The Details We Don't Notice

As a girl, we have all done it, we have stepped into the metropolitan museum solely to see the fashion display. We skip over the vases and pottery that is supposedly a million years old and had "some" kind of importance during a specific time period. But who really cares anyways? It's just a bowl, why is it even here? Today in my art history class I learned that ancient Greek vases were used as funerary offerings. Each vase was inscribed with a story of a funeral procedure. Death was seen as an awful and terrible thing in Greek tradition, each vase is covered with women pulling out their hair, which is how they mourned for the deceased. So next time you think you're going to pass that silly vase in the glass box, think again, that shit is just as important and sacred as facebook is to the world.

A personal poem about someone very close to me.

Confusion, the windows are breaking, the house is shaking

You don't know what your emotions are doing

You can't control yourself, your lost in your own feeling

Try to hold the madness, the anger, just try not to break down the ceiling

Someone is controlling your brain, it's not you, how can you lack the judgement

The difference between right and wrong, the mental block all gone, drugs can't hold that fulfillment

Your smart, well educated and opinionated

Use it, theres still time, the blood has all coagulated

graphics, ethics, it's deep within

Just get up and take a breath, this isn't easy, I see the grin

I wish you knew

To see through my eyes that it's true

One day things will evolve and this will all be solved.

What Does it Feel Like to be Coordinated

I'm sitting here in front of my computer screen trying to think of something, anything to write, but all I see is "new post" in bold black letters haunting me. Blogging is anything but easy, I praise the people that are able to blog everyday, it takes a lot of skill. My friend told me to write about myself, I thought she was joking, but I guess blogging is a sort of egotistical activity, I am going to focus on one part of myself that has had a lot of presence in my life, and the thing I am constantly made fun of for; my clumsiness.

It could be that when I grew in my teens, my legs ended up stretching out twice the size of my body, while my torso decided to just pause, I therefore lack a torso. I mean that is what I blame and tell people after a serious and totally embarrassing without reason clumsy accident. Clumsiness isn't genetic, I'm not Bill Nye the Science Guy and I could be wrong, but I'm almost sure theres no "gene" for clumsiness. As sad and as embarrassing as this sounds, my clumsiness has kind of taken over my life in a more hurtful way than anything else; I broke my wrist by tripping over my legs, I sprained my ankle the same way, cut and split my knee open by running and then falling, almost broke my cheek bone by falling into the corner of a wooden chair, I just can't seem to escape this fate.

So now at Skidmore, as a mature, well (hopefully) mature college student, I thought I could slightly contain my clumsiness, but this proved false. The moment I stepped foot on campus, after being given that god awful blood red "class of 2014" shirt, I some how managed to drop it in the toilet, I have been on Skidmore campus for maybe twenty minutes. I frantically tried to dry it, so that as I walk over to pose for my class picture, people won't be stopping me and asking why my newly purchased t-shirt is now soaking wet, where I would have to respond, "oh no big deal it just fell into the toilet, and now I'm wearing it, yeah I'm wearing a toilet shirt, it would've made for a great first impression. But luckily I managed to get it partially dry, so I didn't have to be that quintessential awkward freshman, but I still am regardless.

Later after a few months past, as things were kept under control, I had another terribly horrifying and embarrassing clumsy moment all because of a tiny baby tomato laying in the middle of the floor. Yes, one would assume a baby tomato casually chilling in the middle of the dining hall would ever be a sign of danger, well it was for me. I some how managed to slide and sort of gracefully fly across the dining hall, as my plates of food, hot soup and all, flew in the air, falling on, no other than my newly washed clothes. After that moment, I don't think I have ever heard the dinning hall become so quiet at 6:30 at night, peak eating time. At least my friends are always entertained by my nature, they never have to watch the hangover ever again, they can just watch me go through life.

The classic college fear is always the freshman roommate, theres just too many unknowns. There are always the various stories friends already in college would tell me about "yeah my roommate had this boyfriend who smelled terrible, and he would always be in our room." Ok that story is certainly not the worst of it, but I just found it funny.

In my seminar class we are learning about the idea of status distinctions, we, as individuals, form judgements about others based on what the society thinks. I can admit literally the second I found out who my roommate was, I rushed to look her up on facebook and scope her out; inspect every picture. In all honestly I did judge her upon first glance, I am the kind of person that gives people the benefit of the doubt and I knew that once I met her in person that was the only way to truly tell. But the minute I got the sacred email reveling that she was from Waban, Massachusetts, I did scream a little, it was more of a bird squak. I thought to myself: Waban!? Waban!? Is that a place or some kind of indian chief, and not to mention the fact that she has pink, orange, and purple hair, what she must be some kind of freak. Ok I sound like the biggest judgmental person ever right now, but I'm not, I swear! It's a normal instinct to have these conceptions, no one else is going to admit it, but its the truth. If someone is going to try to tell you that they didn't judge their freshman roommate before meeting them, even a slight discernment, they are lying through their teeth.

We starting talking on facebook, but that only made me more skeptical of the whole situation. I had hoped that maybe we had similar academic interests. Her interests consisted of science and math and then some more math. I'm an art and history person, I cry every time I hear the the word math being mentioned. After she revealed to me that she spent part of her summer taking a computer science class at Harvard, (for fun), that took me over the edge. Yes I did panic a little, well a lot, but I knew things would be different once I met her, and I stayed positive, because I knew this had nothing to do with anything in the grand scheme of things, these were just tiny details, at least that is what I kept telling myself.

Now, after have lived with her for exactly three months I can honestly say it's worked out almost perfectly. Although our interests and backgrounds differ, her being the only freshman calculus tutor, me being confused about my future and part of the photo club. Her, being from the quaint, cozy town of Waban, me being from the celebrity obsessed, snobby city of LA. Her, with the vibrant rainbow bedsheets, me with the whitewashed towels. Even with all of these contrasts, it all seemed to work out okay. We can laugh about our differences, literally. I giggle to myself as she is trying to decipher some computer code and she laughs as I blog. We both learned to appreciate how different each of us are, it's as if the residential life people thought to themselves: lets take the two most opposite human beings and put them in a room together and see if they get along, almost like real world college edition. Well if that were some kind of scientific experiment, it would prove positive results. Bottom line is that we both share the same awkward personality traits and we can laugh at each other throughout any given day. Okay this looks like an excerpt from a soppy coming of age novel, but there was no other way to describe how happy I am to have such a great roomie for life.

Alive on Facebook

I have no idea how this topic came about, but the other night over dinner my friends and I had a conversation about death and facebook. Now in this virtual world that were living in, websites like facebook have such a prominent presence in our lives, including aspects so serious as the idea of death. If a person were to die and they had a facebook, would their facebook live on? Does a facebook help to continue an extension of a person's being? Sadly, last year my friend's sister died at the young age of 20, her facebook still lives on today, people continue to comment on it as if she were alive. People also write poems and send prayers through her facebook, a facebook almost becomes a religious offering, a cry for help. Although creepy, it is equally interesting to see how the internet is slowly taking over our lives, even people that are no longer living.

connections

This past weekend I ventured over to the mall to get "secret santa" gifts for my friends. I have never heard of this cute tradition until I got here. I'm Jewish, and back at home all of my friends are Jewish, I am just surrounded by a Jewish population, anything relating to christmas is unheard of. Whats ironic is that here at Skidmore most of my friends are not Jewish, so it's a nice change of pace and I get to experience a new culture and it's traditions. Sometimes its awkward too, because I didn't even know when christmas was and or what kinds of things people do on christmas. My so called christmas knowledge is my friend and I going out to see movies and eating chinese food on christmas eve.

Anyways thats a little background information tangent to my main, crazy story that happened to me this weekend. As I was perusing around the Wilton mall, thinking of secret santa gifts, I was sucked into a women and a man selling a nail product, to make one's nails healthy and shiny in just seconds. I am the person to get targeted for these kinds of things, everyone else is able to walk by casually and say "no thank you," but I fall for everything, I'm a pretty passive person so I can't just walk by and say no like the rest of the population does. So as this women is cleaning and putting some kind of product on my nails, I recognized her accent, it was Israeli. Over the summer I worked at a summer camp as an art teacher, and my co worker was also from Israel. I learned that all of the women in Israel at the age of 18 must go into the army, its a pretty scary thought, but that is the culture, could you imagine yourself having to go to the army at 18? I can't, I rather take a year of straight calculus then go into the army.

We started making small talk, and she recently just got out of the army, she seemed about the same age as the women I worked with over summer named Or. I took a wild chance and asked her if she knew of Or. To my surprise she said yes, and that happened to be one of her best friends, of all people and places, and Or's. Or is one of the most common girls name in Israel, its equivalent to Sarah in the United States, there are about a thousand Or's in Israel.

This moment was so surreal to me, I'm starting to believe in the statement that everything happens for a reason and that an individuals life is interconnected. Here I was in the middle of upstate New York, at a mall in the middle of total suburbia, and I strike up some conversation with a sales lady and she happens to know the one women and friend that I worked with over the summer in California, it's just too weird. A lot of these kind of surreal coincidences and moments have happened to me before, I am starting to truly believe that things DO happen for a reason, and the people you meet in life at the experiences that we have, create a place for meaning. Although that particular moment in the Wilton mall wasn't symbolic or even meaningful, it just goes to show how small and interconnected our world really is.

Bruner and I

Although, I can honestly admit, it was Aaron Barlow that strongly changed my way of thinking, but since I am not allowed to talk about Barlow, Bruner would be runner up in influencing my perspective and ways of thinking as well.

The connection that Bruner mentioned between one's own identity and language is something that struck me. Although Bruner did focus on many other important aspects such as education acting as a forum and the idea of public authority controlling it's citizens, while those ideas are important, I want to focus on his idea of language and identity intertwining and connecting. A way a person converses with others in society, or how they want to represent themselves is partly due to their speech and tone, and the words that come out of ones mouth.

I realized that I face this issue of identity in my daily life in accordance to how I say things, society also changes how and what I say. When I am around my closest friends, the people I feel most comfortable with, my speech is inherently different then when I'm around a group of new people. My speech is funny, silly, and I have more to say when I'm around my friends, my own identity is my ideal comfortable self. In new situations, around higher authority, and people I just met, I will stay far away from my goofy language, and I will pay very close attention to what comes out of mouth, it's a more edited version of myself.

I think this is why I and so many others feel a sort of freedom while writing on a blog. One can have the freedom to write in their own style of voice, without the quick judgements of society, and an individual is able to represent a part of themselves that her or she normally couldn't do otherwise.

Tod Selby, you are my hero

One of the reasons I took this class initially was because I love reading blogs for fun, in particular blogs about the art form, whether that be photo, design, fashion, or photography. I think blogging is a great way for an unknown artist to show their interest in something to the public. Instead of me blogging about a funny anecdote, I want to take a short break to focus on one of my favorite blogs that I read and follow religiously called "The Selby," created by no other than Tod Selby himself, a, now well known photographer.

The blog has a simple idea. Selby takes beautiful, aesthetically pleasing photos of famous artists homes and posts them on a blog, he then conducts funny, short interviews with the artists at the very end of each post. The blog isn't for everyone, it's mainly all pictures with little words. For me this blog combines all things I love: beautiful photography, interior design, and creative people. I'm fascinated by the way Tod Selby captures each artist, it's almost as if you get a little excerpt of their personal life.

Another reason why I love this blog so much is because I have seen the blog as well as Tod Selby evolve throughout the years, it's sort of a more modern take on the "rags to riches" story. Selby has always been interested in photography, but only with the creation of the blog was he able to gain fame, and start collaborating with Louis Vuitton and many other famous figures. In the beginning stages of his blog, he took pictures of his friends, who, not surprisingly happen to be artists as well, he was not being featured in the news, and his blog was kept very low key. Suddenly, his blog started to attract more followers because people realized how beautiful his photos were, and more and more artists wanted to be featured on his blog.

Now Tod Selby and his blog has gained an extreme amount of popularity, recently he published his own book, which is pretty much his blog in printable form. He was also asked to take photos for the shoe company Jack Purcell, and he did work for famous designer Karl Lagerfeld. Now, instead of taking pictures of just his friends, Selby is photographing highly famed artists from all around the world.

Tod Selby is a huge inspiration to me, it shows how one blog, and one person's creative interests turn into something larger than life. I wish I could step into Selby's shoes, being able to meet and photograph famous artists around the world, one of my fantasies.

Here is a link to his blog www.theselby.com

Some of my favorite pictures:

crazy cab

This past weekend I ventured over to New York City. A lot of my friends from back home go to college there, so I thought I might take a break from my Skidmore life, and visit some old friends. I want to talk about my crazy cab driver experience. It was one of those moments in my life, where I felt like I was living in a dream, and that everything occurring around me wasn't actually happening. The minute I stepped off of the lovely and tranquil train ride, I am immediately overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of Penn Station, I am so relieved that the Saratoga Train station has one room, one track, and one train. After I finally figured out how to exist Penn Station, I awkwardly hailed a cab down, something I am not very good at. From the looks of it, my cab driver was a perfectly nice, middle aged women. The minute the cab doors closed, that's when reality started to slip, and things got strange.

The cab driver was a talker, she wanted to know everything about my life and school, but suddenly things got even weirder. Out of nowhere she started rambling on and on about how humans aren't related to animals, and that evolution is one big conspiracy. She talked about how every human being is a free soul, and that when a person dies they are just going into a coma. She told me that she stopped talking to her mom because she hid under a carpet, and never returned. The lady also told me not to believe in what anyone tells me because it is all a lie. During this entire cab ride all I did was nod my head in agreement, who knows what might have happened if I had argued with her. It was a really scary experience, I felt sad for the poor lady, maybe she just needed someone to talk to. Of course my first five minutes in the city had to start out like this.

current college pondering:

The informative sign posted in the bathroom that talks about depression, contains a large picture of a grave sight located in the center of it, subliminal messaging much?

techno and raves go together like pb and j

I have always had a strong interest in music, every year I waited for the time the Coachella music festival came around. It's a huge music festival, that features a bunch of different bands at one time in one place. The festival takes place in Palm Springs, California. It's the one three day weekend I wait for all year, since I was fifteen years old. I'm going to describe one of my experiences at Coachella.

I enjoy techno or elecronic music, most people find this suprising if they don't know me very well. My laid back, shy personality can be deceiving. I've learned over the years that techno when seen live, is automatically related to a rave, or the concert suddenly turns into a rave. One of my favorite techno bands is MSTRKRFt, pronounced master craft. They were playing at Coachella, and I thought it might be a good time to go see them perform, or touch a computer live. I was pretty much forced under my will. The thought of dancing around with a bunch of sweaty, smell people in a confined space when it's about a hundred and fifteen degrees out doesn't exactly sound like the way I would want to enjoy myself, and that's exactly why I avoid raves in the first place.

So I took the challenge, and we ended up right in the center of the crowd, perfect for me, I was jammed between seven sweaty people literally on top of me. It took the band a good twenty minutes to set up the stage, and the waiting period might have been one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. All of the things I hate surrounding me; being enclosed in a tight space with smelly sweaty people, to the point where you are breathing in other peoples BO, and not being able to do anything about it.

Once the music finally started it actually wasn't that bad, besides thinking about the embarrassment I let myself get into, post panic attack. Suddenly the lovely beats of techno music filled my ears, and the claustrophobia slowly started to fade away. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be and it actually was a good experience, dancing with my friends and having a good time, but that doesn't mean I will be going to a lot more raves in the future.

current college ponderings

The moment I have been contemplating and mainly having nightmares about is finally here, college. I was nervous at first to be going to a school so far away from home, out of my comfort zone, out of sunny Los Angeles. But at the same time, I was excited for the new change of people and scenery. Here are some current ideas I have been pondering, since I arrived at Skidmore.

1. At some point or another everyone is going to talk about their roommates, it's just a conversation starter.

2. The official name for what I called "boatshoes," is actually called top siders, which people from Skidmore are sporting around campus.

3. Unlimited meal plan plus unlimited cereal bar= the college begging you to get the freshman 15

4. Everyone says hi to each other here, even if the other person is a complete stranger, I find it to be one of the nicest gestures, and something I am not used to. In Los Angeles, you would be lucky if someone gave you even a subtle eye roll, they are probably just checking out your outfit, so they can later copy it.