Declaration and progress Jan 2016

Wow, real creative with today's title aren't we?

So I wrote a declaration... After meeting with Amanda and basically conveying that I cannot focus on one thing at a time and I'm not prepared to merely conduct multiple iterations of a long term endeavor, she said basically the most Amanda thing ever to the effect of "Ok just do you then. Y not just do multiple projects? Like one a week. It'll be fun. 😎"

That is what I was thinking about all winter break, (not about how I haven't been updating this thing, haha) and naturally as they stewed and formulated, the ideas in my head came out in quite a flurry when I sat down to get all of them out on screen.  

Here are my six arc projects, or three projects with three separate focuses

Projects

Fix violins

Write a research paper on child development (easier said than done lol yikes)

Petition my city to improve hours of library near where most of the high and middle schools are

Focuses

Taking workshop classes at the San Francisco public library "Mix" in preparation/anticipation for producing music in the future

Growing two tomato plants, one hydroponically and one non-hydroponically, just to see if there's a difference

Working on khan academy for at least an hour every day to prepare myself to aCE THE FRICK OUT OF THE PRECAL CLASS IN TAKING IN FEBRUARY and also KICK THE SAT'S BUTT

There have been roadblocks everywhere, but really they're just opportunities in disguise. For instance, in the violin repair project, one of the problems is that the parts we ordered don't totally fit, but this means I have the opportunity to 3D print some of them out myself at Noisebridge hacker space down on Mission and rekindle a better relationship with 3D printers after the disastrous trying-to-fix-a-couple-of-ancient-makerbots debacle (yay?). But even that whole failure gave me the opportunity to work with Josh as a teammate for the first time, which I must say I am really happy to have had him as a resource. 

I have been reading a bunch of books in the field of child development, such as How Children Succeed, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen, and scanning the early chapters of The Female Brain, and The Male Brain, both by the neurologist Louann Brizendine. Learning all the little details of what makes little humans has been a blast, but I've been hopelessly and cluelessly putting off writing the actual research paper thing since I have never written a research paper before and have no real concept on how to even write an outline 🙃😥. Again, it seems I must exercise my explicit asking-for-direct-help abilities if I'm to get any real traction on conquering this research paper. 

Petition is up and running! After about about a week of looking at background stuff and calling the city council about what to actually do, it is written and pretty and up on change.org! You can sign it here. Thanks for your support!

Workshop classes have been going good. Really making me think about going outside my comfort zone. One of my beats will be on The Mix soundcloud soon. 

The hydro-tomato is healthy and says good morning starshine.

Dirt tomato has just sprouted, but was planted a couple weeks after the hydro-tomato.

Still, I was starting to think it wouldn't germinate at all given the cold-ish weather <3. 

Khan academy is infinitely frustrating to track progress on because those people are constantly adding new skills so my percentage in pre-calculus keeps decreasing or staying the same. Of course I'm learning a lot and I'm thankful for the lessons they are providing, but all the same it feels like running on a hamster wheel and it's all I can do not to fall behind. That being said, I haven't been doing as much as an hour every day, but I have been doing it at least a little bit every day, which should count for something. 

I knew I would be a little bit in over my head if I tried to do everything perfectly, but I could never know just how much. Despite my feeble attempts of "keepin' it simple", I've been stressing like a monster, but enjoying myself nonetheless, like if I fail, the only person I'm really disappointing is myself, and I can chose whether I want to be disappointed or if I need to learn from mistakes or just try more or schedule/manage time better, or just hustle harder. It's the opposite of unsettling, but I don't think "settling" works in this context. Comforting? Maybe. Self-accountability and staying true to myself. Yaas.

bye
-sayuri

To be or nah

Hello... It's me..  Okay now that we've got that out of the way

So, here's what its like now: still in seed arc, but now we in full swing of the expression phase, the details of which I will go into in another post following this one, but for yesterday and Tuesday, he vilest band was honking about something else: next arc

Yes, after decided there was just too much to do in human arc for to wait, Amanda prompted us with, you know, a relatively simple little brain teaser question: What does it mean to be human? 

Various members all had similar or related ideas, in our collective brainstorm word vomit session, we came up with the this:

In case you can't read our haphazard impeccable handwriting or just don't understand: it says something

Being Human: what makes us special?
Making mistakes, learning things, birth (death) learn, emotions, Homo Sapiens - biological, (social) interacting with others, metacognition, self awareness, "I think, therefore I am", not perfect - "susceptible to weakness", big brain, opposable thumbs, alive (survival), make decisions based in logic, creative

This is like just an appetizer, Amanda insists, to make it more palatable for us to jump right into thinking super critically about humans when the Human Arc actually starts in mid February. 

I have no objection to this: in fact, the private brainstorm I had the night before, was just as incoherent and inconclusive, and innocuous, but it's a start. 

I also expanded on some of these ideas in a nicer, listed Google doc: here.

Ignoring that I am a teenager and that my worldview and perception may or may not be overtly and naïvely cynical, as well inexperienced and not so fully fledged, I will elaborate on some of these topics that might seem a little less instinctive or natural or intuitive as the list we came up with collectively. 

In regard to the idea "To be known to, on occasion, be afraid or demeaning of members of their own species solely on the basis of the color of their skin", I have been intrigued by race relations and racism for a long time, so I find myself awkwardly trying to relate it to everything I see. Is everyone's experience perpetually decided by the pigment of their skin? Why and doesn't anyone find it so so insane that humans are the only ones that do this? I don't want to delve into it too much in what is supposed to be a lighthearted, "yay we're ahead of the game being intellectual and inquisitive about our origins!" kind of blogpost, but that's is my thinking behind that bullet point.

Until next time,

blorp,
sayuri