(BEDA #23) The Creative Impulse

The 'Creative Impulse' can roughly be defined, or at least accodring to google, as the need or desired to create something new that has value. To me it's more of the yearning to be creative, whether you're replicating something or making something. There is also the definition of value, as it holds different terms in each person's mind. But really, creative impulse, it's something we're all basically born with. And it's something that I often miss.

Now a days I probably only do about three things of the creative sort; which is writing, making Youtube videos, and occassionally drawing. And I like that, I think it's good. And as I said before. I really think people need creative outlets. But there's a difference in being creative and to having a creative outlet, because it's come to the point where I really don't feel creative anymore. Let me explain it like this, when I was younger I was spilling over the brim with creative impulse. Every day I wanted to learn and create something new, I wanted to makes things, see things and in general be as creative that I possibly could be. I had ideas and plans and I just wanted to do everything. There's the whole sponge effect that people talk about when you're younger, how your mind is primed to soak up knowledge, well when I was younger I wanted to soak up everything creative. I wrote and danced, I painted and drew, I sang and later learned to play an instrument. There was just so much about me that was shining with creativity. And I don't have that anymore, but I want to. I want to be the person who does arts and crafts and still write and make really interestign Youtube videos too. I want to learn and do everything possibly creative that I can. But I don't. And it's just because, well...life. There's going to school and working a job, there's all the distractions of the internet I use to get away from sadness and stress. And then there's just other things that I feel compelled to do, be involved in clubs, makes friends...be, you know, a normal human being. I enjoy those things too, I really do, but it's just hard not to know I'm creating or doing anything of value. Yes, my writing is good but unless I have the drive will it ever amount to anything. I have all these wonderful, artistic ideas for videos I never make, and instead film vlogs with bad lighting. And with my drawing, I only just copy things, I'm too scared to make something of my own. But what is it, really? Is it of value? Sometimes I just sit around and think, I'm twenty years old and what have I managed to dow ith my life so far? Nothing, the answer is nothing.

I don't want it to be nothing, though. I want it to be something. I want to be something more than just an apathetic English Major who probably has some odd stress disorder. I want to be better. And so it that silly? Is that so wrong? To push myself to be more creative, to try to rebuild my creative impulse? Because, really, it'd be wonderful to have it back.

Fin.
-Keshia

(BEDA #22) The College Kid Complaints on Composition

I didn't wrtie yesterday because I was writing the rough draft of my final for English Compostition too, a task that drove me into 1am and my eyes screaming just to look away from the computer screen and all the little jumbled words on there. So yeah. And if you thought is was over, I'm going to talk about English more.

Sometimes I like so much that I define the stereotype of and English Major and other times I hate it, because I feel this kind of obligation to like all the English classes I'm in. But I don't like the class I'm in now. Compostion I and II, better known as Eng102 are the pre-rec classes that, in general, most college students have to take. They are Composition classes, classes that are essentially meant to teach you the art of writing a paper, because in University there are a lot of papers, a lot. And sometimes these classes meet those goals of teaching Composition and other times they don't.

Last semester in Eng101 I absolutly loved my class, I fell in love with my teacher, Dr. Rickel, and her brilliance. The subject focus too (globalization, labor unions, and the plights of immigrants-specifically women) was great, though not what I was used to. But I really loved the class because while it was a bit more on challenge side, because Rickel was kind of a hard ass, I felt like I learned something. There was a massive difference between the papers I wrote at the start of the semester and the one I wrote for my final, which I'm proud to say got the highest grade in the class. It's just something in the way she wouldn't let us get away with things and how deeply we would dig into the actualy process of writing a paper. I really loved it. And this semester, in Eng102, everything has been a let down. Our class has mostly consisted on research on issues involving race and music in America. And while it is interesting there has been no real challenge to this class. We've only done three small assignments, a group presentation, and a four page book review. And now we have a final eight page paper. But really, not a single assignment in here has inspired me in any way. Mostly it's because of my teacher this semester, Dr. Murphy, who is brilliant and nice and very attractive for a forty somethin year old man, but who hasn't really thought anything. Even when he's explaining the assignment he's just basically outlines exactly what needs to be done, all walk that is step by step easy. There's no context, no learning and getting down the nitty gritty details of learning to write a proper paper. And it's just really dissapointing to me, particulary since this is an English class. One thing I hate perhaps more than anything else in the world is writing something and not seeing the point to it. And as soon as I finished my paper last night, those were my exact thoughts "What's the point?"

Regardless whether the class is English or not I just hate feeling that way.Last semester I was lucky, every class interested me or at least intruged me in some way, and I really felt like I had learned something, that I left the semester and fuller and better person than I was when I first started. But this smester, only my History 101 and Philosophy 230 class have made me feel that way, they are they only class I really look forward to going to. And it's just a real dissapointment that I felt like I haven't learned much or anythign this semester. To me college isn't just about earning a degree, it's about really learning something and taking something away from a class. I don't want to be in a class because it's a credit I need to earn for my degree, I want to be here because it's something that will make me better.

Fin.
-Keshia

TYPOS!!!! I don't care, it's time to sleep.

(BEDA #20) Opening the Blinds

*So we had to write a microtheme for my English class in which we had to talk about an event in our life that changed our perception on race, and since I think I did a pretty good job I am posting this as my blog today, part out of laziness and part out of me just really wanting to share this. Also this contains racial slurs, I am only relating a story I do not mean to offend anyone in anyway. Also the amount of typos in here are fidicolous, I fixed the copy I'm turning in for class for clas but not this one, I do apologize.*

I grew up in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, the town made famous by the film Forest Gump. It's this tiny little fishing village right off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, permeated with and endless smell of fresh seafood and water around every corner. Despite the place presented in the film, one populated primary by African-Americans, I grew up in a different Bayou, one several decades after the Vietnam War that brought a flood of new Asian immigration to our little fishing village. 

When I younger, in a way, I grew up with color blind eyes. It wasn't really so much as choice more as ignorance; an ignorance that I think was good. I had friends who were Caucasian, African American, Asian, and later on, Hispanic. And too me it wasn't really a big deal, I didn't see the significance of the difference between our skin colors, to me we were all just people. There were people who were my friends, some who had families that were full of loud boisterous people, or homes that held statues of Buddha. It was common people around me, and as I'm sure you know, specifically the whites, threw around racial slurs like, "chink" and "nigger" and look at it like it was no big deal. As I stated before, I didn't see this as wrong when I was younger, I didn't know the significance to people being called different names because of their skin color. I grew older, though, and these things held more meaning, and I saw how they were wrong. But I never really understood how wrong they were until one event in seventh grade.

One of my closest friends was this girl names Lisa, a Vietnamese who had immigrated with her family when she was six years old. She lived in the same apartment complex as me and I loved going over to her house where her Mom would talk loudly in words I couldn't understand and there were always something tantalizing cooking. One day after class our teacher, a white woman, pulled Lisa aside and talked with her about her recent behavior in class. I didn't catch a lot of the conversation but one phrase I did hear was that the "she wasn't prepared to take this behavior because people of 'your kind' think you're privileged." Walking home that day, Lisa was upset, and when I tried to help her she lashed out at me, saying "all white people are the same because we think we're better." I told her that was not true and that if she generalized us then it wasn't any different from the teacher who was generalizing her. And then she said something that I don't think I'll ever forget; "But you guys can do that because you're white, you can call us chinks and it hurts. And the only thing we have to say back is that you're crackers, but who is going to be hurt by that--no one. Because being white isn't wrong, it's right."

Even years later I think about that event and how true her words are, I think what a lot of people forget is that people of all races are demeaned in some way everyday. It's hard because in being privileged with a certain lighter skin color makes people forget just how hard is to be on the other side. On that day, I think a lot of my perceptions on race were shaped because even though I knew racial slurs were wrong I never realized how much of an impact they truly made. Metaphorically I can say the last of my blinds were open and that I could finally see. Race is an issue that should be talked about, but at the same time it should be understand that no one race can be generalized or berated for the skin color they have. If people could see that, how is what race someone is both significant and insignificant, then maybe things, slowly but surely, would get better.

Fin.

-Keshia

(BEDA #19) With Humans and Memories.

There's something that I love about being human and that is in the fascinating fact of memories. Memories are so strange and differerent all at the same time, because really, physically what are they. According my the book definition of memory it is the process byt which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. Soemtimes I really don't like that, don't like getting the nitty gritty scientific definition of things because it makes things become less special. Because memories really are special, they really are. They are the driving power behind a lot of what there is to be being a human being, and different memories effect different people in different ways. They can be good and powerful, they can be so scary at times too. There are a lot of people I know, myself included, who have the fears that almost seem built in because something we remember from the past has made us that way. But whether terrifying or wonderful memories should be special right? And when looking at their definition I just feel like someone who is not human being, but someone who is just a processor, you put the memories in and they are stored somewhere in a folder in the back of your mind. But in reality human beings really are this gaint machine functioned to program in certain ways and standards. I just don't like thinking about it though. Instead I want to think on the intangiable part of human beings, the part that no science could ever really capture, the part of us that is our soul. And that part of us, the part that we know but can never really prove to be there, is beautiful.

And there's just the whole aspect to memorie,s hwo we really, really feel them. Science tells us about all these nerves to record things and process them for us. But memories are just memories, right? They are not phsyical and tangible things. I learned recently in pscyhology that sound memory is supposed to the be the most lasting of the aspects of memory. But I can remember something, remember the shrill voices of people screaming at me, of remember the names I was called, without it actually being there. It fascinates me byond reason that even though memory of sound isn't a physical thing it's like I can hear the voices in my ear, like they're actually happening. And then there's so much else to memory, there's the sight. All I have to do is close my eyes and I can be back in Disney World, watching multicolored fireworks burst in the air. And there is the feeling, just the feeling of my memories. Some memories, memories of when I'm scare can make  me break into cold sweats and shake. And I just don't get it, because they are memories, they aren't real, just information stored in your brain. And yet they can make you feel so much. And that's why, despite everything, I want to believe they are special, probably more special than anythign else in life. I mean when you think about it really, that's what memories are, your life.

Fin.
-Keshia

(BEDA #18) Stressful like Sticky Paper

I remember sometime when I was younger, probably around seven or eight (probably eight, that was a really bad year in my life) I was at my older sister's house. She had a mouse problem so she went and bought a pack of sticky paper and let my nephew and I amuse ourselves by putting it all over the house. It's only thinking now that she was probably being too lazy to do it herself and that you really shouldn't let children play with sitcky paper. But anyways, we hid the sticky paper and the next morning I found to my horror that one piece I had put down caught a whole family of mice. I found them when I woke the next morning before anyone else, attached to the sheet I had so meticously placed under the sink. When I saw them I was terrified, because I really don't think I understood the concept of what sticky paper really was until then. And what I saw was absolutely horrid. They wre struggling and still alive, a bigger one toward the front, and two smaller ones at the back. And as I always did I made up a story to them, even in those few moments when I was absolutly mortified. I decided the bigger one was a mother and she had gotten stuck and had yelled to her kids to stay away, but they wanted to rescue their Mommy and gotten stuck themselves in the process. Have you ever seen mices tuck to sticky paper, cute little grey mice, squeaking as they cling on for dear life. They are so desperate and yet they know there is nothing they can do. That day I started crying and screaming too, when Leslie woke up, annoyed, she saw the paper, picked it up and threw the family in the trash can outside like it was no big deal at all. I think I spent the rest of the day crying and asking forgiveness for murdering that poor little mouse family

A lot of times I think stress is a lot like sticky paper. You're just walking along and then suddenly your foot is stuck to it, and you can't move, you just pull and pull and pull and nothign happens. And then sometimes it gets rose, sometimes you fall over and something your whole body is stuck. And you're just there, stuck in your stress, and sobbing, trying in anyway possible to get off and out, but you can't. And what makes it worse or that people come and look at you, they laugh and point. And worst of all is when they say, 'You can pick yourself up, God, why don't you just do it?' But you can't, and that only makes your struggling harder.

I'm not particulary stressed today, I've been stresed today, but I handled it pretty well, well better than most days. But really, I do feel like sometiems when I'm caught in these stressful times it's liek getting caught on sticky paper.

Fin.
-Keshia

*I am so sore from Running Man yesterday, you can't even imagine*

(BEDA #17) KCC and Running Man

Today I participated in the Running Man Challenge held by the Korean Culture Club on campus. I have literally just join the Korean Culture Club two weeks ago and got thrown into this whole Running Man thing without a clue to what it is. Basically we held this event today based off a Korean variety show based off of mini games and bigger ultimate game. Our goal was to raise money for LINK, with stand for Liberty in North Korea and helps North Korean citizens escape and create new lives in places where they won't be persecuted. I loved the idea immediatly so even though I only just started with the KCC I was more than happy to participate, because I don't think any one should have to live a life in opression.

Yesterday, before the challange today, the KCC basically met up and prepared for everything that we needed to get done. This basically involved folding a lot of origami (paper cranes for me), baking goods to sell, and just in general preparing for the event today. We met up at 4pm and boy it took a lot longer than we expected. I abanoned ship around 1am on the account of need of sleep but other members stayed until 3am. One thing you should know is that the entire KCC is made up of girls (we love the oppas too much) and that i reall regret not learning about this club sooner. The girls in there, they are all really cool and nice, and even when I though I was being socially awkward or obnoxious they were still nice. Basically all of my day off yesterday was dedicated to help with Running Man today but I really didn't mind. Yes, there was stuff I needed to do, and yes I was sore this morning from the constant leaning over to fold cranes, but it was worth it. I got to talk to people and feel comfortable for once. I talked to them about things, about how we came to Montevallo and friends and everything. I watched some silly Youtube videos they have made and just in general got to know them better. It was fun, pretty amazinf, actually.

And then today, today was a lot better. Part of the event was the KCC and the other part was a group of strangers, random people who signed up in teams to partcipate in the event. And it was the first time in a long that tha tI didn't get my crowd anxiety that has seemed to dominate my life for the past year or so. In part it was to do with the games we were playing and how all my concentration was on them, but it was also in part that I was actually able to be comfortable around people, and for the longest time in forever, confidence. There was this one game where we essentially had to fuck with the other teams mind and lie to them, and going in I thought okay. "I should be nervous and scared," but I wasn't. In fact I feel like I came off as one of the most confident on my team. And it was just good because it was lvoely, lovely to feel like I can do things with people and not end up in my room later a sobbing mess. And so I enjoyed today. I hope there are more  days like it to come.

Fin.
-Keshia

(BEDA #16) Best Thing in the History of the Internet.

Fin.

-Keshia