I'm staying with Luisa and Sasha for the month, we went to Blake's party in Astoria, Queens in
accidentally matching outfits. My first night here was also theirs; they just moved from Jersey City.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Sickles Street
Yet again I have arrived in Manhattan. This time I live even further uptown than last, where the streets cease to be numbered. One of the resulting intersections is that of Dyckman St and Seaman Ave, right after Cumming St.
I'm staying with Luisa and Sasha for the month, we went to Blake's party in Astoria, Queens in
accidentally matching outfits. My first night here was also theirs; they just moved from Jersey City.
I'm staying with Luisa and Sasha for the month, we went to Blake's party in Astoria, Queens in
accidentally matching outfits. My first night here was also theirs; they just moved from Jersey City.
Friday, January 3, 2014
spelling
I've just given both my brothers haircuts. I've spent time with family and seen friend (Annutik is going to India! She just came back from Australia. Everyone else seems to be staying on this continent for the next few months). I'm leaving for NYC tomorrow morning until classes start up again.
My sort of New Years Resolution:
I've attempted to make New Years resolutions before - twice. However, neither of those years ended with me doing the intended split. Mama says Russian's don't make resolutions, and I have a conspiratorial theory that it's a habit brought to culture by capitalist gyms trying to sell memberships (everyone who goes to gyms regularly hates this time of year).
But in spite of my mother, and myself, I've decided that there is something I should work on. Spelling. And what better place to make sure I do this but here? I'm not sure how I've managed all these years - read so many books, written so many papers - without absorbing the proper way to order letters. Most people seem to make adjustments without conscious effort. It's at the point where it looks like I'm making errors in my grammar and pronunciation, particularly in Russian, but in English too. Sure, it's embarrassing. But mostly I want to improve my spelling because I'm vain (vane, vein) and I got two really great compliments on my speech this year. Amanda consistently tells me I speak and write poetically (in English). Kostya told me that sometimes he thinks I'm quoting classical literature, and then realizes that I'm just talking (in Russian). If spelling is blockading my ability to bring poetry to the page, then I should work on it. Right? Of course, I have yet to figure out how I'm going to do this...
My sort of New Years Resolution:
I've attempted to make New Years resolutions before - twice. However, neither of those years ended with me doing the intended split. Mama says Russian's don't make resolutions, and I have a conspiratorial theory that it's a habit brought to culture by capitalist gyms trying to sell memberships (everyone who goes to gyms regularly hates this time of year).
But in spite of my mother, and myself, I've decided that there is something I should work on. Spelling. And what better place to make sure I do this but here? I'm not sure how I've managed all these years - read so many books, written so many papers - without absorbing the proper way to order letters. Most people seem to make adjustments without conscious effort. It's at the point where it looks like I'm making errors in my grammar and pronunciation, particularly in Russian, but in English too. Sure, it's embarrassing. But mostly I want to improve my spelling because I'm vain (vane, vein) and I got two really great compliments on my speech this year. Amanda consistently tells me I speak and write poetically (in English). Kostya told me that sometimes he thinks I'm quoting classical literature, and then realizes that I'm just talking (in Russian). If spelling is blockading my ability to bring poetry to the page, then I should work on it. Right? Of course, I have yet to figure out how I'm going to do this...
Monday, December 30, 2013
lichen lace
Smultronstället
(Wild Strawberries 1957 Swedish)
True Romance (1993 USA)
Иваново Детство (Ivan's Childhood 1962 Russian)
We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011 UK)
Stoker (2013 UK)
The Godfather (1972 USA)
Monday, December 23, 2013
four days
in cycles:
In the morning I met with Frank to talk about senior project for the last time this semester. I frantically finished up some prints. The watercolors came out too pale, the citra solv barely transferred the ink. [cycle] Rehearsal, Concert. J. S. Bach's Magnificat in D and Schubert's Mass in E-flat Major. [cycle] I bumped into Lisa from Humboldt and we talked until we had to part and say good bye. She asked me how old I am and told me “oh! You’re still young”. She’s 24 and an undergraduate student: everything is slower in Germany. We talked about how sometimes it is necessary to leave the people you know to find out who you are, and how ages 16-19 or so, everything that sparkles; sparkles more furiously than it does later. She told me to tell her if I ever go to Berlin again. [cycle] I went to play mafia with some of the exchange students. All spoke Russian and some of the names
were more foreign to me that
others. Familiar ones where Valya and Yura and Yuliya (AUCA) Tim (Smolny). Less
familiar but still comprehensible is Albina (Tajikistan, AUCA). I had never heard before Agerim and Akylai (Kyrgistan,
AUCA). We played until 3 or so and then I went to Kelsey’s room and fell asleep by 4.
[cycle]
In the morning I met with Frank to talk about senior project for the last time this semester. I frantically finished up some prints. The watercolors came out too pale, the citra solv barely transferred the ink. [cycle] Rehearsal, Concert. J. S. Bach's Magnificat in D and Schubert's Mass in E-flat Major. [cycle] I bumped into Lisa from Humboldt and we talked until we had to part and say good bye. She asked me how old I am and told me “oh! You’re still young”. She’s 24 and an undergraduate student: everything is slower in Germany. We talked about how sometimes it is necessary to leave the people you know to find out who you are, and how ages 16-19 or so, everything that sparkles; sparkles more furiously than it does later. She told me to tell her if I ever go to Berlin again. [cycle] I went to play mafia with some of the exchange students. All spoke Russian and some of the names
were more foreign to me that
others. Familiar ones where Valya and Yura and Yuliya (AUCA) Tim (Smolny). Less
familiar but still comprehensible is Albina (Tajikistan, AUCA). I had never heard before Agerim and Akylai (Kyrgistan,
AUCA). We played until 3 or so and then I went to Kelsey’s room and fell asleep by 4.
[cycle]
We woke up at 9, got breakfast and then I went to my last
printmaking class. There were two bottles of wine and this is the least happy I’ve
been with my art work in a while. I went home and slept. [cycle] I worked and
packed and went to bed at 2am. [cycle]
I woke up at 6 and finished packing and got picked up at
7:15, went to the train station with Agerim, and we got off at Grand
Central. I made sure to find the bus for
her to get to JFK, before going my own way to Kostya’s lab at NYU. I finished
my coursework there. We went wandering to get food and then we went to Bedford Stuyvesant
(BedSty) where he lives. [cycle] We walked to Bushwick where Shinno’s
multimedia installation was. The room looked like it used to be some industrial
space, but had been redone for events. The bottom of the walls rounded off into
the floor and everything was white. The show consisted of a dancer in the dark,
except for a projector light. It refracted through fog, produced by a fog
machine. The dancer was wearing a mask made of squares of mirror. He danced
with the light, the music built up and became more frantic. It felt more like I
was having some sort of subconscious experience, rather than watching something
happening in front of me with a hundred other people. Esther was there too, and
after the show the dj came on and we danced. The projector was still on, and it
was a fun body-exploration to watch ones silhouette on the wall, a different way
of entertaining ones vanity. I went to the indoor-balcony upstairs and fell
asleep on the couch, which was vibrating from the bass of the music. At two
Kostya and I left. [cycle]
We went to Manhattan and I took a 5:30 bus back home. [cycle]
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
soft yellow
Снег, снег, снег
The desire to do work has not waned in me, but the ability
to do it is currently simmering below a desired level. This morning I handed in
15 pages on cognitive behavioral therapy for auditory hallucinations in
schizophrenia (antipsychotics decrease agitation, but often hallucinations
continue: a problem since 60-70% of cases exhibit auditory hallucinations,
mostly voices. I didn’t do much research on the brain this time, since it was
for my clinical class, but the one study that I did look over found changes in
brain activity in the group that went through cognitive behavior therapy. I
always find that this is the easiest way to convince people that it is working,
though the other ten articles I read were also convincing).
Currently, I am at the library, and if I had gotten more sleep perhaps I would be reviewing an article and writing five pages on infant visual synesthesia over the course of development (apparently babies detect motion based on color as well as luminance. This capacity dissipates early in development, quickly deteriorating so that light/dark detection becomes significantly more critical to the detection of movement. The main problem, of course, is that setting up a choice paradigm for babies is hard, and that looking at changes over development that cannot be explained by – well, normal developmental stuff – is its own challenge. I was also excited to see a citation of the professor I’ll continue working with this winter in the paper). The seniors in the psychology department were supposed to do power point presentations of senior projects today, but because of the
Currently, I am at the library, and if I had gotten more sleep perhaps I would be reviewing an article and writing five pages on infant visual synesthesia over the course of development (apparently babies detect motion based on color as well as luminance. This capacity dissipates early in development, quickly deteriorating so that light/dark detection becomes significantly more critical to the detection of movement. The main problem, of course, is that setting up a choice paradigm for babies is hard, and that looking at changes over development that cannot be explained by – well, normal developmental stuff – is its own challenge. I was also excited to see a citation of the professor I’ll continue working with this winter in the paper). The seniors in the psychology department were supposed to do power point presentations of senior projects today, but because of the
Snow, snow, snow
it has been cancelled. But the choir rehearsal for Shubert hasn’t been, and so I’m dawdling. Debating if calling subconscious motivations behind what could be considered as reciprocal altruism, as opposed to ‘true’ altruism, is simply a cynical semantic differentiation, as opposed to a social ‘truth’. The part of me that usually inhibits these thoughts, as well as the part of me that allows me to have gross motor coordination, isn’t working quite as it usually does. The books at the library sit in beautiful rows but the florescent lights are ugly. The exhaustion the punctuates the souls and bodies of college students during finals does not correspond to any romanticized depiction shown in movies. Rather, it is tiresome. “Not sleeping is the worst thing in the world” says Kelsey: they forget fatigue in movies. They forget that once you pull an all-nighter to study for an exam or write an essay, the work is not done. There are more exams, other classes, further work to be done. They also don’t include the exuberance that comes with intellectual pursuit, the surge of adrenaline or endorphines or dopomine or cannabinoids that mitigates the fatigue-induced headache.
it has been cancelled. But the choir rehearsal for Shubert hasn’t been, and so I’m dawdling. Debating if calling subconscious motivations behind what could be considered as reciprocal altruism, as opposed to ‘true’ altruism, is simply a cynical semantic differentiation, as opposed to a social ‘truth’. The part of me that usually inhibits these thoughts, as well as the part of me that allows me to have gross motor coordination, isn’t working quite as it usually does. The books at the library sit in beautiful rows but the florescent lights are ugly. The exhaustion the punctuates the souls and bodies of college students during finals does not correspond to any romanticized depiction shown in movies. Rather, it is tiresome. “Not sleeping is the worst thing in the world” says Kelsey: they forget fatigue in movies. They forget that once you pull an all-nighter to study for an exam or write an essay, the work is not done. There are more exams, other classes, further work to be done. They also don’t include the exuberance that comes with intellectual pursuit, the surge of adrenaline or endorphines or dopomine or cannabinoids that mitigates the fatigue-induced headache.
Ah, choir is canceled as well, and I'm at Hannah's now. The snow on the road has built
up, and I pity those driving low-rise cars in this weather, desperately coming
back from work, reeving desperately against the fricktionless snow, desperate desperate desperate . There is banana bread in the oven.
“TOMORROW'S
SCHEDULE:
3-5PM BACH DRESS REHEARSAL (2:45PM CALL)
5:30-7:30PM SCHUBERT DRESS REHEARSAL (5:00PM CALL)
8PM CONCERT”
3-5PM BACH DRESS REHEARSAL (2:45PM CALL)
5:30-7:30PM SCHUBERT DRESS REHEARSAL (5:00PM CALL)
8PM CONCERT”
brilliant.
Saturday night I was at Hannah’s and it was snowing and we painted our nails and then I painted Will’s nails and then David’s as well. We went wandering into the storm after dinner, watching the flakes sparkle with reflected light, and cars skid dangerously in the road. The street lights are yellow and the world is quietly beautiful.
Friday, December 13, 2013
I’m a hero.
Friday it hailed and rained and snowed. There was a play-festival going on with
six plays, with each night showing three of them, so I saw three short plays.
Saturday I went to the senior dance show and then a party at
Megan’s house: my first ever Christmas party, oddly enough.
Sunday I went to the first of three in the second set of
plays, because someone at the party said it was the only one of that set worth seeing
Monday the president of Ghana, Mahama, came to speak so I skipped
class and went to that instead. Security came a week in advance to make sure it was safe, and then Mahama right after to go to the funeral. Literally the only thing he did on this continent during that trip was talk at my college, in part because when Mahama said he was going to do it Chinua Achebe was still alive and it was Achebe's conference.
Tuesday was normal, except that our rehearsal for chamber
singers was later and longer than usual. I think I shoveled the driveway
angrily because I had slipped on the ice and hurt my wrist earlier in the week.
Wednesday I had my midway board for senior project. I had
braced myself: “they are going to tell me I have to do a lot of work and that I
need to be more efficient and that it’s severely lacking”. But they said it was
great, suggested some things to make the transition from the mechanics of the
eye to the more attention-based parts. Twenty minutes later I had an exam and
then printmaking hw and then I went to the Bard Orchestra concert because
Hannah and Leila are in it.
Thursday evening I went to Lucas’s senior show (he drums) and then signed up for classes.
And today, Friday, I went to This Bardian Life at the Root Cellar
and took photos. There was music but I left halfway through the first set.
one week left
one week left
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Thanksgivingukkah
I came home to a house full of family and friends and started frying latkes. I was sick but relived to be home. Eventually I told my body to shut up by taking some pseudoephed and proceeded to go to the annual Thanksgiving celebration in Belmont: the night tapered off with Eloosha on keyboard and singing. I stayed up until 5 am and left the next morning by train, where Yosef met me and walked me home in my last few hours before getting picked up by a fellow Bardian to go back again to Bardland.
On Thursday we had a one-day-late Hannukah-end party. I talked to people I don't know there, and later walked happily home, chipping the solidified wax drips off my chanukiah as I went.
On Thursday we had a one-day-late Hannukah-end party. I talked to people I don't know there, and later walked happily home, chipping the solidified wax drips off my chanukiah as I went.
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