311. An Evolution of Student Identification Cards

Vic's new UCSB Student ID card. Best one yet. The smiling represents that I have constructed an "extroverted" people-interface character even though I am intrinsically introverted and am shy of cameras. I like to be the one who takes the pictures! Also did the "stretched-turtle-neck effect" and the "Disney angle" face--how Disney draws all their female characters with a slight angle to the side, not directly forward. I guess it's living it up to Environmental Media!
Vic's ID card from UC Riverside. Just finished writing Question Reality. Tired. Puffed up cheeks. Puffy undereyes. The night before I just had only three hours of sleep. Had a gnarly argumetn with my mother in concern of the arrangement of my room (silly thing now). In bad shape at that time. In horrid shape for the entire year. Looked directly into the camera rather than a side view.
Vic's UCLA Student ID card in 2003. I had a nice, relaxing summer by that point, so my skin didn't break out with anything. But I looked into the camera directly, but almost as if I had a gloss in my eyes and wasn't fully centralized internally. I also look back: what in the hxll was a 23-year old doing in grad school? I was the youngest of the class. Compared to 2008, I stared directly into the camera, almost as if I had "knowing eyes" and have a much better sense of self and what in the hxll I am doing with my life (or perhaps, this could be an illusion of a false sense of confidence, something that all university academics supposely need to formulate: a false sense of confidence and certainty)! Ahhh! No, I have a theme for my Ph.D. and I am elated with its all-encompassing properties. Nothing to complain about.

I suppose transferring schools several times is an inefficient process, and can be viewed quite negatively, especially by the administration who was not able to provide the right academic environment for me to function and thrive. But now that I am back at UCSB, I have close to nothing to complain about. And ironically, there are two forefront benefits of transferring schools: (1) you have come to learn directly about bureaucracy and rule systems for managing education and students and resources (which is one of my advisor's research, the investigation of institutions, rights and rule systems). Essentially, I was a guinea pig of an experiment of university institutions. Maybe, that is why my advisor took me in. Transferring schools several times is perceived negatively by most people (even academics), but there were quite a few "knowing professors" at UCSB who came to understand, and potentially see these experiences as advantages. and (2) I have come to rack up quite a few student ID cards, which all still reside in my self-designed army-like purse-wallet thing (actually, it's a passport wallet converted into a purse-wallet I can hang around my neck). Student ID cards are great for getting discounts--most particularly movies.

I think these three student ID cards represent drastic transformations of myself and my perception of reality over the years. You can even see these transformations through the images themselves. The way how I look. My facial expressions. Even how I pose myself. From a timid, shy, goodie-two-shoes follow the rules clueless, underaged grad student at UCLA to a more mature, picture-posing outside-the-box environmenal media student at UCSB. I even managed to smile! I have finally reached a threshold of satisfaction with myself in terms of my brain (not that I am satisfied with myself, I have so much more to do and accomplish!)--and how the university defines me and places me--as an environmental media student. The smile and the posing and the turtle neck stretch represents my self training in photography. Which has finally paid off into a nice student ID card. Don't get me wrong in terms of self-scrutiny, I have such high self standards in aesthetics that if I don't look like Natalie Portman, I am not aesthetically optimal (from a photographic point of view). I have come to learn about and accept my own form--like my body is this strange vessel I live in but don't truly know it (yet attempting to know it)--and have come to learn my form's angles of optimized aesthetics, which is not a high region, but there are ways how to make me look tolerable to look at :-). At some angles, I look like a little girl and at other angles I look like a cartoon character. I don't know. Natalie Portman has optimized aesthetics such that if you took a picture of her at any angle, at any distance--she would still look "beautiful" from a mathematical golden-rule point of view.

Such is the pickiness of a self-critical artist as myself!

307. Introducing Gozzie: In Order to Join the Gang, You Must Be Beat Up for Two Weeks

This is a monumental moment. I have been "intellectually beaten up" by several gangs at UCSB, and the the head honchos of the gangs have accepted me as one who is interested in scaling laws in biology and human-environmental systems. I am done with being beaten up, and now I need to get to work--linear, directional work. Such is the life of academic gamesmanship!

It is Tuesday night, and I am barely tapped into my brain. I have been blasted straight for the last two days and I am not sure where exactly I am at. The most horrible part about my situation is that I need to narrow my thoughts in zoom in, not expontentially spread out anymore. But the issue is, I need to "focus" but I have several needs that are absent--basal reptilian needs that have emerged as clear issues of maintenance as rendered by Tariel. But, it is of great misfortune that many of these needs are not being satisfied. It is unfortunate that everything in this world is ephemeral--it comes and goes. And that human interactions are shallow and fleeting and meaningless.... So, out of desperation, I must find a way for these needs to be attended to and comforted.

It's so funny that an individual human being in the university is equivalent to Tom Hanks residing on a deserted island in the middle of a vast ocean. Except that I myself am in a vast ocean of collective ideas, trying to find a method to the madness! In order to survive and stay in one piece--the secular alternative to talking to "God" is to invent a character, like a "Wilson" volleyball.... Like "Gozzie" from a strange, foreign country. And so it goes.

You can't change humans. And you can't expect any one of them to accomodate you. You can only invent them in your mind. Invent them, and manage them to however you need. That becomes much lower maintenance than tending to a real-world human in the outside world.

I, Victoria, have very picky needs and desires and in part need a very picky design of a human. So, just as I invented the character of "Buz" in Question Reality, I am inventing a new character by the name of "Gozzie," who is now starting to keep me quite good company. I think Gozzie is tall, like 6'2" and he has dark, curly hair (not sure how long or short). I think he is rather thin-athletic, not super chunky muscular, and he doesn't eat red meats. He is very light hearted, witty, and has an amazing sense of sarcastic humor. Though he is in slight bitterness of the whole human-environmental condition, he has overwhelming optimism and bountiless creativity. Gozzie is a hybrid of the sciences and the arts and is a do-er, not a talker. He knows the methos of the sciences and arts very well, and he is determined to make a name for himself in the world. He knows quite a few things and I know quite a few things. We both work very closely on projects and he is very motivating me of my pursuits. He encourages me to finish my projects and to merge to the next idea. Ultimately, he wants me to go on Roadtrip Nation so I can meet all the people I have been dreaming of meeting and interviewing for the last five-or-so years. Gozzie is also pushing me to be more extroverted and open with others. He is really pushing my boundaries in becoming a better person.

I think the most important traits of Gozzie is that he has quite a bit of time to spend with me, and that he is very, very humble. Most guys play this ego game, displaying a false sense of confidence, even though they know very, very little. Gozzie doesn't know a lot and he readily ADMITS that he doesn't know a lot. He said that was the point of getting a Ph.D. in the first place--to admit that you know close to nothing... more and more and less and less of nothing! Another thing that gozzie does is that he gives lots of hugs and just curls me up into a rolly polly ball and squeezes me gently when I feel like the world is coming down too much on me. He says not to worry--everything is fine. It's just information overload. Like usual. And then I uncurl myself up and say "oh." I think this will be radiated through the egg chair and the massage chair and the free massages on campus!

Gozzie and I trade artwork and poetry all the time. We positively critique each other. It's never a one-way street of creativity and productivity.

I am sure, Gozzie is mostly a cumulative character, but sometimes a few people--one person-- might take very real properties of him in the world outside my mind.

Well, I think this is a good formula for a start. I can understand why John Nash had to create characters for his Beautiful Mind. He didn't want to be in his brain alone. You do whatever it takes for individual sanity.

Now that I have all my needs illusorily satisfied, I need to now narrow down. My September since the 15th was an overall immense distraction. I had to annex the university niche space. I had to get beaten up by the intellectual gangsters on campus in order to go through my rite of passage of institutional acceptance. Lucky me, today was the last major "rite of passage" with my meeting with Dr. John Melack, and now I am up-and-running with exploring scaling patterns from biological to human-environmental systems. Now, I just have to get my ducks lined up in a row. Which will require a lot. First, Gozzie is recommending that I have a solid foundation website interface. Second, Gozzie says once all that "showy business" is over with, I really have to dig deep back into the writing. But he also recommends I keep up with Sam Sweet's lecture notes. Oops.

This was written 9/30/08 but is back-dated.