Okay. Where am I at? It is finally "safe" to reflect.
Today is a momentaous day. It is an "open window" for blogging. I finally had a meeting with my advisor, Dr. Oran Young, and it was by far the most productive and best meeting I had with him. We are on the same wavelength, and it is fascinating to me that my three-year obsession with scale-based reasoning and its metaphorical applications to the human-environmental condition would be the concern beyond my own. It would be the concern of Dr. Young, as well to the fascination of Dr. Osborne, a historian and philosopher of science. It finally feels good that my individual intellectual and emotional turmoils actually help others. I don't feel alone anymore. It is a collective venture, a collective adventure. I am walking away from this meeting with Oran feeling like I have survived Fall Quarter of 2008. It is the first time in the entire history of my graduate school experience--which started in the Fall of 2003, that I feel proud of my existence in the context of the university, and that I had "moved forward" in a collective academic context. Graduate school is not just the pursuit of a science experiment, but it is ultimately an engagement with the "campus culture" as a social experment.
The last three weeks had been a blur. On Wednesday morning, I woke up and panicked and cried. My mind and body said I could not take it anymore in terms of having Dr. Zardock on my committee. For the last 8 weeks of the quarter, I had been building inside me an internal accumulation of fear and anxiety, simply because the structure of the conversations between myself and Dr. Zardock had been "deconstructionist" "you can't do that" without providing any alternatives, hence placing my head in the box. And the main reason why "I couldn't do that" is because "I don't have the credentials to do so" and not that it makes sense in terms of "common sense" and "intuition." I had come to a previous melt-down after blogging about a "typical conversation" with Dr. Zardock and coming to realize that I vented out about him to about 10 different people. I had come to the grandiose epiphany that Dr. Zardock had become "a tumor in my mind" and that I must berid it in order to move on with my life. Dr. Osborne argued with me that I shouldn't surround myself with a bunch of agreeing "yes men," but I need critical thinkers on my committee who can provide "constructive criticism:" which means picking apart my logic, but providing "alternative options" or "alternative approaches." Plan B, C, D, E, F, etcetera.
Wednesday morning was essentially an internal "tipping point." I frantically found the phone number of Maria, Oran's multi-dimensional aide, and she said not to worry and that "Dr. Zardock is NOT a tumor in my brain but he is externalized. He is OUTSIDE of you." She said not to worry and that this matter will be taken care of soon enough. After stating this, Maria calmed me down right away (What a psychologist!), and since that moment, I hit the ground running and started to organize and synthesize information in a rather frantic manner--for the last three weeks. I lived through several events--like Thanksgiving (showed up at 3pm, 3 hours late! horrible traffic in Pasadena), a ridiculously adventurous excursion with Wilson to the Royal Falconer English pub, two days in a Motel 6 off of University Ave. in Riverside, California, a meeting with Hugh Marsh at the cafe on north side of campus (giving Hugh a copy of my Question Reality book! a moment of great glory for both of us), spending another night at a Motel 6 in Carpinteria, off of Casitas Pass (I started at 5pm, I got cheated by four hours in my pay, and the other Motel 6 in Carpinteria, near by the Chevron next to the freeway, had their internet service down), surviving my first fisheries stakeholder meeting as "objective note-taker" (tagged along with Carrie Culver and John Richards to a somewhat swanky corporate hotel near by the Los Angeles International Airport, in a drabby room full of colorful, charismatic fishermen), proposing to Dr. Sam Sweet to work on the specifics of the Adaptive Grid Model for macro-evolution (which is more like an Adaptive Grid Model of human perception to me--I have applied Adaptive Grid Models to a lot of aspects in my life... but more later), was 20% present in a collective study session with Andre and Anna, two top-notch undergraduates under Armand Kuris (they should be grad students, I had so much fun studying with them!), I was entering references while Andre and Anna were discussing primary themes of the course, reviewing the final exam (to which I printed out), I kept ranting on about misinterpretations of Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons (and Andre pointed out that even primates are eusocial creatures, they make decisions in light of the group), so I was a distraction for a study session, I married Endnote figuratively and literally, now a wonderful database for maintaining notes on the literature, continued to enter 200 references in Endnote, then transitioned into writing phase. I wrote frantically about 10 solid pages in one day--the day before the group gathering at Dargans, an Irish pub that Tariel claimed there were great burgers there, but I ended up ordering some kind of chicken-potato-rice-curry dish (I called Jaime the day before and he said the dinner was going to be at 7pm, but he couldn't make it because he had an exam), and I ended up talking with Wesley a lot and we're going to be teaming up most likely in attending some fishery stakeholder meetings--it ends up that the MLPA process is very useful for his homeland of Ireland! But most importantly that night I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Ernst von Weiszaeker, the Dean of Bren, who stepped down from being the Dean of Bren, returning to Germany, just a couple of days after meeting him! Ernst received a very prestigious environmental prize just earlier that month, so it was kind of a surreal event to have a lively conversation with him at an Irish pub in downtown Santa Barbara, California; it was a very rewarding moment for him to say "I very much enjoy talking with you" and we agreed to talk more a bit the next day, and it is sad that we hadn't met earlier. Ernst also lamented for the loss of my grandfather and wishe that I had a loving support group all along, because I deserve it. That was very touching. I flashed back to my encounter with Dr. Dolf Seilacher, a famous paleontologist and recipient of "the nobel prize for ecologists" (Mercer Award?) in Europe. When I was talking with Dolf about my qualms on the human-environmental condition (back in fall of 2005), I didn't even know that he was a "big-shot" scientist ("big shot" by society, but actually very humble, he is a survivor of World War II, here you go from defending your life on the battle field, to doing something absurd and far removed from the pursuit of barebones survival, like studying the "architecture" of fossils). My conversations with Ernst--largely in the dimensions of environmental media, our values and perceptions of it--mostly the notion of viewing the world in Pictures--and the concept of "expanded interactions between science and society," part of my Alternative Addictions program, ha ha. Ernst commented that he has "few allies" in the world, Oran being one of them. It was a funny gift that the lab gave to Ernst: a big block of red duct tape, symbolizing the Bureaucratic Red Tape of Bren and the University of California, in general. We also discussed the notion of "efficiency" and "elegance" in technology, as well as the priorities of scientists--"rigor" and "methodology" and "precision" and "quantification" when environmental media does not necessarily conform to such standards--such that it suits my own brain "I am just a rational person who decided to accept there is a lot of slop in the world." I finally finished the essay (rough version) on the day of my last conversation with Ernst. I tried to work late into Friday night, with not much hope. I fell asleep early. The next morning, I woke up, struggling to edit my essay, not sure what to do. I ended up using the entire morning toward designing a couple of "immaculate" cartoons: the "observer-interactor principle" and the "zooming eyes," to which I sent off to several people, most notably Dr. John Bohannon, a correspondant of Science who is my Science Journalist Hero for creating the concept of "the Gonzo Scientist," and for intergrating science, art, and culture--it further validates my existence in the university. So my standards for the cartoon were very high, simply because I had a sophisticated, high standard audience to send it to. By then, I was really suffering in my room in Goleta and I called my cousin Mike in Los Angeles--I am going to visit you! He was happy and invited me to come on down. Mike and his girlfriend or not sure what the definition of the relationships is--her name is Jennifer and she is very kind, thoughtful, pretty--were shopping all day as Mike was frantically preparing for a trip to Baltimore and then a cruise ship--I remember him talking about Brazil--all by himself--and I showed up around 6 or 7pm. Mike and Jennifer were at the apartment (on the south side of the Santa Monica peer), and we were off for some adventure. It most certainly broke my train of thought in writing the essay! We headed toward the iceskating rink (a temporary pleasure near by the Third Street Promenade, for the sake of Christmas times, otherwise an "unnatural ecosystem for human pleasure") and there ended up being a lady who lost her wallet--with 200 bucks in cash sticking out--most likely drunk. Mike attempted to take matters in his own hands, as we were up for spontaneous adventure. Finally, we encountered some policemen and the wallet was finally in their care. All three of us proceeded to the Iceskating Rink, which was the epitome of the Tragedy of the Commons: 300 bodies of human flesh crammed in a tiny rink. Nevertheless, Mike and Jennifer were my "reference points" of fun, and so this chaotic experience ended up being rather organized, for I fixated on two human subjects amidst a chilly arena of moving human objects. Then we went to Starbucks and retrieved our "Free Coffees"--for me, an Eggnog Latte (super!) such that we ended up waiting in a long line that is usually encountered in a Disneyland. Then we headed home, sore from our limited ice skating experience (I skated backwards for a little while!), and I had a horrid craving for Mexican Food, so we went out to La Cabana (open very late, very decent priced, need to take Bub) and I ended up ordering chicken nachos, while Mike ordered carnitas and guacamole side, and Jennifer ordered two sides, an enchilada, and something with egg and pepper (touch base with me later), and then we went back to Mike's apartment, ALL FULL--oh ya, the Third Street Promenade Street performers were KILLER GOOD. Freaks. Stupid human tricks deluxe. Wished I could do half the things they were doing. Like break dancing, playing superb guitar, gymnastics. *Sigh.* One day! So I fell asleep on the hardwood floors in the living room. Mike and Jennifer woke up very early the next morning--Sunday morning, the day Mike was supposed to head toward the airport--they left while I was half asleep and groggy from being full on Mexican food--and as soon as they left, I was SURGING with energy to finishing editing my essay that I couldn't finish at UCSB. I emailed Oran that afternoon with a second working draft, then started working on Table 2--the initial set of "tools" and "metaphors" used to construct SBR on the human-environmental condition. The table ended up being 22 pages, and there are still lots of "reference blanks" to fill. I finished around 2 or 3 Monday afternoon. I left the apartment and looked outside, only to see the rains had coated human infrastructure and all landscapes with water droplets and coatings of moisture. The waves crashed violently along the Santa Monica pier, and I felt severe withdrawal from the entire ordeal. I started to drive north--emailed Oran and asked to meet on Tuesday--we agreed 11am Tuesday--and I hit horrible traffic on the 405. I ended up taking the Sepulveda Blvd "side road" to bypass the traffic on the hill by the Getty museum. Quite a ride. Then started heading home, meaning the "Santa Barbara" home, though through the time of withdrawal, I wanted to be in Riverside and collect hugs from my bubsy, mumsy, and sister. I called all of them, while I struggled to see through my windows during some light showers of rain, observing the beauty of the oncoming darkness of rainclouds, outlined by a radiant reddish-pinkish glow of the sunset above. I suppose it parallels Neo's and Trinity's fleeting moment of peace and tranquility above the clouds amidst the storm with the machines below. I was rushing to Santa Barbara to meet a character by the name of Jeff--to which we finally decided to convene at the Natural Cafe across the street from Mercury lounge in Goleta, California. It took about a month to meet up--given my crisis with one of my advisors--and also given the passing of my grandfather....
Out of all the people I encounter through transactions of the internet, I do think that Jeff is perhaps the most "interesting" and "striking" character that I have met, though it is too bad that he himself had encountered me at a time in which I was attempting to snap out of being in a three week stupor of the collective consciousness. Not to mention that I had only had four hours of sleep the night before. Well, let's see, in terms of character analysis. From image and appearance, he is a splitting image and personality of Dr. House, except much younger, without a cane, a limp, and a collection of pill bottles in his pocket. Jeff is of great aesthetics--go genes! Go biology! Lucked him out! You could see right away, he is full of WIT. INTELLIGENCE. Radiates, but not in say... "logical positivism." A mixture of positive and negative thoughts all along the way. We paid for our own meals. I was still in a Mexican mood so I ordered a Taco Salad sans meat, oh well. Commentary on my "fat and sludge" of sour cream and guacamole. He's vegan.
Commentary of my shorts. I always wear shorts. Even on post-rain freezing nights.
We both took good, hard looks at each other, a couple of times. He was born and raised in Santa Barbara. He has relatives here. Spent quite a bit of time in San Diego. Cal State San Diego. Art. Photography. Musician. Guitar. Loves Daftpunk. Eclectic tasts. His latest phase in life is “socializing” the last six months.
I suppose you could stereotype Jeff as "an insanely intelligent, bitter intellectual who decided not to channel his wit and energy through the embetterment of society." I have met these characters before, but Jeff is the most striking case I had ever met. And the most interesting thing is that he constructs all these stories and witty, snarky comments that are used to justifying himself to "being where he is" versus "being where he could be," like a famous musician, a great artist, a nobel laureate, or nevertheless a superb, multi-million-dollar actor along side Dr. House or Jim Carrey or whoever.
Jeff claimed that he has “a method,”—a system—but no one has ever figured it out. And I said, well that’s frustrating, because I need to learn the system. I need to solve the jigsaw puzzle. I need to learn how to “push people’s buttons.” As of the “data” I had collected last night, Jeff’s system is “that he has no system.” He creates a chaotic system insided himself to justify his existence of “being” rather than moving forward into “what he ought to or could be.” As soon as there is a rule or habit or pattern that is implanted in his head, he breaks that rule or pattern. Part of his system is spontaneity and living in—being in the moment. Jeff attempts toplace his mind fully immersed in the moment—and he says that most people are NOT in the moment, they are ultimately living in their PAST—as if that is a “bad” thing. “The present is BUILT upon the past, Sir Jeff. Your code of conduct around me today is a mass accumulation of events of the past, whether you want to acknowledge that or not.” That is what I wished I said, but my neurons were slow to fire (due to my three week stupor of meditation). So, I have a problem with Jeff’s attempt to live in the Impulsive Moment, as opposed to the Contextual Moment. I don’t want to live the moment, interpreting in impulsivity. I would be responding to environmental stimuli as a newborn baby, if that’s the case. But living in the moment contextually leads to UNIQUE and INSIGHTFUL INTERPRETATIONS that would have not otherwise existed.
In the end, after some reflection, the conversation was partly orally abusive, and I do not find solace in being around upfront embitterment, to a point in which he makes judgment of my own character to my own face. Which only represents HIS PERCEPTIONS of me VERSUS MY PERCEPTIONS of me. Total discrepancy. For example, he made a comment on how my writing was very different from my ability to converse. Maybe it’s about meeting a new person. Maybe its’ truly me. Sure, I was slow in responding. I slurred. I stumbled. Or maybe he had not accounted for my three week stupor of essay writing, coupled with sleep deprivation. Maybe I should have made a “clearer disclaimer.” Jeff caught me on a horrid baseline of existence. My physiology was ready to fall apart—I looked pale and even my housemates were concerned. Perhaps I shouldn’t have met him due to my condition. But in another way, I was glad to “get it over with.”
I asked him how much of my blog he skimmed through. He said it had been quite some time. He vaguely remembered some “rants, campus matters. Not of my interest. Science is not anything I partake in. I affiliate myself with artists. Once you take a step outside the box of science in the university, it all looks absurd out here—your pursuits I science. No one gives a fxck / shxt / hoot about science anyway.” Yep, that is what he said, perhaps in my own negative enhancement of paraphrasing. I stumbled upon explaining why I transferred three graduate schools and struggled to find an advisor that would allow me to pursue the intersection of science and art, to which I seemed to have failed myself in coordinating my failing brain with my fluttering lips that were firing as randomly as the neural impulses of a hydra.
So, here is Jeff, right in front of my face, demeaning every once of energy and mindframes in my pursuit of life. Very stereotyping. Very quick to judge. Which is in part derogatory, rude. Or perhaps I can’t take a joke. As if there were all a joke.
Like I said, it was an overall abusive conversation and I am not willing to put up with such wise-xss, defensive commentary of my existence is if this encounter were a couple of apes beating their chess seeing who’s better and more intelligent through the means of impulsive commentary that everything I do is just a piece of shxt and a waste of time. I am getting a Ph.D. not because I am “intelligent”—hardly—but because I realize that I am ignorant, and I that I deeply crave to learn something new. How come everyone in the world thinks they know everything and everyone who is getting a Ph.D. comes to humbly recognize they know nothing and they want to learn something new? In the context of society’s collective consciousness?
Once I had some neurons snapping together the following morning, I started to wonder why this Jeff guy even contacted me through my blog in the first place, if we were only to meet up such that he can just take pleasure to stereotype me to smitherines.
Nevertheless, Jeff gave me a hug good bye, in the freezing dark cold of the new night (930ish pm). He is indeed Biologically Lucky in terms of a Beautiful Image, but with a very dark, chaotic interior, supposedly with a mysterious “method” that no one has ever figured out.
Jeff was the last thing I needed after three weeks of some form of intensive, ritualistic, self-advancement. Jeff was far from a “rewarding experience” to be greeted by an embittered intellectual after three weeks of self-induced, enlightening hxll.
I told my housemate Kyle about Jeff, and Kyle commented on how he’s encountered plenty of “those types of people” before. They’re just momentary amusement for some talk and extracting some kernels of wisdom, but not worth draining your soul on them, because they’ll suck the soul out of you. Very much worth a blurb of reflection on a blog. Might be good use for future character construction in a story. Jeff makes Tariel look like an Angel, and Tristan a subgod, and Oscar Flores a piece of Theoretical Kindness, not that I am religious at all… but most certainly spiritual. Not to mention I need to contact Tristan and repay a debt of kindness.
I don’t know when Jeff and I shall cross paths again. Despite such wicked intellectualism, I found hope and happiness to have encountered such intelligence. I was excited to think that there are other people out in the community who are SOO clever—because the previous people I had met made me seriously question the generic operations of the human mind in the public. The issue is now—to find this intelligence correlated with emotional sensitivity and logical positivism, channeled through productive em-betterment of society. Sure, I am asking a lot. Why is that such a rare combination to find?
Next time I encounter Jeff, I will tweak my head such that I am dealing with a cynical jokester, and that I will conduct myself as if I am around my Uncle Costas in Greece.
Nevertheless, it was all intellectual amusement associated with some pain. How about “the simultaneous experience of painful pleasure.” Worth a follow up, but no longer a drain to my mind. Emotionally and logically.
Moving on.
Additional notes for part 1.
Oh ya. Before visiting Mike, I saw my good friend Kamal on Friday night. We had Indian food together. It was really cool. He wants to combine psychology and engineering for his degree. We are both very interdisciplinary!
Mike Dillin has the ability to engage and interact with any random human you can encounter. His social boundaries are non-existent, and it’s liberating.
Once life becomes too predictable, go visit Mike Dillin, King of Spontaneity.
"Rat bastard kids" RBKs to prevent himself from having kids.
What is very interesting about this last string of thought in this blog is that the closer and closer I approached the present from the near past, my resolution of describing my experienced had become higher and higher and higher.... I talked more about the near present, and the deep-present (like three weeks ago) only received one-liners.
Showing posts with label Dr. Oran Young. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Oran Young. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
297. The First Step to Focusing in Grad School is to Sync Up with the System
Fall Quarter 2008 Proposal. Post Dr. Young meeting. Pre Dr. Melack Meeting. I meet with Dr. Melack on Tuesday at 1pm. My heart is thumping. I am nervous. But I am more ready than before.PDF of proposal: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/fallquarterproposal2008victoriaminni.pdf
Monday, March 24, 2008
154. "WWYDIYGIGS?" pronounced "Wideegigs" a.k.a. What Would You Do If You Got Into Graduate School?"
Where it begins
Is where it ends
Is where it begins
All over again.
I'm at a Starbucks in Corona, California. I was planning on going to Irvine, but I'm feeling weak and my plans for the day were "ruined." I'm completing a segment of Biologically Incorrect the Unfilmed Movie: "Easter Sunday I get a ticket from the UC Riverside parking services, and the next day I get accepted to graduate school... Bren, UC Santa Barbara. [I hear some lyrics from Alanis Morisette "Isn't it ironic"] I pre-maturely celebrated this occasion: last night I pigged out on cheese, meat, corn flakes, and onions... and carrots... unfortunately out of stress, not celebration. And a couple days before that I purchased the older version of 15" macbook pro to establish near-complete technological self-sufficiency in film. I just have to download final cupt pro. So now, instead of 'celebrating,' I need to mentally and physically deflate from past anxiety and acquire a new batch of anxiety. My cognitive tangled web derived from UC Riverside is now being lifted and re-located to UC Santa Barbara, except there, the web isn't so tangled. Things seem to make a lot more sense. It's where my tangled web has organized in the past. It's where my tangled web will organize now."
I guess I should capture this moment, just like I did with my 4-something year reunion with Armand Kuris. I'll try not to make this an Oprah-Winfrey moment, more like a "I-just-got-tested-out-and-beaten-up-real-bad-so-therefore-join-the-gang" type of plot. I was actually at a Kinkos in Corona (a couple miles down south Ontario Ave.) and I was going to check my emails to email UC Riverside a satirical image in concern of parking services practices on holidays... when suddenly I see this suspicious email from Maria Gordon that says "Congratulations!" Oh shxt.
So, as any reasonable, curious person would do, you would check the email to see what's up. Maria informed me that I was admitted into Bren. Yes, yes, yes! Based on this premise, your entire worldview must change. One must feel a bit uprooted. I started to write an email to Maria. I could feel all over y body a surge of energy. I could no longer stand still. I was barely typing out words to Maria. I barely sounded coherent. I raced out to the car, charged my cell phone, and "screamed" to Bub on the phone. He barely understood what I was saying, and then he told me to call Mumsy. And so I did. I was "calm": "So, Mama. I have good news. You have three chances to guess." She guessed it the first shot. I whined, "Am I that obvious?"
There was an older lady with a non-Californian accent sitting right next to the booth I was working at, and I told her, "I'm sorry you have to be a random victim of this, but I just got accepted into graduate school!" And she said with much happiness, "Is that what you were working on? You JUST found out?! Don't worry! I know how you feel! I went through that in Illinois when I was admitted to nursing graduate school back in '69." Wow.
I managed to crank out an email to Maria Gordon:
oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god
really i'm not a religious person
oh my god oh my god oh my god
i was sitting calmly in front of my computer but this is no longer feasible
a fuse just blew in my brain, no, this is good
Wow, thank you so much for informing me! This will be a very very nice spring break now!
I really don't think this has hit me in the head yet.
I'll let you know when it does!
What happened with the conference call? Did it go okay with the website ideas?
Can't wait to catch up after spring break! ~Victoria
Maria Gordonwrote:
Well done, Victoria! Oran just let me know you've been accepted to the Bren School. Congrats!
Maria
Then this question crossed my mind, "What does it all mean?" You're accepted. WWYDIYGIGS? Wideegigs! What would you do if you got into graduate school? Well, I have a long laundry list. It's a matter of "Just do it." I'm in the Nike-commercial mode.
What's next? What's the IMMEDIATE next? I guess it's important to drive home, give Sir Bub and Mumsy (my mom and dad) two big hugs. My journey to Irvine is delayed, for good reasons. And if you are worried about my parental labeling, don't worry. Those are teezer names. Their official Greek labels are Mama and Baba. For a while I called my dad "Bubba"--derived from Disney's Duck Tales and retroactively being exposed to the Persion way of acknowledging fathers. Then it shifted to Sir Bub. For a while it was Chair Bub because he was chair for a couple of years of the UC Riverside Earth Sciences Department. Sometimes it's Senor Bub. Now Bubsy. Come on, people! Don't laugh! So, I called my mom "Mama" for a long time. But now, I call her "Mumsy" sometimes for kicks and giggles. I was inspired by a film with Meryl Streep. It was a movie about how people went to heaven and they experienced pleasureful things without suffering any consequences. There was a booth in heaven in which you could view your previous lives, and this guy was at one point a little British girl carrying a rag doll, calling for her Mumsy. So now, Mama suffers consequences from this cinematic inspiration. Don't worry. I DON'T call her "Mum." God. That's just so short, unpoetic, and the meaning isn't latching in my mind.
That was just a disclaimer about my parents' names. Let's get over it, will you? I was hyper, my stomach hurt, and I decided the next best thing to do was jog... again (I already jogged this morning, super hyper from the food I ate last night). While I was jogging, my mind went back to the "What does this all mean?" question. I got accepted into an institution because I Question Reality and acknowledge and explore the biological incorrectedness of human society. This is just... the most meaningful thing that has EVER happened to me. This is the FIRST TIME I have convinced an audience that my Questioning of Reality is legitimate. Question Reality is not only in my brain, but now is being manifested into workable material within the university. Man, oh man, oh man. Wow. This means a lot to me. I was so tired of QRing by myself.
It's like everything I've been doing the last two quarter counted, counts! The ploughing through people and departments. Taking the Films of the Natural and Human Environment course and drilling out an over-fifty-page essay on An Inconvenient Truth and the Relativism of Environmental Science. Starting the website and the blog. Blue Horizons. The previous year of painfully learning each component of film-making from music to acting to everything else. The trials and errors of technology and human behavior in the Goleta Beach film project. God man. Everything counts. I mean EVERYTHING COUNTS. I mean, I am accepted to a communit as a creator and and analyzer, a scientist and an artist, a hard scientist and a softy scientist. I have institutionally incorporated the coordinated gestalt properties of my entire brain! Not just my left brain, the analytical, linear brain, but also my creative, infinitely unbounded right brain. Man, oh man. This feels good. Oh so good. I'm in grad school and this will have meaning.
And it's great to be a part of a budding program because there's more degree of freedom in this circumstance rather than joining a pre-constructed, well-established program. I'm now in CCS for grad students. Safe. Whew.
I remember the one-hour talk I had with Dr. Oran Young in early January, which automatically flopped me from the Media Arts Technology Department, to crawling back to Bren. He said Bren's like CCS for grad students. Good. I felt like I could trust him after that.
I even remember the day when I approached Dr. Young during lunch during late January of 2008. I could see he wanted some alone-time; he was intensely reading some papers while munching on lunch. I was there, and well, it would be horrible if I didn't say hello, but I'd feel bad for disturbing him. I took my chances and greeted him: "Hi Dr. Young!" He said hello, but he seemed pre-occupied. Just a little bit. I told him, "I have a quick question..... Are you left-handed?" He seemed a bit puzzled by this question, especially since it was totally out of the blue, a stand-alone, without context... but he responded, "Yes, I am." And I was just so happy I spurted out, "Great! Me too! Okay, that's all. Have a good lunch." And I walked away. I returned to the car and called my dad: "Guess what? Dr. Young is left-handed!" My dad's like "No shxt." Well, my dad's left-handed too. I said, "You know what that means?" "What." "I'm safe!" That's how I felt. I'm like yes, yes, yes. I know how that prof's brain works already. I'm safe, safe, safe. Hide behind this guy. He knows what I'm talking about. Southpaws are by default, expansive, non-linear thinkers who find any possible way NOT to specialize into a tiny box. It's default. That's how lefties are.
By that time, I really trusted Dr. Young. I felt comfortable and unafraid. That Friday late in January, I was shocked that he sat right next to me at the Environmental Media Initiative (EMI) meeting. That was really cool!
I guess this day represents a "turn of the tide" of my love-hate relationship with the university. This theme is the central component of a song I created called "Rock." It takes one rock to make me, one rock to break me, one rock to take me, far far astray. The very rock that holds me, can be the rock that harms me, the very rock that leads me back on my way. These central lyrics were inspired by the Nevada field trip with Seth and Joe during October of 2004. The other day, when I drove home to Riverside from Santa Barbara, I looked at the ocean again. Just a couple of months ago, it was overlaid with the stigma of a "C." And that day, I looked at the oil rigs and the islands while driving (I know it's a bit of a dangerous habit I have acquired from my dad), "I have this love-hate relationship with the ocean. And all the people and creatures and scapes associated with it. But a love-hate turmoil is better than no emotion at all. Is better than apathy. Whether positive or negative, helpful or harmful, this emotion means that I am attached. I am rooted. This emotion means that I care. I care." And as any typical female would do, I cried a little bit. Not much. And I screamed out that I cared. But no one heard except me and my voice recorder. From that point, I felt emotionally resolved from negative events of the recent past.
So, besides my love-hate relationship with my mother and the ocean, I have this love-hate relationship with the university. It all started when I was a single cell. A zygote. Half my genes are from a university professor. I was born and raised playing on the university. My mind went through series of "critical periods" on university grounds, from learning new things to meeting new people. Being a part of the university is my baseline of childhood experience. It's like homing behavior. I feel safe there, but at the same time I feel like I'm a part of an unknown, uncharted jungle. I think that's where I feel safe: when I have my little bubble of Known, but I am surrounded by the awaiting adventures of the Unknown. So, I told Maria Gordon the other day while we were at the Natural Cafe,"I don't want to be a professor, but I always want to be a part of the university. I want a foot in the door of the university and a foot in the door of the real world." It's scary to think that I'm biologically addicted to the university. I can blame my dad for that: "Thanks a lot! Look what you did to me! I got addicted to the university! I got addicted to flowers and trees and the like. Why didn't you get me addicted to more popular things, like playing Super Mario Brothers video games? What's wrong with you?" Thanks a lot to biological understanding, I can actually blame a lot more of who I am on my parents than I previously could.
The university was a cool place until freshman year at UC Davis. That's when things started to go to hxll. That's when my relationship with the university went bipolar. It's one thing to be a kid playing on the university grassy areas. It's another thing to choose a degree and major and pick out a few select people to associate with amongst thousands of professors and students. It's different playing the university video game, especially when the video game wasn't spelled out to you very well. The university tries to brainwash you to play their video game a certain way: here are 100 different partitions of spacetime called "majors" and you just choose which specialized "box" you want to put in, go in the box, and get your degree. My mind didn't like playing with those kinds of rules. I started discovering my own rules of "trying to see how all the little boxes fit together to a larger picture" as soon as a got admitted to the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. In these times, generalism and interdisciplinary practice is not a very welcomed behavior in the university.... except for UC Santa Barbara. It's all a disguise though. Every single university claims they are on the "cutting edge" and give the word "interdisciplinary" a lot of lip-service, but does anyone truly practice what they preach? Right now, I'm a bit mentally crutched to UC Santa Barbara simply because of this whole CCS deal. Other potential places I might be able to survive is this Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz.
So, I synergized with the university 2000-2003 at CCS-UCSB. Then I went bipolar again from 2003-today. I had to create my own "CCS" by going on two years leave of absence. It was painful though to pursue intellectual things in relative isolation. If I get feedback from other people, I tend to learn more things at a faster pace. I found out I cannot survive well at UC Los Angeles or UC Riverside, both for a unique suite of reasons I'm not going to get into right now. What can I say? I told Bruce Tiffney early this year, after all my trials and pains: "I'm crawling in agony back to UCSB. I am literally on my hands and knees. I felt like the world outside UCSB was like a torture chamber. I need to come back."
The worst part about my being so psychologically rooted in the university is that I am TOO attached. I am so psychologically wrapped around my academic pursuits that if things don't work out, I live at the shrink's office for the year... which was the case at UC Riverside. Either I'm thriving or I'm mentally dying. There's no in between for me.
So here I am, I crawled back to UCSB and humbly knocked on the door. I've been knocking since summer of 2007. I'm crawling through the door and basically I see myself collapsing on the other side, finally breathing without a heavy weight burdening my chest. I've been waiting 4.5 years for this feeling. That's a long time. I'm sure the stress knocked off a few years from my optimal life span, but at least it ONLY gave me ONE gray hair thus far. My sister has had dozens and she's two years younger than I am. But what am I talking about? I nearly melted when Seth stated in the car [paraphrased], "I can't wait to get gray hair! If only one day it will mean that I am wiser." Gray hair is an asset. It's just a matter of perception.
I get bored of breathing well pretty quickly. After that, I hit the ground running.
Basically, Biologically Incorrect the movie is the modern, intellectualized version of Slacker and Animal House. There's a girl who struggled to get accepted into graduate school because she wanted to pursue a Ph.D. dissertation on a most crucial and timely question: "What's the point?" The film would document the chain reaction of serious intellectual comedy from the original premise: a rebellious academic environment (grad students AND profs) of chronic flux that documents a time of re-invented thought on the relations between humans and their environments. Man, it's going to be a RIOT ACT! So, this should be a primary incentive why I must keep writing and blogging and writing and doing art, because this will just formulate a dream story and script and document a history in the making.
I have barely filmed anything. But I made a crucial step in progress: getting accepted to UCSB. I must thank a whole bunch of people. The credit list is already so long!
CREDITS LIST FOR ALL THOSE
WHO HAVE BEEN INTELLECTUALLY AND EMOTIONALLY SUPPORTIVE
OF MY RETURN TO UCSB:
[AND TO THOSE WHO NEVER GAVE UP ON ME
EVEN THOUGH AT A PREVIOUS STATE I WAS A TOTAL WRECK]
Baba aka Bub (Richard Minnich)
Mama aka Mumsy (Maria Davaris)
Jenny aka JenJen or Ms. Jenkins / and Justin too!
Ray and Marion Minnich (my grandfather and grandmother)
Uncle Dwight, Jean, Chuck, Jennifer
Jery Lyn and Steve Dillin (who always kept motivating me to do art even though I was shunned otherwise)
Mike Dillin (come back to California!)
All Family at Thanksgiving and in Greece!
Hugh Marsh (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Bruce Tiffney (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Armand Kuris (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Miriam Polne-Fuller (it's all her fault, her shoreline preservation class gave me all these ideas!)
Mary Droser (who's been so supportive of this earth science to environmental media transition)
Oran Young (brain-sponsor)
John Melack (brain-sponsor)
Milton Love (scientist in comedian's body, King of Patience)
Nancy Kawalek (it's-okay-for-scientists-to-have-emotions, whew)
Art Sylvester (geology and life-pursuits-go-to, King of Patience)
Steve Gaines (unflinching environmental media supporter with unbound enthusiasm!)
Denise Belanger (university generalist guru)
Blue Horizons profs and peers (cheers to Guinea Pigs in science and film!)
Greenscreeners Goleta Beach
Lauren Wilson (who put up with a bit o' my griping :-)
Alexios Monopolis (for putting in a good word for me)
Films of Natural and Human Environment
Constance Penley
Dick Hebdige
Maria de Oca (I'm not the only one applying to grad school!)
Oscar Flores (Producer and Editor of Everything, Film Psychologist, has a Canon XL2)
Dulce Osuna (chronic source of encouragement)
Julie Ekstrom / Kyle / Karl / Lisa / Lisa's mom (housemates who keep Victoria in a state of seeming sanity)
Mini (Miss Einstein), Onyx Megafauna, Bentley the Ambassador Dog (pills of psychological relief)
Is where it ends
Is where it begins
All over again.
I'm at a Starbucks in Corona, California. I was planning on going to Irvine, but I'm feeling weak and my plans for the day were "ruined." I'm completing a segment of Biologically Incorrect the Unfilmed Movie: "Easter Sunday I get a ticket from the UC Riverside parking services, and the next day I get accepted to graduate school... Bren, UC Santa Barbara. [I hear some lyrics from Alanis Morisette "Isn't it ironic"] I pre-maturely celebrated this occasion: last night I pigged out on cheese, meat, corn flakes, and onions... and carrots... unfortunately out of stress, not celebration. And a couple days before that I purchased the older version of 15" macbook pro to establish near-complete technological self-sufficiency in film. I just have to download final cupt pro. So now, instead of 'celebrating,' I need to mentally and physically deflate from past anxiety and acquire a new batch of anxiety. My cognitive tangled web derived from UC Riverside is now being lifted and re-located to UC Santa Barbara, except there, the web isn't so tangled. Things seem to make a lot more sense. It's where my tangled web has organized in the past. It's where my tangled web will organize now."
I guess I should capture this moment, just like I did with my 4-something year reunion with Armand Kuris. I'll try not to make this an Oprah-Winfrey moment, more like a "I-just-got-tested-out-and-beaten-up-real-bad-so-therefore-join-the-gang" type of plot. I was actually at a Kinkos in Corona (a couple miles down south Ontario Ave.) and I was going to check my emails to email UC Riverside a satirical image in concern of parking services practices on holidays... when suddenly I see this suspicious email from Maria Gordon that says "Congratulations!" Oh shxt.
So, as any reasonable, curious person would do, you would check the email to see what's up. Maria informed me that I was admitted into Bren. Yes, yes, yes! Based on this premise, your entire worldview must change. One must feel a bit uprooted. I started to write an email to Maria. I could feel all over y body a surge of energy. I could no longer stand still. I was barely typing out words to Maria. I barely sounded coherent. I raced out to the car, charged my cell phone, and "screamed" to Bub on the phone. He barely understood what I was saying, and then he told me to call Mumsy. And so I did. I was "calm": "So, Mama. I have good news. You have three chances to guess." She guessed it the first shot. I whined, "Am I that obvious?"
There was an older lady with a non-Californian accent sitting right next to the booth I was working at, and I told her, "I'm sorry you have to be a random victim of this, but I just got accepted into graduate school!" And she said with much happiness, "Is that what you were working on? You JUST found out?! Don't worry! I know how you feel! I went through that in Illinois when I was admitted to nursing graduate school back in '69." Wow.
I managed to crank out an email to Maria Gordon:
oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god
really i'm not a religious person
oh my god oh my god oh my god
i was sitting calmly in front of my computer but this is no longer feasible
a fuse just blew in my brain, no, this is good
Wow, thank you so much for informing me! This will be a very very nice spring break now!
I really don't think this has hit me in the head yet.
I'll let you know when it does!
What happened with the conference call? Did it go okay with the website ideas?
Can't wait to catch up after spring break! ~Victoria
Maria Gordon
Well done, Victoria! Oran just let me know you've been accepted to the Bren School. Congrats!
Maria
Then this question crossed my mind, "What does it all mean?" You're accepted. WWYDIYGIGS? Wideegigs! What would you do if you got into graduate school? Well, I have a long laundry list. It's a matter of "Just do it." I'm in the Nike-commercial mode.
What's next? What's the IMMEDIATE next? I guess it's important to drive home, give Sir Bub and Mumsy (my mom and dad) two big hugs. My journey to Irvine is delayed, for good reasons. And if you are worried about my parental labeling, don't worry. Those are teezer names. Their official Greek labels are Mama and Baba. For a while I called my dad "Bubba"--derived from Disney's Duck Tales and retroactively being exposed to the Persion way of acknowledging fathers. Then it shifted to Sir Bub. For a while it was Chair Bub because he was chair for a couple of years of the UC Riverside Earth Sciences Department. Sometimes it's Senor Bub. Now Bubsy. Come on, people! Don't laugh! So, I called my mom "Mama" for a long time. But now, I call her "Mumsy" sometimes for kicks and giggles. I was inspired by a film with Meryl Streep. It was a movie about how people went to heaven and they experienced pleasureful things without suffering any consequences. There was a booth in heaven in which you could view your previous lives, and this guy was at one point a little British girl carrying a rag doll, calling for her Mumsy. So now, Mama suffers consequences from this cinematic inspiration. Don't worry. I DON'T call her "Mum." God. That's just so short, unpoetic, and the meaning isn't latching in my mind.
That was just a disclaimer about my parents' names. Let's get over it, will you? I was hyper, my stomach hurt, and I decided the next best thing to do was jog... again (I already jogged this morning, super hyper from the food I ate last night). While I was jogging, my mind went back to the "What does this all mean?" question. I got accepted into an institution because I Question Reality and acknowledge and explore the biological incorrectedness of human society. This is just... the most meaningful thing that has EVER happened to me. This is the FIRST TIME I have convinced an audience that my Questioning of Reality is legitimate. Question Reality is not only in my brain, but now is being manifested into workable material within the university. Man, oh man, oh man. Wow. This means a lot to me. I was so tired of QRing by myself.
It's like everything I've been doing the last two quarter counted, counts! The ploughing through people and departments. Taking the Films of the Natural and Human Environment course and drilling out an over-fifty-page essay on An Inconvenient Truth and the Relativism of Environmental Science. Starting the website and the blog. Blue Horizons. The previous year of painfully learning each component of film-making from music to acting to everything else. The trials and errors of technology and human behavior in the Goleta Beach film project. God man. Everything counts. I mean EVERYTHING COUNTS. I mean, I am accepted to a communit as a creator and and analyzer, a scientist and an artist, a hard scientist and a softy scientist. I have institutionally incorporated the coordinated gestalt properties of my entire brain! Not just my left brain, the analytical, linear brain, but also my creative, infinitely unbounded right brain. Man, oh man. This feels good. Oh so good. I'm in grad school and this will have meaning.
And it's great to be a part of a budding program because there's more degree of freedom in this circumstance rather than joining a pre-constructed, well-established program. I'm now in CCS for grad students. Safe. Whew.
I remember the one-hour talk I had with Dr. Oran Young in early January, which automatically flopped me from the Media Arts Technology Department, to crawling back to Bren. He said Bren's like CCS for grad students. Good. I felt like I could trust him after that.
I even remember the day when I approached Dr. Young during lunch during late January of 2008. I could see he wanted some alone-time; he was intensely reading some papers while munching on lunch. I was there, and well, it would be horrible if I didn't say hello, but I'd feel bad for disturbing him. I took my chances and greeted him: "Hi Dr. Young!" He said hello, but he seemed pre-occupied. Just a little bit. I told him, "I have a quick question..... Are you left-handed?" He seemed a bit puzzled by this question, especially since it was totally out of the blue, a stand-alone, without context... but he responded, "Yes, I am." And I was just so happy I spurted out, "Great! Me too! Okay, that's all. Have a good lunch." And I walked away. I returned to the car and called my dad: "Guess what? Dr. Young is left-handed!" My dad's like "No shxt." Well, my dad's left-handed too. I said, "You know what that means?" "What." "I'm safe!" That's how I felt. I'm like yes, yes, yes. I know how that prof's brain works already. I'm safe, safe, safe. Hide behind this guy. He knows what I'm talking about. Southpaws are by default, expansive, non-linear thinkers who find any possible way NOT to specialize into a tiny box. It's default. That's how lefties are.
By that time, I really trusted Dr. Young. I felt comfortable and unafraid. That Friday late in January, I was shocked that he sat right next to me at the Environmental Media Initiative (EMI) meeting. That was really cool!
I guess this day represents a "turn of the tide" of my love-hate relationship with the university. This theme is the central component of a song I created called "Rock." It takes one rock to make me, one rock to break me, one rock to take me, far far astray. The very rock that holds me, can be the rock that harms me, the very rock that leads me back on my way. These central lyrics were inspired by the Nevada field trip with Seth and Joe during October of 2004. The other day, when I drove home to Riverside from Santa Barbara, I looked at the ocean again. Just a couple of months ago, it was overlaid with the stigma of a "C." And that day, I looked at the oil rigs and the islands while driving (I know it's a bit of a dangerous habit I have acquired from my dad), "I have this love-hate relationship with the ocean. And all the people and creatures and scapes associated with it. But a love-hate turmoil is better than no emotion at all. Is better than apathy. Whether positive or negative, helpful or harmful, this emotion means that I am attached. I am rooted. This emotion means that I care. I care." And as any typical female would do, I cried a little bit. Not much. And I screamed out that I cared. But no one heard except me and my voice recorder. From that point, I felt emotionally resolved from negative events of the recent past.
So, besides my love-hate relationship with my mother and the ocean, I have this love-hate relationship with the university. It all started when I was a single cell. A zygote. Half my genes are from a university professor. I was born and raised playing on the university. My mind went through series of "critical periods" on university grounds, from learning new things to meeting new people. Being a part of the university is my baseline of childhood experience. It's like homing behavior. I feel safe there, but at the same time I feel like I'm a part of an unknown, uncharted jungle. I think that's where I feel safe: when I have my little bubble of Known, but I am surrounded by the awaiting adventures of the Unknown. So, I told Maria Gordon the other day while we were at the Natural Cafe,"I don't want to be a professor, but I always want to be a part of the university. I want a foot in the door of the university and a foot in the door of the real world." It's scary to think that I'm biologically addicted to the university. I can blame my dad for that: "Thanks a lot! Look what you did to me! I got addicted to the university! I got addicted to flowers and trees and the like. Why didn't you get me addicted to more popular things, like playing Super Mario Brothers video games? What's wrong with you?" Thanks a lot to biological understanding, I can actually blame a lot more of who I am on my parents than I previously could.
The university was a cool place until freshman year at UC Davis. That's when things started to go to hxll. That's when my relationship with the university went bipolar. It's one thing to be a kid playing on the university grassy areas. It's another thing to choose a degree and major and pick out a few select people to associate with amongst thousands of professors and students. It's different playing the university video game, especially when the video game wasn't spelled out to you very well. The university tries to brainwash you to play their video game a certain way: here are 100 different partitions of spacetime called "majors" and you just choose which specialized "box" you want to put in, go in the box, and get your degree. My mind didn't like playing with those kinds of rules. I started discovering my own rules of "trying to see how all the little boxes fit together to a larger picture" as soon as a got admitted to the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. In these times, generalism and interdisciplinary practice is not a very welcomed behavior in the university.... except for UC Santa Barbara. It's all a disguise though. Every single university claims they are on the "cutting edge" and give the word "interdisciplinary" a lot of lip-service, but does anyone truly practice what they preach? Right now, I'm a bit mentally crutched to UC Santa Barbara simply because of this whole CCS deal. Other potential places I might be able to survive is this Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz.
So, I synergized with the university 2000-2003 at CCS-UCSB. Then I went bipolar again from 2003-today. I had to create my own "CCS" by going on two years leave of absence. It was painful though to pursue intellectual things in relative isolation. If I get feedback from other people, I tend to learn more things at a faster pace. I found out I cannot survive well at UC Los Angeles or UC Riverside, both for a unique suite of reasons I'm not going to get into right now. What can I say? I told Bruce Tiffney early this year, after all my trials and pains: "I'm crawling in agony back to UCSB. I am literally on my hands and knees. I felt like the world outside UCSB was like a torture chamber. I need to come back."
The worst part about my being so psychologically rooted in the university is that I am TOO attached. I am so psychologically wrapped around my academic pursuits that if things don't work out, I live at the shrink's office for the year... which was the case at UC Riverside. Either I'm thriving or I'm mentally dying. There's no in between for me.
So here I am, I crawled back to UCSB and humbly knocked on the door. I've been knocking since summer of 2007. I'm crawling through the door and basically I see myself collapsing on the other side, finally breathing without a heavy weight burdening my chest. I've been waiting 4.5 years for this feeling. That's a long time. I'm sure the stress knocked off a few years from my optimal life span, but at least it ONLY gave me ONE gray hair thus far. My sister has had dozens and she's two years younger than I am. But what am I talking about? I nearly melted when Seth stated in the car [paraphrased], "I can't wait to get gray hair! If only one day it will mean that I am wiser." Gray hair is an asset. It's just a matter of perception.
I get bored of breathing well pretty quickly. After that, I hit the ground running.
Basically, Biologically Incorrect the movie is the modern, intellectualized version of Slacker and Animal House. There's a girl who struggled to get accepted into graduate school because she wanted to pursue a Ph.D. dissertation on a most crucial and timely question: "What's the point?" The film would document the chain reaction of serious intellectual comedy from the original premise: a rebellious academic environment (grad students AND profs) of chronic flux that documents a time of re-invented thought on the relations between humans and their environments. Man, it's going to be a RIOT ACT! So, this should be a primary incentive why I must keep writing and blogging and writing and doing art, because this will just formulate a dream story and script and document a history in the making.
I have barely filmed anything. But I made a crucial step in progress: getting accepted to UCSB. I must thank a whole bunch of people. The credit list is already so long!
CREDITS LIST FOR ALL THOSE
WHO HAVE BEEN INTELLECTUALLY AND EMOTIONALLY SUPPORTIVE
OF MY RETURN TO UCSB:
[AND TO THOSE WHO NEVER GAVE UP ON ME
EVEN THOUGH AT A PREVIOUS STATE I WAS A TOTAL WRECK]
Baba aka Bub (Richard Minnich)
Mama aka Mumsy (Maria Davaris)
Jenny aka JenJen or Ms. Jenkins / and Justin too!
Ray and Marion Minnich (my grandfather and grandmother)
Uncle Dwight, Jean, Chuck, Jennifer
Jery Lyn and Steve Dillin (who always kept motivating me to do art even though I was shunned otherwise)
Mike Dillin (come back to California!)
All Family at Thanksgiving and in Greece!
Hugh Marsh (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Bruce Tiffney (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Armand Kuris (how he can put up with me, I don't know)
Miriam Polne-Fuller (it's all her fault, her shoreline preservation class gave me all these ideas!)
Mary Droser (who's been so supportive of this earth science to environmental media transition)
Oran Young (brain-sponsor)
John Melack (brain-sponsor)
Milton Love (scientist in comedian's body, King of Patience)
Nancy Kawalek (it's-okay-for-scientists-to-have-emotions, whew)
Art Sylvester (geology and life-pursuits-go-to, King of Patience)
Steve Gaines (unflinching environmental media supporter with unbound enthusiasm!)
Denise Belanger (university generalist guru)
Blue Horizons profs and peers (cheers to Guinea Pigs in science and film!)
Greenscreeners Goleta Beach
Lauren Wilson (who put up with a bit o' my griping :-)
Alexios Monopolis (for putting in a good word for me)
Films of Natural and Human Environment
Constance Penley
Dick Hebdige
Maria de Oca (I'm not the only one applying to grad school!)
Oscar Flores (Producer and Editor of Everything, Film Psychologist, has a Canon XL2)
Dulce Osuna (chronic source of encouragement)
Julie Ekstrom / Kyle / Karl / Lisa / Lisa's mom (housemates who keep Victoria in a state of seeming sanity)
Mini (Miss Einstein), Onyx Megafauna, Bentley the Ambassador Dog (pills of psychological relief)
Monday, January 21, 2008
104. A New Song Called Good Trouble, Inspired from a Vivid Conversation with Dr. Oran Young, Bren, UC Santa Barbara
Good Trouble
[chorus]
ah-goooood trouble
ah-goooood trouble
everything i thought
was a failure
the professor saw
ah-goooood trouble
everything i thought
was a disaster
the professor saw
goooood trouble
we need to experiment
we need some change
it may not work
but yet we tried
it's better than
staying the same
it's not by the books
but yet we tried
and shook all the static pain
[chorus]
i have some
properties
that may seem
quite quirky
in one place
that's negative energy
in another
it's thriving novelty
in one place
it's self-destroying
in another
it's breaking all boundaries
[chorus]
is there
a place for me
where i survive
spare my sanity
in the world's prison
to box your being
the freedom lurks
in the nooks and crannies
in the world's habits
down spiraling
the freedom reigns
in microcosmal humanity
[chorus]
[chorus]
It's amazing to think that two people can have two entirely different viewpoints of the same experiences! One professors views my years outside UCSB as a "failure" and an "inability to finishe" and another professor views my trials as experiences to learn and become more well-rounded! In the end, it's all relative. It's all a matter of perception.
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