Adventures of Superalzy » Inspiration

Saturday Sweets

Superalzy — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 13:00:44 +0000

Life is Not a House

Superalzy — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 13:00:45 +0000

image via Jim Kazanjian

I was reading The Naked Redhead’s post about giving fear the finger & it lit up this giant OPEN FOR BUSINESS sign in my brain. I started thinking about what I’m truly afraid of- not just sprickets & the lights in swimming pools, but the things that try to hold me back or prevent me from achieving what I want in life.

This led me into an examination of how I think of my life. For a long time I subconsciously thought of life as this thing I was inhabiting- a house I lived in. There are a lot of problems with thinking of life as a house. For one, you’re inside. There isn’t much to experience or learn when you’re trapped between four walls & a roof. Also, houses are stationary. They don’t move or grow or truly change. You can rearrange the furniture a little, maybe paint the walls, but nothing’s really changed. The biggest problem with thinking of life as a house is the reality that houses can come crashing down on you. What kind of experiences, chances & risks are you going to take with that kind of fear hanging delicately over you like a crystal chandelier of doom?

No, life is not a house. Life is a mode of transportation. Life takes you on a journey & exposes you to all the elements, beautiful & brutal. I’m now thinking of my life as a dragon whose back I’m strapped to. It’s wild & unpredictable. Sometimes it takes luxurious sweeps over oceans at sunset. Sometimes it tries to buck me off into an erupting volcano. I’m not in control, but every now & then I can nudge it into another direction & we have glorious adventures.

How do you see life? How do you chase off your fears?

10 Super Things I’m Doing for Me

Superalzy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:00:09 +0000

Theme song!

I’m borderline anemic & don’t like milk (it’s for baby cows! Not people! Gross.) Needless to say, there are probably a lot of other essential supplies my body isn’t getting. I started taking a daily multi vitamin on the 1st of the year & immediately learned a valuable lesson- always take vitamins with some form of food! Taking vitamins on an empty stomach leads to a painful bile vomiting session. Now I take them after breakfast. Here’s to a healthier self!

It's like a vitamin for creativity!

I grabbed an Extra Small Daily Moleskine Planner (in dark pink!) & my goal is to draw or write something every single day. The teeny tiny size means it’s easy to fill a page & therefore not so intimidating. So far, I’ve been illustrating a “thought of the day” (like vomming vitamins), but it can be anything. I’m trying not to self edit or put pressure on myself to make something brilliant. It’s healthy to just let your brain be goofy sometimes. A lot of my most fun little writing projects come from doing things like this.

I did not win the lottery on Tuesday.

I love craft beers. I love discovering new beers to try & it’s going to be hard to give up my favorite Rogue ales, but it’s so high in calories & makes me feel so bloated & sluggish. I’m sticking to wine & low sugar mixed drinks. That means no soda, sour mix & probably no cranberry juice. I’m going to have to learn to love tonic water!

I’ve started pruning the dead branches from my facebook friends list. Some people post messages that are mean, whiny, gossipy & just oozing negative energy… every day (multiple times!). I was reading this stuff in my feed & I could feel the oozy blackness seeping into me. It’s a gross feeling. Now, my facebook is growing from being overrun by a random mishmosh of acquaintances I felt badly not accepting to a thriving feed of interesting, creative friends & colleagues. I get inspiration. I get feedback on my own work. I feel good about my internet “life!”

Likewise, there are people in my life who I’m not sure why I hang on to. I’m making new friends to hang out with who are intelligent & cultured & who hunger for new knowledge & experiences. Why waste any time on people who hold me back or have no desire to progress?

I have an old iPod & a Bose speaker where it can be permanently docked. I’m much more productive & happier on days when I turn off the TV & turn on the iPod. I wrote about my productivity playlist ages ago & I’m curious to experiment with new music to find out what will optimize my mood, performance & productivity for 2011.

I found an amazing collaboration between Apocalyptica & Gavin Rossdale, who has been an inspiration to me since I was about 12. It seems like whenever I need a little guidance or help, Gavin puts out an album or a new song. It’s strange, but the universe works in strange ways. I feel like this is a good sign for the year to come.

I feel really good about this year. It’s started out with a strong momentum & I’m going to keep it rolling so get out of my way! I’m going to tell it like it is, be strong in my convictions & let myself be weird without worry. No one is going to stifle my happiness.

I miss the energy I had when I was working out. Even when I was working insane hours all summer on my feet for 15 hours at a time, it felt good to keep moving. My days lately are much less active & that needs to change. On Monday, I triumphantly return to the gym! I’m looking forward to trying some new classes. Zumba & kickboxing look like a lot of fun & I’ve wanted to work on my upper body strength for a long time.

You know what’s sad? I can’t remember the last time I ate a piece of fruit. Fruit is delicious. So what am I eating? I don’t know, but it’s not enough fresh fruit & vegetables. I had the most delicious veggie sandwich at Lenny’s & that needs to happen much more often in my own kitchen.

This is not to be confused with “Going on a Diet.” I’m adjusting the diet I have to include more delicious & natural elements (& less microwave popcorn, maybe. Probably not.).

Pies, that is. I spent a couple years making cupcakes & now I want to make these amazing little dessert sandwiches. I want to serve them with milkshake shooters in the spring & summer & fall. I want to create & mix/match flavors all night long, baby! They’re my official dessert of 2011 so be ready for lots of recipes.

image via Lick My Spoon

In 8th grade, I took Spanish at the high school before my regular school day began (because I’m super smart & a complete dork). Until then, I knew I was going to be a writer someday, but I hadn’t really been formally introduced to poetry yet. In Spanish, we read poems by Federico Garcia Lorca. I can still recite Cancion del Jinete. I still get chills when I read Cancion del Naranjo Seco & Romance Sonambulo. Is it strange that my love of poetry has its roots in another language? I loved Garcia Lorca & Pablo Neruda before I ever read a poem in English.

Other than Haikuesday!, I haven’t really written any poems since I left New York. I got my Master’s in Poetry Writing… & I’m not even writing poetry? This is a problem. To help kick start my poetry motor, I’m going to read the poets who inspired my best work. I’ll start with Federico Garcia Lorca, Jane Kenyon, Mark Strand & Elizabeth Bishop. I also want to read a lot of James Tate, e. e. cummings (who I somehow never really gave a chance) & Hart Crane.

It’s not just poetry. I want to rejuvenate my imagination with some Neil Gaiman stories, study form & function through a critical eye with books from the Poets on Poetry series & even read some plays (Cinders by Janusz Glowacki had a lingering effect on me when I saw it performed in college & I’ve read the play a few times since then).

In my opinion, the more widely you read, the better a writer you become. That’s why I read plays, fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, interviews, blogs, the backs of cereal boxes & garment washing instructions on clothing tags.

Take Back Your Brain!

Superalzy — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:00:43 +0000

Erica Goldson graduated as valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. Her graduation speech calls for educational reform and delivers the truth in such a heartbreaking, yet invigorating manner that I think we can all get something out of it. I hope things do change. I’m still trying to nurture my creative brain back to it’s full, wild self after the damage & squelching done by high school & even college. Let’s rewire our brains to embrace our inner adventurers, thinkers, poets & people who build boats out of chocolate. Let’s take back our brains!

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

Magic Monday

Superalzy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:17:06 +0000

Make yourself some magic.

Monday: Write a personals ad for your ideal fictional mate. Make it as silly as you want!

Quirky contradiction seeks theatrical sushi-lover with at least 80% brain functionality. Must love cult films & fancy desserts, identifying constellations & playfully sparring wits. Must be comfortable with spontaneous weirdness. Married men, wall street types & minotaurs need not reply.

Tuesday: Look at your nails. Now look away. Now look back. They could use a little work. Pick a retro color & get sprucin’!

Wednesday: Buy yourself one of those big, floppy French hats & wear it until the leaves turn.

Thursday: Cast yourself & your friends into Star Wars on Jibjab. Awesome!

Friday: Listen to Neil Gaiman read “The Day the Saucers Came.” I love how he reads it.

Weekend Homework: Find an excuse to build a fire & make s’mores, even if it’s indoors over your stove.

Daily Monsters

Superalzy — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:30:43 +0000

Steve Loya's Splotch Monster 305 from July 30th 2010

Don’t you love it when you stumble across someone who shares one of your weird quirks? When I lived in New York, I used to find hearts everywhere- in coffee spills, pigeon crap, tattered remains of advertisements posted on scaffolding; New York sent me love notes creatively & often. Lately, I’ve been noticing circulatory systems in laundry lint & pancreases in mustard spills. Less romantic, yes, but still somehow kind of exciting.

Steve Loya of A Splotch Monster a Day sees gorgeous monsters in paint splotches. He brings them out with a few lines but also posts the blank splotches for you to envision your own creatures. I truly believe in creating something every day, macaroons, as difficult as that can be sometimes.

I’m challenging you to start your own daily art project. What can you create from the randomness you encounter every day? Start a flickr album & upload images of shapes in puddles or clouds. Splatter condiments on the sidewalk at lunch & sketch the shapes. Make little sculptures out of office supplies & photograph them with your phone. Just start making something everyday. I’ll update you on my progress & I can’t wait to see yours!

Magic Monday

Superalzy — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:12:19 +0000

Magic is everywhere!

Monday: Learn a useless trick like business card throwing. It might come in handy if you’re trying to get hired somewhere. What if you could bypass the process of throwing your resume into the black hole of online application systems & throw your business cards into an open window until someone has to come down & speak with you?

Tuesday: Tomatoes- No matter how delicious & juicy they look all summer, I gag when I try to eat a slice. What’s one food you don’t like, macaroons? When was the last time you had it? Tastes change over time, so try your most disliked food today. You might suddenly love it! I try with tomatoes every year, but still no luck.

Wednesday: From this point forward, don’t eat another sugary thing for the rest of the week. Healthy foods only! (I know, it’ll be a challenge for me too!)

Thursday: Call your grandparents or mother or aunt & ask them to tell you a story from their childhood. It could be how they met their spouse, their best birthday party, a time they came through something difficult, anything! Find inspiration in your family’s stories.

Friday: Pick up a book (or author) you hated in the past. Reread it now and see how you feel. In high school, I hated Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, but I had to read it in college & now it’s my favorite book! I’m giving e.e. cummings a second try now. What will you give a second chance?

Weekend Homework: Go on a mission in search of one perfect sundress. Find something versatile that you can throw a cardigan over or dress up & treat yourself!

Magic Monday

Superalzy — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:16:24 +0000

Monday: Burn down Hot Topic (not literally, of course). This makes me nostalgic for my goth days.

Tuesday: Check out 30 Habits that will Change Your Life. Pick one & implement it immediately.

Wednesday: If you’re throwing a dinner party soon or just want to plan for a future life, here is the best, most thorough article on how to throw a successful dinner party.

Thursday: Make your own font out of your actual handwriting (or any other kind of artsy design)!

Friday: Write down everything that stressed you out this week. Fold that sheet into a paper airplane & let it crash into the huge pile of nasty doom that is the nearest trash can. Bonus points if you can make the shot from across the room!

Weekend Homework: It’s just about time to break out your warm-weather wardrobe, macaroons! While in transition, go through all of your clothing. Pull out anything you don’t like, want or that no longer fits & donate to your local church, shelter, Salvation Army or whatever you choose. Someone less fortunate will be thrilled to take on your old style.

Saturday Sweets

Superalzy — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 11:42:38 +0000

Ooh! New feature! Welcome to Saturday Sweets. Every Saturday from now on, I’ll post something positive, inspirational or just something to make you smile. Saturday Sweets are my love notes to you, macaroons!

Magic Monday

Superalzy — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:01:56 +0000

Monday: Write sporadic thank you notes to random objects in your life that make you smile.

Tuesday: Open these two links one after another in a new tab: Link 1, Link 2. Don’t visit them, just listen.

Wednesday: @now =Today (live it to its maximum potential)

Thursday: I’m pretty sure Chatroulette is the creepiest thing ever, but I am enjoying all the hilarity that’s coming out of it. I watched this on repeat all weekend & I’m pretty sure I’m going to marry this guy. (Miraculously, this is safe for work)
.

Friday: Go see How to Train Your Dragon.

Weekend Homework: Have a tea party with your friends. Make little cucumber sandwiches & mini desserts to serve. Don’t forget to put “Duchess,” Countess” or “Lady” before your names!