Networkin'

I finally got my neural network piece on my 25th birthday this year.

Two neurons connected by an axon. It's even got a synaptic gap!
3 meanings from this symbol in reductionist terms:
1) Neurons are part of a network, they all have to communicate with each other and work as a unit ("The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"), much like a community.
2) Represents my brain maturing and critical understanding of young children and inevitably myself and others through neurobiology/temperament
3) Synaptic gap=leap of faith. No synapses actually touch, electro-chemicals must jump the gap to deliver message.
Also, note the thick myelin (repetition/experience strengthens the axon)

I'm looking forward to this year like no other. I feel mid-20's will be like a toddler/teenager stage of human development where I can feel the power of my autonomy and impact in my micro and macro system, but I've still got a lot of learning to do. Though my mileage is racking up, with each year passing, I feel my spirit staying the same or becoming "younger."

Candid review of Zardoz

After trying for an hour to post this supposedly candid and low maintenance review, Netflix would not let me post it. Because I picked the "Love It" star, I'm sharing it the review and screen caps here:


I didn't expect much but considering its low budget (some people describe this as "cheesy") the culture of film at the time (1970's/controversial/nudity) and considering the fact that I had just watched a PBS special on the "Dark Ages", I immensely enjoyed this film, chosen on a whim.


This movie strikes me as a cross between A Clockwork Orange, The Labyrinth and some sort of Twilight Zone episode. The characters/writing (Renegades and Apathetics), music, editing and directing are excellent (The whole film is a Wizard of Oz reference), There are several subtle twists, psychological thrills and unintentional (?) laughs. This director really tries your patience with some longer sequences of shots (i.e. the scene exchanging knowledge through "osmosis and touch") but the images
are inventive and the rhythm of editing keeps us Generation X, Y and Zeds interested.



Yes, there are controversial subjects like rape and death, but they are not sensationalized-in the context of the writing it's pretty appropriate. There are also subjects of feminism, the social-emotional and rebellion.


Though I "loved it," there were a couple of parts where I was confused like, if that Alfred guy was really dead or if Zed was just tripping off "knowledge" If you're not uptight (meaning getting past the dated exterior), looking for something you don't see everyday (visual and auditory), try something new.
Haha. Revenge to the Children's Books section!

Vulnerability is Inevitable

When I hear old people singing, it makes me cry.

Tonight I accompanied my mom to a gala at the Rrazz Room nightclub in Hotel Nikko San Francisco. Though all the performers were fabulous (Sharon Mcnight can get me on my feet with tales of bacon any day of the week) we were there to see Petula Clark, famous for several hits spanning over seven decades. Petula sang a familiar song, "Downtown," then shared a poem written on a train from Paris to London with the audience which MOVED my mother to shed a couple of tears. Needless to say Petula is a magical 70-year old woman. When I got back home, I acquired some of her recordings and I am SOLD. I can see how my mother is inspired by this artist because I am too. I consider every single one of Petula Clark's songs wonderfully moving and insightful. It probably doesn't hurt that Petula is a Scorpio sun sign like me. Sidenote-I see a PATTERN some Scorpio sun sign artists that I follow like Bjork, Bat for Lashes and now Petula Clark who've become internationally known in their 30's. They're not "super famous" in their early teens or early 20's, so I interpret that as sign to look forward to my 30's. What if in our 30's us Scorpios shift the focus of our imposing shadow to instead reflect and radiate our light out into the external. Just playing. Now I digress!

As I listened to Petula's recordings, which took place while my mom was just a dreamy teen in the provinces of the Philippines, there was this quality in Petula's voice that I focused on. Her voice in the songs were dripping with youth and I wondered if this was the voice my mom expected to hear tonight. I wonder if Petula's young voice is how my mom wants to feel like again but the voice of the Petula of today is what my mom feels like now?

In a voice/vibration, without language, one can feel where a person is in their life.

Petula's lyrics contain a lot of the same theme of going to where all the lights are and forgetting your worries. Anyway, I started crying because I really did have a moving and magical night with my mom, entering her world and "being in the moment." "Being in the moment" then made me think about the moments preceeding them. My mom pretty much has lived/lives synchronistically (if that's a word) by Petula's lyrics-throw in some lyrics about hustling and war and my mom's personality is complete.

After crying I felt better because the act got some cortisol out of my system, and I reflected on the way I receive and express my emotions. I feel really moved by my external life on a day to day basis, which I am grateful for (all my relations) so much so that I think about taking on everyone's vulnerability so that they keep moving in strength, even if its away from me. I would rather watch "them" move away from me than bear to see them sink like Leo in Titanic. What does that mean? And why do I "feel" like describing my experiences and emotions is a "bad" thing? We battle/work with our emotions every day yet we never really discuss them. I think about how this social construct affects us. The relationships we have with objects, people, places and ideas are what we really experience. Just as we don't actually see light, rather we see the subject the light bounces off of, sometimes we don't really see what the thing/"problem: is, depending on our social/cultural/neurobiological epistemology, rather the relationships/emotions that they evoke (want, like, hate, scared, ignore). On that note, so much information is being found in the latest neuroscience research about the relationship between the emotions and learning. What a novel idea that emotions are a part of everything that we are thinking.

Play is practice-"The process of doing will get you there"

I took the Creavity Workshop at California Institute of Integral Studies and wanted to share the written processes/products that I had previously shared with the individuals in my class in order to reflect on the level of vulnerability that I usually do not display in front of colleagues or otherwise. Being between half strangers, half friends, I felt a wonderful balance of risk and safety.

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A sensory experience- Five surprise bags were passed around the room, ready to open and be engaged in some olfactory-to-hippocampus goodness. Guess what was in the bag that I chose to write about!:

Drowning on my bed
Familiar angel sends me
Vapor lifesaver

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Context-Professor/facilitator asks us to start our process with, "I am from an island":

I am from an island,
from turnkey apartments and lonely TV's
I am from plumeria trees
welcoming young climbers
From, "Mr. Mayor, this is Sol's daughter,"
and, "Honey, you should get in touch with your father."
I am from school to school, 1-3 times a year
From ti leaves to redwoods
From 2nd place tiaras and singing different languages on a cruise ship
I am from the cafeteria waiting to go home and a graveyard of Hawaiian royalty turn perfect waiting/playing spot
From 20 pairs of slippahs near the doorway
From 20 cocoons of monarchs to guard
I am from ordinarily warm waters and dime-a-dozen waterfalls
From hot cookies and enriched bread
I am from, "I thought we were going to have a new boy in class."
From the smell of cardboard and sticky vinyl
From, "Hey blackjack, poker, like the card game right?"
I am from a single diamond in the rough.

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She-Who-Facilitates-One's-Creativity asked us to pick a line from a poem, to begin our process with, again, (can't remember title and author off the top of my head and citing resources is important to me!) and I picked, "There's a big stranger in town called the sun":

There's a big stranger in town called the sun.
They say he is a star, but I don't see it.
On bad days, he looks crazy
Out of control, brandishing a flame-thrower?
But on good days, he is like a father to all, being welcomed with picnic baskets and BIKINIS.

I see him all the time, even in pictures.
I like him when he wears sunglasses.

Sometimes he goes out of town, but I know he'll be back
Because I see his friend who waits around for him in the same place.
I hope someone will wait around for me like that.
It's probably just his drug dealer anyway.

Have~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Do~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Be
<------------------------------------------------------->
Which way do you go?

My intentions after the workshop:

1. Act more on my creativity
2. Take risks OR feel safer
3. Lessen the dichotomy between artist and audience
4. Hope to spark creativity in others
5. Rid my perception of "art"
6. Continue to notice creativity in everyone, everywhere and in everything (yay i'm hella spiritual!)
7. Play more!
8. Start anywhere
9. Appreciate self more, respect (acceptance with no agenda to change) self more
10. Implement different approaches to test levels of participation in audience/artists/class dynamics.

In addition, the word "daughter" was a choice in a wordpile and after three intelligent, warm, strong, etc. women connected beautiful imagery, ideas and experiences in deeply moving ways about their love and awe of their daughters (intense), I decided to hold off on "the author's" interpretation:

What do you do when you are lonely?
Have a baby!
And if you have a daughter you can dress her up in cute dresses or a DIY style (if that's your cup of tea)
While you brush her long hair, you may find yourself dreaming about her becoming a doctor!
For the working mums, when she is still small, but big enough to know it is bad to not do everything her mum tells her to, you can tuck her in some corner of your cubicle where she can play with scraps of printouts and paper clips, all for free!
But wait, there's more!
When she is of age, she can drive you around while you make important phone calls and run important errands.
When she gets too old to be cute,
DOUBLE your fun by playing matchmaker and find her a nice professional man
So that when you are,
now old and lonely, you can
Have a baby!

I never said my shadow side wouldn't manifest itself. Of course it's equally proportional to my light side.

Sometimes I find it intense that I'm going to be ME for like, 70 more years.

Solitaire-The Notwist

Essentially, humans need guidance.

What I have found with Jehovah's god is that we are given many rules, things to hate, what is "dirty", the misuse of blood, things that will be approved of, etc. However, it advocates that your thoughts are heard by the universe at any given moment. Even though it clearly states that pagan rituals are satanic, paganism distinctly lives through acts such as saying "amen" at the end of your prayer or meditation, a symbol which seals intention. Is that so bad?

Because I am in the field of child development, not psychology, we approach individuals in early childhood open-endedly. Though discipline is not developmentally appropriate for children, developmentalists fiercely abide by firm, but kind guidance, pre-emptively and creatively providing the environment which decreases opportunities for "BAD BEHAVIOR". Of course this is for those with a predetermined temperament and no sensory disorders. Time spent working with children is rich with intention and the responsiveness needed to develop the central nervous system up to the highest part of your brain, the neo cortex, of an individual.

Some people find their guidance through religion or ritual. If you are fortunate, you can find it within yourself. If you are blessed, you will find hope, too.

"And she's been doing it all in high heels"

"And she?s been doing it all working high heels"


I'm in my mother's office and it is 1:06 am. I got here at 6:30 pm, she got here at 8 am yesterday. Ever since early childhood, my mother has worked several jobs. Today, she orders way too much food when we go out, most likely because she never had anything to eat 90% of the time growing up in a 12x12 grass shack with five other brothers and two parents. She's seen piles of dead bodies in religious wars, relatives beheaded for the thinnest of reasons, worked closely with an infamous dictator and his shoe whore, and gave birth to a person she is challenged by, but is proud of it. She worked her way to a country where she has been told by other people who she is and what she is capable of. But she kept on truckin and vowed never to work for anyone but herself. She treats every client and employee she has ever worked with with dignity, generosity, and genuine concern. But she doesn't have time for sketchy and sheltered people.

It is intense to know we are each other's only family. Because of my mother's insatiable need for "success", we are living the most comfortable we have ever had in our lives. And she's been doing it all working high heels.

I am grateful for everything.

My ambiguousness (i'm merely being open-ended) and the mercedes-benz I drive today may give an inaccurate perception of my life to some. But I use it to my advantage. And it makes my mom happy to see me wearing "new looking" clothes and driving a nice car that she bugs me to "take care of". I say, "it's only a car," or , "i'll live through it," if I sit on the bed with my "outside" clothes on. She always gives me a dirty look and a comment addressing my image.

I don't like to get too personal. But she tells me I am a better version of her.