Sci-Fi

Sitting down and writing a blog on a beautiful Friday afternoon might be one of the hardest things to do, so we will see how this goes.

I have never been drawn to the genre of Science Fiction, for some reason it has never appealed to me and so when I started this class and was looking at the different books that we were going to be reading I was a bit concerned that I would be totally lost and confused the entire quarter. Once we started reading the books in class I didn’t have problems with most of them so I am somewhat unsure why they scared me at first.  I guess we are all scared at first of the things that are unknown to us. In high school I was scared to be coming to college and once I graduate college I am sure that I will be scared to join the ‘real world.’

Reading the book ‘Postsingular,’ I am finding that the character I am watching is the little autistic boy named Chu. With my previous experiences dealing with autistic children I know that many of them have special gifts when it comes to math and science, many have the ability to memorize numbers and recite them in perfect order within only a matter of minutes of studying the list.  My cousin is autistic and she is very similar to Chu, she is socially behind in development and her language skills are not all the way there but she is very intelligent when it comes to math and knowing strange facts about numbers that I would not expect a 15 year old to know. With this in mind, I feel like Chu will somehow have a huge impact on the story line as the book picks up.

Today in class we discussed Science Fiction and how in some ways it can be defined as simply looking at the world from a different perspective, a different point of view. The book that I am reading for book group is ‘Midnight Robber’ and even though I am almost finished with the book, I am still very much confused at to who the speaker is throughout the story. At some points it seems as though the story is being told from Tan-Tans eyes because the speaker refers to ‘daddy’ and other times s/he refers to ‘Antonio’. It is this type of viewpoint, the one that changes that makes this book Sci-Fi a Sci-Fi.

Memories in a sense are Science Fiction too because everyone remembers an event differently. Just an hour ago I was on the phone with my brother talking about a trip he and my mom took when coming to surprise me in Maine where I was going to college at the time. He remembers walking out from behind a building and seeing me take a double take because I was not expecting to see him all the way across the country at my Cross Country Race. He tells me that I had a look on my face that made it seem like I had just pissed my pants.

I of course remember this event in a totally different way. I can clearly see my mom and brother walking out from behind a building and I my mouth just dropping open in complete shock. I was overwhelmed with joy to see them. And of course there is my coach who was the mastermind behind this entire plan. He remembers it in a different manner all together. He knew where my family was standing and he could see me walking towards them. He got to see the look on my face and my frantic embrace as I tried to understand why my family had flown across the country to see me. My coach’s point of view would be the one of science fiction. He tells the story from the eyes of an outsider to the events.

Mask

On Monday, the 18th we discussed the concept of ‘Fancy Dress’ and how when we first meet new people many of us in society will put up a mask, only showing the new person certain aspects of their personality that we want to.  

The concept of fancy dress is taking this mask idea to a new level because the people who chose to dress that way on a daily bases really are showing us their personalities. Maybe they are unsure as to how else to let the world know who they really are so they decide to show us through the way that they dress. When I see someone wearing a ‘unconventional’ outfit I tend to look at them for a longer period of time than I would someone who was dressed ‘normally’. To me this means that they really are catching they eye of the public and making the rest of us think about why they might have chosen to dress that way.

I have been known to do this, when I first meet someone new, I am very shy and I talk hardly at all. This concept of only showing certain parts of your personality is relevant in the way that we dress as well.

 Each and every one of us dresses differently and we do so for different reasons for many of us, but for the majority of society they dress a certain way to attract a group of people. Most of the time they dress to attract people they want to be friends with, lovers with or just associated with.

Once the desired person has been attracted it is possible to let down your guard, take off your mask and show them who you really are and why they should like you. 

The other me

This past weekend I took the 6-hour drive home to Spokane to see my family and my boyfriend. I noticed something while waiting in the terrible traffic through the pass on the return trip yesterday afternoon. It seems as though I am a different person when I go home. My world is totally different when I am at home with my loved ones. I find myself relaxing much more, not worrying about schoolwork or friends or my life at school in general. Life is easier, I can eat real food, take a break from my life here at school. I am not exactly sure whether this ‘other me’ would be considered to be my doppleganger because there is hardly any shift in me when compared to the differences between Ned and Greg of the Filth.

If in fact the other me is considered to be my doppleganger, then it seems as though everyone has many different doppelgangers. For instance, I have a friend who acts one way when she is around me and then as soon as she gets around a certain group of people her entire personality changes, she literally becomes a different person. She will look in the mirror to make sure that she looks just so and she will constantly be talking about things that I never expected her to be discussing. I can see this in myself as well, depending on the group of people I’m with, I will say different things and act a different way. It is in all of us to behave differently in different domains. We all have doppelgangers but they are not just out there wondering around, the ones that we have are in our heads, just waiting for their turn to speak. 

I'm here, and here and OH! I'm over there too

Today in class the topic of ‘where’ was brought up. Before today I had never really been able to rap my mind around the idea of being in more than one place at once but during and after the discussion it makes total sense to me. Which is saying a lot because more often than not I find myself lost during these 80 minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

            At this very moment there are many things on my mind; writing a blog, my various classes, finals, summer, and many many more. With all these things on my mind, it makes it so all of these things are here with me. Now, not each and every part of all of them can be here, but the idea of all of them are here. I do not and physically cannot have summer here in my dorm room with me but the idea of the warm sun and the beach are in my mind. That is how it is with all things, places, and people we think about. They may not physically be there with you but the ideas of them are, the way they look, the way they smell, and all the various memories you have experienced with this person, place or thing.

            With this idea of being anywhere that someone is thinking of you, it makes complete sense that even when an individual passes away they in a sense are not really gone. Sure, their bodies will be gone, but their soul does not die until the last person with any thoughts or memories of them passes away. And even then, when a living relative looks at an old photo of someone who lived in the past and starts thinking about that person, the dead person is now ‘alive’ again, if even only for a moment. 

All too recently I have had this experience. At the beginning of this quarter my grandmother passed away and I know that even though her body has not more life, that her memories and the impact that she had on the world around my will follow me through my life. I am thankful that I was able to be as close to her as I was because she was an amazing person and I would hate to lose or not have these amazing memories of her. When I have children I will tell them the stories of my memories of my grandmother and I would hope that they would pass those stories on to their children as well, this was I would wish that the memories of her would never die.

Little Worker, Huge Love

I found the story ‘Little Worker,’ from Ribofunk very interesting because it was told from the point of view of a companion of a Prime Minister in Canada with her many duties and roles in protecting him from any danger. The character of Little Worker is appealing because as the reader, we are not sure what sort of species she is at first. Maybe she is some sort of feline with the emotions and mental capacity of a human? She wakes up, grooms her fur and is then on her way, starting the day with some breakfast, not cat food but some eggs instead. In order to be aware of all that is going on around the house, she sits at Mister Michael’s feet.

When she gets up, cleans her fur and stretches it makes me think she is feline; then when she is complaining about not being about to eat bread and jelly, I find myself thinking she is human as well.

Little worker has the love, compassion, envy and selfishness of a human. I see this when reading about how much love she has for Mister Michael and how much hate she has for his wife. “Mister Michael’s wife was not the kind of wife he deserved.” The fact that there is never a name given to the wife shows that Little Worker really hates the woman’s guts. Though Little Worker has compassion and envy of a human, she has the violence of an animal. “The part of her inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over.” Animals have the ability to turn off their compassionate brain and just focus on what needs to be done, even if that means killing humans. Especially if that means killing humans who might be threatening a loved one.

Coming from Alaska, where weekly I would see mother moose and their calves or mother black bears and their cubs, I learned pretty quickly not to get in the middle of these families. Mothers of any species are very protective of their young, especially when that species is part wolverine, like Little Worker. Whether Little Worker sees her self as a mother figure or a possible lover for Mister Michael it does not matter much because either way she will want to protect someone she cares about, just like I am sure we would all do.

Little Worker is some sort of a hybrid species and she is caught between two worlds. For those of us living in society today it seems very strange to have a hybrid species, very foreign and scary. It is scary because humans have the ability to do terrible things and animals have the ability to not feel remorse for the actions. This makes the creature naturally feared, if you can even use the word natural. The definition of natural according to dictionary.com is, “existing in or formed by nature.” In my mind, a hybrid creature is not formed by nature, therefore cannot be natural. So maybe it would be more fitting to call them artificially feared.

In the future I can see the possibility of there being hybrid creatures and I believe that as humans we will grow to accept them for what they are, or rather, what they will be.

Just so you know.

On Plurk these last few days the class has been complaining about the student who joined us out of the blue on Friday, May 1^st.  Her name is Eli and just like Shane, I went to High School with her. She is a different kind of person, very intelligent and bright, but I will admit that she interrupts a lot and it gets her on peoples nerves most of the time. The conversation about her on Plurk makes me angry because none of you, with the acceptation of Shane, have ever met Eli. You don’t know the type of person she is. She is a very intellegent person but none of that matters because you are pissed at her for interrupting you once, maybe twice during our class.

As a class, we should NOT be calling her a bitch here on Plurk. I mean how old are you guys? As far as I know we have all graduated from high school and as far as I am concerned the name-calling should have been left behind in the halls of our high schools. We are in college now, it is time to grow up and start using more mature language. Otherwise you just look like dumb high schoolers.

She interrupted many of us when we were still talking and that gets annoying, she was questioning many of the things we were saying and that made us very uncomfortable. But that is no reason to start calling her a bitch. Part of the reason that you got so frustrated with her is simply because she was from outside the classroom, looking in on the very different style of learning we have in Nanotexts and she was questioning us. She didn’t understand why so many people had their heads buried in their laptops while we were watching the various films. She has some very different ideas than many of us because she is very much in to science. I for one think it might be cool to have her back in class again. (Maybe after someone tells her about our not interrupting each other rule so as to not have a repeat of last Friday.) It is always nice to get a different perspective every once in a while.

Running

"Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative." – Steve Prefontaine.

Running has been on my mind for as long as I can remember, but it has been even more so in this last month because of the 12 kilometer Bloomsday race in Spokane, Washington. A race that draws people from all over the United States and the world even, a race that includes ages ranging from 8 to 80 years of age, a race who’s numbers reach 50,000 on a yearly bases.  This idea of getting outside of ones self in order to truly see the world from a different view point is amazing to me and it is something that I try and achieve each and every time I lace up my running shoes and head out for yet another out of the body experience.

I run. More that most people think is normal, a lot more. I love it, especially when it sucks and I collapse at the end of the day smiling because I’m dog tired and sore as hell. Pure bliss, by my definition, consists of nothing more than miles of trails stretching forever in front of me, mine for the taking. I love the feeling of pain fighting for control during a race. I hate being called a ‘jogger’. I need to hurt; it proves that I’m alive. I hate running almost as much as I love it. The most quintessential form of art, the human body pushing itself beyond the maximum, into the unknown, while all ideology flies by, like and human…dissolving. I was born to run, not born to run faster than everyone, but given that desire…I’ve met few people with the same passion for running. It never ceases to amaze me that after 20 miles of torment I can wake up the next morning begging for more.

I can’t say that I know what an out of the body experience feels like but as far as I’m concerned, running and long segments of physical exercise is the closest anyone can really get to reaching that sense of enlightenment at this stage in our world with the technology that we have.

When I am running, I enter a different zone, a place where I can think about everything and nothing at the same time. A place where everything makes sense, but at the same time nothing does. I ask myself why I go run and there is only one answer.

Runners High.

No, its not any kind of drug you can find on the black market or what not, it is something that comes from within yourself. Runner high is that feeling you get when you are dog tired, dead on your feet yet you feel so great that all you can do is smile. The feeling I have at the end of a long race is like nothing I can fully explain. Runners High is ‘The Other’ in this case because it is something that many of us do not understand either because we do not run or because we have never run fast or hard enough to reach that level of knowledge. To know that I have just pushed my body to its limit is what makes me believe that this is an out of the body experience.

"A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself." –Prefontaine.