Stretching myself to theory

Watching the video from the last post, I was going over my blog. Basically I did a lot of house keeping and redesign work. While fiddling with things, I realized that I hadn't posted any really heavy analysis in a little while.

I though it would be instructive to delve a little deeper into the reasons why I have stepped away from the really challenging work that I was doing on this blog around feminism and developing my own analysis.

Theory Production

Lots of reading, research, and revision goes into the heavy theory posts that I write. Usually my theory posts are a reaction to a new idea that I encountered, some type of writing or experience that really challenged my thinking process.

Constantly challenging the assumptions you have about the world and how the world works - this is difficult and draining work. Especially since much of the theory that I focus on is about how oppression acts, how political power is perpetuated. I think academic environments, we fail to address the emotional labor and drain that goes into good theory production. Often, part of our traditional (patriarchal) academic training is to ignore our instincts and emotions around abuse or the mishandling of power.



Do you really think that the 3.022 lab professors would care that I came up with a great blog post about radical readings of Angela Davis?

If you ever read Mary Daly's work, you immediately become caught up in how much anger and passion she has infused into the writing. I was completely stunned and captivated to read an academic theory work, so very rich and heavy, that was also clever and burning. While I'm not nearly at that level of emotional development yet, I am constantly challenging myself to enact that labor, to engage passionately and fully with the world that I live in and the way people describe it.

Anthropological theory production, really good theory production, involves knowing and empathizing with people even when their circumstances may be remote. Requiring us, author and reader, to empathize with unknown joys and fears while mapping out the political realities : that's the type of theory that pushes me to write at my very best. Feminist theory production for womanists involved knowing yourself and empathizing with the experiences of women who had never been given the space or recognition for their pain or triumph. Following these fore mother and fore sister's lead is a necessity for me; I'd be lost without the light of their hearts.

I just haven't been able to sit down and really engage in these forms of labor, especially knowing that I wouldn't receive validation from most of the world.

Myself: Known

I have instead been sitting down with myself. I've taken some time to really look at the goals and experiences that have brought me to this moment. Silently mulling over my past isn't what I'm describing.

I'm attempting to describe an active conversation with myself. When you stretch a canvas, you have to really know every inch of that canvas before you begin to transform it. Feeling out structural integrity and preparing support in myself is the foundation of producing theory for me. After learning about reflexivity, I realized that my own position and experiences can be the beginning of theory. Particularly as I learned about consciousness raising in second wave feminism, I realized that my life is a wealth of knowledge that has been lost to me.

Now, at 21, I'm feeling out all of the cracks in the painting, relearning the fundamentals of the original canvas from the deformations and shifts that time has given my experience. These cracks trace back to my political identity, how I have been recognized by others and how these reactions have shifted my own image.

Again, this is an active process. Even how I have learned to begin this process has changed my sense of self.

Survival as praxis

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Audre Lorde, A burst of light

With this background of learning myself all over again and recovering a passion and anger that so many women have had stymied, suddenly my tiredness makes sense.

Another reason I've taken a break from heavy theory is to simply take care of myself. Participating in emotional labor also means engaging in recovery, in self love, in love of others. I've been trying to really embrace a feeling of life, with my tiny kitty or my growing plants.

I've been enjoying the company of other women. I've been enjoying my own company. I've been enjoying how much I've already done and survived.

Taking this time means learning how to survive, looking back with a critical but proud eye to plan for the future.

Progress, Work, and Feedback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meAVI1WMs1g

So I just want to really draw out a few of these points since it is such a long video. There's something in the video that really resonated, seemed kind of important.

• Put in man hours
  
  
  
  • Sketch
  
  
  • Fundamentals
  
  
  • Broad & Deep
  
  
  • Beginning = Imitation
  
  
  
  


• Make bad art


• Progress is slow


• Progress requires taking risk
  
  
  
  • Risk leads to failure x 1,000
  
  
  • Risk leads to success x1
  
  
  • Persevere
  
  
  
  


• Consider audience
  
  
  
  • Connect with people
    
    
    
    • Beginning = fanart, pinup, etc. ready made audience
    
    
    • Must move to own new material
      
      
      
      • create audience
      
      
      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• Share your unique voice
  
  
  
  • Document progress
  
  
  • Communication : Voice
  
  
  
  


• Finale = Connection and Communication with Audience
  
  
  
  • Brand
  
  
  
  

A Tale of Two Kitties

For just a little while I had two kitties.

One of my friends needed someone to cat sit for her while she went home to visit her family at the start of the summer. I volunteered and, after a cat-date, I was approved to be a temporary cat momma.



The kitty is called Mitten. She's a funny little cat because she doesn't know how to meow. I like the think that she's the cat version of Marilyn Monroe - she kind of moan-sighs out all of her vocalizations. Mitten is just so teeny tiny!

Mitten got her name from her one pale paw. My friend says that she likes to play patty cake, but Mitten and I didn't get that far in our relationship.

Mitten and Prilla avoided each other during their first cat date. Once Mitten was dropped off at my apartment for the longer term, she explored the highest locations she could reach - the top of the fridge, my loft bed, and the sink counter. She settled in to her perch to scope out the land.



Mitten loved to take her morning nap burrowed into my blankets. I'd like to take this time to thank her for depositing so much cat hair in my bed. thank you, mitten.



Prilla pretended that she didn't know that anything had changed. New cat? What cat? She choose to simply lay about and lick herself as though no other cat was around. However, she made sure to keep a sly eye on Mitten - somehow Prilla managed to meander her lay downs to follow Mitten's explorations.

There were a few frantic chases around the apartment. No kitty was scratched, but hissing competitions started by Mitten devolved into Mitten retreating to the top of the refrigerator. Prilla's tail fluffed up so much when she's upset!

[caption id="attachment_778" align="alignnone" width="300"] Why does that cat have a snack? I should have the snack - I rub my face on waaaaay more stuff[/caption]



Another strange kitty thing was their battle over the litter box. One kitty would use the litter box and a few hours later, the other would need to 'update' their control of the litter container. Now I did have two litter boxes for them - my friend brought over Mitten's litter box. But the kitties weren't going to give up their poop fight; they chose to compete over just one.



Hanging out with another kitty is kind of refreshing. I realized what quirks are unique to Prilla. I also enjoyed the company of a more cuddle-friendly cat. Mitten loves to get her nose boop'd. I still love Prilla's long soft fur and tsundere ways. But I can see the appeal of a different type of kitty.

Although, I don't want to take a bath with either of them! Mitten, get down from there!

Spring Plant Growth

Look at all of the plants that I'm growing! I need to get a few more supports for my sunflower growings. I'm wondering how high these sunflowers will get.

The lavender plant has quite a lot of leaves coming off of it. I'm tempted to see if I can have some more clippings growing separately. Worrisome is that the woodiness is quite thick on most of the plant. I'm amazed by how sturdy the plant has become in the past year.

[caption id="attachment_745" align="alignnone" width="225"] Sunflower, rosemary, sage with spider plant babies[/caption]

I have an infinite number of spider plants. Infinite. 



My basil plant got really large, so I did some clippings of it. The leaves were so thick in some areas of the plant that they were going yellow. For these clippings, I might give those basil plants to friends or other people in my apartment. Basil plant clippings are really easy to grow. You can see the roots that came out in a few days.

[caption id="attachment_746" align="alignnone" width="225"] Basil clippings[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_748" align="alignnone" width="300"] Basil clippings with some roots growing[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_747" align="alignnone" width="225"] Basil[/caption]

I think that it's beautiful how thick and lovely these basil plants are now. The leaves are just delicious. I just take little chews of the plants to freshen my mouth. There's something spring like to the plants.

I also have sage plants. I really enjoy the smell and velvety feel of them. I've used them in savory dishes, like stews and roasts. They also smell great when being burned. I know some people find them to be quite medicinal, but I think they smell earthy.



So much of the earth is coming alive. I love walking around, grabbing honey suckle flowers or smelling gardens. Also, I'm trying to learn more about the plants local or common to the area. Many homes have these large orange flowers. I think that they're beautiful, very large and vibrant.

Hemerocallis fulva - Orange Day Lily (via go botany)

At the Go botany site you can read more about the plant, including the fact that you can eat the tepals!

Values and Alignments

So now that the semester has been done for quite a while, I've realized how much I got caught up in a kind of busy work and procrastination. And I'm trying to cut these activities out of my summer.

Daily work into Alignment

The reality of college life is that a lot of the work you do is still busy work. For example, in 3.022 we write lab reports in under a week on experiments that we complete in about 4 hours. Those experiments are obviously not ground breaking or unique. Rather, this work is a diminutive of the real work done in research. Purposefully, professors have designed a situation where we are under a feeling of pressure even though the material that we produce has no value or meaning. To be clear, once you realize the purpose of the experiments and write ups then the whole experience is useful.

• You can get a real sense of whether you enjoy or have a talent for lab work.


• You are exposed to many technical terms and equipments.

Some students have realized which fields are more exciting to them. But also to be clear, feeling inordinate pressure can lead students to hyper focus on details that don't actually matter on a project that won't matter past the experience. For example, my group members once spent about 20 minutes arguing about which font to use on a presentation. This presentation will never be viewed outside of the 50 people taking and grading the class. That is a detail, a type of busy work, that did not advance any of our goals, immediate or otherwise. Is the font choice on one powerpoint going to help you get a job at Lincoln labs? The point that I'm getting at is that I am at MIT with a particular value and goal:

I want to work as an art conservator at a museum, doing either conservation or research.

A lot of what we do for course work is not directly advancing that goal. Some of it I might not be able to see the value of yet, but I trust my advisors and professors to guide me. Some of it is tangential, brushing up against my goal. Some of it makes me a better person. Some of it is the chores and reality of adulthood. Some of it is just busy work. Spending 4 years at college, I have gotten caught up in the feeling of doing doing doing something all the time. Even if the work is busy work, I feel compelled to be doing something. Many other students at MIT have experienced this. They remark

Oh, i feel so bored and restless on spring break. Nothing to do!

Agh, I feel like I should be doing something right now.

Haha, I always have something running in the background. I can't stand sitting doing nothing.

But how many of these activities that fill the restlessness  are actually useful? How many of the advance the student's goals? How many of them make my friends happily content rather than tired?

Values and Exercise

Let's use an analogy.

There are the people who work out in a gym. They run on a treadmill in an air conditioned room. They lift weights, carefully, on machines that guide their movements. Certainly, they get the endorphins and benefits of a work out. Their lean bodies can manage a mile without worry. But every day, they must go out of their way to go to the gym, to set aside time to run in place.

There are other people who work out by biking to work. They swerve amongst traffic, quickening their reflexes and strengthening their legs. Maybe they pick up their groceries, hauling them from the store to their home to work out their arms. These people also get the benefits of a work out, but they also have accomplished a task that needed to be done. Their work out has been consolidated into their routine.

The first is a type of busy work, inefficient and not related to the overall goals that person has for their life. The second is the best kind of work, streamlined and integrated into their goals and routine. I've realized that I spend a lot of my time jogging in place or taking part in the same procrastinating activities as I did during term. Instead, I want to spend my running time actually moving forward towards the goals I have. 

Beginning to align

I've already started on this in the past semester. I tried to incorporate my values into my work. I tried to tailor activities and assignments to advance my skills for conservation, whether incorporating knowledge of art or creating art myself. My home is now a safe comfortable place with nooks for me to work and paint. I also have my goals clearly displayed, constantly in sight, be it hanging my art or bulletin boards at my desk. That way I have always been reminded of what I'm aiming for.

Still i find myself on facebook, tumblr, watching hours of silly TV. I sometimes complete tasks mindlessly, just to finish them. But I really want to improve on this, to tailor all of my activities towards who I truly want to be. I hope to share with you how I manage to do this, how I rededicate myself to a life long quest. 

Confidence in the Body

I want to build confidence in my body.

A few days ago, I tripped and fell while walking in Central. There's something dangerous about those loose bricks in Central Square. I was basically alright, just a skimmed knee. But I was totally shocked by how much it hurt; I almost never hurt myself due to clumsiness so the pain was a total surprise. Feeling this throughout my body but also having control over how I reacted - getting back up and walking: There was a certain confidence in that control.

There's confidence in seeing and feeling my body knit itself back together. Skin is just amazing - tough but also flexible. Scabs are pretty neat too: they manage to turn into healthy scar tissue or skin in just a few short days where there had been a terrible openness. Life struggles on! I don't even have to think about it, but my body designs a brand new part of me.

What am I getting at though?

I am confident in how my body appears, even how I can change my appearance. 



I'm even confident in how my body will labor to keep living. 

I want to build confidence in my strength.

I want to learn how to be strong, moving solidly and fearlessly. I like being able to carry the things I need to carry, walk however far I set my mind to. I can feel my feet shift when I stand on the moving train, shifting and responding to the vibrations.

Building the body

But I want to build confidence in my ability to lift things over my head, to run, to scream. I want to feel life in my whole body, bones and all. Some of that confidence is feeling my lungs fill up and stretch as my muscles fatigue. So too is the confidence of learning a routine of readiness. Already I love to etch out worlds with my fingers; I want to learn how to build three dimensional objects.

Part of the building of the body is recreating an idea of what the body can be. When reading about capoeira for class, I was surprised to learn how adaptable the strength of the body can be. While we view the neck as a weak vulnerable point, masters of capoeira view the body from the lens of a different culture. Carrying heavy loads on their heads, people can view the neck as another strong functional limb. With this view, capoeira techniques utilize the neck to support weight during defense and attack.

Therefore confidence in my body is about being able to envision and then enact an action, a relationship between a goal and my body making that happen.

July Calendar

I made personalized calendar for myself!

You can download it and print it at the link below for July!

ariapluscat personalized calendar



For the whole calendar I wanted a very simple and clear look. So many calendars are gorgeous when printed but then become cluttered and irritating once you begin to use them. I wanted my calendar to be simple shapes.

I wanted just a few details, like the little clock.

The header detail serves a purpose. I often have large goals that I lose track of while caught up in doing all of the chores and daily assignments. By constantly writing these overarching goals each weak and directly addressing the "reason avoided," I am forced to make progress.

I think I want to add another detail to the Saturday-Sunday area, but I wasn't able to choose one! For now I just place a sticker there.





One of my main goals for the summer is to save money. I've never had so many expenses to handle for myself since moving out. Only now am I really taking the time to sit down and really directly confront the task of managing my finances. I had a really cute cellphone app that I was using. I wanted to incorporate some of the elements of that, but make it simple enough that I could just track whether I was gaining or losing money. Basically, since my goal was to save money, I put a money tracker into my planner. 



I wanted the whole color scheme to work well when printed on pastel paper. Although the colors seem quite bold, the colors mesh well together, muted a bit, when printed on colored paper.

Not Amused

Jealousy and Projecting

How Jealousy Happens

I had a conversation about jealousy with my friends. At MIT, like all places, there are jealous people. But what might be unique to MIT is that most students have previously been the sole holder of their talents, the very best in their town or school, perhaps even state. Once they come to MIT, young students find that they are no longer the apex of the community. The foundation of their personality or sense of self is undermined. Worse, this happens right as teenagers are far from home, trying to find and distinguish themselves from an incoming class of 1,000 people.

[caption id="attachment_777" align="alignnone" width="300"] Look at all these talented focused young people! What if they're smarter than me? What if their job offers are better than mine? What if they smell better than I do???[/caption]

We talked about how a lot of students at MIT were awkward and how this awkwardness affects jealousy.

Jealous people are people who can't confront their own emotions: there's something inside themselves that they turn on to someone or something outside. Jealous people might be unable to express their feelings to others due to social awkwardness or meanness. People who have been harshly bullied in high school might have learned from receiving how harsh a truth wrapped up in meanness is.

When someone is projecting because it’s really about how they feel and/or what they’ve done, we get accused of stuff that’s often completely out of left field, or innocent stuff gets twisted around to suit the story that’s already in their head. They often don’t want to budge from the story! (Via Baggage Reclaim)

Jealousy happens because of a fear. Jealousy is about taking an internal truth and turning it against someone else. Instead, of addressing the root of the fear, jealous comments and actions allow the suffering person to get a hit of superiority.

As my friend said, "She wants what I have, my success or whatever. But no matter how bad she tries to make me feel, it's not like she's actually doing any better at her own stuff."

How Jealousy Feels

But here's the secret: Jealousy isn't a positive emotion. It doesn't feel good to be jealous of someone. Jealousy is about belittling yourself, your achievements, in order to prize those qualities in another person. Jealousy creates guilt in me; I feel bad for being jealous of my friends even if I don't take it out on them.

[caption id="attachment_745" align="alignnone" width="225"] Sunflower with support from a stick Rosemary growing free standing[/caption]

My friend said she totally understood this: when we're jealous of our friends it's complicated. It feels complicated, irrational and guilty. We're glad that good things are happening for them but also wish those same events could have come for us. Good friends will recognize that good things can happen to both of us. More so, good friends will be sensitive to jealousy, not showing off a great job offer to a friend who is still job searching.

Growing plants is kind of like this:

Some of us are like sunflower babies. We need a little bit of support from something external while we grow. We're going to make it to a radiant yellow burst, but we can't make it without a bit of reassurance. Others are like rosemary, green growth turns to thick woody stems quickly. Rosemary doesn't need much external support to grow quickly up towards a sunny goal.

Looking over, we can be like, "Why aren't I like that? I wish I could be like the rosemary. What's rosemary doing differently that it's so stable? huh? Who even likes woody branches?" or "Why that's so unfair that sunflowers get all that extra support? I don't get that; what a loser to need a stick to stand up. Floopy green weed!"

But the reality is this: we're both growing. We're both going to make it up to our full growth if we keep doing what we specifically need. Being jealous putting down others doesn't get us there any faster. Our plant awesome-ness might be really different; we're not the only plant in the garden anymore, but we're still beautiful and lush.

[caption id="attachment_778" align="alignnone" width="300"] Why does that cat have a snack? I should have the snack - I rub my face on waaaaay more stuff[/caption]

And the really dark truth: Even the jealous people, the choking vines who attach themselves to successful striving people. You know what? When they finally manage to strangle the plant that's been holding them up - they don't have anything to support them and they never learned how to grow on their own!

How to deal with being Jealous

Jealousy is a natural emotion.

• Just let jealous pass.


• Learn what traits you wish you had. Cultivate them.


• Take jealousy as a learning opportunity.

Jealous she went sky diving? Even though you said you didn't care? Then realize you did care and you did want to do that. Go sky diving yourself. Ask her to suggest a good sky diving location and instructor.

• Remind yourself that a friend's good fortune can lead to good things for you too.


• Remove jealous people from your circle.

Jealous people don't have anything positive to offer. It's not your responsibility to teach them how to be better or kinder people, nor is it your responsibility to deal with their projections while they learn.

Lab presentations: Development of schematic

Developing power points for lab presentations is a very unique type of design project. Presenters need to convey lots of complex data but maintain a clear flow to the information. It's easy to be overwhelmed or to under-develop the presentation of information.  I've found through group projects that many students and scientists don't have a good sense of design.

So I'd like to use this blog post to lead through the development of a useful, readable, and well-designed schematic from one of my lab presentations.

In this experiment, we had a temperature gradient that created a liquid solid interface. By pulling the material across the temperature gradient, we were able to observe dendritic growth as the material solidified. This particular slide is meant to convey the temperature gradient as well as the error due to variation in temperature and our readings of the temperature.

This is the first slide we had:



This slide is functional: all the information is present on the slide. There's a typical graph of temperature gradient vs position cited from our lab hand out. The table lays out the temperatures we read as well as the error. The caption for the graph describes what occurs.

The problems:

• The graph is not clearly labeled nor is it specific to our experiment.


• The graph is alright but could be connected to a graph/ schematic.


• The caption is long and wordy.

This is the schematic that I first created. I wanted to convey the physical set up of our experiment as well as create an icon that would clearly display 'temperature gradient.' Many people (especially scientists) over look how important visual presentation is; clear diagrams will save you many explanatory headaches and impress your audience. A clear icon or graphic will really clarify the experimental set up or goals.

By including labels of the temperature and areas of the stage, I was able to condense the information and link the table to the physical set up of our experiment. Similarly, this icon is readable at a single glance with a clear bold design.



This is the final slide: by adding a color gradient, we reinforced the idea that the temperature was a gradient going from hot to cold. Everything is in a large readable and consistent font. The slide is fairly clear and uncluttered; all of the relevant data is presented to be seen at a glance even from the back of the room. There's no extra information nor are there full sentences.

The table of numbers becomes linked to the schematic as the audience can link the precise numbers on the schematic closely to the numbers on the table.

The fixes:

• Link the schematic to our specific experiment


• Link the schematic to the table


• Label all materials clearly


• Decrease clutter on slides

Having a bit of time away from the slide, I can see a few minor improvements. I'm still satisfied with what we produced, but it's always good to continue to look for ways to convey information clearly and cohesively.

Additional changes:

• Looking at the material now, I would probably redesign the table of data.


• I would add an arrow below the schematic to show the direction the material was pulled.

Positionality and Rats

The point is that the packaging of an idea should not dismiss it, rather than that packaging alone might justify an idea.

You may be noticing that I enjoy using Disney movies to pepper my writing. It's because I totally love watching Disney. Also, illustrative examples with cute animals = yes.



Remy, the rat, prepares amazing cuisine in the movie Ratatoulle.  The moral of the movie as presented by third wave feminists would be that we should accept opinions and frameworks because of the disadvantaged position of those who speak them.

However, that's not actually the moral of the movie.

Remy is not allowed to present trash as cuisine simply because he is a rat. Nor is he allowed to skip basic hygiene in the kitchen. Remy's disadvantaged position doesn't gain him respect in the kitchen.

Linguini (the main human with a large nose and very red hair) doesn't have his cooking respected just because he's a lowly kitchen boy who has just lost his mother. In fact, Linguini is chastised for getting self important and believing that his opinion should be respected simply due to his reputation.

Rather the injustice is that Remy's passion and talent at preparing complex delicious food are not recognized because of who he is. Opinions, viewpoints, and - in this case - food, have to be held up to rigor and standards before being accepted and consumed. Remy's food needs to be judged by the harsh food critic, held up to a rigorous standard outside of Remy's disadvantaged status. The narrative arc isn't complete until the critic has both analyzed Remy's cooking and accepted him despite his rat-status.

I often find an insult buried in the third wave suggestion that disadvantaged people shouldn't be held up to this sort of heavy critique we expect of academics or other privileged people. Our work and our intellect are just as capable and honestly our work can stand up to honest and academic criticism. Suggesting that our ideas will flop over at the measliest criticism seems to underestimate the strength and integrity of marginalized people's minds and theory. In fact, I've found that the grounding of struggle leads to much better theory than ivory tower navel gazers.

We can all learn a little from rats that teach themselves to cook.

Art Commissions

I'm opening myself up to do art commissions!



If you'd like to see my general art style you can view multiple pieces at my tumblr art blog, ariapluscat.



I'm a college undergraduate taking an extra semester to graduate due to medical issues. Commissions would support my living costs as a student at MIT. I'm hoping to work as a conservator once I graduate, pursuing a secondary degree.

[caption id="attachment_623" align="alignnone" width="225"] Oil Painting[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_784" align="alignnone" width="224"] Full Color Illustration[/caption]

Aria Plus Cat
Art Commission Price List				Summer 2015
Label	Type	Description	Flat Cost	Price per Hour
S1	Pencil Sketch	Sketch on sketch book paper sized 8 x 11 sheet, pencil	$10	$10.00
S2	Inked Sketch	Sketch on sketch book paper, sized 8 x 11, pencil with Micron archival ink	$20	$10.00
S3	Colored Sketch	Sketch colored on sketch book paper sized 8 x 11, pencil with colored pencil	$20	$10.00
F1	Ink and Flat color Illustration	Illustration, on heavy paper sized 8 x 11 (or as requested), Micron archival ink with either Prisma color or colored pencil	$30	$15.00
F2	Ink and Full color Illustration	Illustration, on heavy paper sized 8 x 11 (or as requested), Micron archival ink with either Prisma color or colored pencil	$40	$15.00
PA	Acrylic Painting	Acrylic painting on flat canvas	$50	$15.00
PO	Oil Paintin	Oil painting on mounted and stretched canvas	$100	$200.00

If you would like to order a commission over the summer, please let me know. Comment or email me at ariapluscat@gmail.com.

I would ask you a few questions, mainly if you had an idea for the composition, any references you wished to provide, your expectations for price and time for the project.

Once we had agreed on taking on the project, I would let you know how long to expect for the project to complete - most likely a week from when I begin with a queue in order of contact.

Dorm Advice: Summer Storage

Are you moving out for the summer? If it's your first year, it might be difficult to know what to do with your room full of stuff. Or you may want advice as a senior on how to get your things to your new home.

Read more for advice on summer storage!

Sorting

First, sort you things into three piles: "Things you take with you," "Things to leave here," and "Things to get rid of."

"Things to take with you"

Make sure that you have all the clothes you need for the summer with you along with any things you use regularly. Sort out your expensive electronics along with their chargers.

These are the sorts of things that I start to pack into my luggage: expensive, irreplaceable items and items I will need immediately. I try to limit myself to one checked bag and one carry on. I place the expensive or irreplaceable things in the carry on.

The other run over items in this pile goes into large cardboard boxes which I mail to my home. You can either purchase large boxes or ask the post office for free ones.

"Things to get rid of"

Offer your "Things to get rid of" pile to friends. A good end of the year get together is clothes swap. You can also have an event like this for your floor.

If you're looking for some extra cash, see if you can sell any old things to a consignment shop. Consider holding on to old textbooks until the start of the next term since there's higher prices and more interest then.

Take the left over items from "Things to get rid of" to a Goodwill or other donation center.

"Things to leave here"

Ask your dorm or house manager if there's storage space in your dorm or on campus.

If you have friends or family in the area, see if they can store your things.

The final option is professional storage. Check with upperclass men to find out which storage centers are reputable. Also, see if there is a student discount or coupon available.

Choice

But the authoritarianism of this tradition is cloaked most effectively in the power of the marketplace to make it seem freely chosen. Choice is an American article of faith (as the vocabulary of the abortion debate shows; even antiabortion activists use the rhetoric of choice); and we exercise choice, or enjoy the illusion of it, primarily in the marketplace. We choose from myriad brands of toothpaste and paper towels in the belief that they differ and reflect our own desires. We choose personal development experts, absorbing their maxims and techniques and making them our own. (via)

The question here is how we can both a) believe in choice as an inherent good and additionally b) whether one can be fooled into believing that choice exists when it does not?

Let's tackle these questions separately.

Is choice an inherent good?

[caption id="attachment_741" align="alignnone" width="300"] Asuka making a choice via[/caption]

Choice is not an inherent good. I think this seems most obvious when people are asked to choose between two negative outcomes. Commodification is encouraged when making these decisions.

The choice maker is asked to measure the value of one person's suffering against another person's.

Of course, such a measurement is impossible. To attempt to quantify suffering is an exercise that devalues the strength of the relationships between the person making the choice and the people who face the outcome of that choice. Emotions and harms cannot be balanced against each other, certainly not by fallible human agents.

Let's apply this to a feminist issue.

Sex selection during pregnancy

Societies value male babies over female babies, as they value males over females throughout all levels of society. Due to this, societies have allowed parents to utilize technology to peer into the womb to determine the sex of the fetus. Once the sex is determined, couples may choose to terminate female fetuses.

In determining the sex of the fetus, the ability to make a choice is not an inherent good. Determining the sex of the fetus propagates the commodification of the child as an object-commodity that the father-patriarch may exert control over. The choice is enabled by the father-patriarch's control over the female body and reproductive labor with the assistance of patriarchal medical institutions.

Even attempting to determine the sex of the child before birth allows the family to prepare greater lengths of socialization into the sex-ascribed role of masculine or feminine.

In the standard view, rational choice is defined to mean the process of determining what options are available and then choosing the most preferred one according to some consistent criterion. In a certain sense, this rational choice model is already an optimization-based approach. (Into to Choice Theory)

Choice is not an inherent good. Feminists need to move beyond neo-liberal choice ideology and the traditional rational-choice theory founded by Adam Smith. Choice is not an article of faith for feminists: our sisters and mothers realized the efforts campaigned against us to circumscribe and delimit our choices.

Can one be fooled into believing a choice exists when it does not?

Yes, of course.

Enjoy the illusion of [choice], primarily in the marketplace. We choose from myriad brands of toothpaste and paper towels in the belief that they differ and reflect our own desires. We choose personal development experts, absorbing their maxims and techniques and making them our own. (via)

First, we must consider how the marketplace comes to exist. Are we able to exist outside of the marketplace? Are countries coerced into entering capitalistic free-market exchanges? How does the history of colonialization affect the degree of choice nations have in the market place relationships?



Secondly, we must consider the individual choices. Colonialization, slavery, and economic disenfranchisement pull back the veneer of choice from economic relationships.

Even those who own enough economic capital to make choices will quickly find that the choice between brands is itself an illusion.

Brand: Illusion of Choice

Although there appear to be hundreds of brands in the supermarket aisle, the reality is that these are the many arms of a few large entities.

And finally, the absorption of these choices from preset options is a rejection of identity development.

The self-help tradition has always been covertly authoritarian and conformist, relying as it does on a mystique of expertise, encouraging people to look outside themselves for standardized instructions on how to be, teaching us that different people with different problems can easily be saved by the same techniques. It is anathema to independent thought. [...] We should worry about the willingness of so many to believe that the answers to existential questions can be encapsulated in the portentous pronouncements of bumper-sticker books.

A harsh reality is that these answers cannot be encapsulated. Even if the could, part of the value of these answers is found in the process of discovering the answer.

Summer Goals

[caption id="attachment_762" align="alignnone" width="352"] Look at my happy summer time face with Prilla![/caption]

I can't believe that summer is actually here. Finally, the snow is gone and the sun is coming back up! I finished packing up all of my winter clothes. Very late in the year for the temperature shift, but here we are at last. My plants are growing faster, full leaves and thirsty roots.

With summer and good weather brightening my day, I feel refreshed and rejuvenated to do more. There's something about things growing for the first time in months that makes me want to grow as a person too. Not to mention that I have far more free time without semester work taking up my time. Homework somehow manages to take up an infinite number of hours - just expands to take as much time as you'll give it or spend procrastinating. Without the extreme stress and yo-yo of responsibility, I want to lay out a few goals for the next couple of sunny months. 





I want to work on some of my side projects. Throughout the semester I've been thinking and turning over ideas, ruminating really on what I want to do as creative outlets. Now is the time to take action on those goals! Planning means nothing if you don't put the ideas into action.

1. Improve blogging


2. Promote blogging


3. Begin Youtube (again)


4. Paint more

I don't want to put too much pressure on myself as far as creative projects. Often that ends up stymying me and putting me at a complete stand still. But also, I need to force myself to continue working on these aspects of my skills. Without external pressure or motivation, I struggle to complete projects. Learning to apply myself for my own sake is a really important skill.

As far as my summer work, I'm continuing the project from last summer on Japanese prints.

1. Data Analysis


2. Edit previous writing


3. Complete thesis work


4. Cultural Anthropology component

I hope that you too can have a lovely and productive summer! Especially in working on yourself and your creative impulses and projects! We can share our progress as the months go on.

Disease in Dorms: How to stay healthy

Dorms tend to be vectors of disease. MIT dorm Next house recently had to email out about several cases of food poisoning/stomach bugs. Mono is a common disease in colleges, not just because of kissing but also due to the sharing of unwashed (or insufficiently washed) eating utensils. Colds, flus, stomach bugs: these sorts of viruses love the life of a barely washed underfed overstressed college student. Most dorms will have mice. Many of the MIT frats have issues with bed bugs. I hope that you're beginning to get the idea:

• It's easy to get sick in a dorm because things are dirty and gross

I've also written about dorm pests in the kitchen and how to store your food safely in a dorm.

Not only that but people don't take care of themselves:

• stressed


• under fed


• few fruits and veggies


• lots of junk food/ take out


• sleep deprived


• lots of travel


• exposure to lots of people

i think we all know the trope of the student during finals week who hasn't showered and barely subsists on redbull and ramen.



But!

I'm really going to encourage you to eat well and rest well while at college. All of those items in the list are risk factors for getting seriously sick. 

Trust me when I say that taking care of yourself will provide exponential returns.

Homework: Border Patrol Piece

So this is basically documentation on a homework assignment I had for an MIT class. I figure that some people are probably curious about what classes at MIT are like, espcially non-engineering classes since people don't talk about them as much.

21A.445/WGS.272  Slavery and Human Trafficking is a Women and Genders Studies class as well as an Anthropology class, making it a social sciences class.

[caption id="attachment_731" align="alignnone" width="365"] 21A.445/WGS.272 Slavery and Human Trafficking[/caption]

The assignment description was as follows:

Weekly Memo Topic: What is border policing? In addition to your written response, produce a creative response: drawing, poem, music, Vine, Storify, photos, etc. The creative response should be something you can produce in under 15 minutes.

Basically I wanted to make our teacher have to 'enforce' a border. I really don't know what the experience of patrolling or enforcing a border would be like. So I wanted to make someone else have that experience, maybe the discomfort of it or even being desensitized from the violence inherent.

[caption id="attachment_726" align="alignnone" width="225"] Making of[/caption]

So I took a piece of water color paper and made a kind of earth painting with water colors. I tried to use a little salt but I don't think it went very well. Then I cut the paper along a diagonal and sewed the piece back together with a green embroidery thread. This probably took 5 minutes.

I turned the piece it self into my teacher along with brining a pair of scissors. She had said that an image of the piece would've been sufficient which no.

the image of the object is not the object

[caption id="attachment_727" align="alignnone" width="225"] What I turned in: Piece + Scissors. Instructions: "Cut the string."[/caption]

I gave this to her - piece and scissors - and told her to cut the string. The instructions were also on the back of the piece. She asked me a couple of questions and I kept repeating the instruction. I didn't want to give her any extra information or reassurance about enforcing the border.



Once she started cutting the string, she asked me fewer questions. She hesitated a couple times when she first started cutting the string, but she ended up cutting all of the string. At the end, there were the two pieces of paper separated with the cut string bits still in each piece.



And that's what I turned in! While she completed the piece I took photos of the process.

We met in small groups and discussed our creative pieces.

Disucssion

I feel pretty satisfied with what I made. I think that I gave her an experience. I also had the experience of sewing the piece together which made watching her cut the piece a little saddening.

[caption id="attachment_732" align="alignnone" width="273"] Interviews with Border Patrol Agents - Chet Wilson and Jim Runyan[/caption]

I think that it would've been more helpful if I'd framed the piece, took the framing apart in front of her, and then asked her to cut the string. The finished piece would be to turn in the whole de-assembled piece in her care.

Alternatively, including her comments about participating would've added something to the piece. This was while we were reading interviews with border patrol agents. Including an interview with her in a similar formatting seemed a bit excessive at the time, but I think that it would've been an illustrative capture of the moment to include with the piece.

As a performance piece, I don't think you could really replicate the piece. I do think that you could replicate the experience and the learning involved in being asked to enforce a border. More participants would've complicated the piece and opened more possibilities.



I'm including this as the class is ending since I didn't want to "spoil" anyone for it who might be in the class. Do people enjoy hearing about MIT classes or the work I do for them?