The Right Amount of Living Space (and Me Going off Topic)

So a lot of people have been looking for housing or already found it and for many one of their criteria is how much space they got.

It really makes me thing how much space do I need and what is the right amount of space.  At home I have two rooms: a sleeping room and a study room.  In reality my study room is just a huge storage spaces for the books I've collected over the years while I sit in a corner on my computer (like I'm doing now!) I definitely can survive with less space.

The only other place I've lived in for an extended period of time is my dorm.  Now since I've lived there for a long time, I think it is safe to say I can survive with that little space.  Still, I don't know if it is the right amount of space.

People may know that my room's messiness is based on my attitude, though I think it is opposite than most.  When I'm relaxed my room is messy and when I'm stressed my room is clean.  The reason is when I'm busy I like to take cleaning breaks to relax hence a clean room while stressed.  During those relaxed times,  my side feels like there is no room, so I could say my dorm doesn't have enough space because I feel like my messiness is surrounding me when I'm relaxed.


Those are the only two places I have to go on, so there is no real answer at the end of this blog.  I definitely don't need that much space.  Maybe it is best to make a list of things I need space for.


Things I need space for:
space to throw books I'm using at the moment that I can reach easily
Computer and a place to put paper to write on
area to place my clothes before I want to put them away
shelves to stick my mini library of books
pacing room (useful not for thinking, but for rocking out to music...)
sleeping (can't forget that since I'm tall)
clothes area

Hmm just writing this out just makes me realize how I'm just not in my dorm.  I leave early in the morning and don't come back until around a few hours before I go to sleep.  Probably because I sat in my room for 18 years I just want to chill around and not go back.  Still it is always nice to have a good area to come back to (see how I brought it back to living area). Since I'm usually not in my dorm it may seem I can survive in any place, but at the end of the day I think we all want a nice home with enough room to give us comfort.

I'll just be happy I don't live in this
Capsule Hotels in Japan

Learning Piano

I had to make one...but first time though

So one of the few things I came into college wanting to learn is how to play the piano.  Having a classical background because of guitar, I felt that the learning curve will be more gentle to me, and I was right.  Still it has been hard going.  I have been sneaking into Brown to use their piano and going to Old Cabell at odd hours to practice. Shoutout to my teacher Arden for being awesome and telling me where I am wrong!

Oh Scales...

There are so many random things that pianists need to know: scales, intervals, technique, sight reading, pieces, etudes, etc.  I've tried to hit many of them but it is hard to be well rounded.  Scales: I know C, G, D, and A major (yes Arden I've been trying other scales).  One handed, two handed, contrary motion, I'm trying to do them all.  Something I do need to work on is playing scales without looking at my hand.

Why you so fast Hanon?

For etudes I'm using Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist, which are fundamentally easy so one can practice technique and speed.  I only know the first three...(out of 60) so there is still plenty to learn from that.  I just can't get those fast because the figure patterns are not what I'm used to with my guitar knowledge.

I think it gets pleasure through mocking me

Now for the actual pieces.  I only know about 3. I am learning pieces that I can play at my level and some stretch pieces that take a while to play.  One thing I have to say for this TOMY LEARN BASS CLEF ALREADY.  But seriously knowing only part of it and having to count from there is a pain, but I don't know an efficient way to learn bass clef.

Yeah just wanted to post my progress after about 2 months of self-teaching/having Arden tell me what to do.  Good break from schoolwork that we have to do for a grade.

Snow Day!

I found today interesting enough that I felt I should blog about it. Woke up at 8 to see my SR’s email that classes are canceled.  Not knowing what else to do, a few people in my hall and I made the trek down to Ohill to grab some food to see they only have pastries.  Then chilled in my floor’s lounge for the day.  Someone realized that even though our dorm had no power, there was emergency power to…the TV! Yeah so we hooked up some extension cables to the TV and 5^th floor had power!  Video games and non-homework related shenanigans ensued so my day has been spent wisely.  

Cool Setup

Some things for some reason I remembered:

1) Why in the world did my dorm have WiFi yet no power?  IT people are that good.

2) The blue glow light in the night that signified that our power was going to go out was supposedly very beautiful 

3) The construction workers were still working in the snow. Sad sad

4) People complaining in the morning that Dominos didn't deliver

5) Trees falling everywhere!

6) Why does the TV have emergency power instead of say the study rooms or the hot water maker?

7) Everybody is complaining that our lounge is too hot and some one says "we should plug in a fan?" Then another person responded "where do you think we live? Old dorms?"

8) Rob saying "They didn't realize that us having no power would actually increase our video game playing time" 

9) Our floor becoming a pilgrimage site because we hooked up a microwave to the power so people came to warm up their food

Have to say a fun day of goofing off with people on my floor I never see at any other time.  

Write What You Know

Happens to the best of us

With essays and creative writing projects coming up for people who are in English classes, the question is always "what to write about?" I've always wondered if the old adage "write what you know" is actually true.  The best place for me to look to answer this question is in the things I've written.  Most of my writings seem to end up being about gangster wars, medieval civilizations, or spy stories.  None of these are things that I am involved in, so does that make the statement “write what you know” wrong?

Reading the “Secret Life of Pronouns” (good recommendation Anh) made me believe that this statement is true.  The book is about how people use language and how language use explains who a person is and how they think. One of the interactive tests in the book is it gives you a picture and tells you to write a story about it.  Then based on your word choice, it can discern your attitude towards the image, what your stance is in the situation, and a reflection of yourself in your story.  Since the pictures are vague and you have to write a story, you naturally use snippets of your own life and thoughts to construct it.  That doesn’t mean that the story is 100% your life, but your experiences are involved.  So maybe “write what you know” is true in an indirect sense.

Example of one of the vague images

Why am I thinking about this now? Well I’m sitting in Shea thinking about how I have my Japanese lit class in 25 min.  In that class, we are reading novels written by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa.  Unlike other novelists of his time like Soseki, he didn’t want to fully expose his life and lay it bare for his readers.  Instead he wanted to express his inner turmoil through the fictional stories of others; the fictional writings he created contrasted previous semi-autobiographical writings.  That way he wrote what he knew, but with the detachment he desired. 

Man was a short story genius

Went off on a tangent there but it is part of the point I wanted to make.  Even when I wrote those stories of events I’ve never seen and worlds I’ve never been, each story has a part of my own experience in it which, even if it may not have a direct part of the story, influences the entire tale.  It is said that ideas cannot come from nowhere but have some origin as we think with this crazy brain of ours.  Maybe humans can ONLY write what they know if that thought that ideas have to come from somewhere is true.  May not make writing essays and stories easier, but it is comforting to know that all we really need is already in our brains. 

Aesthetic Distance

I don’t know when, but at a certain point I gave up analyzing works.  I mean yes we have to analyze books, poems, letters, etc for class, but I really never cared for things that were not pertinent to myself.  My Professor’s Pick novel (a program where the professor gave a free book and we read it and discussed it with the professor) was “So Long, See You Tomorrow.” For me, the book was the destruction of friendship as the two main men slowly drifted apart until one kills the other.  I was connected more with the inability of humans to understand each other’s needs, but the Professor focused more on class and gender relations.

 I know how important those are to American history, but pretty much every book we read in high school the teacher pounded into our head to notice gender, class, race, all the things that divide humans and talk about the culture of the time.  I don’t know when I decided that I didn't want to think about those, almost purging that part of analysis out of my mind, but I think I have.  I care to think about those, so I didn't. I've pretty much have chosen to analyze what I feel connected to in a novel, which is not usually how the book should be analyzed because those other themes, even if I don’t want to analyze them, are very important.

The reason why I feel that my way of analysis is wrong is because of my Japanese literature class. The teacher explained the role of “aesthetic distance.” She didn't want to hear our very personal, visceral reactions but more on the fictional reality in the story.  I am one who feels for the character too much, which is good for novel read for fun, but not for analysis. The point of aesthetic distance is to think about the protagonist's plight not only from the reader's very personal experiences (which is very normal) but also from the protagonist's worldview as Wilson Sensei puts it.

I've said before that it seems my reflections for novels and poems seem like rants.  This is that visceral reaction that I need to learn to avoid (sorry Gus that you had to read all that every week). This semester in my literature class I’ll need to remember to keep some form of detachment from the characters.  One still needs to feel for them, but not enough that it would cloud the analyzing process.  My mind gets clouded easily when I read so I’ll work on honing my skills so I don’t sound like some ranting crazy person.  Just because I have something to say about the literature, doesn't mean it is constructive to the topic.

Friendship stuff

A thing I was thinking about a few days ago that I didn't vocalize. Something I don't know if I'll fully accept are friendships based solely on humor.  Humor in friends is nice, but it doesn't go deep.  They of course can coexist, but friendships solely based on humor are held together like a thread that is too easily severed.

Humans are so complex and are more deep than their humor lets on.  Humor is the easiest way to get someone to like your company and therefore become friends.  But is that all that is needed for a friendship?  In the long run, it would seem that humor hinders a friendship.  In the end, all that is left is a few inside jokes and no lasting bond between the people.

But then there is me.  Do I do anything about it?  Sometimes. The more important question is: Does that effect my attitude?  The answer to that is usually no.  Sometimes people reveal themselves; say horrible things about their past.  Things that go beyond the normal humorous and enjoyable conversations.  It may set the person in a different frame of mind for others, but for me it rarely changes my attitude towards the person.  When I met the person again, I just act like I normally do; the same old routine.  People may see it as me accepting their past and not feeling pity for them, but it is more of me not knowing how to deal with such info.  So does going beyond the humor have any effect on my friendships either?  I don't know.

Maybe the only thing I can rely on is hope.  I know based on my humor that it is grounded on what I'm actually thinking.  The brain that is making the joke is the same brain that is thinking. Something in that person's brain thinks the humor and that thought does reveal something about them...In ways I personally am horrible at reading.  In some form, humor and thoughts coexist and relate to each other. Hopefully that understanding leads to deeper friendships.

Morning blogging

Call me naive, but it was just yesterday that I learned the fallbacks of dedicating myself to one task.  For the past month my brain has been running solely on the thought of Japanese.  That could be because that class has my most work, but my life has revolved around it.  From talking to most of the teachers and going to my teacher's office hours to actively participating in Japan Club and going to Japanese related events, I've not done much else.

Why did I realize this now?  Well yesterday I was being taught DCF analysis.  It is a method used by financial people to calculate the value of companies.  Though it is something we learn 3rd year, it is important to know before comm school and for internships.  Comm school? internships? Remember those?  Yeah, my actual major.  There are people that dive into the financial world, and when I was surrounded by them I felt so behind.  I asked a lot of questions, which wasn't bad, but I felt I should have understood the info in the first place.  I've been slacking on my actual major, which isn't good.

This is not to say I know everything about Japanese; far from it.  I went to the JC fall fest after helping make the food, and there was a social consciousness I didn't feel a part of.  They all watched anime, they knew the Jpop songs, they knew the food names and how they should taste.  Again I felt so clueless.

After I left the fall fest after eating the food, I went to the University Singers concert.  Reminded me of that other part of my life I've been ignoring: music.  I barely practice my guitar; I just don't make the time for it.  More slacking on a talent I can actually be proud of.

This is probably all just time management issues, but if I say that I'll have to include activities, friends, relaxing time, and other random factors.  Balance is something I've never had to deal with and it is hard to wrap my brain around this.  Planning ahead to make sure all these paths of my life end in a place I want them to is seemingly impossible.  So yeah, I don't know what to do about it.