2008
It's late, the certain type of late where words and thoughts get sucked into a mental sampler of sorts that centers a fragment in its sampling window and repeats it rhythmically in my head. The rhythm is that of triplets over 4/4 time. Any aural thought is fair material. This has happened occasionally for as long as I can remember, and it may explain why triplets were so natural to me when I learned about them formally as a percussionist.
I would like to review some of the major events of this 2008. But first, let's revisit last year's summary:
I was in the process of filling out an 'in reflection of 2007' meme and, in reflection, I stopped.
It's been a long year and an overwhelming amount of...life-stuff has passed. Aesthetics, relationships, epiphanies.
Questions of the form 'what was the one thing x..." seem unanswerable. There are forty songs associated with this year; few, weak, memorable moments, many more types of experience, 'aesthetic signatures' (how do I stop over-using "aesthetic"?); scores of epiphanies; uncountable (either because there were many or zero) excitements; no general trends (except broadening).
And, I can't seem to be proud of a single accomplishment. A year of branching and fortifying went by and, again, nothing got done. That's how I feel.
I'm afraid that it will, again, be futile to declare "stop procrastinating" at 12am. I'm afraid that I'm destined to play the strengths that have come of my amorphous, conflicted way of life.
Is it worth another shot for self-discipline?
The answer to the question at the time was yes. And I gave it one. Much of this year felt just as amorphous and conflicted as the last, but this time I have discrete katharses to reflect upon.
The year began with my second semester of university. Earlier in December I had interviewed at Bard where I planned to transfer. Somewhere in January I planned to write my application. The previous semester had been lonely and disappointing, though I didn't expect much. The environment was clearly wrong for me in many ways. Plus the girl that I loved lived a city away, in a city where I had dreamed of living from an early age. Montreal was overstimulating, underwhelming and heartbreaking. I needed to get out.
But in early January I decided to stay. Why did I do that? I don't know, let's see:
* Classes are inconsistent, but I've discovered that if I shop around, send emails to the right people, and leverage the powers of friends in high places, I can avoid the pot-holes and build a decent, or even exceptional educational experience, between the Liberal Arts College, CS, Computation Arts, Philosophy, the Science College, Psychology, and (even) McGill.
* I have friends in high places already and the kind of research involvement that I won't find anywhere else. This will be more valuable than anything else when it comes time to apply to graduate schools.
* The facilities here, for fine-art and CS, are state of the art; especially because of my involvement with the TML (Hexagram!)
* I can take classes in the summer (and do research concurrently). This means I'll finish my degree faster and I'll get to spend the summer in an amazing city doing something I love.
* Sure, I'm not impressed with the program, but nowhere else will I find such a large quantity of students studying "computation art" (or media art or whatever) and computer science concurrently.
* Montreal 0wnz. Plus it's a digital art hotbed. There's nowhere I'd rather go to school.
* I'll be saving, I don't know, say, 50 to 80 thousand dollars. I'd rather not have to pick up a programming job for 3 years just to pay for graduate school. Debt sucks.
In short: (1) If I'm smart I can build the kind of education I want (2) mad connexions (3) infinite access to sweet gear (4) year-round research position at the coolest lab ever (5) huge community to draw from (6) $$$.
In hindsight, I see that what I didn't admit to myself was that my decision was only partly rational. While I had a list of reasons to stay, I had a comparable list of reasons to leave. My roommate has criticized me for this, but most big decisions I make are colored strongly by how I feel (and my imagination). My decision to stay was influenced greatly by two emotional factors that added up, perhaps, to an emotional shift:
1. I was given a wonderful job and I did well on my first project. Along with this came something I needed desperately: respect. Respect is hard to turn down in exchange for uncertainty.
2. I met somebody who I got along with better than anybody I'd known ever before (and still). This somebody happened to be a girl: poison for a long distance relationship (not because I planned on starting a relationship; such an encounter simply expands your imagination for what's possible).
Feeling loved, or the potential for feeling loved, in Montreal for the first time in, well, only three months, drastically shifted my vantage point and allowed me to construct the list of rationals listed above. It allowed me to envision a beautiful future and to retire my worn rationals of old. It also allowed me to do something terrible: be lazy. Any plan that includes me not writing a college application gets bonus points automatically.
Spring
I made this decision fairly quickly and once it was made, it was like I had flicked a light switch. Another cathartic event would be needed to move it back into the 1 position. I had devoted myself to Montreal. This lead too naturally into my next major decision: to end the wonderful (primarily long-distance) relationship I was in that had stretched over ~2 years by then. Thinking back, it wasn't much of a decision. At the time that I broached the subject, I meant merely to broach it. The reasoning was simple: 'I've decided to stay in Montreal for the next 3-4 years, am I up for a long-term long distance relationship?' But I've since learned, having been through two such situations, that once the topic is brought up, the relationship crumbles readily. The aforementioned 'poison' and my feelings at the time lead to a quicker crumbling than I was expecting. I found myself in mid-January single for the first time in awhile.
It didn't last long. Meetings with aforementioned "somebody" quickly became all-day affairs where warm words poured from our mouths and noses continuously until a few hours after we were willing to stay up. I'd shed my significant other, she shed hers, and our relationship eased gradually over months from a best-friendship into a full-blown relationship. It was good.
Otherwise the semester went well. I got top marks except for a retaken math course, enjoyed my classes, and at the lab we completed two major production (as opposed to purely research) projects in which I played a significant role. Though, I found this quote to be quite true about school that semester:
"...I would still defend my early description of the life of the lower-division student as, perforce, that of a distracted intellectual juggler."
- A Venture in Educational Reform by Joseph Tussman
Summer
School ended and I decided to stay in Montreal for the summer. L was to head back to Calgary leaving me with what few friends were staying (none, really). I planned to move into the apartment of my dreams and the deal fell through the day before I was to move. So, I slept on a friend's couch for the summer until September 1st. In June I participated in a two week workshop with fellow TML associates and apprentices. We produced two beautiful dance pieces that can be found recorded under the heading "Movement+Media Research" here: http://www.topologicalmedialab.net/joomla/main/content/blogsection/9/75/lang,en/
I also started Calculus I. After the workshop was finished, I found myself remarkably free, with one class and a casual research project at the TML. Unfortunately I didn't take advantage of my freedom really. I did my best to meet as many young people as possible, going to interesting shows and parties. I found myself often with a group of McGill kids and I felt my way through their social network. I spent a lot of quality time with my wonderful roommates and their kittens. I attended a conference at UQAM for two weeks in early July which only solidified my distaste for scientific academicism, Psychology especially. On the flip-side it reinforced my interest in philosophy and computers (though not necessarily computer science). I felt like August was a waste of a month. While I got an A+ and Calculus I, I don't feel comfortable sharing my grade for Calculus II. The summer ended with a dreamlike trip to Nantucket. I reconnected with my loving friends and rejuvenated in the atmosphere of my forever-home. I came back to Montreal, moved into a room in an upscale apartment in a building called the "Pickwick Arms", and school reared its head at me. Overall I was disappointed with my lethargy and I felt unprepared for the semester ahead when it ended.
Fall
The next four months can best be described as hell. I broke up with L and then we got back together without really resolving some issues. I took two computer science classes which for the most part ruined my life. I worked on an interesting installation with the TML, but my code was broken at runtime both in Montreal and Shanghai (not completely my fault, but it still feels shitty). I wasted money, didn't take advantage of my classes, and merely subsisted. It was much like high school, an utter shame.
My living situation was, however, odd and surprisingly enriching. I moved in with clearly the smartest and most knowledgeable person I've ever met: a somewhat elderly, Austrian, Jewish, retired architect with obsessive tendencies. The night of my first day there, we sat and talked over his $6,000 dining-room table for about six hours straight. Every week from then on this man gave me pointed criticisms and nuggets of advice that completely blew my mind. More generally, he exposed me to a value set to which I've had little exposure: that of the aristocracy. There's so much to say and I'm getting tired. I'm still living with him as of January 2009 and, while it's a bit like living with parents, I feel like I continue to learn and grow in ways I wouldn't have expected to here.
Winter
Then the semester ended, slowly and disappointingly. The only good thing that happened in December was that L and I resolved our issues, made some commitments and grew closer than ever. This was another major catharsis, but it's not something I want to share with the world.
Christmas was ok. Relaxing. I didn't do as much reading as I wanted to. I got exactly what I wanted from my nuclear family (materially). I spent some wonderful time with extended family. I hugged all of my beloved friends whose social mileu is largely the same as it was when I left. I didn't see them as much as I wanted to though, and many of them disappointed me.
I was snowed in at my grandparent's house for New Years. We ate lamb, watched a symphony, then the ball-drop. The next day I spent time with relatives in outer-Boston. Then I got a ride to Burlington with a biology graduate with whom I discussed environmental policy and liberal bias. I waited in the Burlington bus "terminal" for three hours and found myself so excited to be back home. I fell asleep with warm breath on my neck.
(Well that turned out to be more of a review than a reflection.) 2008, a year of learning what not to do, is over.
I would like to review some of the major events of this 2008. But first, let's revisit last year's summary:
I was in the process of filling out an 'in reflection of 2007' meme and, in reflection, I stopped.
It's been a long year and an overwhelming amount of...life-stuff has passed. Aesthetics, relationships, epiphanies.
Questions of the form 'what was the one thing x..." seem unanswerable. There are forty songs associated with this year; few, weak, memorable moments, many more types of experience, 'aesthetic signatures' (how do I stop over-using "aesthetic"?); scores of epiphanies; uncountable (either because there were many or zero) excitements; no general trends (except broadening).
And, I can't seem to be proud of a single accomplishment. A year of branching and fortifying went by and, again, nothing got done. That's how I feel.
I'm afraid that it will, again, be futile to declare "stop procrastinating" at 12am. I'm afraid that I'm destined to play the strengths that have come of my amorphous, conflicted way of life.
Is it worth another shot for self-discipline?
The answer to the question at the time was yes. And I gave it one. Much of this year felt just as amorphous and conflicted as the last, but this time I have discrete katharses to reflect upon.
The year began with my second semester of university. Earlier in December I had interviewed at Bard where I planned to transfer. Somewhere in January I planned to write my application. The previous semester had been lonely and disappointing, though I didn't expect much. The environment was clearly wrong for me in many ways. Plus the girl that I loved lived a city away, in a city where I had dreamed of living from an early age. Montreal was overstimulating, underwhelming and heartbreaking. I needed to get out.
But in early January I decided to stay. Why did I do that? I don't know, let's see:
* Classes are inconsistent, but I've discovered that if I shop around, send emails to the right people, and leverage the powers of friends in high places, I can avoid the pot-holes and build a decent, or even exceptional educational experience, between the Liberal Arts College, CS, Computation Arts, Philosophy, the Science College, Psychology, and (even) McGill.
* I have friends in high places already and the kind of research involvement that I won't find anywhere else. This will be more valuable than anything else when it comes time to apply to graduate schools.
* The facilities here, for fine-art and CS, are state of the art; especially because of my involvement with the TML (Hexagram!)
* I can take classes in the summer (and do research concurrently). This means I'll finish my degree faster and I'll get to spend the summer in an amazing city doing something I love.
* Sure, I'm not impressed with the program, but nowhere else will I find such a large quantity of students studying "computation art" (or media art or whatever) and computer science concurrently.
* Montreal 0wnz. Plus it's a digital art hotbed. There's nowhere I'd rather go to school.
* I'll be saving, I don't know, say, 50 to 80 thousand dollars. I'd rather not have to pick up a programming job for 3 years just to pay for graduate school. Debt sucks.
In short: (1) If I'm smart I can build the kind of education I want (2) mad connexions (3) infinite access to sweet gear (4) year-round research position at the coolest lab ever (5) huge community to draw from (6) $$$.
In hindsight, I see that what I didn't admit to myself was that my decision was only partly rational. While I had a list of reasons to stay, I had a comparable list of reasons to leave. My roommate has criticized me for this, but most big decisions I make are colored strongly by how I feel (and my imagination). My decision to stay was influenced greatly by two emotional factors that added up, perhaps, to an emotional shift:
1. I was given a wonderful job and I did well on my first project. Along with this came something I needed desperately: respect. Respect is hard to turn down in exchange for uncertainty.
2. I met somebody who I got along with better than anybody I'd known ever before (and still). This somebody happened to be a girl: poison for a long distance relationship (not because I planned on starting a relationship; such an encounter simply expands your imagination for what's possible).
Feeling loved, or the potential for feeling loved, in Montreal for the first time in, well, only three months, drastically shifted my vantage point and allowed me to construct the list of rationals listed above. It allowed me to envision a beautiful future and to retire my worn rationals of old. It also allowed me to do something terrible: be lazy. Any plan that includes me not writing a college application gets bonus points automatically.
Spring
I made this decision fairly quickly and once it was made, it was like I had flicked a light switch. Another cathartic event would be needed to move it back into the 1 position. I had devoted myself to Montreal. This lead too naturally into my next major decision: to end the wonderful (primarily long-distance) relationship I was in that had stretched over ~2 years by then. Thinking back, it wasn't much of a decision. At the time that I broached the subject, I meant merely to broach it. The reasoning was simple: 'I've decided to stay in Montreal for the next 3-4 years, am I up for a long-term long distance relationship?' But I've since learned, having been through two such situations, that once the topic is brought up, the relationship crumbles readily. The aforementioned 'poison' and my feelings at the time lead to a quicker crumbling than I was expecting. I found myself in mid-January single for the first time in awhile.
It didn't last long. Meetings with aforementioned "somebody" quickly became all-day affairs where warm words poured from our mouths and noses continuously until a few hours after we were willing to stay up. I'd shed my significant other, she shed hers, and our relationship eased gradually over months from a best-friendship into a full-blown relationship. It was good.
Otherwise the semester went well. I got top marks except for a retaken math course, enjoyed my classes, and at the lab we completed two major production (as opposed to purely research) projects in which I played a significant role. Though, I found this quote to be quite true about school that semester:
"...I would still defend my early description of the life of the lower-division student as, perforce, that of a distracted intellectual juggler."
- A Venture in Educational Reform by Joseph Tussman
Summer
School ended and I decided to stay in Montreal for the summer. L was to head back to Calgary leaving me with what few friends were staying (none, really). I planned to move into the apartment of my dreams and the deal fell through the day before I was to move. So, I slept on a friend's couch for the summer until September 1st. In June I participated in a two week workshop with fellow TML associates and apprentices. We produced two beautiful dance pieces that can be found recorded under the heading "Movement+Media Research" here: http://www.topologicalmedialab.net/joomla/main/content/blogsection/9/75/lang,en/
I also started Calculus I. After the workshop was finished, I found myself remarkably free, with one class and a casual research project at the TML. Unfortunately I didn't take advantage of my freedom really. I did my best to meet as many young people as possible, going to interesting shows and parties. I found myself often with a group of McGill kids and I felt my way through their social network. I spent a lot of quality time with my wonderful roommates and their kittens. I attended a conference at UQAM for two weeks in early July which only solidified my distaste for scientific academicism, Psychology especially. On the flip-side it reinforced my interest in philosophy and computers (though not necessarily computer science). I felt like August was a waste of a month. While I got an A+ and Calculus I, I don't feel comfortable sharing my grade for Calculus II. The summer ended with a dreamlike trip to Nantucket. I reconnected with my loving friends and rejuvenated in the atmosphere of my forever-home. I came back to Montreal, moved into a room in an upscale apartment in a building called the "Pickwick Arms", and school reared its head at me. Overall I was disappointed with my lethargy and I felt unprepared for the semester ahead when it ended.
Fall
The next four months can best be described as hell. I broke up with L and then we got back together without really resolving some issues. I took two computer science classes which for the most part ruined my life. I worked on an interesting installation with the TML, but my code was broken at runtime both in Montreal and Shanghai (not completely my fault, but it still feels shitty). I wasted money, didn't take advantage of my classes, and merely subsisted. It was much like high school, an utter shame.
My living situation was, however, odd and surprisingly enriching. I moved in with clearly the smartest and most knowledgeable person I've ever met: a somewhat elderly, Austrian, Jewish, retired architect with obsessive tendencies. The night of my first day there, we sat and talked over his $6,000 dining-room table for about six hours straight. Every week from then on this man gave me pointed criticisms and nuggets of advice that completely blew my mind. More generally, he exposed me to a value set to which I've had little exposure: that of the aristocracy. There's so much to say and I'm getting tired. I'm still living with him as of January 2009 and, while it's a bit like living with parents, I feel like I continue to learn and grow in ways I wouldn't have expected to here.
Winter
Then the semester ended, slowly and disappointingly. The only good thing that happened in December was that L and I resolved our issues, made some commitments and grew closer than ever. This was another major catharsis, but it's not something I want to share with the world.
Christmas was ok. Relaxing. I didn't do as much reading as I wanted to. I got exactly what I wanted from my nuclear family (materially). I spent some wonderful time with extended family. I hugged all of my beloved friends whose social mileu is largely the same as it was when I left. I didn't see them as much as I wanted to though, and many of them disappointed me.
I was snowed in at my grandparent's house for New Years. We ate lamb, watched a symphony, then the ball-drop. The next day I spent time with relatives in outer-Boston. Then I got a ride to Burlington with a biology graduate with whom I discussed environmental policy and liberal bias. I waited in the Burlington bus "terminal" for three hours and found myself so excited to be back home. I fell asleep with warm breath on my neck.
(Well that turned out to be more of a review than a reflection.) 2008, a year of learning what not to do, is over.