Introductions

1. What has been your favorite course of study in or out of school? Why?

I am an art history major, so I love art history and art classes. I really enjoyed my Modern Architecture course. It ended up being way more interesting than I thought it would be and the teacher, Robert Nauman, was so amazing. He knew so much about the subject that he was able to make me more interested in it. This was my first upper division art history course and I loved it.

2. How many pages was the longest paper you have written? Did it include endnotes and bibliography?

The longest paper I have ever written was 10 pages long, including footnotes and a bibliography.

3. Which was your favorite paper? Please tell us about the topic in a couple of sentences.

In high school I wrote a research paper on the Fates. I really enjoyed writing it because I really like mythology and The Fates are such an interesting subject.

4. Is there a particular kind of writing you love to do?

I don’t really love any type of writing. I

5. Which books have you read lately: art, fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, poetry, environmental, film? Any comments are welcome.

I love reading fiction books, but occasionally I will read a non-fiction book. I recently read the Philosophy of Andy Warhol, which was really interesting because I really enjoy his artwork but I had no idea he was so weird. I also recently finished the Hunger Games series, which I loved and could not put down. When I first started the series I had to wait for the next book to be published which was painful because I just wanted to know what happens next.

6. Which artist or writer really impresses you? Why?

I don’t have a favorite writer or artist. That being said, I recently read a work by Stieg Larsson, who is an amazing writer. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was so unexpected and harsh, and I didn’t see any of it coming.

7. What is your main interest besides writing, art, music, (i.e., the humanities)?

I really like movies and tried learning Italian for a year. I wasn’t very good at Italian, at least in the intro courses, but I haven’t given up on it yet.

8. Please describe briefly an article in a newspaper or a magazine that got you thinking lately.

My dad showed me an article in our local newspaper back home about volunteering and ways to build up a resume. It really got me thinking about how I don’t give back enough and that I really need to make more time to do some volunteer work.

9. Which recent cultural event has really impressed you? This can be a museum, a concert, or anything like that, but also a sports game (if you consider this a cultural event, for which there are good reasons).

I recently went to the production of Next to Normal in Denver. I had never heard of it and really enjoyed it. I love musicals. This musical in particular had a very different message than the ones I have seen before, but it made me really think and made me want to make the best out of life and not take things for granted. I also went to Italy in 2009, and seeing the art in the Vatican and Florence in particular was fascinating. I knew that I was interested in art and art history, but seeing these works in person solidified my love for learning and discovering more about art works.

10. Is there another, non-cultural event that has affected you deeply.

My parents were divorced when I was two years old, and both were remarried by the time I was four. I think growing up between two households affected my life deeply.

11. Please share with us a thought or an idea that really widened your intellectual horizon. If possible, give a source for this idea so that those who are interested know where to go.

I recently found out that a friend had died. He lived everyday to the fullest and lit up a room everywhere he went. I learned from him that you should do the things you love and you have to live your life. I don’t want to just let life happen to me, I want to grab life with both hands and accomplish as many things as I can.

Multimodal - Calvin

Toxic
Alone. It’s how I spent my freshman year of college. It’s where I formed my philosophy. It’s also the time and place where I can breathe and grow. I discovered the person I am and figured out what steps I need to take to become the person I want to be. Free from judgement, from worry, and from obligations to anyone and anything. Time where I can rest and settle back into the person that my daily life shakes lose; rattling his cage and agitating him. The best use of my time.
The death of a significant other can produce this kind of a drastic perspective on life, but research actually shows that happiness levels nearly return to what they originally were after four or five years. The view that I have isn’t because anyone died, but because everyone I know has let me down. My best friend, that I’ve known since I was born, turned into another person when he went to college. Oblivious to other people’s desires or feelings, he’s become callous and toxic. He’s unreservedly shameful to be around and makes conversation impossible, because he feels his opinions are more important. Another one of my best friends literally ignored me for our last semester of high school. After we graduated I asked one of our mutual friends why he did it, and his answer was that he was just bored of me. I also found out that I was often the point of derision for them. I can remember a specific instance where the four of us were at my house and decided to go to a movie, but I couldn’t go because I didn’t have any money. They went without me and then came back to my house later. At the time, I was shocked and appalled that they would actually go without me and not even offer to pay. The very least they could’ve done was to decide to stay. It all seems so obvious now when I think about the kind of people they are. Other people I thought were friends would ignore me from time to time and they all eventually just faded away. In fact, I only have two friends from my first twenty-one years who I ever see anymore.
My parents were no help. They constantly berated me on keeping grades and for how “awfully” I treated my friends and family. My dad never seemed to have anything good to say about me even though I was a varsity soccer player when I was a sophomore and graduated with a 3.9 GPA. He would always say he was so hard on me because he knew I could be a better person, which was true, but I can only remember the one time, at my graduation, where he said he was proud of me. A friend put it best when he quantified our relationship by saying, “He was a good provider but not a good father.” My mother always seemed disturbed by the way I dressed and the kind of music I listened to. She was completely aghast when I dyed my hair black and claimed that dying one’s hair black was demonic, never giving me a straight answer for what she thought of people with natural black hair. My parents even created rifts between me and my sisters because we felt we always had to fight for their love and approval. Disappointed. That’s all they ever seemed and it was their only punishment for us. I think they believe they raised healthy children.
Isolated. Being alone comes not without its limitations. No one can hurt me, but I have no one to lean on. I have no one to trust and no one to connect with when I really need it. My great grandmother died yesterday. None of my friends even know that it’s happened because I don’t trust people enough to have the kind of relationships where I could talk about serious matters. Without any sort of meaningful connection, I’m left sometimes to muse in quiet agony. The cage around my person makes it so that no one can come near, but also drives away the possibility of any good influence coming close enough to make an impact in my life. I can’t tell the difference so I’ve come to depend on myself as the only person I trust. He taught me self-discipline and turned my pessimism into realism. People try to tell me that thinking the worst of people is pessimistic, but it’s all too real to me. The reality of it is it’s much easier to be happy because the slightest amount of good is more than I expected, and most people aren’t as bad as the friends I’ve had. Letting people get too close, though, makes everything unravel because I don’t give out many chances anymore, and keeping them at a distance is easier anyways. After their first mistake, I usually lose all faith and avoid them, which generally offends them. Things are just more simple this way.
Thinking about all the people I’ve known and loved reminds me of how toxic those relationships were for me. Days like Sunday, with no one to help alleviate the stress and carry my burden, make me think of how straining my choices are on my emotional health. People are my vice and having one person that I can trust is all that I really want. My only constant is the phrase, “How quickly I forget that this is meaningless;” the basis of my entire attitude towards problems, regrets, and pain. As cynical as it may be, this phrase allows me to move on and have control over my life. But days like Sunday make me wonder if it’s just as toxic as the people I’ve known.

Assignment 1

August’s Paradox
The present is four in the morning. Our new house is still filled with unopened boxes because none of us are ever home to actually move everything in. As I sit writing, with a small fan drawing in the night air, I wonder why we moved here in the first place and affirm to myself in the same thought that August has the best night air. We are now paying more for much less in a much louder part of the city, but my skin keeps pulling my attention away from my social troubles to the simple pleasure that is August air. August still has the torrid heat of July, but its nights are always calm, temperate, and carry the sweet smell of coming snow.
The simplicity of August is the present of my physical being, but the present is also the balance of work, school, and sleep and how my physical being falls into that balance. The normal balance is work and play, but my circumstances allow for the distinct separation of work and school and include sleep because these are the three things that consume my time. Play was omitted long ago, and its omission continues to serve as a means to afford my new rent. School is the only way I can stay within the good graces of my parents and is presently the only thing that gives me the sort of purpose I think I want. After separating work and school and excluding play, the only thing left is exhaustion. My exhaustion becomes a catalyst, upsetting the balance by missing classes, which causes me to stay up later and push deadlines closer and closer to their ends. The stresses of a tight budget with tighter due dates and a demeaning job only combine to create an extra emotional exhaustion that only causes me to yearn for the nights of August, where I can run in solitude. Running is a beautiful thing in its own right, but the surreality of running in that air is probably one of the most relaxing things I have found. Even looking at the moon, which shines as brightly as all of my problems, only reminds me that the sun rises soon. This then leads to the thought that eventually my troubles end with the setting of the night, and here exists the paradox of my exhaustion: I love the night and the solitude, but everything else suffers for the sake of a simple pleasure, which is only a distraction from the strain of all my other commitments. My stress contributes to a more straining schedule by seeking reprieve at the opposite end of the clock, ultimately creating more exhaustion.
Now the present has become the past, and the past demands an explanation as to why it was what it is, being presently past. The only thing that frustrates me more than the paradox of exhaustion is introspection. I began thinking about this paper and sifting through the library of burned bridges, good times, poor choices, and thought about how much of myself I wanted to put in it. In an effort to avoid introspection I chose to write about the immediate present, and the relationship I have with the night. The night has taught me who I am and why I do what I do, but realizing who am puts me in a foul mood because I realize the person I can never be, and the only thing I can blame is myself. This paradox is far more discouraging than the problems posed by exhaustion, which can be fixed by a matter of willpower. The paradox of myself relates to time and its one-dimensional linearity. Time’s properties are such that the present will be solidified in the past in a matter of an instant, and that the existence of the future is only relative to that of the present, which passes in such a way that it can also be the past in a matter of an instant. I focus on this aspect of time because I often feel that I will not accomplish all that I want to, and this will only add to the regrets I have already amassed. The most confounding part is that I still have no clue as to what I want to accomplish and will not even realize what my regrets are until my present takes its place in the past. Looking at my past does help to see the things that I might regret in the future, but knowing who I am does not give me the kind of satisfaction I would like because I still feel that much more improvement is required. This only creates a greater project, that expands beyond the immediacy of my present questions. Introspection, in this way only leads to improvement, but also adds more stress to my life by including the idea of the betterment of my person.
The night may be the best in August, but a bad night is always better than a good day. The air settles back to its natural calm after a long day of abuse at the hands of social constructs and regains its calm and sophistication. This calm is something that I have always loved because I know who I am, despite how painful those facts might be. At any rate, I am a much better person than I was and the only way that was possible was to evaluate my past and fix my mistakes. I still wonder if procrastination is a habit or disease, and until I fix it I will probably always wonder. My love of the night was only precipitated by procrastination and brings me to my present person and my present physicality; alone, again, thinking about why I am here and if I can change for a future that just passed and continues to pass as the present moves forward. I take a deep breath and smell the sun rising, bringing with me another day’s worth of experience.

ANTHEM

ANTHEM SELF-ASSESMENT

I do not think the title “Anthem” is to compelling as a title for this piece but since the title sequence is so short I do not think it was an issue as far as holding the viewers attention for the video. This video/performance was a reaction to myself becoming a dual citizen between the UK and USA while keeping immense Scottish pride. I intentionally sang the Scottish Anthem with a lot more vigor than the American Anthem because for a long time I felt American Nationalism had been forced upon me and I was bogged down with it. It fitted in with the personal narrative for it’s own sake, I think the viewers as a class understood my idea; although, without text or a backstory I think this piece would be confusing for an audience outside of our writing class. I believe this piece takes the viewer on a journey in to my own mind and my torn state of flux at that moment in time, where I was grasping onto an identity I feared was getting taken away from me. But in hindsight this “torn identity” does not matter, because even my U.S. passport says I was born in the United Kingdom and no matter what I will always be a Glaswegian. I think the video/performance in this piece was very compelling to the viewer, I am a very bad singer so I think that the humorous aspect of it added a lot to the video especially since this is a class where most people see me when I am insanely tired. I think that the longevity of the piece was good for the assignments requirement being 3-4 minutes since there was a definite awkwardness towards the end of the Star Spangled Banner when I was singing the slower more complicated verses while getting tired and losing my breath but would like to push that aspect further with longer duration on both National Anthems. I think that the transition between clips was alright as far the split screen went but I should have cut the section of me turning the computer off out because it doesn’t look as professional. I do not know if the ending could be called compelling but I think it was appropriate for the content of my video since it needed to end.

I give myself a B for this assignment, I feel the video/performance was successful and my writings were strong and led me to the making of this video but do not actually pertain to the final product.

Personal narrative - multi modal assignment

I’ll Never Ask.

Why am I still wondering?

Why are you making yourself miserable?

Why wont you talk to me?

What is going on inside your head?

When did it get like this?

Am I the crazy one?

No way.

Did you know, when you first saw me, that I would be hooked?

Were you scared when you knew I was?

How could something so bad come from something so good?

Do you realize the extent of what you did?

Do you understand how stupid I am for letting this happen?

Why do I do this over and over again?

Why can’t I control myself?

Why am I drawn to you like a magnet?

Why do I crave you more than any drug?

How do you piss me off more than anything in the world?

What is with the damn attitude?

Did you know that I would forgive you?

Did you know that you would do it again?

Did you mean it when you first said that you love me?

Do you mean it now?

Why don’t you let me love you?

How can you be so naïve?

How can you be so selfish?

How can you expect me to believe anything you say?

How many chances have I given you?

How many have you given me?

Do you understand why I feel used?

Do you understand why I get upset?

Do you understand why I’m still trying to make this work?

I don’t.

Why am I the only one who has to try?

Why is it always my fault?

Why am I always the one apologizing?

Apologizing for what?

For loving you?

For listening to you?

For supporting you?

For helping you?

Fuck you.

Why is this constantly a one-way road?

How can you say that you love me?

How can I believe it still now?

Can’t you see that I love you?

Can you see that I hate you?

Why do I constantly lift you up?

Why do I constantly let you take me down?

What do you expect to happen?

Do you have any idea?

Why can’t I just tell you?

Was this ever real?

Was this ever good?

Were you ever happy?

Was I?

I think I was.

Do you want this?

Why don’t I believe it?

Why can’t you look at me?

Why can’t you talk to me?

Why can’t you touch me?

Why can’t you let me you let me be your girl?

Why do I even care anymore?

Why do I keep trying?

Why do I keep crying?

Why do I keep wanting?

Why do I keep imagining?

Why do I keep waiting?

Why do I keep coming back?

Why do I keep asking?

Why do I keep looking?

Why am I making myself miserable?

Why am I still wondering?

miltimodal, Susan Walicki