introversion

This was floating around LiveJournal. Accurate? I don’t know. Sometimes I just clicked stuff. (And what is 1% of my brain doing if it’s not included here?)

Try it yourself here.

Your Brain Usage Profile:

Auditory : 47%
Visual : 52%
Left : 50%
Right : 50%

No matter which side of your brain is dominant,
M i n d W a r e
can strengthen your emotional brain power by helping you understand how
you feel about yourself.
(more…)

Luis Gispert. Some of his work (notably the Cheerleader series and Your Home is My Home and another (or a few)) can currently be found in UCSD’s little gallery (in between Muir and Revelle, near the Rec Gym and Gymnasium). There is something disturbing about his photography. It isn’t because of obscenity (really only in his video works) or the models, but the clash of images that greets the eyes. For me, it was an image that crashed against stereotypes I had in my head. They didn’t compute. No, instead, they clashed and melded with images that had always been separated from each other in my mind. That’s what it was. Like looking at one person but really seeing lots of people, as if I weren’t willing to reconcile that this one person could be all those things. Or maybe it was the little things in the pictures, the little touches that made my mind go, “What?” The gaudy jewelry that hung with pistols, or the “tattooing” or the positions and poses that hailed to other things. Sometimes it was a background conflicting with the people in it, or just the way he placed an object that felt completely out of place.

His video work, too, arrested something in me. It helped me to realize how deeply imbedded these stereotypes are in me (as if Sociology wasn’t already revealing this to me, but this had a much greater impact… because I felt my strong reaction just looking at something). How can one actress, with two different appearances, posed side by side, acting slightly different, still meet the images in my head and still be the same person? Moreover, why was my reaction so strong? Like some things my thoughts simply went, “Yes. That’s it.” And yet the longer I stood there and the more times I saw it, I could see all those little things that creep in, all those little different actions attributed to one race or another. And the other video… no, I wasn’t as affected by the one with lyrics, but the one where the girl dances to a car alarm? That was cool. I don’t know how I felt, but it was clever. And something else. Again, something else that doesn’t quite mesh, that doesn’t fit perfectly in place.

And now I have to think about racial differences. No, not racial, cultural differences (but isn’t that just a result of all the things that society keeps feeding us–thanks a lot, Sociology). I have to ask, because we see it more and more nowadays: Is it so cool to borrow or even try to transform oneself into another race?

But, even more pressing in my mind: Will we borrow and mainstream something to the point that it no longer becomes “borrowed?” Can there ever be a point, in this society, that culture will stop being “my,” “yours,” “theirs,” and become definitively “ours”? Doubtful. But these little icons that Gispert uses… yes, I think there will come a time where it’s not this culture’s or that culture’s, but just “a thing we do” or “a thing we wear.” Moreover, I have to admit that it scares me that some of his icons may indeed become this. Then again, who knows but if it’s just a fad and it’ll become “Something we did in my time” to our children.

But then again, I don’t know. All I know is that looking at that, I kept thinking about cliques (really, high school), about these rigid guidelines we give ourselves. How we grow out of them (or don’t–or, more important, do we ever really?) and if we ever even needed them.

My thoughts are in a jumble. In truth, I don’t know what to think. All I know it, it sparked something in me and it may spark something in others, too, but do such messages last? Gispert himself believes wholeheartedly in change and its necessity. But does that change lead us to forget all the little important things of our past? Sadder, though, is the thought that we have lost those things and that what we gain now might be lost in the future to prosperity.

Walking away from Geisel Library today I realized how odd it is that during the day the windows hide everything inside, so that when you try to look in, you find yourself staring at your reflection, a not quite perfect mirror image, distorted. Yet at night, all the secrets of the mysterious insides are laid bare, shining from the inside out, but stand before those same windows inside the building and the outside world that is shrouded.

On another note, I sought out a bathroom in there, came to this open space, and had a sudden odd feeling that was at the Convention Center. I half expected to see someone cosplaying (like a Jedi). It brought fond memories of the summer.

(Title?)

You sat on a bench, legs crossed beneath you Indian style, your backpack silent company where it rested beside you. You were alone. But not lonely. Or so I thought since you wore a faint smile.

Since I was alone and had plenty of time, I thought I might say hi. You never heard me coming, never noticed as I came at you from behind. You startled at my touch and then broke into a smile, reaching up to snag that thin white wire that snaked into your ears. It resisted, clung, and finally pulled free, a little plug dangling at the end of a string, something heavy with guitars pouring out at volumes cruel to human ears.

“Hey,” you said to me over that din and I confess being momentarily more interested in what I could just barely hear. But I recovered and said, “Hey,” right back.

We had a short conversation, filled with interjections of soloing drums and screaming singers–I barely able to hear them; you still tuned in halfway–and when it was time for us to part, you reached up and plucked that dangling little piece and carefully slotted it back into its place.

I watched you walk away, how you neither glanced left nor right, while the wind howled in my ears with the sound of human voices and countless footsteps.

Track 1. A crowded walkway on a windy day.

Words: 236

(More random stuff.)

You and Me and…

It was you and me. We were walking along. Quietlike. We must not have had much to talk about. But that was alright, because we didn’t need to say anything. It was what they call a “comfortable silence.”

Then your cell phone rang.

We both started and then you clawed at your purse. Undid the zipper. Unleashed a barrage of jingling and jangling, flashing lights, and the buzzing of vibration. Snatched it out, read the name on the display, and put that vibrating, singing, flashing contraption against your ear.

Probably didn’t even know you were smiling like an idiot.

So it was you, me, and a cell phone. We were walking along. I was quiet. You were jabbering away. One half a conversation. I had no idea what you were talking about. Or whom with. Oddest thing to only hear half of what’s being said (if even that). I shouldn’t have been listening, but it was hard not to with you right there next to me.

Probably didn’t even realize how loud you were speaking.

So it was you, me, a cell phone, and the crowd of people all around us. We were all walking along, some in the same direction, some in the other. Usually you don’t notice the crowd of people around you, because they’re usually not interested in you either. And usually when you walk with someone, you’re more interested in the person you’re walking with. Usually. But not so then. People glanced in your direction (almost said “our,” but I don’t think they were very interested in me). Caught a snatch of your conversation (unlike me who caught all one half of it). Or maybe liked the model of your cell phone.

Probably didn’t realize the intensity of concentration and animation writ across your face.

So it was you, me, a cell phone, the crowd of people all around us, and the clear, sunny day. The sun was nice. Warm on my skin. Not a cloud in the sky. Yeah.

Probably didn’t notice when we came to my stop.

So it was you, me, a cell phone, the crowd of people all around us, the clear, sunny day, and the turn I had to take. I would have said something. But you seemed a little busy. So I tried to show you with my hands that I had to go. You smiled distractedly, nodded like a bobble head tapped a bit too hard, and waved. While you said something to that mysterious person on the other side. I waved.

Probably didn’t see me glance back as you went on your way.

So it was you, a cell phone, the crowd all around you, and a clear, sunny day.

And me.

Words: 454

(Something very random that I just wanted to put up.)

I chacha’d today. That’s so damn cool. I wish I knew more dances so I could have stayed behind! I need a guy to come with me to the sessions…

(See what writing the R15 has led me to desire? What’s next? Chess?)

Thank you all for listening to me. In the end, it seems all I’ve ever really wanted was an ear to listen. Funny how I can’t shut up once I get started… You’re probably all sick of me now, and rightfully so.

I make no promises to myself because those are the easiest and the worst to break. But I know, succeed or fail, I don’t have to stay silent. I can share. Thank you for being here for me, every single one of you. You make every day a little easier. And sometimes not just a little, but a lot. Sometimes it makes all the difference in the world.

When you need to talk, I’m right here. Like you were for me. Is this the simplest definition of “friend?”