On Not Sleeping

You know what sucks? Forgetting that, in your rush to get over to band rehearsal, you managed to completely not post a blog or even finish. Luckily, you woke up at three-something-in-the-morning, so you could write! Right?

Wrong. At three-something-in-the-morning, my brain was not properly functioning, and I was in a half asleep, half awake fog until six when I finally started to re-join reality and took a shower. And so the usual morning business started. Waking my brother up, feeding the dog, re-waking my brother up because he hadn't really woken up and was still dead in bed, eating breakfast, forgetting the dog outside, realising that my phone battery was nearly dead and thus plugging it in, telling my brother for the umpteenth time that lying in bed grumbling at me does not count as being "up," reading a book for a 10-page paper I need to write tonight and finish tomorrow night, making lesson plans in my head, checking my email, and then suddenly realising that, oh shoot, I never posted a blog!

That's my Tuesday so far. Pretty typical, minus waking up at three-something-in-the-morning; my body usually wakes me up right at sunrise, but with the gloomy weather we've been having, my body is terrified of accidentally sleeping in and has now moved to waking me up incredibly early after my not going to bed at a "decent hour". I have to get back to going to bed before midnight at the earliest. It's always one excuse after another though.

Last night, it was my brother wandering into the family room (where the computer I generally use is), sneaking onto the couch, and then breaking down into crying. It was well past his bedtime. So I sat down next to the couch and started talking to him to find out what was wrong. Apparently, his 10-year-old mind had come to the conclusion that, "The world is going to end," and this was just the worst thing imaginable. Obviously, he couldn't sleep.

It's actually pretty common that he gets up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. As I laid in bed last night to sleep, my mind wouldn't shut down either, and I could not, for the life of me, get to sleep for sometime. I can't assure him that he'll be able to sleep easily in the future, because I've always gotten little sleep, and I hear it from those older than me all the time about not sleeping. Babies can't even sleep through the night. For some reason, we humans, at least in our society, can't sleep all night unless we completely exhaust ourselves and have no choice but passing out like we're dead.

I like passing out like I'm dead. I generally sleep quite well, despite not getting to bed at that magical "decent hour" we idolise and still getting up as the sun rises, because I'm always so exhausted, that I'm out like a rock whenever I sleep. My body is like, "Screw it, I'm exhausted. Let's just be dead for awhile, yeah?" It's a really good actor too.

My brother finally went to sleep after a long talk about science and life and religion and race and the Middle East and earthquakes and New Orleans and Where the Wild Berries Grow. He loves to tell me ideas he has for the play, and he gave me a few good ones last night. I really have to wonder sometimes whether he's really going to be a lawyer like he claims; his mind is too thrilled by physically creating things, just like mine. We'll see. Once we get enough sleep.

England, Zubetube, and Other Spontaneity

And then, after I was so excited about Dance Hour, I didn't have time. Two days in a row. It's been a hectic two days in a row. Full of lots of not very much.

I jest, of course. I woke up Saturday with this strange urge to be important. I threw on the flashiest clothes I had (literally the flashiest; my shirt was covered in sequins. Yeeeaaah.), put on some make-up (hard to believe, I know), and topped it off with new shoes. Nose in the air, I walked to a yard sale near my house, looked at the items with disdain, and walked away, muttering about "Community Outreach." I'm sure everyone there was QUITE impressed with my apparent fame, fortune, and sheer importance. And British accent too, of course.

That, of course, was not enough. I grabbed my phone, called a few friends (they never answer their phones, bastards!), and eventually reached my friend Frank. "Okay, so I know this sounds weird, but I want to walk around and pretend to be famous." I was met with the expected amusement, but he agreed to fake importance with me, and we ended up wandering the outdoor mall/Old Town in our (not so) little Los Angeles suburb, British accents and everything.

Funniest. Day. Ever. We had full-on characters. I was quite the famous figure in England apparently, and Frank was apparently a rather uninformed underwear model. My publicist sent me to America and instructed me to act like a common person, the nerve! "The English have the right of way in America!" I exclaimed once, crossing the street and yelling about the terrible driving in this country.

And then we wandered into the music store. (Yeah, that one that's underground! It's awesome.) Frank the underwear model, apparently, knew nothing of music, and Elizabeth the super rich and famous knew everything and had done everything.

And then we found, wait for it . . . the ZUBETUBE!!! Coolest instrument EVER. "The ultimate cosmic sound machine." No kidding. After debating about totally how awesome it would be for our "space album" (more to come on that later!), we asked the price (under $15!), decided to split the cost, and bought the coolest instrument ever. I think I'll just have to do an entire post on the ZubeTube soon. It's amazing.

After that, I didn't get home until the AM, just running around, acting silly (boy do I have stories too!), and then I spent today doing all sorts of mundane things like copying CD after CD first onto the computer and then onto my phone. Check out the band Simply Red. Old 80s band; I just found their CD and decided I love them.

Even without Dance Hour, I managed to dance around a whole lot this weekend, from tap dancing to street musicians, to ridiculous dance offs, to jumping around the kitchen with my little brother.

Dance Hour

When I promised a whole HOUR of dancing a day, I thought to myself, "Backspace! Backspace! Backspace!!! That's crazy talk!" I was right. Dancing for a whole hour on a daily basis is crazy. But crazy is not synonymous with bad.

My first official "Dance Hour" (as I am henceforth referring to it as) was crazy. I turned on the TV, found the wonderful music channels (which I discovered when my family was running around in Italy or Germany or Spain or whatever cool place I couldn't go), turned up the volume, and set to work moving all the furniture out of my way. Couches, chairs, beanbags, tables, little brother's junk, etc. At last, I had a big open area to dance in. I grabbed my phone, started the stopwatch, and danced.

Within fifteen minutes, I was ready to be done. I was tired, out of breath, sweaty, and embarrassed by my own dancing. But I had promised an hour. So I kept dancing, looking like a very exhausted, stinky, untalented fool.

I don't know when it happened, but I stopped caring about the time. I was having way too much fun dancing and listening to all the music, and I was starting to like how sweaty I was getting. The hour was up, but I didn't bother to check my phone to see. I danced for more than just an hour, and when I finally had to move all the furniture back, I wished I could just keep dancing. It was crazy fun.

I woke up sore today. And not the ache-y back, cramped neck, body full of some serious tension sore. It was the worked hard, had some fun, body rejoicing sore. With some old aches and cramps mixed in, but not as prevalent. Less tension and restless sleep, more relaxation and comfortable sleep.

I love dancing.

P.S. I have some video clips, but my brother has the cord somewhere, and I've no idea where. If/when I find it, I'll put up some embarrassing video.

Rate Your Brother

My brother made me a "best sister" pin. It's adorable. He is the best brother ever.

But let's talk about RateMyProfessors.com. The concept is horrifying. Really. The idea of "rating" people just sounds like the perfect chance for people to be absolutely stupid and rude, and their poor, hard-working professors (most of which are actually human, I assure you) are the victims. It is the perfect chance for people to trash-talk their professors and show a whole lot of disrespect.

So when I found how useful the feedback from students was, I was amazed. It turns out that, while there are some of the expected "TH1S TEECHR SUXXXX!!!" sorts of posts (none that horrifying for any of the professors at my school, thankfully), the majority of the "ratings" are from civilised people who have made the connection between the intangibility of the internet and physical reality. The feedback students gave is actually useful: many students seem to be aware that no class is for everyone, and there is a lot of information from students as to how the professor runs the class and what kind of people would do well (or not) in it.

What was, to me, most interesting though, was seeing how a professor has changed. One professor in particular had a lot of negative feedback a few years ago, many students mentioning how moody and hard to communicate with s/he had been. Slowly, as I went backwards through the ratings (the oldest are on the last page), they got better. Students started to leave much more positive feedback, and the complaints of moodiness became less and less frequent until pretty much all the reviews were positive. It was amazing. Proof that people change, right there on some silly professor-rating website.

I like to think that's sort of how my feedback would look, if I had a "rate your Elizabeth" site. Lots of complaints of moodiness and irritability years ago, but progressing in the positive direction. I'm not sure about old feedback (Who knows, maybe I was nicer than I remember? People from my early childhood seem to remember me as nice, despite what I remember myself as), but I think that "best sister" pin says a lot. There may not have been much competition, but I don't think he would have made one for a mediocre sister. He may be sweet, but he's brutally honest.

If someone ever makes a "Rate Your Brother" site, my brother gets a perfect score.

The Technological Age

The interview went quite well! And, more importantly, my unpaid internship is now a soon-to-be-paying job. THANK GOD. Funny thing about college: it costs money!

Anyway, this whole social networking phenomenon is incredible. The way in which we connect and communicate has changed so dramatically in just a few short years, and it's continuing to change even more dramatically. The idea of "privacy" seems to be vanishing at an exponential rate. All you have to do is read someone's Twitter or Facebook, and BAM! You know everything you never wanted to know.

And while our society evolves so rapidly, our brains don't. Long, long ago, we learned that "real" things are the things we can physically sense. It worked. But now we've created this second reality, and it's not instinctive to connect this second reality to the physical reality we know.

People act differently on the internet than in person. Our brains don't connect what we see on our computer screens to the people we know in reality. Nor do we seem to connect that the things we put on that computer screen are travelling through intangible space to the people in reality. It is literally like a second life.

We say whatever we want on the internet. If it comes to our mind, we say it. The results of our online actions are not direct and therefore harder for our brain to connect. It's not like it can't; our brains are amazingly powerful, and are the reason we have such amazing technologies.

There is no self-control on the internet. And now, as the internet becomes our primary means of communication, we are losing self-control in our communication. I wouldn't blame anyone for feeling misanthropic after a few minutes on some of the nastier parts of the internet.

But technology hasn't just turned us into rampaging monkeys with no self-control (sorry monkeys!). Technology has suddenly turned everyone into a "photographer" or "musician" or something. Even people with no budget can create just about anything now it seems.

Case 1: My little brother's toys were all over the staircase today, and when they were nearly pushed aside by an unhappy foot, he wailed, "But I'm doing a shoot!!" Apparently, he's working on some stop animation movies. I'm a little worried that the (future) lawyer in the family is doing more filmmaking than the filmmaker (and the filmmaker is doing much more legal business than him, but he's only a kid, after all).

But on the other hand, people seem to think that having the equipment for something makes them a professional. Newsflash!: Taking a picture of a flower with your camera phone does not make you a photographer, like microwaving leftovers does not make you a cook, like amusing your carpet does not make you funny, like copy and paste does not make you a writer, like AutoTune does not make you a singer, like owning a car does not make you a race car driver, like being on stage does not make you an actor, like nice clothes do not make you nice, like matching your outfit does not make you a fashion designer, like owning a surfboard does not make you a surfer, like never giving more than your 18% of effort for something does not make you cool.

It really irritates me when people call themselves "photographers" after taking one poorly-lit, mediocre picture of a flower in their backyard. Worse, when they take 30 of these, and there's nearly no difference between the pictures. Photography, like all art, is not simply re-iteration; something has to happen between when the artist first takes in the information and when they share it with others. It requires thought and feeling and emotion.

If you want to be a photographer (or anything, this is just my example because I just happened to read someone claim to be a photographer on Facebook with unexciting pictures of flowers), you can. REALLY. You just have to want it. You have to work, have to fight, have to learn.

And that's what excites me and scares me more than anything about the internet and technology: how accessible learning is becoming-- and how easy it is becoming to "function" without ever learning.