My Japanese exam is only four weeks away and I am so going to flunk it. I bought two books last week to prepare and the more I study, the more I realize how little I know. The thing is, it’s self-inflicted pain so I can’t even whine. While I am too tired to study as much as I’m going to have to, I’m also too masochistic to give it up. I’ve come so close, I can’t give up now. And I sure as hell am not willing to fail. So the only alternative is to bust my ass.
It’s times like these that make me reconsider my willingness to go back to school.
I wish I could tell you something pithy about today but I spent the entire day studying Japanese, desperately trying to come up with an outline for my novel and mostly running away from both chores by watching a week’s worth of TiVo. I’m sure tomorrow won’t be shockingly different.
I did see Charlie’s Angels last night and loved it. It was funny. It was witty. It was silly. It was fun. It was the perfect Friday night movie.
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I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tonight, for the first time ever. I’ve been to The Frick Museum several times and I love the collection there, but I’d never been to the mother of all museums before. And I’ve lived in New York for 4 years. The thing is, now I wish I’d never gone. The museum is so enormous and amazing and now that I know that (I mean I always ‘knew’ that but now I’ve actually seen how expansive it is)I can’t stop myself from dying to go back. I have to see all of it. Awful.
I went to the museum with my class and we looked at several pieces. We surrounded a painting and played a game called the Delayed Judgement Activity. In this activity, you reserve all of your judgement and make objective statements about the piece. For example, “This woman looks happy” is subjective while “This painting has four women and a man” is objective. So we went around three times and tried making our statements as objective as possible. The neat thing about the activity is that it’s a group-activity. One person makes a statement and we all ponder whether that’s really objective or not. This process causes each observer to notice things that she or he hadn’t paid attention to before the exercise. The painting, therefore, completely transforms right before your eyes. It’s really magical.
By the way, the practice of separating objective from subjective is really difficult and requires a personal effort, especially when talking about an artistic object.
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I was going to link to a neat link on MetaFilter about how penguins fall backwards as they watch planes flying over them, but, for some reason, MetaFilter seems to be down. That’s a major bummer on so many levels!
Are you nice to people? When was the last time you were rude to someone? It’s really amazing how some people don’t realize the importance of being nice to everyone. I’m not talking about kissing butt or faking it, but genuine cordiality. There is no reason to not be kind to everyone. It’s so interesting to me how something that goes around comes around. The person you’re mean to might be at the other end of an interview or might become a client. I just don’t understand what causes people to be rude. To me, it makes perfect sense to try and be nice to everyone. When someone is nice to me, especially when they have no reason to be, it so makes my day and I love the idea of doing that for someone else. Wouldn’t you?
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Before I forget, Rabbit, Rabbit.
I brought my camera home to take pictures of my nephews, family and friends. I also promised a friend, I’d take pictures of Turkey for him. To make sure I couldn’t fulfill any of my promises, my camera broke. On top of that, the few pictures I did take were taken with the lowest quality and came out quite shitty. After I sent my camera to Kodak (who, btw, has the greatest customer service ever!) I got it back just this week. As I looked through the pictures yesterday, I was pleased to find this little gem.
Levent took this picture of both of us. I remember that day clearly. We met to take a short walk and it was the day after my Laser operation, which is why I’m wearing sunglasses. We got ice cream from Gunes (which means ‘sun’) which is the best ice cream I’ve ever had. And we walked down the seaside, taking pictures of the bridges and the sailboats by the sea. The sun was setting as we chatted about our lives. He just became a doctor and started working at a hospital and I had major changes in my life since we last saw each other, so we had a lot of catching up to do. Levent was my first boyfriend and he’s the only ex I’m actually on speaking terms with (long story) and we’ve known each other for over 12 years. Actually we’ve been best friends for that long. There’s something to be said for the few people who’ve meant so much to you for such a long time.
Love you, Levent, and I miss you!
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Goody Links
Can you summarize the last year in twenty words or fewer?
Thoughts
The weird thing about being sick is that I can never seem to remember the time when I wasn’t. As soon as I get sick, it feels like I will always be sick. I feel hopeless and miserable and each time I try to recall how I felt without the sickness, I can’t seem to. Maybe it’s just me, but it happens to me every time. It’s one of the major reasons I hate getting sick. The sore throat, chess pain, incessant sneezing, fever and nausea are some others.
Happy Halloween! This is the first time in my life that I’m giving out candy. Last year, I was at my friend Laura’s house for Halloween and it was the first time I carved pumpkins. Since I never gave candy out before I wanted to go all out. I bought full-size bars and lots of them and then I got worried and bought some snack sized ones as well, just in case too many kids showed up. I just hope the kids come to get it or my diet will become toast!
I was trying to link a picture of my plate of candies but I can’t get the image to be small enough, so it’ll have to wait.
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In today’s art class we discussed non-representation. The teacher showed an image by Piet Mondrian of a house and a tree by the river where everything as obvious since we had clear representation. He then moved to this image where it was quite obvious that the subject was a tree. And then we had this where the subject might be more questionable and this where we can no longer even claim the painting is about a tree. But it’s interesting that starting with the first picture and having that as a reference, we kept seeing trees in all the canvases.
By the way, the woman I mentioned last week, the non self-conscious one, is a nudist. And she’s a therapist. I thought that might add a bit more color to her description.
As I sat in class, looking at the modern paintings, I kept thinking about how unappealing they were to me. I’ve always been a fan of Renaissance paintings. I love studying them and finding out about the history and the time period and why the painter thought to put that specific image. The paintings of that period are all about symbolism and if you have studied some art history, you can know the story behind each symbol. To me, that’s like sharing a secret between the painter and you. Even though, I know that everyone of that period knew the specific symbols, people who don’t study art history don’t know them and can’t look for the specific clues, like the image of Michelangelo’s face on the dead skin in The Last Judgement. To me, that’s like having a sneak peak into the painter’s mind. When I look at the modern paintings, I just don’t see that. I’m not saying that one has to, I’m just saying that I like to.
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Last week, I bought the Aeron chair. Actually, I got it as a present from my grandmother. I’ve craved having this chair for a long time and, I must say, it hasn’t disappointed me. It’s the bestest chair! Yeay!!
I spent all of last week bummed that I was leaving town cause I had so much to do. Yesterday, we drove back to New Haven after working out in the cold an entire day. We took the 11:15 train from New Haven, getting home around 2am. All of this, so I could wake up in my own house and finish the list of things I had planned for this weekend. Do you want to know what I did all day? You guessed it: nothing! I woke up all congested and dizzy. I walked from the bed to the couch and planted myself in front of the TV, actually, the TiVo. I spent the entire day watching one program after another. I did write the scene for my novel that was due tomorrow, but that’s it. Nothing more. I am such a loser! Argh! I do the same thing every week. You’d think I would have learned by now.
Thanks to my portable Panasonic player, I watched High Fidelity on the train home yesterday. I’d read the book a while ago and loved it. The movie, as usual, wasn’t as good. Even though Cusak tried hard, Hornby’s cynicism just can’t come across on the movie screen as it did on the pages.
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I spent a large portion of the last two days in a car. Since I don’t drive, I did the passenger seat thing, which I must say is not much more fun than driving. When you drive, at least you are doing something. I always have these plans to do a lot of writing and reading that, somehow, never get done. If I were driving, I at least I would never hope to get other things done.
Anyhow, we drove from New York to Boston for the annual Serve-A-Thon. Since Jake was a City Year Corps member in 1992, he and his family do the Serve-A-Thon every year. If you’re from New York, it’s similar to the New York Cares Day. I really enjoy the day-long community service sessions cause everyone is so hyped up and you meet all sorts of interesting people. The best news I heard today as that City Year is planning to come to New York. I’ve been wanting to volunteer for them for a long time and now it looks like I might get the opportunity. Yeaay!
After cleaning the park and raking leaves all day, we drove to New Haven where Jake’s brother goes to college. His roommates and he are throwing a Halloween party. I didn’t even go to parties much when I was in college so it’s funny that I should choose to attend one four years after I graduated. We’ll see how this turns out.
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Another terribly long day. Life has been terrbily busy in the last few days. I am trying to wrap my arms around things but somehow I’m falling slighly short on energy. Today’s best advice comes from one of my teachers. She said, “…but forget about having someone else tell you if what you’re doing is worthwhile: that’s your business alone!”
Well said, and how true. If only I knew of a way to make my mind and heart listen.
Sorry about the lack of long posts and passages, they will be back real soon, I promise.
I wasn’t going to make an entry today. I came home late from work and I feel drained. I wanted to drain my brain with a few hours of TiVo and go to sleep, to repeat the pattern tomorrow. Until I read the page of a friend. A cyber friend, I guess since I never met him. I’m not even sure it’d be fair to say he’s a friend since we haven’t exchanged years of communication or emails on a deep emotional level. But I would say friend, cause he’s treated me like one. He’s been kind, genuine, respectful and very kind. What else do I need from a friend?
Well, this friend, whom I almost met, lived a tragedy today. His life changed in an irreversible way. Even though he was expecting it for some time, I can’t imagine one can ever really expect a death. I’m sitting here and wishing I had the right words to make him feel better and crying for him. Good people deserve good lives. Everyone deserves a good life. But when you feel that someone is so nice and seems to take the effort to be kind to everyone, you feel extra sorry when bad things happen to this person. At least, I do. I’m sitting here, alone, and crying cause there is nothing I can do. Cause somehow I can feel pain from someone’s words. Even if I’ve never ever met him.
For the second time this month, this is happening to me. I don’t ever want to hear people tell me that the people I meet online aren’t real friends, again. If they aren’t why am I shedding my tears?
Today is the two-week anniversary of my Lasik surgery. I still haven’t really registered it all. I can see but I constantly think that I’m wearing contacts. I’m anxiously waiting for the moment it will all hit me.
Today’s word is obsession. Good word in my household. Both of us get totally obsessed about things. The funny thing is that the subject matter isn’t all that relevant. Only the strong obsession with which I throw myself at it. When I started writing a book, I obsessed about learning all the details of grammar (not that you can tell from my log). For some Godforsaken reason I decided to keep a blog and got totally obsessed with all the other ones. I spent hours of my day reading everyone’s words. I even wrote emails to some of these people. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that, for a while, it consumed me. I kept trying to think of ways to change my blog so I’d have more visitors. I checked my referrer logs every second. I’m trying to get across the difference between liking something and totally obsessing about it.
For better or worse, I seem to be over that one. I now read a few logs whenever I feel like it and if people don’t want to visit my page. So be it. I can’t force them. However, if you have been reading my page and do like it, it might be nice of you to make contact. Make me feel like less of a loser and all. Heh Heh.
There are good obsessions, too. For example, my two good obsessions are reading and learning. I can never have enough of either. But I guess the word obsession has bad connotations doesn’t it?
When I tell people of the obsessions I have, and in most cases the sorrow they cause me, (like how I am not worthy) they tell me to stop thinking that way and to appreciate all the great things in my life. The thing is, if I could do that I wouldn’t be obsessing!
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Today’s thoughts are revolving around two words. Both of which contain the word ‘self’.
First, self-consciousness. There is a lady in my art class who doesn’t seem to have any of it. She speaks her mind loudly and most opinionatedly all the time. When a slide is shown, she’ll say ‘it sucks’ even if the work is displayed in one of the local museums. It’s not that she’s standing up for herself, she’s actually being obnoxious and calling other people’s opinions wrong, etc. But the interesting thing is that the entire class is aware of this. We all look at each other each time she speaks in such a manner. It’s so obvious to everyone that she’s being rude that I always wonder why it isn’t to her. Can she really not tell? Is it that she doesn’t care? Or that she’s totally unaware? As I live my life on this side of dangerously aware, I often find myself wondering about people who have overcome the trap of self-consciousness.
Now onto the second word. Self-confidence. As someone who seems to have a collection of achievements and a total lack of self-confidence, I am interested in what makes people so self-secure. I certainly didn’t lack any love, on the contrary, my family made me feel appreciated and loved at all times. They’ve told me repeatedly how proud of me they feel. Same for friends. I have a loving boyfriend with whom I’ve spent the last six years of my life and real dependable friends. What is the answer? What is it that I seem to be missing? The one thing that will make everything click and have me feel better about myself. How do some people turn out confident while others, like me, worry about every little thing? Is everyone secretly self-conscious?
Sorry about all this self-pity. I guess thinking about my novel makes me ponder a lot about humankind and what makes it tick.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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