Revolve.

Back in January, I had a little discussion with myself about whether or not to write a "New Year" themed post. Emphasizing a more or less arbitrary demarcation in the passage of time has never been very appealing to me, but I think there's value to be found in these types of discussions when everyone is thinking about them at the same time, though I never ended up writing a new year post. However, I think now is as good a time as any. Some of the following words have been stowed away in a draft mode of the new year's post that never got published, and some are more recent thoughts.

In this most recent trip around the sun, my life has changed considerably, and now that graduation is less than a month away, my life is going to change even more.

A year and a few months ago, I woke up my first morning in India, which happened to be my twenty-first birthday, and the first birthday I spent away from home. That birthday was a strange little vortex of emotions, bottled up inside a container forged from jet-lag. The events of the day were pretty mundane and focused on becoming oriented to a new place and new people, but it was a good symbolic birthday. That time that I spent abroad was my gift to myself, a birthday present to remind myself to actively pursue my goals and interests and to stop whining and live. It was the craziest, most frustrating, most satisfying thing I've ever done, and that journey taught me a lot about myself. The more interesting of my experiences are chronicled here, but I also wrote a few things that I didn't post. I was reading back through those, and I came across something I decided is worth sharing. It was a reflection on my first couple days in Delhi, and I ended it with this:

I don't want to lose my passion or my motivation; I have too little time here to waste it being discouraged. I want to bottle and save this energy and peace so that I can tap into it whenever I feel the need. I want to remind myself that letting go isn't the same as forgetting, and holding on isn't the same as condoning.

I've been working hard this year at de-cluttering my mental space, living authentically, and eliminating noise. Things that help me do this: cooking with friends, tea time, spontaneous life talks, walking along the river, meditating, paint dates, filterfail.

I want to talk a little about that last item in the list. My friend made me a big fan of the filterfail, which is an intentional breaking down of walls and barriers in order to achieve honest, unfiltered communication. I'm not going to lie - I still filter things. Sometimes it's necessary, and sometimes it's just easier. But I realized that most filters (aside from the one that sifts out things that would be rude/offensive) are just reactions to fear. Fear of getting hurt, being judged, making the wrong impression, deviating from what's expected of you...fear of a lot of things. And that fear is almost always unproductive. So in response to being the recipient of unfiltered thoughts, I've tried to eliminate some of my own filters - or, at the very least, to become more aware of when and why I use them. It's been a very satisfying journey so far; I've applied it in the realm of academics, personal communication, and workplace/job searching. It's difficult to do at times, but it's a very rewarding practice. I think I'll continue to do this.

Here's a magnolia tree - because everyone should stop and smell the flowers. (It's not the season for roses yet.)

More thoughts soon.

Namaste, and happy Earth day.

A Perfect Rochester Saturday

Last week, I was hit by a wave of about-to-graduate-college stress. As the weather hit mid-80s and the sun was shining, I was feeling guilty for wanting to go outside and play.

Then I decided that I was going to take a day to enjoy the beautiful world around me, since I would probably wind up distracted from my work because of the weather anyway.

Rochester is a lovely city when it's not buried under three feet of snow. Saturday, my relaxation day, was one of the best days I can remember having here. And it was completely unrelated to the university (except for the fact that the people involved were people I met when I arrived here freshman year...).

On Saturday morning, Kevin and I went to the public market for breakfast. (Fun Fact #1: Rochester's public market is 105 years old!) If you'll indulge me for a moment, I have to rave about empanadas. The public market is home to Juan and Maria's Empanada Stop, and it's definitely one of the most popular destinations at the market, and for good reason. For those who don't know, empanadas are delicious little Spanish pastries stuffed with...well, almost anything. For Saturday morning breakfast, I like to get one veggie breakfast (egg, assorted vegetables, and spices) and one sweet empanada (mixed fruits and nuts). They are positively divine. We waited in line for at least 15 minutes, which was okay because on one side of the empanada shop was a man playing the accordion, and on the other, two college-aged kids playing ukelele and singing. The sun was shining, and the motley crew of market-goers strolled by. And we were rewarded with a positively scrumptious breakfast.

Since it was such a beautiful day, we went up to the beach at Lake Ontario. (Fun Fact #2: Apparently there's a carousel at the park, and it's incidentally also 105 years old. I didn't know this until I went to find the park website to put here.) Having learned our lesson the first time we attempted an April lake day where it was a solid 25º colder at the lake than it was at the University, we wore pants and brought sweatshirts and blankets. Luck would have it that the weather, though cooler than it was inland, was downright pleasant. And it got warmer while we were there. Some cognitive dissonance going on, though; the weather clearly announced springtime, but there wasn't even a hint of budding leaves on the trees. Looking from the beach back towards the park, it looked like a barren, unhappy place. Until you saw the happy little people in shorts and sandals making their way onto the beach.

Here's Kevin looking for driftwood and blending quite nicely with his surroundings, that little chameleon:

He found some nifty looking driftwood, which he made into a sandwich/tower:

We lounged around, read our (non-school!) books, and basked in the warmth. Oh, and laughed at all the little kids building sand castles, discovering how cold the water is, and generally being silly.

When I got home in the middle of the afternoon, I had a fabulous conversation about life, love, and the future with my fabulous roommate, with whom I don't spend nearly enough time since our schedules seem to be maximized in their oppositeness. (Fun Fact #3: "Oppositeness" appears to be a real word, rather than one I made up simply because of its usefulness.) Then I complained about being bored, so she told me to bake. I wanted to make paska but didn't have enough time, so I made blonde brownies instead, which was a tasty decision.

The reason I didn't have time to make paska was that Kevin and I had a date to go see a play at our local professional theater, Geva. The University's theater program performed one of last semester's shows, The Illusion, at Geva as part of the spring CollegeFest. Our friend Phil was in it, wearing tights and getting in swordfights, and it was fantastic.

To finish the day of local delights, we went back to Kevin's house in the South Wedge for stargazing, philosophizing, and conversing with friends. I am immensely glad that it's now warm enough to sit outside at night.

***

Yesterday I actually did make that paska. I was very pleased how it turned out - like REAL BREAD! It took up a large portion of the day, but that's alright.

Sidenote: If anyone would like to finance my future, I'm thinking it would be a lot of fun to open up a café/bakery. Perks include requesting your favorite foodstuffs for the menu. ;)

Today I resumed all my responsibilities full-force, attending class and work, doing homework, and continuing the job search. However, strolling through Highland Park after getting out of work was refreshing and relaxing. It's amazing how the mood of the whole city improves with a few days of sunshine, and how quickly the flowers all bloom. Photo adventure soon.

***

To end, and by request, a photo of the monkeys (and monster) that were the subject of the craft time I wrote about in my last post:

It's in the DNA...

So poets sometimes like to talk in metaphors, saying things like "Poetry is in my blood." A Canadian poet is taking a more literal approach and wants to encode a poem in DNA.

The ultimate blending of science and poetry. Fusion of this kind excites me. Even if he doesn't succeed (which seems likely), the thought alone is fascinating.

Onward, upward, artword!

(via kottke / marginal revolution)

In other news, part of my thrilling college Saturday was painting ceramic monkeys with the roommate and the boyfriend. We like craft time. :) They are now sitting on the windowsill in my living room.

Internet Art

It's been ages since I last wrote here. Apologies; life's been busy with school, job-hunting, cooking, and trying to enjoy the last bit of college. For the next month or two, I'll probably use this primarily as a place for sharing enjoyable things I find on the internet.

Here are some of my favorite finds from the past couple weeks:

OK Go always has great videos. They make me happy.

My high school choir sang a song or two by Eric Whitacre, and he is one of my favorite contemporary composers. His opera electronica Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings is something I've been dying to see. However, I recently became aware of another extremely cool project of his: Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. Most recent video here:

After seeing this, a friend showed me this video, which has another great example of making internet art:

Sometimes, I am completely enamored with technology.

That's all for now. I'll try to be more disciplined about sharing tidbits here and there. No more months of hiatus.

Oh, and my Flickr page has been updated, too, with a few photos from spring break. Now that the weather's nice, I anticipate taking more photos as well.

Perspective

This video is beautifully done. A map that begins in the Himalayas of Tibet and extends to the limits of the known universe.

It's interesting to me for a few reasons. First of all, the notion that we can relatively easily map the entire known universe - 13.7 billion light years from earth - is pretty astounding. The idea seems to be putting into perspective the place of humans in the cosmos, yet I wonder if this is the best way to do that. Sitting in my bedroom with my 13-inch laptop screen makes it difficult to wrap my head around the measurements of space and time that are presented in the video. For me, standing on a beach looking out at the ocean makes me feel smaller than this video does. The video is useful for the quantitative-minded, and it does provide an occasion for thought. It seems, however, that putting things in this perspective will serve to fuel further exploration of the "limits of the universe." How far is too far? To what extent should uncovering the secrets of the universe be our priority? I am impressed at the artistic representation of enormous amounts of data, and I fully plan on investigating the Hayden Planetarium's Digital Universe Atlas, but still...

When I was done watching this video, I couldn't help feeling compelled to focus a little closer to home. I don't even feel like I always know myself very well; how can I expect to know about objects that are trillions of light years away? Far from feeling insignificant, I'm reminded that we are important - in this cosmic sphere of scientifically known terrain, our planet is isolated in many ways. Let's take care of it, and get to understand it so that we have the ability to protect it and its inhabitants.

What do you think?

White Noise

Life's been noisy recently.

2009 has been an interesting year, to say the least, and it's rapidly coming to a close. Rochester welcomed December and winter with a 2-inch blanket of snow sometime between 2 a.m. and 9 a.m. this morning, and next week is the last week of classes already.

There have been several interesting developments in recent weeks that have prompted moments of deep thought and consideration of what direction I'm moving towards. A month ago I tested my hand at coming up with innovative strategic business solutions at the Simon School of Business's Undergraduate Case Competition, here at the University of Rochester. My team created a presentation based on an idea I had and that we all developed, and we placed third, which was great, considering that none of us had participated in a case competition before that weekend. I met some new people; learned that I do, in fact, work well in teams where everyone is (mostly) committed to the project; and reaffirmed that I like to learn by doing, not by being told how to solve a particular problem.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving my roommate Erica and I had the opportunity to be professional anthropologists for a day. We carpooled with three other UR anthropology students down to Corning, NY (arriving shortly after dawn...), to the Corning Glass headquarters. Our official role was that of "ethnographic observer" for the Southern Tier portion of the Empire State STEM Progressive Dialogue. That's a fancy name for a series of dialogues organized to have businesspeople, teachers, and education administrators discuss how to enhance and expand science, technology, engineering, and math education in New York. And our title was a fancy way of saying we took notes (along with some real professionals from the PAST Foundation) on said dialogue, which will be incorporated into various reports distributed at some future point in time. It was an interesting event, and I was engaged in what I was doing. Having attended private schools all of my life, it was sort of captivating to hear public school teachers and administrators talk about the problems they face trying to get any sort of legislative change pushed through. The day definitely brought out the passion and dedication of the teachers to get kids to truly learn, but it simultaneously reminded everyone that bureaucracy is a way of life that we can't seem to get rid of (or at least make more efficient).

Yesterday was the last set of recitations for Theories of Religion (which I must admit makes me feel quite relieved). The other Theories Fellows and I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant with Brooks this evening to discuss how the semester went and who we'd like to choose as Fellows for next year. We had a good conversation about the nature of religion programs (ours, in particular, of course), and vented a great deal about the frustrations of getting students to understand the course. Even after an entire semester, I felt like most of my students don't really understand what the point of Theories is - and the other Fellows and Brooks agreed. It's basically about critical reading, reasoning, constructing and deconstructing arguments, and engaging in reflexive analysis of the theories and methods employed by any academic discipline, not just religion. We often talk in this department about why studying religion matters, and Brooks puts it so simply but so dead-on: "People die for this stuff." So yes, the content is important, but if you're like me and have no intention of becoming a "scholar of religion", the class is still immensely beneficial. When we were discussing our choices for next year's Fellows, I made a comment about how I still would have taken Theories even if it wasn't required for my minor, and our professor looks at me and says, "Well, that's because you're you." That, in turn, led to a conversation about the type of student that excels in this sort of class and who is good at engaging others, and it made me appreciate my present company. We don't often see each other outside of class, and all of us are seniors hitting that point where we're starting to freak out about everything, but I think I realized today that we're not the average student.

Appreciation of the people in my life extends to all other areas of my life, too. This year was the first time in recent years that I stopped and thought about the collective hundred or thousands or miles involved in three generations of family coming together for a holiday, and that shows a pretty firm commitment to the idea of family. I've been trying to cut out the less meaningful interactions with people who in the long run just don't fit well...which seems to be a common theme for the season. Reducing the white noise in my life is difficult, but I was reading back through some of my India posts and rediscovered a voice of serenity that I lost for a little bit. Jonathan's been quite helpful, too, since he's been doing the same what's-important and where-does-everything-fit sort of jigsaw puzzle that I'm doing. We were talking yesterday, and it occurred to me (though not for the first time), that there are very few people who dance along the same wavelength as me, but those people are my foundation. Whether it's dinner conversations, poems, painting, tea drinking, public market-ing, movie-going, or just reminders to sit back and take a deep breath, you all are what's important. I may not know exactly where I'm going or what I'm becoming, but I'm happy that I have people in my life who ask me tough questions and I'm happy for the people that set the tough questions on the back burner temporarily in order to live in the moment.

Working on a balance between white noise and inner voice.

Renewing spirit of adventure and determination.

Hoping the lens will focus on a pretty picture.

P.S. Thinking of starting a book club, but one where it's one-on-one conversations. Realizing that part of my frustration with my classes is often that the size of them (or apathy/laziness of students) prevents good, deep debates over the material, I think it would be a nice balance to have a personal book club. So if you have a book you want to read and talk about, let me know. Things on my list for winter break: more Margaret Atwood, Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, and many others.

Cooking is like life?

I like to cook. It relaxes me, and it makes me feel healthier and happier than eating frozen dinners, getting campus food, or ordering mediocre Chinese food. I like sharing food with people, probably as a result of the importance placed on dinnertime in my house growing up.

So I was looking through some recipes online a few days ago because I was thinking of making some vegetarian lentil stew (and came across this one, which looks fantastic). I had a thought whilst perusing endless variations on lentil stew:

Cooking is like life.

You start with a recipe, but the end product is something that is uniquely yours. Even if you use the same recipe, you'll get slightly different results every time. There are unexpected complications and things you can't control, but in the end it turns out okay. Either you can salvage whatever it is you're trying to make, or start fresh with a new batch of ingredients. You may be afraid to repeat the same mistakes, so you try a new dish. You may be inspired and so depart from the instructions and proportions of the recipe before you even start. You take risks, and sometimes you end up with something delicious; other times, you wind up with an unexpected combination of flavors, and you make a note of it for next time.

This blog is like my cookbook. I've been really busy with school and life, so I haven't been blogging at all, but I'm going to make an effort to start again. I want to have the record of all the recipes I've tried, in life and in cooking. (I've started building up a repository of recipes and food blogs - as well as other interesting things I find on the Internet - over on delicious if you're interested.) And I want to share that with all of you and hear your thoughts. Either here as comments or over dinner sometime. :)

This is also why I want to get into social media marketing and advertising. I want a job where I don't have to stick to strict instructions, where I can take the staples and fashion my own product out of them. I want room to be creative and be inspired and for there to be a conversation along the way. I've had great conversations over delicious meals and over tasty cups of tea, and I see no reason why a workplace should be any less (ful)filling.

Coincidentally, my roommate and I are planning to go see Julie & Julia tonight. This is a very food-themed time of the year, and perhaps I've overdrawn the metaphor, but I do see cooking as representative of many of the processes I've been going through in life in general lately.

What do you think?