migblog

i guess i never really noticed it, but every time i'm posting to this thing and someone's watching behind my back, i feel as if i can't write. of course it's oxymoronic, i mean, you'll end up reading this thing anyway, and whether or not you're behind me should be a matter of little or no importance. i guess i just make it out to be one. but it really is uncomfortable writing down a stream of consciousness while someone's analyzing it on the fly. it's kinda like writing under pressure, like those timed writing exercises in high school so that you could get the best grade for AP tests. whatever, i guess i just need to get over it.

it's a big difference, though, when after you write something, people respond. all those little comments after these entries are a bit unnerving to read for the first time. someday i'd like to scroll back and eventually find a critical comment on each of my works of poetry (god, if only that happened), then revise and rewrite and draft and stuff. i want to get back into that mode of free writing, one where i don't have to feel all constricted whenever someone's looking, or when i don't have to feel self-conscious every time i'm expressing myself through ink or code.

i never really thought about it, but i guess i agree with nate when i say enjoying print material is so much better than audio. spoken word artists definitely have earned my respect, but man, if you can write, you can write, and therefore, you are a god. (to me, at least.) ink is so much more tangible and lasting than what you hear. i'm much more so a visual person too, so i guess that plays into it. as far as media goes, ink and paper are my top two choices, followed by art stuffs (think paint and canvas or watercolors and chalks), followed by virtual media (computer code), food (if that counts), and then audio. i adore music, i adore spoken word, but as far as those things go, ink on paper would be my choice if i were to be stuck with one thing all my life.

on the academic side of things, i just finished my spanish seminar class today. the section title was "talking funny in print" which dealt with phonetic and dialectical representations of spoken language into printed word. (once again, there's the ink and paper.) i presented on accents and popular perceptions (a presentation topic apparently worthy enough to be a senior thesis -- ask me for the email and i'll show it to you). maybe i was just being too ambitious, but it worked out fine in the end. that seminar was one of the best classes i have ever taken, and it's shown me that cal still has a long way to go concerning areas of language diversity and tolerance. as if i could change anything in this school of thirty thousand kids -- oh, pardon me, young adults -- by bitching about the status of the language crisis. maybe that's how they looked at things, that bitching would solve the problem. that would explain so many things about why we have so many protests around here.

i feel as if i'm coming down with a cold, but my throat's been really sore, my sinuses have been extremely dry, and my head seems to like to give me aches at random moments of the day. i want to get better as soon as possible, since, well, i'd like to be able to move my stuff and not have to puke all over the place while i'm transporting materials from one house to another.

happy birthday, shereen, you're twenty-two. wow, i feel young...

and now, i think, is nap time. go bears. (and pick up a copy of hardboiled if you haven't done so already!)

posted by Open Source Food @ 3:15 PM