This summer I am embarking on an unsettled life, where my home varies from week to week and there is a constant back and forth on the subject of where I need to be. Over my Christmas break, while setting up projects and materials for a holiday themed family art day, I agreed with my director that I would be returning to teach another whirlwind round of art classes over the summer. However, only a couple of months later I conveniently landed myself a job that requires me to come in every weekend and be on call for other duties.
Not wanting to lose this Pittsburgh job, and being faithful to the employment back home that will help me forge a future, I have decided to go back and forth every week in order to fulfill those duties.
It being the first of the month, I am now realizing what I have committed myself to and I am nervous. There will be no days off for me until August, and by then I'll have started my last year of school. Sundays will end up being my major travel days, either hopping on Megabus or driving to Central Nowhere. Then Monday thru Thursday I work long long hours. Not a typical 9-5 job. I usually get myself to the art center around 7, realizing that I need to get a jump on preparing some insane project I had the day before. Then all the camps roll in and I am on fire, jumping from student to student, providing clay, paints, feathers, paper, anything to keep the day going and the time interesting. There is no lunch break, for I am cleaning up the room and prepping for the next 20 children to roll in. My day of teaching usually ends at 4, where I meet up with the directors and go over the day. What worked for the kids? Who needs more guidance? I noticed so and so has a problem with this person, lets find a way to get him/her to bond with another child. Then after the directors have left I am using whatever strength I have left to scrub tables raw and sweep up impossible chunks of glitter or pugging clay for the next week. When it gets dark, I finally leave.
I was certainly able to handle it last summer, but that was because I rarely, if ever, worked on weekends. Two glorious days! Nothing! Yet I am becoming older, and grasping the fact that I shall not always lead such a charmed, easy going lifestyle.
Yet despite the constant back and forth, I am excited. Everyday there will be something new. There will be no opportunity to sit around and become jittery, searching for a way to release all my energy. I'll somewhat return to the lifestyle of traveling, where my home is not constant and the people around me change frequently.
That is what I enjoy doing. Living a life in monotony is not something I desire to have at any point in my life. A constant slew of "THE NEW, THE EXCITING, THE CHANGING" is what drives me to live.
I realize this writing is not getting me anywhere through this post. It is just something I wanted to report on. I have a feeling that not many people, if anyone, read this. It's quite boring. So I apologize. I'll have something better next time.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Self vs. Society
A lot of times when writing I feel as if I'm in some pseudo-artsy-indie-in your face shitastic teen movie. You know, the kind where the art studio/music room serves as the main background for some climactic interlude, such as sex between the cello player and school administrator or passing blunts and having "deep" conversations? Who is to say that my life isn't all but a joke? Psychologists and those specializing in childhood development speak a lot about the fine line separating self from society, and I hold it to be widely true. Is this thinking, moving, human being that I am really who I am supposed to be, or am I just a creation of what society and culture at the time of my raising deemed to be growing up?
I believe I am real, that I am my own person, yet this person who I am seems to be less absorbed in characters developed on a screen and more in tune with those written in a book. Is this why I constantly write? I see myself as a creation of all the stories I have read when I was younger. As a child, I read a lot what we now would consider older classics. Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie. All of these stories set in idyllic settings certainly clashed with my real life of living in the oil refining wasteland that was (and still is) Northeast New Jersey. One could literally see the Empire State Building from the top of the apartment complex my family and I lived in when I was 10. Yet however close this penned "city of dreams" was, it was still so far from the realities of where I grew up.
Naturally, the area where I grew up is not something I discuss much with anyone. The nanosecond birthplace is brought up between my peers, my answer is immediately giggled at. "Joisey" is a place to be made fun of, no thanks to recent televised escapades of tanned, Grey Goosed, and scantily clad guidettes and their ape-like, jacked up male counterparts. This is the New Jersey that is shown to the world, and that the world understands, not the state that I grew up in.
While I did grow up in a neighborhood of strictly middle class families, my school reflected the entire makeup of the small city of Bloomfield. At Watsessing Elementary, WASPy children were in the extreme minority. The majority of these white kiddies were ushered off by their parents to attend the various private schools in the area, gasping in fear at the idea of their child having to go to an urban school. Therefore, my brother and I as well as a handful of other children were left at the clawed hands of the public school system.
However, while the learning environment wasn't exactly the greatest, with outdated classrooms and overcrowding, I thrived. While certain academic programs, such as music, art, and science, were struggling to make due with what they had, I learned many more valuable lessons in the aspects of life. Tolerance was something I don't think I would've learned if I was ushered off to a private school or raised in a mostly white area. Basically, I learned that EVERYONE is different simply because I was exposed to it. There were kids who had gay or lesbian parents, parents who didn't speak English, disabled, impoverished, Jew, Evangelical, Catholic, Buddhist, black, white, asian, hispanic, the works. And despite every child being radically different from one another, we were similar in the sense that we all tolerated and accepted each of our differences. We were aware of a world outside of school. Outside of our own state and country. It was seen as okay to be different and certainly wasn't something to be used as a target for abuse and scapegoating. However, was this a part of the society and culture we grew up in, or our young misunderstanding of how the world operates? Where most of the time differences aren't celebrated and instead are feared?
This is a blend of self and culture. How can I tell this is truly my nature by biology and raising, or how socialization in my specific community created me?
I believe I am real, that I am my own person, yet this person who I am seems to be less absorbed in characters developed on a screen and more in tune with those written in a book. Is this why I constantly write? I see myself as a creation of all the stories I have read when I was younger. As a child, I read a lot what we now would consider older classics. Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie. All of these stories set in idyllic settings certainly clashed with my real life of living in the oil refining wasteland that was (and still is) Northeast New Jersey. One could literally see the Empire State Building from the top of the apartment complex my family and I lived in when I was 10. Yet however close this penned "city of dreams" was, it was still so far from the realities of where I grew up.
Naturally, the area where I grew up is not something I discuss much with anyone. The nanosecond birthplace is brought up between my peers, my answer is immediately giggled at. "Joisey" is a place to be made fun of, no thanks to recent televised escapades of tanned, Grey Goosed, and scantily clad guidettes and their ape-like, jacked up male counterparts. This is the New Jersey that is shown to the world, and that the world understands, not the state that I grew up in.
While I did grow up in a neighborhood of strictly middle class families, my school reflected the entire makeup of the small city of Bloomfield. At Watsessing Elementary, WASPy children were in the extreme minority. The majority of these white kiddies were ushered off by their parents to attend the various private schools in the area, gasping in fear at the idea of their child having to go to an urban school. Therefore, my brother and I as well as a handful of other children were left at the clawed hands of the public school system.
However, while the learning environment wasn't exactly the greatest, with outdated classrooms and overcrowding, I thrived. While certain academic programs, such as music, art, and science, were struggling to make due with what they had, I learned many more valuable lessons in the aspects of life. Tolerance was something I don't think I would've learned if I was ushered off to a private school or raised in a mostly white area. Basically, I learned that EVERYONE is different simply because I was exposed to it. There were kids who had gay or lesbian parents, parents who didn't speak English, disabled, impoverished, Jew, Evangelical, Catholic, Buddhist, black, white, asian, hispanic, the works. And despite every child being radically different from one another, we were similar in the sense that we all tolerated and accepted each of our differences. We were aware of a world outside of school. Outside of our own state and country. It was seen as okay to be different and certainly wasn't something to be used as a target for abuse and scapegoating. However, was this a part of the society and culture we grew up in, or our young misunderstanding of how the world operates? Where most of the time differences aren't celebrated and instead are feared?
This is a blend of self and culture. How can I tell this is truly my nature by biology and raising, or how socialization in my specific community created me?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Ending yet another semester of schooling is always odd. I feel extremely relieved to have completed all my assignments and challenges thrown my way, I feel accomplished, yet there is also a sense of something lost. After putting in so much effort, what do I have to show for it? What shall I spend the remainder of my time doing?
I manage to keep my GPA at the highest level, making Dean's List for another round. Yet there is a confusion for what I really did.
There was no passion for me in these past few months. As I planted myself at a computer to write up another too long paper and attempt to prove to my professors that I was absorbing the material and thinking critically, I was completely at a loss. But eventually my mind would click and I would slew out some 10 page response on something I lacked any emotion for. All the work was there, and it was done well. However, the motions were robotic. Strings of sentences were pulled out of my head and I stuck myself in a mindless daze of simply getting things done.
I'm certainly happy that I do well in classes. It's a stability I never had before with school. But while I am being challenged, I feel that it isn't enough. If there was a professor out there who would completely shoot me down in my ideas, my world would be turned around. However, it would be for the better. No longer would I feel security and I would actually have to attempt to fight for my thoughts. Yet I have not reached this stage yet. I go along with some hackneyed, possibly insane idea of a text and there are no complaints.
What is needed is not a challenge from others, but a challenge I set for myself.
I manage to keep my GPA at the highest level, making Dean's List for another round. Yet there is a confusion for what I really did.
There was no passion for me in these past few months. As I planted myself at a computer to write up another too long paper and attempt to prove to my professors that I was absorbing the material and thinking critically, I was completely at a loss. But eventually my mind would click and I would slew out some 10 page response on something I lacked any emotion for. All the work was there, and it was done well. However, the motions were robotic. Strings of sentences were pulled out of my head and I stuck myself in a mindless daze of simply getting things done.
I'm certainly happy that I do well in classes. It's a stability I never had before with school. But while I am being challenged, I feel that it isn't enough. If there was a professor out there who would completely shoot me down in my ideas, my world would be turned around. However, it would be for the better. No longer would I feel security and I would actually have to attempt to fight for my thoughts. Yet I have not reached this stage yet. I go along with some hackneyed, possibly insane idea of a text and there are no complaints.
What is needed is not a challenge from others, but a challenge I set for myself.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
It was the hour of a profound human change
In less than a year, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" will make its appearance on the big screen again. There is a thrill, yet nervousness, that has been building inside me since hearing of this news. For one, I'll get to see another director's point of view on this tale, yet on the other hand I will have to battle with my attachment to pictures built between book and screen.
I first encountered Gatsby during my freshman year of high school. It was an American Literature class and we were slowly working our way up to the present day. Yet out of all the books we read, this one stuck with me.
The character Gatsby is the most beautiful symbol of everlasting yearning and desire to go back to something good and whole. While it was written during The Jazz Age of the 1920's, one cannot forget that just years before the world was engaged in a bloody and terrible war. So while the secondary characters are out getting ridiculously drunk and grabbing for more wealth, Gatsby stands at that dock, staring at the blinking green light that is his only connection to Daisy.
I am just worried about how they will portray key symbols to the novel that drive me to go back and read it again. Symbolism is one of the main workings of this book, and if you miss the symbols you miss out on major elements to the entire story. Note how Fitzgerald, in the opening poem to Gatsby, uses a poem that emphasizes the importance of gold. Then notice in a major moment of the book how everything, from the car to the buttons on Daisy's dress, are yellow. These aren't accidents. Fitzgerald is trying to make the reader realize something. If the movie misses it, I know that a crushing feeling will grip my chest.
"The Great Gastby" is one of the most important and fulfilling books I have ever read. It has become a part of me. Whenever meeting someone and begin a relationship with he or she, I tend to lend them this book. It is the best way of understanding who I am. This novel began my change in mind to begin thinking critically and deeply about the things that surround my world. It has become the point that if you can understand Gatsby, you can learn to understand me.
Reading is the most important aspect of my life. It is my solace. Some people have music, some people have art, some people have education, love, relationships, or traveling. Reading is mine.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
As some of you may know, I'm a student at the University of Pittsburgh. So if you know that, you now must know about the 70, and quite possibly growing, bomb threats that have been on campus. It has escalated to reports in the national news, something I wouldn't have Pitt to do unless it was related to athletics or massive academic achievement. Unfortunately, the bad will always outweigh the good.
And with these constant threats, my life has become a whirlwind of utter stress. As an English Lit major, I am expected to do my fair share of writing and research, usually moreso than the average student. With five Lit classes this semester, just multiply everything by that number and you get the utter chaos of just a basic academic week.
Now with my classes being constantly disrupted, relocated, and some even moved online, my workload has nearly doubled the normal amount for the semester. Since we cannot be in class to participate and show that we have done the work, my fellow classmates and I have been forced to lengthen our papers and do multiple Blackboard and Class Blog posts in order to get anything done.
Right now I have abandoned any segment of my social life and plunged head first into my work. When the library is not evacuated, I spend countless hours with multiple windows up. Just this Tuesday I was working on three papers at once, writing a blog, and completing a discussion board post. And once my afternoon classes were done, I headed straight home to read criticism after criticism, and finish reading The Bluest Eye and The Remains of the Day. My workload has gone into over time and frankly, I'm exhausted.
The only thing I can say about these threats is that it has somehow brought the Pitt community closer together. I'm spending time sitting on benches, talking with unknown students about what is going on, asking about what classes were disrupted or if they had to evacuate their dorm at 4am. Despite the annoyance of the situation, people are still keeping their head up and pushing on. I even had the delight to have my suggestion of holding my Children's Lit class in the Carnegie Library put into use. And upon the moment our class walked into the Children's Section, a wonderful librarian asked us if we needed anything for our class. She simply reached out to help us in any way.
It is just lovely to know that despite the bad, a lot of good can happen through it.
Hail to Pitt.
And with these constant threats, my life has become a whirlwind of utter stress. As an English Lit major, I am expected to do my fair share of writing and research, usually moreso than the average student. With five Lit classes this semester, just multiply everything by that number and you get the utter chaos of just a basic academic week.
Now with my classes being constantly disrupted, relocated, and some even moved online, my workload has nearly doubled the normal amount for the semester. Since we cannot be in class to participate and show that we have done the work, my fellow classmates and I have been forced to lengthen our papers and do multiple Blackboard and Class Blog posts in order to get anything done.
Right now I have abandoned any segment of my social life and plunged head first into my work. When the library is not evacuated, I spend countless hours with multiple windows up. Just this Tuesday I was working on three papers at once, writing a blog, and completing a discussion board post. And once my afternoon classes were done, I headed straight home to read criticism after criticism, and finish reading The Bluest Eye and The Remains of the Day. My workload has gone into over time and frankly, I'm exhausted.
The only thing I can say about these threats is that it has somehow brought the Pitt community closer together. I'm spending time sitting on benches, talking with unknown students about what is going on, asking about what classes were disrupted or if they had to evacuate their dorm at 4am. Despite the annoyance of the situation, people are still keeping their head up and pushing on. I even had the delight to have my suggestion of holding my Children's Lit class in the Carnegie Library put into use. And upon the moment our class walked into the Children's Section, a wonderful librarian asked us if we needed anything for our class. She simply reached out to help us in any way.
It is just lovely to know that despite the bad, a lot of good can happen through it.
Hail to Pitt.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
While I may not have had a lot of luck with other things in life, I certainly consider myself lucky for the jobs I've been able to acquire over the years.
The past couple of months I've been working at a bakery just a few short blocks from where I live. While I won't be baking any pastries any time soon, I'm learning more about different cultural delicacies and how to function in a much more high paced environment than what I was used to.
Working for a small family business is something important to me. Both of my parents worked together to start and bring up a children's clothing company, and they still work in the small business realm by running a successful inn. It is something I value and something that I've grown up in. Having a previous background in a corporate setting, I had none of this. Questions had to be relayed through a handful of managers, everything was done by the book and not by efficiency, and I could not stand that god awful swag and polyester bowling shirt I had to wear. Instead of being proud of my hard work, I abhorred it. One can only live in a world of corporate, Made in China rock-and-roll for so long. We were constantly told "Dare to be an individual!" Just make sure you fall in line with everyone else.
The past couple of months I've been working at a bakery just a few short blocks from where I live. While I won't be baking any pastries any time soon, I'm learning more about different cultural delicacies and how to function in a much more high paced environment than what I was used to.
Working for a small family business is something important to me. Both of my parents worked together to start and bring up a children's clothing company, and they still work in the small business realm by running a successful inn. It is something I value and something that I've grown up in. Having a previous background in a corporate setting, I had none of this. Questions had to be relayed through a handful of managers, everything was done by the book and not by efficiency, and I could not stand that god awful swag and polyester bowling shirt I had to wear. Instead of being proud of my hard work, I abhorred it. One can only live in a world of corporate, Made in China rock-and-roll for so long. We were constantly told "Dare to be an individual!" Just make sure you fall in line with everyone else.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
If I could create a Venn Diagram for the things I love and the things I hate, running would be in the overlapping middle.
There is something so difficult about the beginning of a run. Your body is not yet in tune with all of its parts. The legs don't coordinate with the heart, arms are not in sync with your breathing. Your core is just beginning to twist and turn its way. But after the awkward, uncoordinated flailing of different limbs, something inside just clicks. Everything falls into place.
I choose to run without any sort of electronics. There are no phones or iPods to distract me. No whir of a belt on a sedentary machine, facing dozens of television screens and surrounded by other individuals who cannot help glancing back from their machine to yours, adding up the calories and time in their heads as if it was a competition.
All that I have is the outdoors surrounding me, and after those first awkward minutes, a sort of meditation takes over my body. The constant slap slap slap of feet against the pavement becomes a metronome, keeping in time with my heart and lungs. Everything revolves around the slap slap slap. Natural patters begin to emerge, the birds chirp in time and car horns sound just over the cemetery wall, until I am surrounded by an urban orchestra.
This is the moment where the Venn Diagram shifts and everything falls into place, like a toddler fitting plastic rings on a stake. The discovery occurs. The world is understood.
There is something so difficult about the beginning of a run. Your body is not yet in tune with all of its parts. The legs don't coordinate with the heart, arms are not in sync with your breathing. Your core is just beginning to twist and turn its way. But after the awkward, uncoordinated flailing of different limbs, something inside just clicks. Everything falls into place.
I choose to run without any sort of electronics. There are no phones or iPods to distract me. No whir of a belt on a sedentary machine, facing dozens of television screens and surrounded by other individuals who cannot help glancing back from their machine to yours, adding up the calories and time in their heads as if it was a competition.
All that I have is the outdoors surrounding me, and after those first awkward minutes, a sort of meditation takes over my body. The constant slap slap slap of feet against the pavement becomes a metronome, keeping in time with my heart and lungs. Everything revolves around the slap slap slap. Natural patters begin to emerge, the birds chirp in time and car horns sound just over the cemetery wall, until I am surrounded by an urban orchestra.
This is the moment where the Venn Diagram shifts and everything falls into place, like a toddler fitting plastic rings on a stake. The discovery occurs. The world is understood.
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