Introspection: Aries versus Aries

A friend of mine was looking at one of my stories the other day and noticed something, "Your characters don't think very much, do they?"

"What do you mean?" I replied. "They aren't stupid." She's read a lot of my pieces, so her opinion matters to me. We were in the library, in the Commons. I had just started drinking my every constant cup of soy milk.

"No, not stupid. Just not introspective."

"But why would I want them to be introspective?" I asked. I sipped at my milk.

She paused. "Aries, most people are introspective. Most people here at least."

"But I'm not."

"Really?" she seemed surprised. Her eyebrows did a cute wiggly-thing.

"No, I plan things. But I don't really think... about stuff." I paused. "Actually that's weird. I don't. I mean, I do think. Like this milk, it could be better. They should replace Silk with Edensoy cause it's a zillion times better."

"Introspection isn't thinking about milk. It's thinking about yourself."

"But I'm pretty boring on the inside." Even saying it, I felt disinterested. I looked around. The boy next to me was reading BBC News. He looked pretty unhappy. The girl at the other section of the desk was working on a Powerpoint presentation on the Black River Watershed.

"Really? Don't you have a blog? Don't you have things to say about yourself?"

"Bloggers don't have to be introspective," I protested.

"Blogging implied introspection. It's self-reflection," she clarified.

"I am not self-reflective. Reflection clutters narrative."

She put her hands up, "It's not a bad thing. You just... might want to think about stuff. Sometimes. You don't have to, but it's good. Sometimes."

There was no more milk. Dammit, I thought.

"I have to go to class," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. We hugged and she left for class.





Questions:
How many happy introverts are there? Why would I want to be introverted? What could I gain? Aren't most writers introspective so they can mine the human spirit? Do I have to care about the human spirit? Do humans have a spirit?

Maybe I can come up with a motto. That's just like self-reflection, yes? Is it useful to include introspection in a narrative? In a blog? Do you care about what I think (do I?) or just about what I do? Is 'show, not tell' a good rule to apply to life? Can I be introspective without being crippled with self-doubt?


Are you an introvert? Are you happy?


Can't I just have a daily motto? That's like introspection. It's a game plan. I like game plans.

Like this one:

Mammoth Cave: the longest entry in the world.

Oberlin is a small town. A lovely, charming town, but a small town nevertheless. And sometimes, it's great to just get out of town. Thus: Spring break in Mammoth Cave!


Our Heroes: Yoshi, Erika, Andrew, Iris and I
Our Place: Kentucky, Mammoth Cave and Louisville
Our Enemies: Winter, rain, nighttime.



Highlights of Our Adventure:

Mammoth. Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave. Its held a tuberculosis hospital, a Methodist church, saltpetre (an element of gunpowder) and millions of tourists. We took two tours of the cave - a total of five hours underground. One tour guide was amazing: Jo Duvall had been working in the cave since the '60s and knew everything about everything. When President Reagan visited the cave, he talked to Jo to get information for his soundbites. He was a self-identified hillbilly with the articulation of a college professor.

The other tour guide was less amazing, but did have a great sense of humor. When we entered a wet portion of the cave and started seeing stalactites and stalagmites in formation, he explained, "When stalagmites and stalactites conjoin, we call them columns. Some people call them pillars, but I'm a Kentucky man, so pillars are what I sleep on."

We camped out about 10 minutes away from the main cave entrance. Our tent and a bunch of our supplies came courtesy of the Outing Club. Outing Club is so cool - they give free camping funds for food and gas, as well as backpacks, tarps, tents and anything you need for a week/weekend away from school. They've sponsored trips to the Rockies, the Adirondacks and places near and far from the college.



Team Family. Our second tour of Mammoth Cave was a lantern tour - we were given one lantern per family. Given we weren't a family, but yet we were a group, we bunched together and declared ourselves Team Family™.

Friendliness aside, groups take a while to bond. I'd never hung out with Erika, Andrew or Iris before for a long period of time. There's an easy way to tell when an Oberlin group bonds (cite: Yoshi) - it's when we all say we're from Ohio. Decisively. For the first day or so, the "Where are y'all from?" question yields... "Ohio, but-" "California" "Texas" "Wisconsin" "Pennsylvania, by Philly" "California, then New York."

After another day, we are from "Ohio." No ifs, ands, or buts.



Not us. Still, it's a big cave.




Delicious food. The benefit of going camping with co-opers is that they can cook like nobody's business. With excessive amounts of rice, pasta, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, olive oil and mozzarella as bases, Erika/Andrew/Iris made some pretty incredible food. Also, there was much less snacking than other road trips I'd been on. The focus was much more on meals and eating together.




Flutes. Andrew, a double-degree classical saxophone/anthropology major, was playing in the pit band for Reefer Madness. Though he has very little flute training, they wanted him to play a specific line from Peer Gynt for the show. So, he needed to learn flute in two weeks. Who better to teach him than Erika? Apparently, Erika played classical flute for over a decade. So, each morning, as breakfast cooked away, Erika would teach Andrew how to relax his embouchure and play gorgeous music. It was amazing to watch how fast Andrew learned the instrument and how well Erika taught it.



Badass Hiking. I am virulently afraid of falling - I have trouble with any sport involving mountains. I love hiking, though, as long as the paths don't try to kill me. On our first real day, we went hiking, in search of the river. An ice storm had ripped through the parkland in late January and had felled thousands of trees and blocked off a number of roads. As a result, we had to take a more circuitous path to get to the river - a windy little path past tiny waterfalls and giant downed trees. Andrew found a tick on his leg, but the rest of us escaped (I hope). While there were hundreds of birds near the campground, we didn't hear so much as a peep up in the hills. Just miles and miles of woods.

Late March is not the gorgeous time in KY - it's still winter, there's not so much green. But there was gold. Some of the trees held little golden leaves that make a whooshing sound in the wind, similar to rain. It reminded me of the wobbly-headed tree spirits (kodama) in Princess Mononoke.


Kodama! Keep reading, it gets cooler.


After a while, we got a bit bored of this. We couldn't see the river, but according to the map, it was all around us. We went off the trail, which meant a sliding descent.

Given my violent acrophobia, this excellent idea turned uncomfortable very fast. Fear is a somatic emotion - I can feel my heart speed up, sweat pour, and a redness settle over my face. My voice becomes harsher, stomach acid sloshes around my gut. I wanted to be alone. I stared at the river for a few minutes. It was a shining aquamarine, gorgeous and clean.

However, it turned out that Erika was also afraid of heights. After a few minutes of descent, we crawled up to the trail.

Below us, the trio kept going: Iris and Andrew are rock-climbing geniuses and Yoshi has massive upper body strength. We could hear their voices, but not what they said. After about 15 minutes, they rejoined us on the trail, Andrew looking sheepish.

"What happened?" Erika asked. "Did you get to the river?"

"No. Andrew did something really stupid - " Iris said.

"For the sake of testosterone, can we replace stupid with badass?" Andrew interjected.

"Okay. So?"

Andrew had been climbing and saw a steep drop a few steps ahead of him. Aloud, he said, "This will be so much easier if I drop my bag down first."

After dropping the bag and hearing the smack a few minutes later, he said, "Shit. Guys? I need to get my bag back."

So Andrew jumped down and found he had no way to get back up the sheer cliff. There were a few minutes of frustration.

In order to retrieve Andrew, Iris gripped onto a tree, Yoshi hung onto one of her legs, and Andrew climbed up their human ladder.

"Badass," we said.




Our Heroes!

Iris. I didn't know Iris at all, before this trip. But over the days, I started to really enjoy her company. She's from Madison, Wisconsin, and is a life-long co-oper. When she was younger, she lived in a family-focused cooperative and grew up in a much larger family than most other people. We talked about co-ops a lot; I'm thinking of trying to live in one after I graduate for cost/community purposes.

Iris was a founding member of After Midnight, Oberlin's only coed a capella group that sings jazz standards. Whenever Iris or Andrew sat next to each other in the car, they would practice "Lush Life," one of the saddest ballads of all time. Gorgeousness. Iris also had some of the most insane camping stories of going out to odd little islands in Wisconsin to see gorgeous lakes and climb giant rocks. She's also one of the most cheerful, strangely ethereal people I've met -- someone who doesn't get brought down by the little things.



Iris wants to save humanity from becoming extinct. Like this guy to her left.



Yoshi. You know all about Yoshi, gentle viewers. He's my favorite person. On the second day, when he was driving, turkeys attacked the car. Yoshi was terrified. Whenever he drove after that, we pantomimed turkeys, playing into his gobbler-trauma. Though he hadn't gone camping as much as he'd like to, being outside of the school-world is good for him. When we told stories by the fire, I really loved to hear his. I know most of them, but he's a really skilled speaker, so it just gets better and better. He's really good at pausing.

I like him a lot.


Sleeping Yoshi is unaware of the panda about to devour him.



Andrew. I met Andrew as my co-lead for a play that Erika's girlfriend Sarah wrote for David Walker's Playwriting class. We portrayed wanna-be cultists who would do whatever it takes to get into "The Order." Andrew's character kicked the snot out of me while I creepily insisted that he do it. It was so much fun. But that show was at the end of the semester, so we never got a chance to hang out. (Also, I had a gigantic crush on him at the time so I found it difficult to speak in full sentences when he was around.) We did a lot of singing along in the car to Cake songs. Andrew was also a super-mega-tastic outdoorsman. He worked at a nature camp for seven years and thus knows all the less-dangerous ways to have an excellent time. He knows the dangerous ways too, but sometimes keeps mum on them.

And he speaks Czech. This boy is too hardcore.


Timmy and Andrew (Andrew on the right, looking like a Scottish folk hero. Timmy looks pretty foxy.) Credit: Ma'ayan.


Erika. Erika's been composing/playing for circus for as long as I've been around, but as a double-degree student, she's been busy. This year, she's sharing a house with Liz Hibbard, one of my favorite people in the world. Despite her practicing five hours a day, I get to see her more often when I chill in her house. This is excellent, as Erika is simultaneously chill and focused. She's got the easygoing Bay Area feel (her parents are Japanese hippies) but the ambition of a pianist. She's also endlessly curious, charming and considerate. We spoke about environmental politics for a while and I found out that Erika went to MLK Jr. Middle School, Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard. I've read about her middle school in academic papers on sustainability. Craziness. Also, as a shout-out to the project, she's working on urban food sustainability and wants to work in that field after college. Pay it forwards?



Erika, looking chill, photo courtesy of Yitka, who takes sweet pictures.

Swing Dancing > "Real World"

I never bought any of that "greatest years of your life" crap in high school. Sadly, it seems that sentiment might be valid as far as college is concerned.

This terrifying thought struck me last weekend at a Mardi Gras party at French Language House. It wasn't a great party. The venue was too small and didn't have the best acoustics. Still, it was $2 to see an amazing New Orleans-style jazz band ... with beads, tasty king cake and masks. While dancing, I realized it wouldn't be this easy in the "real world." Music wouldn't be ubiquitous; conservatory players would be hot, expensive commodities. Friends would be harder to access, communities harder to join.

In fear of the real world, I resolved to do as many excited, ridiculous things as I can this semester. Especially new things. Like swing dancing.


This weekend I spent a majority of my time at OJDF - Oberlin Jazz Dance Festival. All in all, I took five classes and attended four dances. The classes were perfect: equal follow-lead ratio, strong teaching, good dancers. Very few folks were raw beginners, but we all needed a bit of help, so we could all teach each other. It takes me a long time to learn anything dance-related, so my ability to pick up lindy hop, charleston, Suzie Q's, turns and swivels was surprising.

The Saturday night formal dance was incredible. Obies don't get gussied up all that often, but when they do, it's a sight to be seen. I can still see the shimmer of Ploy's red silk dress ruffling in the hot air. We destroyed that gym floor - the floorboards rattled when the whole crowd danced. The festival hosted two competitions, one individual and one for couples. Competitors weren't only Obies - a few pros entered in, as well as some folks from Kalamazoo who visited for the weekend. It was incredibly well run and the collective skill level was amazing.


I'd always liked swing, both participating and watching. In my first year, I took the Swing Dance Exco but I didn't keep up afterwards after busting up my ankle. Freshman year was a long, long time ago, so I thought I'd lost it all. But this weekend, a lot came back, and I found it pretty easy to pick things up. I've still got a long way to go to feel proficient or be a tolerable follow, but this weekend was so energizing and inspiring. I want to do it. OSwing organizes a jazz dance every 2 weeks, and does a smaller jam each week, as well as blues dancing.



And sometimes, they just do ridiculous stuff... Example: Brett and Haley.


Normal dancing




Preparing for something?



Hot damn.




So much air!




Awwww.

(Photo credits: Ma'ayan "Freakin' Awesome" Plaut)

The attitude of Swing, like Contra, is super-social. I must insist on the superiority of contra for friend-making, due to its inherent silliness, but swing is a social dance. I feel as if I understand my friends I've danced with... in a different way. Sometimes, even watching them dance is enough to get a bigger view of them. When some people dance, they drop their guard. They laugh, they smile, they sweat, they mess up and keep going.

Work it, dance it, write it.

In comparison to the first week of school, by the fourth week, I can tell a bit more where my energy is going. In short: everything takes five times the effort I originally expected. Sigh.



Admissions:

As an intern, my job is to interview prospective students, and assist the overall admissions process. I answer emails, work the front desk, speak with families, do filing. Right now, the counselors are working like mad, reading applications and meeting in committee. Each application gets read twice, then discussed in committee. Molly explained to me that the process is much more egalitarian here as compared to other colleges/universities. The first reader serves as the lawyer for the student, arguing their case to the rest of the admissions board. The decision is made by consensus, not solely by the dean.

Through this process, my respect for the admissions counselors has grown even larger than before. The sheer quantity of work they do is incredible.

Sco:

This week was a good one, dancing-wise. I grew up around music--my Dad ran a PA company, my grandmother has a Ph.D in music, my parents used to sing to me all the time. So when I need something to make me happy, music works best. Especially loud, silly music. On Wednesday, the Sco hosted Motown night, which got very, very crowded. I heard songs I haven't heard since election night, which was one of the happiest events of my life. The elation to "you can feel it all over" by Stevie Wonder was amazing, and the rest of the group was so alive. Whenever a mass of 100 people dance, there's so much energy generated that the mood becomes potent, electric.

Thursday's techno night was much more relaxed. My friend Daniel was DJ-ing--he played excellent trance. I met Daniel before school started: he's a first-year international student and I was catering some of the orientation events he attended. I remember working at a karaoke picnic, and arguing with him about which one of us should sing first. Anyone I can argue with is someone I want to befriend.

Yesterday, the Sco hosted a fundraiser for IYS (Immerse Yourself in Service) which hosted Triceratops, B-52s Cover Band, Bowie Band, and OSTEEL. Picture this entry, now add more hopeless noodling over how cool the Bowie band is. Their guitar players are ill, sick, ridiculous, and impressive. They turned "5 Years" into a rock epic. After the Bowie set, the crowd chanted "One more song!" or "Ten more songs! At my house!"

When we finished dancing, Ma'ayan invited myself, Yoshi, and Amanda back to Harkness for some pie. During the day, Ma'ayan and Daniel had made Derby, Bavarian Creme, and Chocolate-Coconut-Pecan pies.

Pie = Love.



Neurophysiology:

Some people speak Spanish, French, Chinese. My friends speak Science. If I didn't speak at least some pidgin Science, I couldn't understand them at all.

At Oberlin, I've taken Human Neurobiology, Behavioral Neuroscience, Abnormal Psychology and, at present, Neurophysiology. As much "vocabulary" as I've learned in class, I've gotten most of my grammar from my friends. I heard about Becca's woes with programming for experiments on childhood development, Alex and Jo Ling's fish, conversations on whether snails or crayfish would prove more effective for gathering data on neuronal membrane potentials.

I can tell I learned something in college because when I read this phrase at a normal pace: "'Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis'" ... I understood it completely.

Three years ago? Not so much.

I wonder what my college career would have been if more of my friends spoke fluent Humanities. I might know about epistemology, determinism, or radical self-conscious ethnocentrism. As is, there's always more to learn.



Writing:

Creative Writing is a fascinating major--we don't have Honors, Capstones, or Theses. We just write, write, and write. This semester, I'm working with Chelsey Johnson and Sylvia Watanabe on a super-long project: The Novel.

Remember the Novella from last semester? That was the larva. This semester, I've gotta hatch a butterfly.

With Sylvia, I'm in a super-small workshop (five people) who are all top-notch kick-butt writers. Most of us were in Novella last semester, so we've got a feel for each other's styles already and have gotten comfortable being very constructive with one another. Workshops work when you can say to a writer: "This character? He's a jerk. He's not funny. He's not smart. Why is he here?" ... without being self-conscious.

With Chelsey, I'm going over the piece, full blast, each week. We did a close reading the other day and met for over 2 hours. It was great. Chelsey's focus is fabulism, a super-crazy writing style similar to magical realism, from writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Aimee Bender, and Ursula LeGuin. She gets my weird, post-apocalyptic romance stories.

Happily, my friends get it too, as the other language they speak is art. Making it, mostly, not analyzing. The mechanics of the creative process are so fascinatingly messy. All the rehearsals that take too long, the film shoots that die in poor lighting, the muscles pulled before the rehearsal, the paint splattered on new clothes, or hours of research for a character who will take up about a minute of script.

Even if we don't love the same thing, we love it in the same way.