(no subject)
Something for a zine in the near future? Maybe:
Oh school. I have such a love-hate relationship to you. This year I am fulfilling the role of Music Technology Intern at The Evergreen State College. What up state worker honk honk.
I do a lot of things at this job that feel good to me. I am in a position where I have to articulate and communicate my knowledge of electronic music, equipment and computers in a way that others understand it. I feel !!victorious!! when someone who was once intimidated by a giant synthesizer feels like they understand how it works and gain knowledge to create art that they want to see. I'm also discovering a lot about the subtle sexism that happens in the audio-media world, and how to disarm it when I see it happening (YO DUDE CHECK OUT THAT SYNTEHSIZER DUDE OH YEAH DUDE SHIT. I CAN TOTALLY PLUG THAT WIRE INTO A SOCKET BETTER THAN YOU, YOU WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT DUDE? OH DO YOU HAVE A VAGINA? LET ME DO THAT FOR YOU).
I'm in an environment where I learn a shit ton about the technical realm of computer music and electronics, which in the end I think will leave me with a lot of knowledge to use outside of the bizarre academic environment. The problem is, it's ridiculously exhausting, as I am at school roughly 5-6 hours a day. It's basically a full time job. And about 95% of the interactions I have at work feel like I'm communicating with my brain, and not my heart. I'm talking about synthesizers and electronics and computers. I rarely talk about my feelings at work. This is a hard place for me, because if I don't interact with my heart and my feelings on a regular basis, I tend to slip back into being introverted and out of touch with my emotions as I was in centralia (what up social conditioning).
And I'm in a position where I can't really lower my work load. So the ongoing conflict in myself is that I feel stuck in a place where I'm having to put the majority of my energy into something that is not my top priority in life right now.
It's important for me to remember the motives I have in being in school right now; I am basically in school to learn things that I can use outside of the academic world; knowledge to take with me back to the community that, in the end, feels far more emotionally grounding and significant to me than academia. I am acquiring knowledge to create music, throw soundsystem-related parties, record my friends', and basically have a wide range of tools to create the art and media that I want to see, and share that knowledge with the world.
Being at school as much as I am right now makes me insecure that I will be disconnected from my friends and my non-academic community by the time I am through. Though when I really think hard about that, I don't think that will happen so easily. I don't deny that people can and will change and that identity is impermanent, but in the end we have all know that we care about each other, and that is something that will not disappear as easily. Even when we go to school 40 hours a week.
I appreciate what I learn in the academic environment, but in the end it doesn't come close to satisfying my heart. The community that I have become a part of outside of academia feels like it comes more from a place of listening to our emotions and caring about each other. Which is incomparably more meaningful to me than a bunch of metal and electricity in a state-owned laboratory.
Oh school. I have such a love-hate relationship to you. This year I am fulfilling the role of Music Technology Intern at The Evergreen State College. What up state worker honk honk.
I do a lot of things at this job that feel good to me. I am in a position where I have to articulate and communicate my knowledge of electronic music, equipment and computers in a way that others understand it. I feel !!victorious!! when someone who was once intimidated by a giant synthesizer feels like they understand how it works and gain knowledge to create art that they want to see. I'm also discovering a lot about the subtle sexism that happens in the audio-media world, and how to disarm it when I see it happening (YO DUDE CHECK OUT THAT SYNTEHSIZER DUDE OH YEAH DUDE SHIT. I CAN TOTALLY PLUG THAT WIRE INTO A SOCKET BETTER THAN YOU, YOU WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT DUDE? OH DO YOU HAVE A VAGINA? LET ME DO THAT FOR YOU).
I'm in an environment where I learn a shit ton about the technical realm of computer music and electronics, which in the end I think will leave me with a lot of knowledge to use outside of the bizarre academic environment. The problem is, it's ridiculously exhausting, as I am at school roughly 5-6 hours a day. It's basically a full time job. And about 95% of the interactions I have at work feel like I'm communicating with my brain, and not my heart. I'm talking about synthesizers and electronics and computers. I rarely talk about my feelings at work. This is a hard place for me, because if I don't interact with my heart and my feelings on a regular basis, I tend to slip back into being introverted and out of touch with my emotions as I was in centralia (what up social conditioning).
And I'm in a position where I can't really lower my work load. So the ongoing conflict in myself is that I feel stuck in a place where I'm having to put the majority of my energy into something that is not my top priority in life right now.
It's important for me to remember the motives I have in being in school right now; I am basically in school to learn things that I can use outside of the academic world; knowledge to take with me back to the community that, in the end, feels far more emotionally grounding and significant to me than academia. I am acquiring knowledge to create music, throw soundsystem-related parties, record my friends', and basically have a wide range of tools to create the art and media that I want to see, and share that knowledge with the world.
Being at school as much as I am right now makes me insecure that I will be disconnected from my friends and my non-academic community by the time I am through. Though when I really think hard about that, I don't think that will happen so easily. I don't deny that people can and will change and that identity is impermanent, but in the end we have all know that we care about each other, and that is something that will not disappear as easily. Even when we go to school 40 hours a week.
I appreciate what I learn in the academic environment, but in the end it doesn't come close to satisfying my heart. The community that I have become a part of outside of academia feels like it comes more from a place of listening to our emotions and caring about each other. Which is incomparably more meaningful to me than a bunch of metal and electricity in a state-owned laboratory.