Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
ahaha this brings up an interesting point.
It seems in our society (at least from my observation) that holding pride for one’s ethnicity is ok unless you’re White.
x) I just think its kinda funny… not really a big deal to me.
notice, though, how it’s not racist if you replace it with “Irish” and then replace “race” with “ethnicity.”
It’s not identifying as belonging to an ethnic group that people see as “white” that’s the problem, it’s the concept of whiteness itself.
(Source: iraffiruse)
While cleaning up my desk, I found this poem(?) I wrote(?). Apparently our entire Korean class last spring wrote a poem about “삶이 그대를 속다”(?) Yeah, I’m not totally sure what was going on(?)…
삶이 그대를 속여도
불평하지마!
고통의 날을 견디면
기쁨의 날이 올거야!
마음들 미래에 살아.
슬픔은 끝이 있어
갑자기 없어져서
기쁨이 남을 거야!
It doesn’t seem very poetic to me, though.
Into the Distance
I really regret not posting this (my first art project here at Cal) earlier.
There’s so many stories behind this painting…
Excitement
I walked down a street I walk down all the time, so I was just walking and not really thinking. (But I think that if I were thinking, I’d be thinking “hey this street is boring, I’ve seen it before a million times.”) Suddenly, though, I looked at some words on a sign, and realized that I haven’t actually seen those words there before, even though I know that they’ve always been there, and then the street became exciting, again.
When you’ve been somewhere (or known someone, or eaten something) for a while, it’s hard not to think that you’ve seen everything there is to see, already, so everything just becomes less exciting. But that’s totally wrong.
Seriously, why would I even have let myself think I’ve seen everything there is to see? I should be excited to see things, even things I’ve seen a lot, as if it were my first time seeing them, because really, it is.
Buddhist Psychology
and my mind has already been repeatedly blown on so many levels.
Because, really, why does this class even exist? It’s because (rich, white) Americans found meditation to be stylish (exotic and Eastern, ready to be re-discovered), so psychologists decided to study this thing. And then no one took the first papers describing the effects of meditation seriously, anyways.
Because, really, why did I doubt this class could exist? Obviously, if you’re doing anything related to thought, you’re doing something psychology-related.
Because, really, why is it easier for me to understand and accept it when there’s science mixed in than when there isn’t?
Because, really, why am I more curious and excited to find out about how the professor decided to teach this material than about the material itself?
Because, really, why am I so bad at keeping up with friends, but still manage to run into them randomly, and then everything’s OK?
Because, really, when am I finally going to get it, that everything’s related, even when it seems like it’s not?
It’s just the excitement from the first day, isn’t it? Then it’s just going to be part of the everyday, something dull and meh.
I hope not.
I hate it when I write a post and then realize that the post is actually stupid so I start hating myself and then delete the post-in-progress.
Maybe I should write posts about why I thought I was stupid instead of just deleting them entirely…
Last day in the media lab.
I’m going to miss having all these Macs I can use with their hugs monitors and scanners and tablets and Internet access and cool editing software… but not so much the stress from always running up against deadlines…
Catching the Big Fish
It can be difficult trying to catch that big fish. Sometimes, though, the big fish just flies right at you.
-Vincent Yin
Now in HD!
Mixed
This project represents the weird things that happen when something that should come so naturally, one’s own ethnicity, just doesn’t. Instead of being assigned an ethnicity based on the ethnicity of one’s parents, people of mixed descent have the dubious privilege of being able to construct a new ethnicity. But this idea of constructing one’s own ethnicity applies to all people, not just those of mixed descent, as ethnicity isn’t something that exists in a vacuum, but is influenced by other people and society as a whole.
-Vincent Yin
Smartphonemania
This piece explores the evolution of communication and daily behavior of people caused by the incorporation of cellular phones, and more so smart phones, into their lives. Cell phones affected how people interact with each other, how they make decisions, how they find information, how they spend their time, and how they get by in their daily lives. Seeing how influential this device is, we thought it would be useful to actually analyze how this device is affecting our lives. Though we cannot say if it has a negative or positive influence, we can say it causes a unique dependency and obsession. Perhaps we should spend more time looking at how such a small device has immensely affected our lives.
-Rich Nam, Melissa Yoo, Vincent Yin
so embarrassing…
