered, three-dimensional graphic art. No. No. No. Just writing. The Backbone HTML code to the Reconstruction of Reality.

You know? It gives me some comfort knowing that since the dawn of human cave art-writing chicken scratch, humans have been writers and cartoonists (even musicians, but they had vocal cords for internal instruments, not electronic pianos). So, that's a few hundred thousand years? Million years? Paper and pencil have been around a while. But photographers and film-makers and million-dollar music studios only existed since the 1800s and 1900s. It makes sense to have a writer/cartoonist frame of reference, because the rest are recent inventions and more technology intensive. Evolution of storytelling.

I wrote a dozen or more pages on Ecopistemology and Comparative, Multi-Media Storytelling. Which I will ultimately have to say that (1) it is an essay attempting to define "what is environmental media and why do we need it"? (the whole scientists part of a system called society and planet Earth, scientists as chess pieces, simultaneously trying to analyze the whole game of chess, account for human dimensions of scientific practice and environmental change) and (2) it is written from the frame of reference of a scientist. Hence, I am comparing all forms of multi-media with reference to the practices of scientific writing and the acquired mindframe of a scientist. More specifically, field scientist (aka "fuzziologist").

164. "Nipping the Nerve" Mega Toothache and Dinner with the Young Lab at Beachside Cafe

I am at a Starbucks in Goleta (predictably), and I don't know how much I can crank out here. Why? Because of a toothache. An infection in an upper left molar, second from the back. Whatever number the dentists call it. This toothache is a humbling experience. Last night (at Jean's and Chuck's in Corona) I cried myself to sleep. I probably will have to cry to sleep tonight. Tomorrow night. Sunday night. Then Monday I might get a root canal. A medicated shot/injection at least to get rid of the bacterial [end fragment]

The consequence of working hard, getting into graduate school, is that you forget about the basics of your own health. Which I admitted to Dr. Young today. I signed the Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) form about two days ago and the next morning I slithered to the floor. All the pain in my body I had neglected for over two years came over me. Most prominently the infected molar. [end fragment]

I invented a song called nip the nerve / nip from the tooth to my mind to my microcosmic world [end fragment] I guess I would be pretty desperate person to create a song about teeth and pain.

The pain is so strong, it overpowers any form of rational thought so my cerebral cortex ordering my pain sensors to shut up and of course my primitive brain doesn't listen... what xssholes. I am just cussing at the insides of myself. [end fragment]

Couldn't pain be so great that your brain shuts off itself from the pain so you can co-exist... Like that whole morphine effect? [end fragment]

First dinner party at the Beach Cafe. Whole Oran Young lab. Very cool. Dr. Young has returned.
Alexios said he saw my blog. He smiled. What the hxll did I say? [end fragment] I was quiet. I hadn't jogged. I was a wreck. Super fast drive from Riverside. Hadn't talked to Dr. Young before. Will talk to him tomorrow. Friday. Julie Robinson shot some footage for Blue Planet with her Sony DVX 2000. Wow. That is cool. So I guess my camera is legit. Every image for Blue Planet and Planet Earth are like photographs. I like behind the scenes stuff with the camera crew. The true jarring elements of film-making. Sat next to Dr. Young. Was in pain from tooth ache. Almost made me late. Since then emailed Dr. Young about universal scaling laws in biology applying size and scale to reasoning in ecological systems. Whether this could be quantified in terms of biomass and energetics, all the better. [end fragment]

Dr. Freudenberg. Psychology of Size. Altered human behavior given the size of a group or a system. People care about each other in a tribal group and let a dead man lay in the street in a city for a couple of days. Alexios research. Idea of voluntary simplicity. Downsize. I made a poem about that. Dxmmit. People's values and perceptions change with group size. Voluntary simplicity. Technological coat. Technological coat we carry around with us. What do we truly need. What we truly don't need? [end fragment]

I was quiet for the dinner. The whole irony being at Goleta Beach. Both Alexios and I shared some degree of awkwardness. I thought it was most appropriate to listen because I am new and need to "learn the ropes" and start mapping personalities and histories of lab members. [end fragment] I think Dr. Freudenberg is left-handed. I recently saw Alexios presentation / Goleta Beach film for the MFA presentation with Lauren. Very cool. [end fragment]. Tomorrow "oil" what does that mean?

I was quiet. I am new. I need to listen to people. First step with any human beings is observation. Then once you start to learn how to push people's buttons, then it becomes manipulation. You just have to be very selective about what types of buttons you want to push on what types of people. Most importantly, people that can help you with a future career. People that come to mind automatically are Steve Gaines, Oran Young, John Melack, and Nancy Kawalek. I need some real psychologists on my side.

Lectures seem to have some level of organization to them. But dinners are just fragments of information bits you pick up here and there that are important in the context of your own mind's oak tree of knowledge. I told a friend of mine that his mind was like an oak tree. It branches and everything has its place. And everything builds. And he keeps it all in his head. Just like my dad. And I just trail you around like some scavenger secretary, picking up all these trails of beautiful ideas and writing them down myself, giving you credit for them.

At one point he said that it's the "same old people" at the dinner table, he wanted to leave. Not very nice. Hmmm. Surrounded by girls. Outnumbered. Hmmm.

Maria Gordon was very clever and jovial and full of jokes during that evening. I was a bit off. I really was off actually. The tooth ache put me in a bad position. I shouldn't have mentioned tooth ache to anyone. Bringing my personal life in this. [fragmented]

I ended up jogging later on. It was nice. Very cool to have such a dinner. Oran was off on sebbatical all over the world. He's working on multiple international treaties.

We have our "labels" for everyone. I was labeled as "environmental media" with "environmental communications slant." Then I said that I was "environmental media as a cop out to do environmental philosophy." He he he. And Julie Ekstrom, my housemate, said that was more like it. Dead on. He he he. Alexios is voluntary simplicity. Pria is science-policy. Sarah is water. Sarah is out with this guy Charlie I met through Craigslist. He caught me in the ultimate low point of my life. He's nice, but uh... just as a friend. Julie is ocean. Or more controversially ocean mnagement. Maria Gordon is "generalist." I want to be a generalist too! Victoria would love to have "scaling laws" tagged with her systems of study. Scale-based reasoning as use.

Also met Dr. Young's wife. She seems very nice. Very cool. I heard they live out by Mission Canyon. Nice area to live. Dr. Young is a real trooper. He rides his bike to school sometimes!