Sunday, January 30, 2011

Example of how quickly the brain forgets:

"Bored... oh let's do a puzzle, it's been a while since I did that. I have one here. That's fun."
Ten minutes later: "BAAAAAAAH!"

Friday, January 28, 2011

Oil, ink or crayons

Language nerdery:
This sentence: 가격이 너무 비싸요 is transcribed roughly "gagyuk-i nomu bisayo". 가격 (gagyuk) is "price", 이 is a particle that in this instance means "this", 너무(nomu) means "too(much)" and 비싸-(bisa-) is "expensive". 요(yo) is just a suffix to finish a sentence in the semi-polite sense.
Now what is this? A fully correct sentence without the use of a verb? Clearly the meaning is "this price is too expensive", but there is no "is" in there. Those who know their Korean would immediately answer that the base form of bisa- is 비싸다(bisada) which makes it a "verb": to be expensive.
Where am I going with this? Not sure, but it amazes me somehow because if you think about it, if you see the world as if adjectives were verbs and the words "to be" or "is" are void of meaning and useless, it's like looking through a filter; it changes things around in my head. So I don't think that a language can limit your thoughts, exactly, but it can probably adjust the course of your thoughts a bit, since they're the narrow channels we push our thoughts through before they become solid and shareable.
Why am I putting verb inside rabbit ears? Because I'm not sure I agree with that bisada is a verb. That would require pushing Korean through the narrow channels that is western linguistics, which means even more information could be lost along the way. Is it the same thing to say "green cat" as "cat being green"? The same thing saying "difficult girl" as "girl being difficult"? Is it necessary to have the opportunity for both in a language? And how many other different ways to say it are there? How many ways to think it?

To really go off the deep end here; is any single word we ever say or write or think exactly the same as another in the sense that it expresses exactly the same thought or feeling?
But that wasn't what I came to discuss. Rather, if you look at this this way, "is" seems like such a useless word really. "Is" is hardly a word at all. It needs all kinds of support to become something, just like a pronoun. Thinking about it, the Korean(and many more Eastern languages if I remember correctly) way makes much more sense.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Not again

I want a "backspace" button. A real life Ctrl-z, so I can go back in time and tell myself how much I'm going to regret doing what I just did in a few seconds, or hours, or days. Because the brain has a wondrous ability to smooth things over, to fill in the blanks, so that a few seconds, or hours, or days later you think "oh but it's ok, it wasn't that bad". And however much I say to myself "yes it was, you're just making that up", it's like being your own mother and your own teenage daughter at the same time. "That guy will break your heart." "Oh mom, you just don't get it."

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Dream Quest Royale, extra cheese

Finally a dream without that strange feeling.
At a party, there was this girl I'd known for a long time, we were friends really. She usually hung out with a vampire that I only knew a little bit. We'd flirted a bit casually before, but tonight we actually kissed. It wasn't an outspoken promise, but it was a big step towards love. But I was suspicious of the vampire, and went back after the party was over. As I'd thought, he was much more than friends with her. At first I felt betrayed, but then she told me, not with her voice but with her eyes, that her consent in their relationship was twofold; she was afraid of him, and she didn't dare tell him that she was afraid of him.
You can't fight a vampire for me, her eyes said, reflecting the little worried voice inside of me.
I left, but as I did I thought; You better believe I can.

So is this my grand dream quest? Starting a battle for love with a vampire, that would mainly be carried out in the mental and social areas, because the vampire was rather civilized. It bears striking resemblance to the quests of old; save the maiden from the evil monster. It's also insane.

There was also this intense moment, that I can't remember how it connected to the rest, where there was this guy, and I put my hand behind his neck and brought his head to mine so our foreheads rested together, and I said; "It's gonna be ok." And the feeling of connection was just overwhelming, it was like merging into another being, mind body and soul.
Was it me? My male side? Because that scene was the only point in the entire dream that I was female.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

selective memory

This is gravely embarrassing but I'm going to post 3 (horrible) images. They're all attempts at drawing a person, a real living one that I've seen quite frequently the last couple of years (although never in real life).
The first is entirely from memory. Been at least 24 hours since I saw a picture or video or whatever of him. It's also without "warming up" my drawing hand which might explain a shard of its suckiness.
The second image is an attempt at redraming that image while looking at reference pictures (Google). This was done rather quick and dirty, if I'd put my mind to it I could have adjusted it much more, and I'm not really satisfied, but it's there to provide a middle step.
The third is an "overlay", meaning I copypasted a photo beneath the drawing and redrew the lines that needed to change. It's not a "copy" exactly because it's still black-and-white linework, and since I started the drawing without a specific photo in mind I had to find a photo that had approximately the same angle and posture so a tiny bit of adjustment was required.

So why am I doing this? (Broadcasting my drawing failiures to the world, I mean :P) Because it's a fascinating. When I look at a familiar face I don't actually *look* at it. Neither do I really *see* it when I think of that person. When I was done with the first drawing I was rather sure it was at least decent. By the time the second drawing was done I was aware of that it lacked greatly but didn't quite know how to fix it. And then with the overlay, I can kinda see that it's him, but it looks terrible. (Although that's also because of my low drawing skills and the simplicity of the image.) The way he looks in my mind is probably somewhere between the second and third. How he really looks... I think I'm unable to see anymore. Maybe if someone knocked me on the head so I lost all memory of him. I remember clearly that I saw pictures of him long ago and paid him no attention, but over time he's grown to be the most handsome man on the planet. Clearly that doesn't have all that much to do with how the actually looks, because now when I studied him more as a visual composition - he didn't look at all like I know he does.
Is it me "filling in the blanks" with what I want to be there? I know I get the same feeling when I look at a friend or family member and really only look without seeing their face. I can think, Wow, she's really pretty or Was that how he looked?. Thinking of a person really only calls up some rough markers in my head. Hair, general body shape, general face shape, and for some people eyes. Then everyone have behavioral markers that aren't strictly looks but are effectively inseparable from their visual impact; their movement patterns, signature nervous habits, eye movements.

So beauty truly must lie in the eye of the beholder. Can a face be objectively, unemotionally beautiful? It can be structurally perfected I suppose. Symmetry and golden ratio and all that. But does that really make something we love? Beauty comes from the inside, to pull up another cliché - maybe it does in the sense that what you do creates behavioral markers that fill in the blank spaces with exactly what your watchers want to see?

If he really looked like how I see him in my head, would he even look human? Would I, if I saw him outside my head in the real world, even like what I saw? Actually, I think no. When I look closer at photos I always think it doesn't quite look like him. I think what makes him so beautiful, is all that he is that I know of, overlayed with the linework of my mind. We're all little artists like that :)




If you wanna know what he looks like on photo, just Google Jaejoong. Bother linking and shit.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The itch you can't scratch

I usually say I have no nightmares, and I stand by that. Lately my dreams have been about different things, and many times I've still ran around adventure style - saving fairies, teaching kids about gardening, kissing brave, rash heroes and... burying my father. None of it has offended anyone. Or gotten them mad, or sad. Not even me. In fact, these have been the least emotional dreams of my life. I've chased off soldiers who were going to kill my friends using a bright green pump action water gun, I've infiltrated a family of cannibals by pretending to be a babysitter, and I watched a witch hoist a cat in a box up a telephone line as bait to catch the handsome prince. My friends sort of nodded in approval, the family watched me with mild amusement, and the witch just giggled at me.

But there is something. "Like the essence of evil soaked into the walls, the ground, the people, just like the sweat of many different people soaked into a changing room after dozens and dozens of years." Everything is just a little too perfect. A little too silent. Like I'm hearing through water, like I'm not really there at all, like I'm living on top of a live volcano. And it's knowing that the volcano simile is just silly, because there is something out there that's so much worse than anything I could ever possibly come up with.

That's the thing. No nightmares. Just an insane, maddening, bewildering slight discomfort. It's worse than any nightmare I've ever had or ever imagined.

An invasion of my last sacred haven, and yet another reason to not want to sleep... but I don't want to stop dreaming. Maybe that's the worst thing that could happen. To never dream again.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Ayyy Girl

Been listening to that album I mentioned by JYJ over and over the past days, it grows on me. The songs that at first sound cool turn out a bit boring, and the songs that you forget in the beginning between every listen suddenly won't get off my brain - I find myself humming them every time I zone out for a second.

Music is an easy way to tap into my brain, by association. I rather like my music with a bit of visuals to it; a music video always appeals, especially since the kind of cheesy coolness generally displayed is just my taste. Music can also be a key for emotions or memories, mental or physical.

Like right now, the music video for one of the songs on the album has a typical cheesy cool dance, but there's this segment where the music is awesome but the dance is really... funny. Adorable, actually, like a stupid, happy dog. And every time that part plays, I get the sweetest of impulses to do the dance, and get invariably giggly happy.

In the same way, shouting along in my mind with the guitar-drum-chaos of a rock song can make me feel really dark and cool, or flicking my tongue over the "Dont'cha wish your girlfriend was hawt like me!" makes me the sexiest little thing in all the world.

But the giggly happy ones are the best. Closely followed by the smooth-and-suave ones.

That's how I listen to music.

And parody songs are the spawn of the devil! Bleh, I hate those... >.>

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

bah

Internet slow. Blogging from phone also slow.
Damn ubuntu. Lost several days work. Then spent entire day reinstall bc internet slow. Then another day bc you dont install in ubuntu, you get a list of libraries that you by hard work and mercy of the internet find and install by command lines after reading up on forums how to survive w/o the ones not found. Then possibly you get a .tar, god forbid they give you a .bin, and once you figure what to do with it and all the command line arguments necessary, it still wont work bc you didnt clean out everything and start over that one time you mistyped something.
Why on earth would we give you a program where the whole thing is included and that you can just run?
Did I mention its a text editor Im trying to install?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I never blog this much when my life is actually interesting because then I'm busy.

Monday, January 3, 2011

The Actress

I wanna paint a picture of life and health
in pale pink and black and red;
if I stare in a mirror long enough
I'll see the picture there instead.
I wanna dance on the rooftops and float on clouds
and weigh like a feather of grace;
and if the scales show heavy numbers then
there's someone else there in my place.
I wanna be the ghost that everyone sees,
an invisible object of love;
if unattainable is the most wanted of all
then I'll be the star above.
I wanna craft my eggshell so perfectly
that even I can't see the lie;
and how empty it is inside won't be known
until it shatters - until I die.