Monday, December 28, 2015
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Beijing
On the plane from Boston to Beijing, a stewardess worked her way slowly down the aisle, picking up bits of lint and litter BY HAND. She was literally on her hands and knees with a little tray upon which she deposited little bits of garbage from the carpet. It couldn't wait, I guess.
Adventure Time!! Chinese Edition
This year's adventure is Christmas in China!!! My boyfriend Joel just started a new job in Chengdu, and since he doesn't have much vacation time accrued to go home for the holidays, I brought Christmas to him :)
As soon as I bought tickets, I started plotting how I could fill his apartment with holiday-ness using only what I could pack in my small suitcase. Turned out the simplest ideas have the biggest impact! This next part is going to sound like a DIY tutorial; please bear with my boasting ^^.
I noticed a couple fashion magazines in the break room at work that had been sitting there for months. I pulled out all the brightly colored pages, imagining that I'd ball them up or origami them into ornaments. What I ended up doing was cutting them into three-ish inch circles and sewing them into garlands!!! I love them, and I plan on using them ALL THE TIME when I get them home. I will have the coolest looking parties. See?!
The other main thing I did was make a portable Christmas tree. I got the idea from IKEA. Apparently back in 2012 or something they printed a fabric with a full size photograph of a fir tree, but they haven't done it since. I checked Ebay and found a flourishing but expensive market--someone in Canada seems to have bought a whole bolt and has been making bank on these trees ever since! I didn't want to spend 60$ on a fabric tree (of course, as all seasoned crafters might guess, the final iteration of my project probably cost me not much less), so I decided to Make One Myself. First I checked out buying a digital photograph of a tree and having Spoonflower print it out for me on the fabric of my choice. That started looking pricey and also very, I don't know, theoretical. I like doing things myself. I can make sure it gets done that way. And done in time to pack in my suitcase. Until this point I had been actively telling myself that I wouldn't paint it because it would just end up looking dumb, but in the end I painted it. And I don't think it looks dumb!
And this is the tree in situ:
I pinned it to Joel's curtains! And it turned out just right that his mom sent him the most perfect gold glittery star!! Not to mention bells and mini candy canes, which I just safety pinned to the tree. Oh and of course Joel's elephant stocking. ^^
Tah dah! Add an evergreen smelly candle and the illusion is complete!
Basically, I arrived on Wednesday night and spent Thursday morning transforming Joel's apartment while he was at work. His shipment of all of his worldly belongings had come in the day before, so I gleefully unpacked brandy-new kitchen stuff, hauled all the other boxes into one of the spare bedrooms, rearranged his furniture, and hung lights and strew candy everywhere! Christmas Eve in China was lovely cozy :) We drank fancy spicy drink from IKEA and opened presents and watched Scrooge and went to bed early IN PREPARATION FOR: Christmas day in Hong Kong!!!
(To be continued)
As soon as I bought tickets, I started plotting how I could fill his apartment with holiday-ness using only what I could pack in my small suitcase. Turned out the simplest ideas have the biggest impact! This next part is going to sound like a DIY tutorial; please bear with my boasting ^^.
I noticed a couple fashion magazines in the break room at work that had been sitting there for months. I pulled out all the brightly colored pages, imagining that I'd ball them up or origami them into ornaments. What I ended up doing was cutting them into three-ish inch circles and sewing them into garlands!!! I love them, and I plan on using them ALL THE TIME when I get them home. I will have the coolest looking parties. See?!
The other main thing I did was make a portable Christmas tree. I got the idea from IKEA. Apparently back in 2012 or something they printed a fabric with a full size photograph of a fir tree, but they haven't done it since. I checked Ebay and found a flourishing but expensive market--someone in Canada seems to have bought a whole bolt and has been making bank on these trees ever since! I didn't want to spend 60$ on a fabric tree (of course, as all seasoned crafters might guess, the final iteration of my project probably cost me not much less), so I decided to Make One Myself. First I checked out buying a digital photograph of a tree and having Spoonflower print it out for me on the fabric of my choice. That started looking pricey and also very, I don't know, theoretical. I like doing things myself. I can make sure it gets done that way. And done in time to pack in my suitcase. Until this point I had been actively telling myself that I wouldn't paint it because it would just end up looking dumb, but in the end I painted it. And I don't think it looks dumb!
 |
| stage 1: neon green spray paint as base! |
 |
| stage 2: paint dark green with dry brush for fur effect |
 |
| stage 3: pump-spray-bottle of emerald green for depth |
And this is the tree in situ:
I pinned it to Joel's curtains! And it turned out just right that his mom sent him the most perfect gold glittery star!! Not to mention bells and mini candy canes, which I just safety pinned to the tree. Oh and of course Joel's elephant stocking. ^^
Tah dah! Add an evergreen smelly candle and the illusion is complete!
Basically, I arrived on Wednesday night and spent Thursday morning transforming Joel's apartment while he was at work. His shipment of all of his worldly belongings had come in the day before, so I gleefully unpacked brandy-new kitchen stuff, hauled all the other boxes into one of the spare bedrooms, rearranged his furniture, and hung lights and strew candy everywhere! Christmas Eve in China was lovely cozy :) We drank fancy spicy drink from IKEA and opened presents and watched Scrooge and went to bed early IN PREPARATION FOR: Christmas day in Hong Kong!!!
(To be continued)
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Synesthesia And Learning Chinese
I have synesthesia. Specifically, I have associative color-grapheme synesthesia. That means that when I envision letters and numbers (graphemes) in my head, they are colored. A is red, B is purple, C is grey, D is blue, 1 is white, 2 is orange, 3 is light green, 4 is red, etc. The colors have remained the same over time, for as long as I can remember. "Associative" means that I don't see the colors superimposed on written letters with my physical eyes, but they appear in my mind's eye.
I think one of the reasons I did well in school (reading was easy, math wasn't a total mystery, languages are fun to learn) is because I have a mnemonic device built into my brain! Not only are letters and numbers formed of a bunch of little lines, but they are color coded! When I do my job at the museum, for example, I take advantage of this, usually subconsiously. I'm an art handler, so I'm always looking for objects and locations by number and letter. If I have to find bracket 3B, for example, the colors light green and dark purple come to mind. Scanning over the rows of brackets, my eyes will catch on the 3B because those graphemes almost immediately shoot my brain color signals which match the colors I was looking for. (When I put it that way, it sounds more complicated than people who just see little clusters of lines, but whatever.)
Words work the same way. A word is a collection of letters (obviously) and my brain picks out certain "dominant" colors or the colors of "dominant" letters from a word. Thus a word like "phone" creates a mainly orange-brown impression from the "ph" combo at the beginning even though the "n" is quite green. The "o" and the "e" hardly register at all since they are neutral colors; creamy yellow white and palest yellow green, respectively. The word "rose" is handily colored like an actual rose, since "r" is fushia red and "s" is deep green. The word "drink" is odd because the "k" sticks out, even though the "dr" is mostly dominant. It becomes a veritable rainbow of blue, red, green and brown, though if I think about it quickly, the d's blue stands out the most.
Numbers are unique because each number has an Arabic numeral and a written-out spelling of that numeral. "5" and "five". The colors of the numerals are dominant over the words. "5" is very clearly a bold, almost-navy blue, and so is the word "five", even though, when I think carefully about it, "f" is a forest green, and "v" is a shade of silver (again, the vowels are nondescript). Not sure why the numbers are dominant. Maybe I learned them first as a kid? Maybe because they are mono-graphemic.
This has all come to the forefront of my mind recently because I've been learning Chinese. It's a really hard language to learn. Like, really really hard.
Firstly, the grammar is really easy. Which is hard! I'm used to all kinds of rules and structures! I learned German, for heaven's sake. Conjugations, declensions, AND genders. It was marvelously complicated! Chinese is confusingly simple.
Second, Chinese has four tones that you must vocalize as you are speaking the words. First tone is a straight high pitch, second is rising, third dips down and back up, and fourth is an almost staccato downward sound. These tones change the meanings of words. Like a lot.
The final difficulty to Chinese is reading and writing Chinese characters. Who ever thought that a non-phonetic system where each symbol stood for a completely different word was a good idea??? I can't read anything unless I have memorized the symbol. I can't sound anything out! You just have to already know! Or have a dictionary handy. So far, this first semester of Chinese, I think I have learned about 300 words. That's 300 sound combinations + differentiating tones + UNIQUE characters!!!
It's hard.
And my synesthesia hasn't caught up. I'm so used to seeing words and letters in color, that Chinese characters throw me for a complete loop! I don't have associated colors for the thousands and thousands of unique non-phonetic identifiers! How am I supposed to learn things without colors to help me?!?!
Chinese characters, as I mentioned, are not phonetic, but there is a system of romanization of the words to make learning easier for Chinese children and foreigners alike. It's called "pinyin". Pinyin is written with the familiar Latin alphabet, so it is colorful in my head! Will Chinese characters remain black and white to me? I'm already detecting hints of color when I picture them, so I can't quite imagine that happening, but how will it work??
My questions are these:
I think one of the reasons I did well in school (reading was easy, math wasn't a total mystery, languages are fun to learn) is because I have a mnemonic device built into my brain! Not only are letters and numbers formed of a bunch of little lines, but they are color coded! When I do my job at the museum, for example, I take advantage of this, usually subconsiously. I'm an art handler, so I'm always looking for objects and locations by number and letter. If I have to find bracket 3B, for example, the colors light green and dark purple come to mind. Scanning over the rows of brackets, my eyes will catch on the 3B because those graphemes almost immediately shoot my brain color signals which match the colors I was looking for. (When I put it that way, it sounds more complicated than people who just see little clusters of lines, but whatever.)
Words work the same way. A word is a collection of letters (obviously) and my brain picks out certain "dominant" colors or the colors of "dominant" letters from a word. Thus a word like "phone" creates a mainly orange-brown impression from the "ph" combo at the beginning even though the "n" is quite green. The "o" and the "e" hardly register at all since they are neutral colors; creamy yellow white and palest yellow green, respectively. The word "rose" is handily colored like an actual rose, since "r" is fushia red and "s" is deep green. The word "drink" is odd because the "k" sticks out, even though the "dr" is mostly dominant. It becomes a veritable rainbow of blue, red, green and brown, though if I think about it quickly, the d's blue stands out the most.
Numbers are unique because each number has an Arabic numeral and a written-out spelling of that numeral. "5" and "five". The colors of the numerals are dominant over the words. "5" is very clearly a bold, almost-navy blue, and so is the word "five", even though, when I think carefully about it, "f" is a forest green, and "v" is a shade of silver (again, the vowels are nondescript). Not sure why the numbers are dominant. Maybe I learned them first as a kid? Maybe because they are mono-graphemic.
This has all come to the forefront of my mind recently because I've been learning Chinese. It's a really hard language to learn. Like, really really hard.
Firstly, the grammar is really easy. Which is hard! I'm used to all kinds of rules and structures! I learned German, for heaven's sake. Conjugations, declensions, AND genders. It was marvelously complicated! Chinese is confusingly simple.
Second, Chinese has four tones that you must vocalize as you are speaking the words. First tone is a straight high pitch, second is rising, third dips down and back up, and fourth is an almost staccato downward sound. These tones change the meanings of words. Like a lot.
The final difficulty to Chinese is reading and writing Chinese characters. Who ever thought that a non-phonetic system where each symbol stood for a completely different word was a good idea??? I can't read anything unless I have memorized the symbol. I can't sound anything out! You just have to already know! Or have a dictionary handy. So far, this first semester of Chinese, I think I have learned about 300 words. That's 300 sound combinations + differentiating tones + UNIQUE characters!!!
It's hard.
And my synesthesia hasn't caught up. I'm so used to seeing words and letters in color, that Chinese characters throw me for a complete loop! I don't have associated colors for the thousands and thousands of unique non-phonetic identifiers! How am I supposed to learn things without colors to help me?!?!
Chinese characters, as I mentioned, are not phonetic, but there is a system of romanization of the words to make learning easier for Chinese children and foreigners alike. It's called "pinyin". Pinyin is written with the familiar Latin alphabet, so it is colorful in my head! Will Chinese characters remain black and white to me? I'm already detecting hints of color when I picture them, so I can't quite imagine that happening, but how will it work??
My questions are these:
- Will my brain come up with colors for the four tones?
- Will it come up with colors for the characters and the radicals (building block characters that go together to make other characters)?
- If radicals have their own colors, will characters made of combined radicals be multicolored? Will they, like words, have "dominant" colors?
- Or will the colors of the pinyin spellings "bleed" onto the characters so that they are colored phonetically?
- For numbers, will my Arabic numeral (1, 2, 3, etc) colors "bleed" onto the Chinese numerals? Or will the pinyin of the Chinese numbers determine the color of the characters for the Chinese numbers?
I am fascinated. I'm going to check back in a couple months and see what my brain has been up to. Don't mind me if this is boring.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
There was an excitement and alertness about her which men show before a battle or a struggle, in the dangerous and decisive moments of life, those moments when a man shows his worth once and for all, and shows that his whole past has not been in vain but has been a preparation for such moments.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 5, section xix
It is today. Today is today. It is an end rather than a beginning. Leaving Little. Back to Boston. No wedding or white dress. It is a gentle day.
I have eaten the chocolate and glanced most briefly over the rose petals. The traces of V-day, gone. I have been alone. I have been alone with friends. I have smiled easily and laughed. I have read of sorrows without feeling them. I have worn the ring around my neck with fondness and familiarity. My heart has ached with strenuous activity alone. I feel calm and am confused by it.
I could tell myself (and I have) that we wouldn't have gotten married today anyway; we had decided not today before I decided not ever. I could layer calm upon calm by telling myself that today is not a time to mourn because we are not dead and hope still lives. But my current hope is different from the hope I felt earlier; I now hope for goodness that fits me, not for his goodness to fit me.
He was like a pair of shoes that pinched just one foot. A little bit all good. A little bit all bad.
I have learned that no one is perfect enough that you won't have to choose them.
I have learned that agency is really all that holds this life together.
I have learned (again) that pain often signals a wound and should not be ignored.
I have learned that I must eventually choose to follow my gut or choose to become someone else.
I have learned that I desire to be myself above all else.
I have learned that even if I am not understood, I desire acceptance and respect.
I have learned that I am the judge of my own emotions and needs. No one else can interpret myself to me.
I have learned that I did all I could, that I wanted it to work, that I tried, that I am not to blame.
So yeah. Today is today.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 5, section xix
It is today. Today is today. It is an end rather than a beginning. Leaving Little. Back to Boston. No wedding or white dress. It is a gentle day.
I have eaten the chocolate and glanced most briefly over the rose petals. The traces of V-day, gone. I have been alone. I have been alone with friends. I have smiled easily and laughed. I have read of sorrows without feeling them. I have worn the ring around my neck with fondness and familiarity. My heart has ached with strenuous activity alone. I feel calm and am confused by it.
I could tell myself (and I have) that we wouldn't have gotten married today anyway; we had decided not today before I decided not ever. I could layer calm upon calm by telling myself that today is not a time to mourn because we are not dead and hope still lives. But my current hope is different from the hope I felt earlier; I now hope for goodness that fits me, not for his goodness to fit me.
He was like a pair of shoes that pinched just one foot. A little bit all good. A little bit all bad.
I have learned that no one is perfect enough that you won't have to choose them.
I have learned that agency is really all that holds this life together.
I have learned (again) that pain often signals a wound and should not be ignored.
I have learned that I must eventually choose to follow my gut or choose to become someone else.
I have learned that I desire to be myself above all else.
I have learned that even if I am not understood, I desire acceptance and respect.
I have learned that I am the judge of my own emotions and needs. No one else can interpret myself to me.
I have learned that I did all I could, that I wanted it to work, that I tried, that I am not to blame.
So yeah. Today is today.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Kitty discovered 'what was important', which until then she had not known.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 2, section xxxiii
I spoke German last night. It was Dutch-mangled German, but he understood me. It filled me with energy and life, even at 2 in the morning. Plus he was super nice. And then he left, promising to maybe come visit the museum...and I never got his name! We HAVE to watch the World Cup together, in the same bar. Germany vs. Argentina and there are so many Latin Americans around... I can find him. There are only 150 people on this island.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 2, section xxxiii
I spoke German last night. It was Dutch-mangled German, but he understood me. It filled me with energy and life, even at 2 in the morning. Plus he was super nice. And then he left, promising to maybe come visit the museum...and I never got his name! We HAVE to watch the World Cup together, in the same bar. Germany vs. Argentina and there are so many Latin Americans around... I can find him. There are only 150 people on this island.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
'No really, how do you manage not to be bored?' she said to Anna again. 'All one has to do is look at you to see a woman who can be happy or unhappy--but never bored. Show me how you do it!'
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 3, section xviii
...And I'm painting a coconut palm on a wall in the museum. This, here, is a picture of the tree outside my hotel room door. It is the tree that I'm using as inspiration because of its interestingly kinked trunk and nice proportions.
What follows are a series of images depicting the painting of the tree. I started yesterday afternoon and painted most of today while listening to Within Temptation. I was dealing with some unhappy, and the painting and the music provided some much-needed fiber for the soul. Ready, set, go!
I have a bunch of detailing still to do, but the bulk of the painting is done. I'm going to back off for a few days; set my creative juices on simmer. The rest of the museum installations are moving right ahead, so there is a never-ending supply of stuff for us to do! I'll catch y'all up on it later. Now is time for bed. xo
He felt that in the depths of his soul something was settling down, adjusting and arranging itself.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part 1, Section xxvii
Speaking of arranging, the museum is coming along really well! We hit a couple setbacks, minor ones, really. The paint on an entire wall peeled off, for instance, once the wallpaper primer was painted on. Watch this:
Whole square feet of paint peeled away from the wall because no one had sanded or dusted the sheet rock seams. Amazing. So our wonderful Jack the handy man and his son sanded down the wall and painted it afresh with Kilz. Now our wallpaper is up, and *bonus* it won't fall off the wall anytime soon!
Woohoo! Isn't it beautiful?!?!
Also, we have the amazingly professional museum logo up!
Here is Julia as we unpacked the sea turtle:
And here she is putting everything up:
Et VOILA! We are a MUSEUM!!!
Speaking of arranging, the museum is coming along really well! We hit a couple setbacks, minor ones, really. The paint on an entire wall peeled off, for instance, once the wallpaper primer was painted on. Watch this:
Whole square feet of paint peeled away from the wall because no one had sanded or dusted the sheet rock seams. Amazing. So our wonderful Jack the handy man and his son sanded down the wall and painted it afresh with Kilz. Now our wallpaper is up, and *bonus* it won't fall off the wall anytime soon!
Woohoo! Isn't it beautiful?!?!
Also, we have the amazingly professional museum logo up!
Here is Julia as we unpacked the sea turtle:
And here she is putting everything up:
Et VOILA! We are a MUSEUM!!!
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