125. Blue Horizons Continued: Submitted Overdone Application in May of 2007 While Housekeeping

I'm still currently having problems with Blogger and uploading images, but right now I just learned how to cut and paste html code from Picasaweb to Blogger and now my images are popping up in a jiffy. My brain was too dead to think of such a solution last night. Would have saved me three hours!

And just in case this annoys you, I try to invert colors or shift colors of nearly all my images to to experiment with an alternative reality of the system itself. I feel that there must be an alternative reality to nearly everything we see and experience. It's just a matter of finding the right angle and asking-questions-seeking-answers from this point of view.

Above is the Blue Horizons application I sent, and I found out retro-actively that I worked WAY to hard on the this application. It turned out that all I needed to do was fill out ONE paper, which is included above. I wrote an extensive "why" I wanted to do Blue Horizons essay, and it's funny all I had to do was write a short 250-word paragraph. Oh well. I am glad I worked hard because all my scattered, diffuse experiences converged into one place. It was the first time I was submitting a Resume/CV where my dimenions of science and ART were elaborated. Finally, art counts for something in my life! Institutionally incorporating my right brain! After all these years of suppression and dormancy....

Apparently I submitted the application on May 19, 2007, when I was still house-keeping in Orange County. What a mess I was. That job helped me appreciate being in the university and using my brain. I need a refresher on the hamburger-flipping type of jobs. Last hamburger-flipping job I had was Domino's Pizza (which terminated in Winter 2001), though I do admit house-keeping involves much more diverse tasks and people skills than Domino's Pizza. It's funny to think that I jumped from house-keeping to film training to now prospectively interning at nationwide journalism organizations. This jump from the mindless repetition to inspiring innovation is like jumping from black to white. It's amazing what one brain can do!

124. Blue Horizons Continued: A Zen of Student Housing, and Housing in General

I am a bit sleep-deprived so, I will try my best to remain coherent... a far cry from eloquent. So, basically, there is this saying that revolved around the idea of "divorcing school and work from home," when I argue that this divorce is nearly IMPOSSIBLE. They both feed off each other tremendously--issues from home can impact how one functions at work or school, and events in a professional/public place can tremendously impact transactions at home (View 1, above).

The way how I think about these issues can be summarized as the "Conditional Ecological Mind." Or more the standard psychological paradigm of "Maslow's Ladder." There are quite a few stipulations of the Conditional Ecological Mind (CEM, new acronym, as usual...): (1) all life factors are greatly intertwined and impossible to divorce (as I have learned through my trials of disorder in high school) (2) if basic required needs are not met (from a momentary to daily basis) (usually "home" activities, takes about 12 hours a day to perform all necessary tasks e.g. breathe, drink, eat, sleep, exercise, groom, maintain social stability within kin), then you will have limited, diminished, or no ability at all to focus on optional "higher-functioning tasks" (e.g. schoolwork, job performance) (which ultimately bring home the dough that allow you to maintain your basic, required needs for survival). So, on a good schoolwork day for me, I am able to devote 12 hours of my time towards "intellectual entertainment / academic jigsaw-puzzling" given that the other 12 hours I have slept well, eaten well, exercised, maintained basic health, remained in good terms with family members, housemates, friends, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...."

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Art Sylvester emphasized that thinking about the environment is a "luxury" on its own. Most people are struggling day-to-day, just trying to get enough to survive and stay afloat. They don't have time to think longer term and bigger picture. They're just good surviving organisms. I agreed with Dr. Sylvester. I was at that point to, living the moment, but without any context or understanding that moment's relative past, and that moment's relative projection into the future. I told him I could get my basic life tasks done in 12 hours. And I have 12 hours free every single day to do something useful for myself and for this system. Even with these 12 hours I have lots of options--ranging from watching television, mindlessly surfing the internet, or even rotting my neurons through drug and alcohol consumption. But I chose a certain road... I suppose a road less taken... environmental multi-media and environmental problem-solving. Thinking about the environment is indeed a luxury... not a physical luxury, but an intellectual-mental luxury. So? I might as well not feel guilty and take advantage of this free space and time, allocated to optimized my own survival and sanity, as well as others' and this planet's. Hence again, this is the CONDITIONAL ECOLOGICAL MIND and how this concept can be useful to understand the discoordination of environmental problem-solving and change.

So, given the conditional ecological mind, I do several things in my life. If I show up to school, required to do a certain task under a personally stressful condition (lack of sleep, had family problems), I announce to the group I am working with my "physiological/pscyhological disclaimer." I first state that I am in a certain condition that might make me less functional or useful, and then I proceed to perform the task. Actually, stating my physiological disclaimer actually helps me focus better at school!

And again, why homeless people oftentimes cannot perform higher functioning tasks. A "home" is like a self-carved territory or microcosmal region that optimizes your acquisition of resources and optimizes foraging, safety, and self-maintenance. The modern home: a few minute drive from the grocery store, a few feet from the refrigerator, the bed, the shower, and the toilet. Pretty good, spatially optimized set-up. But when you are a homeless/nomad, you have no location to acquire such resources so you spend much more time trekking known/unknown space just to acquire resources and satisfy basic needs. Such are my days car camping in the Subaru. Takes a while to find a restroom, a place to clean up, a place to buy decent food... traveling is inherently inefficient.

The Zen of Student Housing: Bills. My freshman year at UC Davis, I made a simple epiphany. Now that I am "free from my parents," who are a few hundred miles away, I am still not "free." I still have "strings attached" to the surrounding region. For example, I still had to pay "bills" at my house/apartment. Bills on water, trash, energy, technological communications... from these companies that were either close or far away. So, I drew these "ecological strings" attaching my own mind to these "bills" which are then sent to "companies" that provide basic resources. My freshman year at UC Davis were full of simple epiphanies, such as these. The other two that pop out of my mind were (1) Vic's theory of Technological Laziness and (2) Humans are as interesting as their environments, and the environment is as interesting as the humans that live there. As for UC Davis, the environment is boring and flat... and the humans there were largely zombified white toast. Haven't been there since my freshman year. One day.... As for Santa Barbara, the people here are as healthy and as diverse and dynamic and energetic as the landscape around us. It's not a "pristine nature" but there's lots of open space....

Typical Ecological Strings Attached "Bills" for Student Housing: (1) water and trash (2) electric (3) gas (4) phone (5) cable / internet (6) parking (maybe)... and others? Basic (7) rent just to even occupy a territory of optimized resource acquisition.

So, given the Zen of Student Housing, what was so unstable that happened this summer? (1) I was living alone, which made me socially unstable and hypercreative (the positive aspect is that it made me bond with people in the rock crab film more so than if I had housemates). (2) I had unstable housing, such that I had to move within the last ten crucial days of the Blue Horizons program. I had all this "mental energy" (as Denise Bellanger calls it) wrapped around issues of basic maintenance rather than optimizing productivity toward finishing the rock crab film. Things ultimately worked out....

I do admit that some people optimize productivity at school or work as a form of denial or psychological displacement / distraction of energy from one dysfunction in their life or surroundings to another. For example, I know a few scientists who have family problems, but instead of dealing with them (maybe they didn't have the capacity to deal with them), they channeled all their energy to their work as a form of distraction. Another situation is I know that some sadistic French guy was extremely productive as a scientist, hiding out in a basement all during World War II figuring out the metamorphic life cycle of insects. What does this say? Honestly, I don't think I can do that. My mind is too integrated to be able to deny the existence of a problem of one life element. It would impact everything else in my life too much. But men, since they are more linear in reasoning (more neurons but less interconnected) and have the capacity to go through long bouts of tunnel vision, they have the capacity to do this "displacement/denial" behavior much more than females. This is just a casual observation based on my experience and systematic observation of male and female behavior on a daily basis.

To resume the Zen of Student Housing, I think it would be an interesting, amusing exercise to do a comparative history of Victoria's student housing situations, from the nerve-wracking UC Davis dorms (living with a slug of a roommate) to the heavenly Santa Ynez Apartments at UC Santa Barbara to my current housing situation with Julie, Kyle, Karl out in the boonies of Goleta (everything's great... except for the commute....) to the excessively communal living in Costa Rica (rooming with the most hyper character of the group) to the undergrad slums of Isla Vista: my sister Jenny's 6691 Sabado Tarde Party Central experience (live television of drunk college kids through the livingroom window, especially Friday and Saturday night), and the nightmare living situation residing in the living room with a Christian freak and her fiance, combined with sharing a room with a moody econ girl, David (a bitter mathematician), and Sean (a molecular biology stoner who used my big shiny red apples as bongs) (both David and Sean and I were graduates of the ARC Summer Research Program in 2001) (at one point, dishes were piled up in the sink for 8 weeks!). Two quarters of misery during my junior year... David had a crush on my good friend Maysha, which made things worse.... Then there's the whole drama of living with my parents, Jean and Chuck, a quarter out in the cowsmelling town of Norco (dairy farms converted to track housing) and sleeping in the living room at UCLA in a one-bedroom apartment with three girls right along fraternity row.... Well yes, I think this would be a very interesting, philosophically comical essay on comparative housing situations and why I was able to do very well in school during some housing situations and why I struggled to barely get by during other unstable situations.... It's kind of where I get my motto:

"Santa Barbara is a place where you can forget the rest of the world exists.
Riverside is a place where you chronically PRAY that the the rest of the world exists.
Davis is a place where you need to chronically, PHYSICALLY VERIFY that the rest of the world exists.
Los Angeles is the "world," but if the world is going to hxll, Los Angeles is going there first.
Reprhased: Los Angeles is a nice place to visit but a great place to leave!"

Such is a good summary of the regional influence of my California housing hopping experiences.

In short, the CONDITIONAL ECOLOGICAL MIND (A REHASH OF MASLOW'S LADDER): IN ORDER TO OPTIMIZE SELF-SYSTEM PRODUCTIVITY, ONE MUST HAVE ACCESS TO AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO MAINTAIN BASIC STABILITY. 12 HOURS OF THE DAY TO SATISFY BASIC NEEDS. 12 HOURS OF THE DAY TO MAXIMIZE FOCUS. A HISTORY OF EXPERIENCES THAT ARE RESOLVED. AND A FUTURE BUFFER ZONE. THEN YOU CAN OPTIMIZE PRODUCTIVITY AND CREATIVITY. SPHERES STRINGS OF BASIC MAINTENANCE (repetition element) AND SPHERES-STRINGS OF INNOVATION (breaking routine, inventing new things).

Vic needs to refer to this blog for a philosophical short film.

123. A Return to Blue Horizons: Housing Move-Out Guidelines, Nuts-and-Bolts

Above is a basic guideline for moving out of the Santa Ynez Apartments at UC Santa Barbaa. Protocols and Guidelines to Moving In and Moving Out.... moving all your human technological crxp. I, of course, moved out on August 25, 2007. By that time, I was so exhausted, so happy, so relieved just to have finished Blue Horizons, so relieved to finally reach the other side of a close to two-year rut. Her brain transformed from mental prison to mental flow. I was in the passenger seat, enjoying a ride with my father through the back streets of Santa Barbara--the eucalyptus groves and oak trees--plotting a script for Bub's future movie on fire ecology.... Who would have known there were two negative time bombs waiting on her transcript? It would have been dangerous to know at that time. And it is very good Vic did not know.... Until close to six months later....

122. A Return to Blue Horizons: Housing Re-arrangements at Santa Ynez, A Troubling Situation at the End of the Program

Blogger is totally pissing me off. It took me two hours to upload the above images, with no success. I had to upload them to stokastika googlepages. Then I wrote three paragraphs of a blog and Blogger didn't even save that. I have to write this blog all over again! This has taken me THREE HOURS for one silly blog. I am about to punch something or someone. What is going on here?!! I never had this problem before! I am going to do a short blog now. Just in bulleted format.

**Housing Agreement and Inspection for August 15 to August 25.
**The FINE PRINT. Vic never reads. Wayne the in-training-lawyer (from Riverside, met at Starbucks around Thanksgiving) reads ALL FINE PRINT (housing agreements, credit card agreements, business deals, etcetera). Vic may suffer consequences for this)

**Cannot focus and finish Blue Horizons if don't have stable housing

**Michael was supportive, signed above letter, Constance was hesistant and said that there was not necessarily a need for her to get involved and make a huge fuss, hence, an unsigned letter above, Victoria rebutted and said I thought what I was doing was just protocol, you're just verifying that I am part of Blue Horizons and that I am in need of housing

**Denise Bellanger of Summer Sessions went out of the way to help, Denise knows the ins and outs of the bureaucracy of university student housing due to her job of helping international students finding places to stay for Summer Sessions, she ultimately contacted Christina Martinez, head housing manager at Santa Ynez (who taunted Vic earlier in the summer: "You know you're going to have to move out August 15.") Denise transformed Christina Martinez from unapproachable to receptive, accomodating, and caring of my strange situation. Vic moved around the 15th with two other girls, could not handle the move from being alone and in a state of hypercreativity then to having to calm down, being around two other girls... especially the last week of crunch time to finish the film...

Boy, Vic was a wreck, and she is psychologically a wreck right now. Maybe Blogger can follow through when she pushes the "publish" button.

121. A Return to Blue Horizons: Housing Arrangements at Santa Ynez Through Graduate Student Joanna Deek

After lots of organizing and reviewing old tangled mental knots, Vic is returning to wrap up issues with Blue Horizons so she can focus on... moving on to the next great thing... like finish up a rock crab film for one thing. I saw images earlier that I took and man, I have been so stressed out the last 6 months that I forgot how much fun I had last summer!

I was able to find a vacancy within the [luxurious] university-owned Santa Ynez Apartments. I guess I lucked out for the summer. I was subleasing from a graduate student in molecular biology by the name of Joanna Deek (I think she is from Lebanon, or some Middle Eastern country... I forgot the specifics). I guess it was a cool, interesting cultural transition (or lack of transition) because just a few weeks before I was house-sitting for an Iranian family (or "Persian" family) in Orange County (Mission Viejo). Since then, I have become more aware of the Persian / Middle Eastern culture in general (man, do I love the music!). I can pick out Iranian/Persian people now. Some trademark words I can detect are "Salem" and "Holdolfe" and a few other highly-repeated cliches. Otherwise, I'm kind of glad I'm out of the Orange County situation. It was very time-strapping to help out Momma (she is dealing with a severe case of arthritis), and plus I realize now I need a spatial divorce between work from home, especially when I am working for someone else. I hope Momma (real name "Ghamar") and her family all right. Momma's daughter was advocating that I get a job in Dubai (UAE) because that place has great benefits... not so sure... would like to visit though....

Joanna reminds me of Dr. Nancy Kawalek a little bit (Dr. Kawalek is involved in representations of science and technology through theater). In short, Joanna was very organized and to the point. We had very clear transactions and made my transition to Santa Ynez very smooth.

I lived alone that summer, which has benefits and drawbacks. I am not sure in this case the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. I remember vividly going out several times, having fun filming squirrels and passing cars. I also lived right next to Nick, a chemistry graduate student who was also alone for the summer (his apartment mate was gone for research). Though I am not an advocate of judging people based on appearance... well... the evolutionary mathematics of aesthetics kicked in here. Godzeeks, he's a biological work of art. Tall, lean muscle (he's a professional biker), blond, blue eyes. Kind of reminded me of Craig Revell... (an undergrad phase). That kind of stuff makes it hard to directly stare at him in the eyes (or anyone in the eyes) for that matter. Biological works of art... well you know how it goes... it sparks primal emotion, so you just kind of go through this mental interference process talking to those type of people. The only way I could handle myself with biological beauty is to hide behind a camera, and then I'd be safe. Well anyway, Nick's a nice guy too. Some manners! He let me borrow his wrench so I could fix my bike. (By the way, I had my yellow bike stolen this summer, and I'm still not over it). He told me about his trials in the chemistry department: how the whole administration is going through overhaul and merging, and how he must pass preliminary exams soon enough. Nick's hanging in there. Nick was sometimes non-chalant and standoffish with me, but that's only in the presence of his "girlfriend," who had the gestalt prototype of California blond girl.... Figures. I saw Nick once during fall quarter and he was very friendly with me. I hope he's doing well.

The staff of the Santa Ynez Apartments were overall very pleasant to work with. I remember Daniel Laub, who helped me with getting internet in my room. I also remember this super-friendly jokester kind-of-guy who went through this huge dramatic bout in concern of this bee flying around the office on the day I was trying to purchase a parking pass. Christina Martinez, who seems to be the head honcho of the Santa Ynez Apartments, was a little intimidating to interact with. At first, it was almost as if she was teasing/taunting me for my situation of needing to move out on August 15 though my program ends on the 24th. It ended up that Christina helped me get another temporary two-week housing situation at Santa Ynez--but only through the medium of Denise Bellanger of Summer Sessions. Denise has come to my rescue more than one time... from housing situation to grade changes to emotional conditions. What an amazing person!

Key Words: Joanna Deek, Santa Ynez Apartments, Blue Horizons, Mission Viejo, Nick, evolutionary mathematics of aesthetics, biological work of art, staff, Denise Bellanger, Daniel Laub, Christina Martinez

120. Poem "Down the Rabbit Hole"

119. Coastal Fund Logo Change at UC Santa Barbara, Fall Quarter 2007

Above is the progression of development of variations of a potential logo for UCSB's Shoreline Preservation Fund (SPF), now hereby called Coastal Fund (CF). I worked on this logo in the fall of 2007, maybe around October. Why? Well, it was a very rough time for me. I wanted to be a part of the Goleta Beach film project... and well, I received confrontation about it. Maybe it's because there were too many people involved. And I was deemed as "unreliable" and "not trustworthy." All these stigmas were derived from the Blue Horizons situation in which I was gone for a week at UC Irvine to finish my film in a distraction-free, non-creatively stifling environment. Everyone apparenty thought I dropped out of the course when I truly thought a friend of mine told the teacher that I was at UC Irvine. The lesson? Don't rely on third-party people. Direct communication is the best. This innocent action of working in privacy ultimately led to a giant miscommunication situation (which was recently resolved). Plus, I should have been enrolled in the Disabled Students Program (DSP), which I will be in the future. Then all my actions would have been legit. So, at that time in October of 2007 I was being pushed away from the Goleta Beach project. I eagerly volunteered my efforts but was chronically denied. I was humiliated in front of a pier at once point. I didn't feel wanted. Doesn't feel good at all. Especially for someone who's in no-man's land, trying to transfer schools.

So, what did I do? Create an alternative. I didn't want to work on the rock crab film yet. I wasn't mature for that. So, I went to Scott Bull and decided to try and do a film and logo for the Shoreline Preservation Fund. The film idea (though Scott Bull of CF was down for it) didn't follow through because the whole agency was going through upheaval... name changes... shifts in websites, etcetera. But a film will be for a later time.... I did design a logo though, which ultimately wasn't used. It's a great idea: abalone shell, layers of the land and ocean interconnected, bright and colorful, generic in meaning, but unique at the same time. The potential problem with the logo is that the agency is called "Coastal Fund," so at a bare minimum, you would expect a "coast" to be on the logo. *Duh* I'm slapping my forehead!

Scott Bull was complaining that their existing logo (the bright-colored oval with a tower) looked too much like a "cute school logo": it's site-specific to UCSB (the tower and the Channel Islands in the backdrop), but despite this drawback, the colors are so beautiful and the brightness reflects the level of energy and enthusiasm at UCSB. Scott needed something more generic and more "professional" because now SPF is an "established" agency now. Part of the "establishment": incumbency. Non-profit megafauna. I like it.

Then I saw the new logo, which is also above. At first I didn't like it. Disclaimer: I am going to be honest and brutal here. And I truly hope Scott Bull doesn't read this blog. Or if he ever does, he will be understanding that I am currently wearing an "art critic's hat." And in the end, my opinion doesn't matter too much anyway. I'm just one in six billion. So here goes the constructive criticism. My first adversive response to the logo was "Whoa. Talk about Corporate Environmentalism. The logo is as blah as elevator and store music, except visually not acoustically." But then, I realized that there is a Gaviota Coast design to it, but what's up with the seagull? To provide the indication that it's the coast? And the colors are so bland. The logo is generic but not distinctive, symbolic of all the necessary elements, but not clever. But, but, but... I understand. It does the job. The logo represents not just the UCSB coast, but any coastline... Anyway... Corporate environmentalism, what a concept.

My recent logo and postcard design for the Goleta Beach project went a lot better. People commented on the originality, but that's a different blog.

The basic protocol to logo design: (1) You meet the individuals and the agency / do research and experience the operations of the agency for a period of time to develop emotional attachment and drive (you cannot create meaningful art if you are not emotionally hooked) (2) You figure out the core values and purpose of the agency/individual, and you create elements that symbolize the values and purpose and goals of the entity (3) then you conglomerate the elements to make a simple logo that represents the gestalt of the organization or individual. I am not sure why, but I've been addicted to logo design since middle school. It's just something I did, out of my own will.

As for Goleta Beach stigmas and confrontations, all those things are in the past, settled. I wasn't allowed to ride on the boat, but afterwards I was allowed to be on the film crew for the Kristin Amyx interview (Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce). Since then, I've been on nearly every single shoot. Nicole said we had great audio from the shoot and it was super that we used tripods. And the rest is history.

Stigmas slowly erase with time, but they don't wash away as fast as the pebbles in the surf zone. Human relations have their own lag times as well. In the end, we're all just giant atoms: positive attractions, negative repulsions, neutral reactions. Coexisting. Conflicting. We just operate at different scales and rates in space and time than the true atoms that are the core building blocks of our beings. Makes sense that it all scales out.

And as for the logo that I made above, that's in my back pocket, and it's free for me to use at a future time.

118. Scrap Drawings and Documents for Designing the IQR Question Reality Website, Round 1

In fall of 2007, as a form of confidence boosting and stress relief, I worked very diligently on a website: http://IQRquestionreality.googlepages.com. I did this instead of working too much in the class Films of the Natural and Human Environment. I also needed a website to inform the faculty at UC Santa Barbara who I was and what I am trying to do.

Though I am using photoshop to process images, I try to make my work as personable as possible. Which usually involves my use of paper and pencil, then imported and modified in photoshop. Above are some sketches, which are now much more elaborated concepts: Terra's dreams, Alternative Addictions, a poem and letter to Dr. Armand Kuris, and variations of my mass-produced credit card signatures. More final products can be viewed in the website mentioned above.

A website like "IQR Question Reality is Space Webbed on a Thin Slice of Time.

A blog is time-organized, within a streamline travel of change of space. Well, time is change of space after all. So, to accomodate my brain, I need both elements. I need a time-organized blog, and I need a space-organized website for much larger projects. Larger space-webbed projects are derived from time-streamlined blogs. Your mind is a closet/library and a dresser drawer. You need to be selective what you want to put in the closet/library. Things that you for sure want to keep forever, for they are the nuts and bolts that allow you to stand and build.

117. Poem Called "Four Long Years"

http://stokastika.googlepages.com/fourlongyears.pdf

116. Rough Rough Rough Draft: Triunity / Gleaning America (Homelessness, Thriving off of Waste Systems)

http://stokastika.googlepages.com/triunityhomelessgleanerbrainstorm.pdf

115. An Encounter with a Homeless Man, Riverside, California

I remember Nicole Star*eski (sorry, very hard last name to remember) saying when initiating the writing for the Goleta Beach film project: "Just write anything. The most important thing is to INITIATE the process so we can start some email-based-dialogue and receive feedback." I guess I should treat this blog the same. Just throw out ideas for myself (and hopefully others will read), and when the time comes to compile thoughts for a full-blown film or any form of interactive media project, then we're in good shape. It's not good to keep ideas bottled inside.

I haven't talked to a homeless man since my encounter with Rick Moritz and Jason last summer, when interviewing them for a film project with Blue Horizons at UCSB. About a week ago I was leaving the Walmart of Moreno Valley (home to some of the most gigantic whale-humans I have ever seen) and saw this rather young guy with spectacles on, sitting on a bench. To my surprise, he asked, "Would you spare some change?" and my impulsive, automaton reaction was: "No, sorry. I only have a credit card." I walked away, but my mind wasn't processing the dichotomy: how can a very young, intelligent-looking individual be homeless, sitting on a bench, asking for change? I paced around the parking lot quite a bit, struggling because I needed to go home to work, yet at the same time I was intrigued to find out this guy's story. Finally, my curiosity and desire for spontaneity overcame me, and I returned to this man. I asked him, "What are you going to use the money for?" He said he needed something to eat. And I said, if we go in together, I can buy you some food. He headed toward the McDonalds inside the store, which kind of defeats the purpose of everything (especially after watching blips of Supersize Me), and he asked for a big-n-tasty, a three-dollar burger. I felt good, temporarily satisfying the hunger of this mysterious person. We had a highly engaging conversation throughout this time, and I found out these things from him: (1) His name is Jeff Fritz (2) he lost his job and lost contact with his wife and kid all around the same time (3) he's been homeless for around 6 months (4) he sleeps in a tent up in the Box Springs Mountains (5) being homeless is hard and fun at the same time, it's fun to camp out and sleep under the stars, it's fun to be independent and nomadic, not knowing what the next day shall bring (6) being homeless is a job and it's about acting to play on other people's sympathy (7) it's close to impossible to starve in America because people are too nice, too many people throw away food, individually or through a business, and people tend to hook you up (8) he's in Riverside because his cousin lives around here and sometimes he can give him food and a place to sleep (9) his consolation and "internal heater" on cold nights are cigarettes, his only luxury (10) he has an interview within a week at Job Corps in San Bernardino. Basically, Job Corps is a non-profit group that gets homeless people off the streets, provide them housing and basic training until they can stand on their feet with financial and territorial stability. Happy ending situation. I'm sure I learned more from Jeff than this, but I told him in my mind and my heart I have a funny desire to be homeless, and I became a field scientist (ecologist / earth scientist) simply because it's a more socially acceptable version of satisfying the craving to be nomadic, independent of a mass-production technologized society that knows you by number and not necessarily by name. A name with a story, that is. I told Jeff that I may contact him in the future because I want to make a film on homeless people, but focusing on the Gleaner Lifestyle in America. How people survive living off of other people's perception of "waste." There's a french version of the film "The Gleaners and I," and there's lots of room for improvement. I'm glad I talked to Jeff. I internally vowed that day that every time I feel trapped in a box, I must go out and do one thing that day I have never done before, big or small. And my encounter with Jeff really made my day.

114. The Stigma of Yahoo Personals, Data Collection for N = 7/11 and the Science of Dating

http://stokastika.googlepages.com/yahoopersonals.pdf

Above is data for the future manuscript N = 7/11.

One thing I hate doing is repeating myself. Lately, since life has been going by so fast, I have come to lose track of what I have said to whom. But if I talk about the newest and latest intellectual drama in my life, then there are good chances I am not repeating myself, but engaging a specific audience in new variations of the same underlying inter-related themes of being a human being on planet Earth. Since I have largely figured out these main themes, I decided that science fiction can foreseeably play a huge role in my future life, simply because I am fascinated by and interested in discovering/creating mechanisms and matrices (structures of knowledge) rather than figuring out the Jeopardy details that get classified within these frameworks.

Another reason why I need science fiction in my life is so that I can engage in a series of thought experiments that I could not feasibly implement on human beings and human society, simply because it would be deemed "unethical." As a science fiction writer, I would have the ability to play the role of "alien" and attempt to objectively experiment with human/environmental behavior and processes and dream of outcomes of such experiments. It would be wonderful. I think we need some serious science fiction to progress humanity to "the next step" of self-system sufficiency. But this whole science fiction is an aside. Back to the point.

Five Points.

#1. I just looked up whether I discussed on this blog my primal mammalian condition. Apparently I have not done a very thorough job. So, I have a bit of a license to discuss this issue a bit here.

#2. This is in part an embarassing blog (partly yes, partly no). The above pdf is something I wrote a while ago (2003?). Yahoo personals profile with no image (thank goodness), and I do admit it's highly out of date, but captures my mentality at a given point in space and time.

#3. Date for book / script N = 7/11. One day Vic will write an essay in which a female protagonist treats dating as a series of scientific experiments. I am considering that there might be two parallel universes in which the female has a chip inserted in her mind by an alien species that objectively studies human behavior. Maybe this alien species will have three sexes, two sexes can symbiotically combine in a mutualistic physiology, and only on this condition of symbiosis, can there be genetic exchange with the third sex. Hmmm, wow, I'm trying to focus here. Seriously. So, the female human would go through a certain set of interpretational responses to her dating experiments, the alien would document all physical and mental responses of the female human, but would also go through its own set of interpretations of the experiment. Which would be utterly fascinating sci fi experiment on human behavior. I think the ending would be ultimately dark.

#4. What is my recent trial of N = 7/11. A lame one, I'd say. Never done Craigslist before, but met a UCSB Media Arts Technology (MAT) graduate student through Craigslist. It was so comedy. I read the geeky profile and emailed the random guy: "Do you go to UCSB? By any chance, are you affiliated with the MAT department?" And out of all randomness, these questions were answered as yes both times. So this mysterious male specimen, by the name of Charlie, sounded good on paper and well... a bit dull and apathetic in person. No emotional and crazy energetic enthusiasm that I have. Though this is just one trial on Craigslist, I am already establishing phobia of deriving sample specimens from the internet. "On-line mate shopping" is just a bit disturbing for me, as this American culture stigmatizes any individual who remains single and uninvolved in a meaningless, waste-of-time relationship. Not the cool thing to do for gringos. So, I'm uncool.

#5. I discovered recently that I could be classified as "quirky-alone" but I think this label is negative and unrepresentative of my condition. So, I invented a new label called ISI, or Intellectually Self Indulgent. Which can partially mean "I am the slave to my own ideas, otherwise I would be the slave to others." My brain self-employs itself. My brain it its own boss of other parts of my brain. ISI is also known as the Jim Carrey Syndrome, which is defined by this approximate quote, "How can anyone be involved in a relationship when he or she is so in love with his/her own ideas?" Amen to that. At first ISI meant Intellectually Self Infatuated. But, uh, that sounds... uh... something that would go on a self-inflicting porn site, so we must change the lingo here. Intellectually Self Indulgent versus Quirky Alone is white versus black. "Quirky alone" is an "externalized label" / exterior perception of a "single" person. Intellectually Self Indulgent is an "interalized label" such that the person who is his/her sole piece is indulged in his her own scientific/artistic/infinitely creative construction of reality, and that it's a very colorful, fulfilling life. Quirky-alones seem to stand for socially dysfunctional homeless people off the streets of downtown San Francisco. If the inventor of Quirky-alone terminology is so adamant to create a singles-lifestyle-culture, she better make a more "positive and uplifting" label for her cult, not some stigmatic tone of psychological disorder. Sorry for being so opinionated, but it's just me :-)

Run-off points, as usual.

#6. Back to this Charlie guy off of Craigslist. I thought his name would bring good luck because I named my camera (Sony DVX 2100) Charlie (there's actually twins, one Charlie is camera D at the Film and Media Studies Department, and I have this Charlie at home). Charlie the camera is named after this plant I bought at the 99 cent store during my senior year at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. I placed a tape on the plant pot that said "Charlie" and it also said "a metapopulation of independent apices" (quoting Bruce Tiffney). The thing that is so special about Charlie the Plant is that no matter how much I neglected it (which included low sun and close to no water), Charlie still managed to survive throughout the entire year. I am not going to ask how or why. I was actually pissed it would never die, becuase I don't like taking care of other living organisms. I actually chucked Charlie out in the front of my university apartment area... and I bet Charlie is so determined to survive he probably took root there, even though I made no efforts to dig a hole for him in the ground. So, yes, Charlie is a good luck name in its own absurd ways. Charlie off of Craigslist met me at a state of emotional uproar. I just found out I received two Cs for Blue Horizons film program and I lost 1450 on Craigslist for trying to buy a macbook pro computer. Charlie was so placid while I was bipolarly rambling, it was in part disturbing. Charlie said he was six feet tall. He lied. I am taller than him and I am 5'11.5" or maybe even shorter (gravity takes it toll over time, even on twenty-something-year-olds). I even felt GUILTY for lying to the DMV, that I was six feet tall. They even advocated that I do this for logistical purposes. They don't have enough place holders on the card for "5'11.5."" I have encountered several guys who have lied about their height and it drives me off the wall in a subliminal way. I am asking "why"? What's the point? What are you trying to prove? To whom? It seems like male-overestimation of height is just another chest-beating, ape-like, alpha-male practice. Sheesh.

#7. Dxmmit. I'm human and I need a hug sometimes, okay? Maybe that's why I look up Craigslist. I teased my dad one time, "How much do you charge for a hug?" Hugs are rare in my life. At one point at UCLA I went 6 months without a hug from anyone, and then I got hugs from my mom and my dad and I felt this strange tingled sensation all over my body, an immense release of built-up stress and anxiety I didn't know that otherwise existed. Primitive mammalian needs are just built into my system. Dxmmit. Then again, maybe that's why I love Mini, Lisa's and Kyle's new dog. I get hugs and licks from Mini once a day or once every other day, and it satisfies that stupid requirement of my primitive brain needing hugs to relieve anxiety. I hate being a mammal sometimes. Those stupid biological prerequisites for sanity....

#8. Internet and Dating. Hot topic in the news, eh? Hot topic for new movie twists, eh? Eventually, time must be devoted to an essay on the Philosophy of Human Communication and the Philosophy of Technology-Mediated Human Communication: Relationships in Altered Space and Time. There needs to be an extensive matrix comparing the different modes of communication (person to person, snail mail, email, phone call, internet chatrooms, etcetera), neutrally, positively, negatively, and why humans have a tendency to resort to certain modes of communication over other modes. Advantages and disadvantages of certain modes of communication. In this essay, I must not forget to mention about this new disease (which I partly possess) called ECP or ElectronoCommunicatiPhobia. And there needs to be some type of column or short paper on why I am anti-one-laptop-per-child, this imperialistic "non-profit" effort at MIT in which the leader feels that every child on this planet needs a laptop. To me, this is a chauvinistic effort to impose American lifestyle and culture onto the lives and cultures of other countries, which alters human communication regimes, maybe not necessarily for the net-good of anything. Studying human behavior to me is like studying how leaf cutter ants communicate. Simple as that. Ever since my own psychological disorder, I have been establishing a way on how to systematically deconstruct and reconstruct humans from an alien point of view.

Key Words: stigma, yahoo personals, N = 7, repetition, science fiction, mammal, Charlie, quirky alone, intellectually self indulgent, ISI, Jim Carrey Syndrome, lying about height, mini DV tapes, technology-mediated communication, electronocommunicatiphobia, ECP

113. Biologically Incorrect: The Body Count Attendee of University Guest Lectures

A Cartoon and Five Points.

#1. Above is an old cartoon / art piece I created during my time at UC Riverside, spring 2006.

#2. The Origins of Victoria's Cartooning. The free temporal niche space during a busy life of learning ecology / evolutionary biology / geology / environmental sciences was only during (a) a few boring undergraduate courses (e.g. a required "diversity" course during my senior year, which as a class on ecology and religion), and (b) a series of guest lectures for the UC Riverside Earth Sciences Department that had a mandatory attendance due to the small size of the department (and hence I was more of a "body count" rather than an intigued and engaged audience member) (though ironically, if the "body count" factor would have not been an issue, I probably would have gone to several of these lectures out of my own free will... *sigh*).

#3. In this particular geophysics lecture that featured some prospective candidate for professorship, this lady was by far superbly boring, outrageously technical and jargonesque, and to add the final stain of rust and force vector to make the whole ragged bike fall apart (this was no cherry added to the whipcream of a cake), ths lady had a chronic twitch on her shoulder, which placed me in this extreme mood of high anxiety for most of the talk. Not that I blame people for their internal biological issues--I have my own problems as well. It's just this case, this factor was the "tipping point" to my aggravation.

#4. What do you do when you reach a tipping point? Well, you need to dissipate the energy build-up either through (a) yelling or (b) doing something quasi-constructive, even though you are trapped in a certain location for... let's see... another 40 minutes. I chose (b) and in the back of the class, I slumped in my chair, observing her powerpoint slides, stripping the art components from the words of each slide, drawing the art components to form an impressionistic collage of random artistic geogphysics jargon. And Voila! Another piece of biological incorrectedness. My dad was at that lecture to, and one time I had to wake him up because he was snoring in the back of the classroom! (To remind you, my dad is a professor... snoring in the back of a guest lecture... and I thought I was bad). I showed him my artwork, and he busted up laughing, completely understanding my pain for sitting through that lecture when I could have been doing something productive with my own work.

#5. I think this would be a superb art series called "Biologically Incorrect: The Body Count Attendee of University Guest Lectures." All I would do is create an art series that involved conglomerations of random technical visual jargon of different fields. Great. I think this would fly. I have an idea in my pocket for a future to-do list.

Oh no, I have a couple of additional points. Oh well. This here represents run-off flow of ideas.

#6. There were a couple of "biological" components in the image: the back of Chris Rhinehart's head, top left), and the bottom of the bubble collage has two hands curved concavely toward each other, symbolizing how people were giving this lecturer an artificially enthusiastic round of applause... please... man... is this a joke?

#7. And back to the man theme of all this, the ultimate Ph.D. question for Biologically Incorrect is "What's the point?" and this applies very well here.

112. Biologically Incorrect Cartoon: Vic the Hermit Crab

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/r_rVaFKxUWuRBwnyT4kPiw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrGqeuss_SV7AE&feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Hpbf6ahnHhTRY3hXRNmaGg?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrGqeuss_SV7AE&feat=directlink I am anticipating that I am going to be cranking out quite a few blogs here. So my goal for each blog is to incorporate one or more pieces of "visual art" and state five inter-related points associated with this piece of art. As to whether I will follow this protocol very well, good luck to me. #1. Above is an impressionistic version of me, Victoria the hermit crab. I am in a state of hiding. I like to hide and pretend to be non-existent to others. So I can focus on maximal observation of the world around me. I like to hide by wearing my infamous oversized brown beanie. #2. Not to scare anyone away, but I have realized through my systematic training in acting and public presentation (over my last year leave of absence, 2006-2007), I have systematically developed Multiple Personality Syndrome. But do not worry! This is on purpose, intentional. Much like how Sacha Baren Cohen systematically developed and "flipped mental switches" or "shifting mental gears" into multiple characters (Ali G, Borat, and Bruno). Otherwise Sacha is a very quiet, benign, introverted character. I will further elaborate in a future blog, but to frankly state my intrinsic personality is introverted, highly observational, and sponge-like. Yet this personality can be very detrimental such that in the past it has led to several implosions and self-inflictions. So, in order to keep up with the inputs and outputs of ideas and actions within Victoria's mind and form, or basically... to find an outlet of self-expression, Victoria systematically trained herself into an extroverted state, which is rarely expressed (usually in front of the camera, regular photography and film, and usually in isolation). Wow, that was a long point. And one more subpoint. I am doing this because many scientists suffer from social and presentational dysfunction, and I just don't want to be another one of those.... That's another blog right there.... #3. Many people hide like I do. The more fashionable thing to do is to wear shades. Sunglasses. Either the regular ones or the now-trendy insect, bug-eyed glasses that people used to wear decades ago. I don't like wearing shades because most of them don't fit around my ears very well. #4. I created this cartoon in the fall of 2005 (upon returning to school from a year leave of absence and thousands of pages of writing), in which I declared that I was tired of hiding in my room and writing. #5. It's rare for me to draw a cartoon I like on the fly--I mean, on the first draft. I usually must go through a rough draft, and then after several erasings and pen-overlays later, a final draft. This was the first draft version, and though it's a bit sloppy, I like it. #6. Bonus point. Victoria analogizes herself to a hermit crab. Indication? Victoria finds a form of self-identification through comparison with other organisms, and not necessarily other humans. That's another blog topic as well. P.S. I am aware that I am switching from first-person to third-person. Well, this is a BLOG. There are NO RULES in blogging. So... I'll also declare my right to be Gramatically Incorrect!