"Life in a Day" is a project by Kevin Macdonald, in which the millions of YouTube viewers filmed some aspect of their lives for the 24 hours of July 24, 2010. Kevin and his team will edit these thousands of pieces of raw footage into a feature film documentary, to premiere at Sundance 2011.
I participated! Here is the link to my channel on YouTube where you can find the videos. There are seven, each starting with "Life in a Day".
http://www.youtube.com/user/stupidjaguar7#p/u
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Dichotomy
Sometimes I think I am influenced incredibly by strange dichotomies.
I love technology. There is no denying this. Gadgets and computers are the wonders of human civilization, evidence that mankind can reason so deeply and leap forward unimaginably to accomplish great feats. But I also love the methods of old. There is no denying this, either. Paper, ink, wood houses, books, fire lamps, horses... simply hold a beautiful fascination for me that digital things and technological marvels cannot. Imagine the poetic appeal of correspondence by letters: sitting at a writing-desk, burning an oil lamp, writing with a fountain pen a letter to a distant correspondent, knowing it would be weeks before a response was received, and yet calmly patient. Such letters span years... and letters of famous men have been published. Sending an email or IM and receiving an instantaneous response, quick quick quick, everything blazing by, even if it is at your fingertips... just doesn't hold the same magic.
I love science. The power of analysis! The great accomplishment of mankind, the ability to reason and understand the natural world with only logic to guide us! Even better, math... the purest of all sciences, based not on experiment, as all other natural sciences are, but on the full force of the human imagination. The sciences are as pure and crisp and black and white as one needs them to be. It is solid, it is clean, it is the most structured way to understand the universe. And yet... I love art, specifically music. Born into a musical family, my heart and mind pulse with melodies and rhythm, an internal fire that fuels my soul. Distinctions can be minutely subtle, blending, moving freely and colorfully. No science can describe what the mind experiences when it hears music. For aestheticism is not a science... and I know that I appreciate beauty, natural beauty of water and forests and landscapes, and musical beauty of a spiritual and cosmic quality.
In each, one can see the Scientist, or Analyst; or the Poet, or Romantic.
As a final thought... great moments arise when the two forces experience synergy. For beauty is inherent in the most elegant and practical and simple proofs, the charm and cleanliness of a solution. And mathematical precision and symmetry lends immaculate beauty to any art or music piece. Perhaps, then, the ruling power is Beauty... beauty in analysis of the universe, beauty in coloring it expressively.
I love technology. There is no denying this. Gadgets and computers are the wonders of human civilization, evidence that mankind can reason so deeply and leap forward unimaginably to accomplish great feats. But I also love the methods of old. There is no denying this, either. Paper, ink, wood houses, books, fire lamps, horses... simply hold a beautiful fascination for me that digital things and technological marvels cannot. Imagine the poetic appeal of correspondence by letters: sitting at a writing-desk, burning an oil lamp, writing with a fountain pen a letter to a distant correspondent, knowing it would be weeks before a response was received, and yet calmly patient. Such letters span years... and letters of famous men have been published. Sending an email or IM and receiving an instantaneous response, quick quick quick, everything blazing by, even if it is at your fingertips... just doesn't hold the same magic.
I love science. The power of analysis! The great accomplishment of mankind, the ability to reason and understand the natural world with only logic to guide us! Even better, math... the purest of all sciences, based not on experiment, as all other natural sciences are, but on the full force of the human imagination. The sciences are as pure and crisp and black and white as one needs them to be. It is solid, it is clean, it is the most structured way to understand the universe. And yet... I love art, specifically music. Born into a musical family, my heart and mind pulse with melodies and rhythm, an internal fire that fuels my soul. Distinctions can be minutely subtle, blending, moving freely and colorfully. No science can describe what the mind experiences when it hears music. For aestheticism is not a science... and I know that I appreciate beauty, natural beauty of water and forests and landscapes, and musical beauty of a spiritual and cosmic quality.
In each, one can see the Scientist, or Analyst; or the Poet, or Romantic.
As a final thought... great moments arise when the two forces experience synergy. For beauty is inherent in the most elegant and practical and simple proofs, the charm and cleanliness of a solution. And mathematical precision and symmetry lends immaculate beauty to any art or music piece. Perhaps, then, the ruling power is Beauty... beauty in analysis of the universe, beauty in coloring it expressively.
Monday, July 5, 2010
I'm ready for some adventure
I want to take off somewhere, see the world, leave things behind, if only for a short while.
I want to travel, view the vistas of centuries old and those untouched by man.
I want an experience like I've never experienced before... I want to DO something.
I want to travel, view the vistas of centuries old and those untouched by man.
I want an experience like I've never experienced before... I want to DO something.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Dream, Part 3
Fox has a show called Lie to Me. It's an awesome show, about a man who, based on microexpressions that last for a fraction of a second, and other psychological techniques, can tell if someone is lying or not, or in general their emotions. It doesn't look like it has a lot of viewers, but I have high hopes for its survival. I really like the opening theme song, a modified version of "Brand New Day" by Ryan Star. It starts with the word "dream".
Lie to Me opening theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJO2bj7Cmw
- - - - - - -
Chorus from "Brand New Day" by Ryan Star
Dream
Send me a sign
Turn back the clock
Give me some time
I need to break out
And make a new name
Let's open our eyes
To the brand new day
It's a brand new day
Lie to Me opening theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJO2bj7Cmw
- - - - - - -
Chorus from "Brand New Day" by Ryan Star
Dream
Send me a sign
Turn back the clock
Give me some time
I need to break out
And make a new name
Let's open our eyes
To the brand new day
It's a brand new day
Dream, Part 2
In junior year of high school, I took a class called 3D Modeling and Animation. One of the programs we learned to use was free, called Blender 3D. I still use it because it's very useful. We also learned to use iClone, another modeling software, and CrazyTalk, a program that animates pictures to talk.
Someone named Tom Jantol made a well-known CrazyTalk montage using the following poem ("I Am"). We were supposed to create something similar. I made a video using Wesnoth pictures and John Keats's sonnet, "The Human Seasons". My teacher, Mizzy, sent it to Tom, and Mizzy passed along his response to me. I've grown very attached to both poems.
Blender 3D: http://www.blender.org
Battle for Wesnoth: http://www.wesnoth.org
"I Am": http://www.bartleby.com/101/621.html
Tom's video using "I Am": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZbLn4tBns0
"The Human Seasons": http://www.bartleby.com/41/539.html
My video using "The Human Seasons": http://www.youtube.com/user/stupidjaguar7#p/u/14/B4b4W70MeTw
I included the poems and Tom's response.
- - - - - - -
"Written in Northampton County Asylum", by John Clare
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that 's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
- - - - - - -
"The Human Seasons", by John Keats
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
- - - - - - -
Tom's response:
Someone named Tom Jantol made a well-known CrazyTalk montage using the following poem ("I Am"). We were supposed to create something similar. I made a video using Wesnoth pictures and John Keats's sonnet, "The Human Seasons". My teacher, Mizzy, sent it to Tom, and Mizzy passed along his response to me. I've grown very attached to both poems.
Blender 3D: http://www.blender.org
Battle for Wesnoth: http://www.wesnoth.org
"I Am": http://www.bartleby.com/101/621.html
Tom's video using "I Am": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZbLn4tBns0
"The Human Seasons": http://www.bartleby.com/41/539.html
My video using "The Human Seasons": http://www.youtube.com/user/stupidjaguar7#p/u/14/B4b4W70MeTw
I included the poems and Tom's response.
- - - - - - -
"Written in Northampton County Asylum", by John Clare
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that 's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,—
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
- - - - - - -
"The Human Seasons", by John Keats
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
- - - - - - -
Tom's response:
Dream, Part 1
I wrote this on my dorm's lounge's chalkboard one day as I stared out the window, in early May, before dead week. The next day our health worker, who lived on our floor, came looking for the person who wrote it because she thought the author sounded lonely. I took a picture of it. Later, a friend from Dil Se asked me for it, since I had written "apparently I write emo poetry" as my status.
- - - - - - -
DREAM
I dream...
eyes wide open
thinking, feeling,
wondering
where all the other eyes are
I am alone
wind whips around me
people wander around me
neither touch me
everlasting, observing
lightning flashes
buildings topple
birds scream
I wait, watching
alone
Summer
sitting in the shade
a leaf floats gently down
touches water
ripples travel, then still
and
bliss
- - - - - - -
DREAM
I dream...
eyes wide open
thinking, feeling,
wondering
where all the other eyes are
I am alone
wind whips around me
people wander around me
neither touch me
everlasting, observing
lightning flashes
buildings topple
birds scream
I wait, watching
alone
Summer
sitting in the shade
a leaf floats gently down
touches water
ripples travel, then still
and
bliss
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Book the First
In about a week, I will be finished with finals and finished with my freshman year of college. College, the best four years of a person's life, in which personal and mental growth is unbridled and infinite. College, the land of dreams and the land of opportunity, the hallowed halls of learning. Thus ends the first book in the four-part saga of me at college.
For that's what it should be. A saga, a legend. Even if I am the only one who ever wishes to sing my tale, these years, and years to come, must be epic, on the grandest of scales. These finishes must be climactic, lightning flashes, thunder claps, fireworks burst all around my head in a whirlwind of glory, and the 1812 Overture playing throughout.
Do I have any regrets? Perhaps. Perhaps I should have studied more and socialized less. Or perhaps I should have studied less and socialized more. Perhaps I should have focused less on my flaws and walked the streets of Berkeley more confidently. Or perhaps I should have focused more on my flaws and observed why my flaws effect people to behave towards me as they do. Perhaps I should have focused more on forging unbreakable bonds between people. Or perhaps I should have worried less about making them.
Do I have contentment? Absolutely. I walked into Berkeley and into a sea of vibrancy such that I had never seen before, in environment, in academics, in personalities, and in thought. I joined Dil Se and discovered Indian people, the next generation, united in singing and music, and I broadened the scope of my skill. I discovered great friendship, great closeness, of a magnitude previously unknown to me. I refined my philosophies and trained my mind; I pondered and pursued and talked and traveled. I was responsible for myself and relished the freedom, the exhilaration of being solely in control of many aspects of my life. My world blossomed with a kind of harmony I dreamed of, a beautiful symmetry and order within the blissful chaos.
Here, poised precariously as I am on the threshold of the end of my first year and the beginning of the next - which will bring greater knowledge, a summer unlike any I've seen yet, new faces, and new knowledge - I pause, briefly, to think, consider, breathe, take in my surroundings.
That, friends, is freshman year.
For that's what it should be. A saga, a legend. Even if I am the only one who ever wishes to sing my tale, these years, and years to come, must be epic, on the grandest of scales. These finishes must be climactic, lightning flashes, thunder claps, fireworks burst all around my head in a whirlwind of glory, and the 1812 Overture playing throughout.
Do I have any regrets? Perhaps. Perhaps I should have studied more and socialized less. Or perhaps I should have studied less and socialized more. Perhaps I should have focused less on my flaws and walked the streets of Berkeley more confidently. Or perhaps I should have focused more on my flaws and observed why my flaws effect people to behave towards me as they do. Perhaps I should have focused more on forging unbreakable bonds between people. Or perhaps I should have worried less about making them.
Do I have contentment? Absolutely. I walked into Berkeley and into a sea of vibrancy such that I had never seen before, in environment, in academics, in personalities, and in thought. I joined Dil Se and discovered Indian people, the next generation, united in singing and music, and I broadened the scope of my skill. I discovered great friendship, great closeness, of a magnitude previously unknown to me. I refined my philosophies and trained my mind; I pondered and pursued and talked and traveled. I was responsible for myself and relished the freedom, the exhilaration of being solely in control of many aspects of my life. My world blossomed with a kind of harmony I dreamed of, a beautiful symmetry and order within the blissful chaos.
Here, poised precariously as I am on the threshold of the end of my first year and the beginning of the next - which will bring greater knowledge, a summer unlike any I've seen yet, new faces, and new knowledge - I pause, briefly, to think, consider, breathe, take in my surroundings.
That, friends, is freshman year.
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