Magdalena O!

In September I attended a toy camera workshop with Midi Onodera put on by my department of Communication Studies at Concordia. We had an afternoon to shoot and edit. I chose the Barbie Cam to shoot my short film because how strange is it to shoot holding a Barbie in your hand that has a camera in her chest. The feminist discussion is not lost on me, but that’s not the point right now. The Loyola campus of Concordia reminds me a bit of York: it’s far away from the centre in the suburbs & no one likes going there. Having just arrived, I wanted to get to know the campus and make friends with it. I decided to shoot the garden, as it was just finished sharing its bounty for the season. I emailed j that afternoon asking: “hi  / can i use one of your songs / it’s a love letter to the garden / wanna send me something calm and slow?” & what you hear is what he sent me & I love how it works so perfectly.

Last Thursday, I joined a Maths workshop with Sha Xin Wei at the Topological Media Lab & now everything has changed. I have ostensibly never shown aptitude for mathematics, or any related discipline, including science. But high school’s pedagogical interface seems so antithetical to how students should actually engage with/in work so it’s no surprise?

I was intrigued by mathematics and rigorous scientific inquiry, but I couldn’t find it. I mean, the way science was presented to me was ‘the scientific method’ and Cartesianism and that there is a right and wrong in the world and if you just account for all the variables you can prove your hypotheses. This never made sense to me, and enraged me because I couldn’t believe in such a rigid structure of the world. I couldn’t believe that bodies were just the sum of their parts. There was more happening everywhere and it was not a transcendental Kantian perspective either. But without the language to articulate this n+1, this “more than”, I took to music that I could body slam and mosh to (the abject growing inside me then?), poetry, photography and depression instead. No one I knew like this was into science & math. For many years I was anti-science, anti-everything really – a suitable ethos for switching from English Literature and Cultural Anthropology to Women’s Studies in undergrad. But then I met this beautiful boy & fell in love with him & he studied math at U of Toronto & he excelled in it & science & it gave him the rigor & potential to see the world more openly than me. But I was young & unconvinced that my brain could ever operate like (t)his. Instead we devoured drugs, strange cult films & literature. But there were numbers & letter signifiers between us, many of them – formulas of love.

We were talking recently, and he was ruminating on why he dropped out of maths because he was so good at it & why he’s doing social work, in which the type of intellectual rigor that gets stimulated is so different & operates on such a lack (for him). I am so impressed. That is to say I am impressed with a mathematical mind, and math has significantly impressed itself upon my Being. I know it is just the beginning (of this workshop & of me attempting algebra), but there are already moments of euphoria I have never experienced. It’s not better than, but it’s there & it’s happening. I wonder if I could ever ‘get’ math. I have to figure out how to tame it, how to be inside it, and how to re-articulate it for everything I am becoming.

Soon I will be opened up to differential topology.

Should I be self-conscious at such an immediate excitement?

Shortly after the second workshop on Thursday — sitting on the metro uncertain of reality, flushed red, with a diaphragm of vibrations that emanated from every pore in my body, so intense that a crystal positioned in relation to me would express all of my heat as a rainbow of colors — the image of the container came back with acute precision. At that moment I realized that there’s something beyond the cracks in the container. I knew the cracks were happening, but all I could perceive was darkness, a sort of black negative space*. This started in the summer of 2009 and became a constant part of me in 2010. The feeling of being a container, being in a container and wanting to know there’s something happening with/in the cracks but unable to get there. I wasn’t ready to get there. I still don’t know what, why or how but I can feel cracks, the openings.

The vibrations, they’re everywhere.

* Mitsu wrote this to me last year: What’s outside the container isn’t something which is not-you: it is something which is always already you, in a larger sense, but you didn’t identify it as such before. So the search isn’t for something external (the external/internal, outside/inside dichotomy is itself questionable), but for something which is both and neither, beyond that binary. So you’re right, you do need to go inside yourself first, but if you go far enough inside it is the universe.

Receiving the unsuccessful doctoral SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) letter in the mail yesterday felt like the first professional 200m race I ran after I just joined the track club. The memory came up instantly. I had been a sprinter for years and had placed top 3, if not 1st in almost every race up to that point. I was the star sprinter, and was “discovered” by a coach in grade 9 who insisted I train with him. I wish I could remember whether the excitement was to be distracted from the angst of teenage-hood or if I really cared about being on the track. Maybe both? I spent most of my days either training in Nike cleats or slitting my wrists in my bedroom listening to Hole and ripping my black pantyhose arm sleeves. Ugh. I had a couple of training sessions with the group before my once-lauded hubris quickly disappeared. The runners were straight-faced and had been trained privately for years. I was the new girl that didn’t fit into their sprinter mold. Although this was probably all in my head because I was just used to being the best without much thought. Running came so naturally to me. I didn’t have to fight my body to get ahead and now my body and its movements didn’t make sense anymore. The first race came upon us really quickly, and I ran my distance – the 200m. This was not a high school track meet, this was a real track meet, with runners and their coaches pouring water into their mouths just like they do on TV. I don’t think I even ran in cleats yet, I was probably one of the few that still ran in running shoes. How embarrassing. Of course, what happened? I came in last. I mean, dead last. Imagine 200 meters is not a lot of distance, and it was noticeable how dead last I stumbled past the finish line. So there I was – a loser. The girl who took her inept relay teams to regional school championships died. Although I did run the 100m and didn’t do too poorly, it didn’t even matter, my distance was the 200m. My coach was ecstatic that my time was so bad, because to him, this meant he had a clean slate to teach me how to be a champion – and as typical as stories go, he did manage quite well. I was ready to learn everything. I think that’s when I started understanding what running was about and what it was doing to me. It’s funny how few people know this about me (…other than those who point out my legs. I’m not trying to to be cocky, but legs get sculpted with sport, especially sprinting). It came up in my therapy session two weeks ago and my therapist was pleasantly surprised because she would have never guessed it knowing me. I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean, considering I was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor for six years until I bleached my hair and had to give up.

I guess what I wanted to say is that the score I received on my appraisal, which I can’t even mention here or to anyone in hopes of forgetting it, felt like that race. I am a strong student but I was unprepared at that point to take on the race. Even if many say luck has a lot to do with it, because even within the categories you are never really sure how they’re tabulated, there’s still the past you have to learn how to negotiate for the present. It  also doesn’t help that I frequent this obsessive-compulsive graduate student forum in which a disproportionate amount of posters got the SSHRC Grant that, by the way, is either $85,000 or $105,000 over a course of 3/4 years. My supervisor’s terse answer was, “You’ve been lucky enough this year,” which is perhaps akin to the answer my old running coach had. I did at least get passed onto the national competition, whereas some others I know didn’t even pass the university-wide competition to get carried forward to SSHRC. I also got accepted to the school of my choice with a fellowship even though I applied after the deadline and a guaranteed researcher position on an incredible mobile cinema project.

Sooooo… I am seriously considering doing either a second MA or PhD. The latter is obviously more appealing, as a. I don’t want to take more time in an MA course based environment and b. get on with my scholarly career (har har). But maybe I might have to in order to do what I want more specifically. I don’t really get why, but I notice a lot of people do that.

To make it more fun and complicated, I really want to do this in Europe. I am a EU citizen, however there’s all these laws saying I have to live in the country for a certain amount of time before I can pay home fees.

But, then there’s scholarships and fellowships and possibly funding from Canada too.

I will be 40K in debt by the time I’m done my MA, and my whole family is poor, so there will be no support there. Is this just ridiculous? I just can’t live in Canada anymore, at least for a bit ya know? I need to shake up my growing tunnel vision.

Anyone have any advice, whether you studied in UK, Denmark, Ireland, etc or you wanted to, or you know someone??

What is the level of academic rigor in Europe as opposed to in Canada. I know Erasmus Mundus is a bit of a joke. I have a friend in the Communication MA and he’s done nothing but travel around Europe and get paid for it. So obviously this is not what I want, but I am also not super ultra super genius, so there is that fear too.

I’m a Cultural Studies MA hoping to graduate summer/fall 2011. Want to further do Cultural Studies/New Media Studies PhD.

Maybe suggestions for programs? Suggestions on what to do? I am totally open to all at this time.

I did quite well last semester even though I had to stage a mini-battle with one of the profs. I am also doing really well this semester so far! Just wanted to archive the goodness among the agony and exhaustion I feel most of the time. I also went and saw a new therapist yesterday and am very hopeful. We are going to try arts therapy!

I use too many exclamation marks but it’s how I am all the time. Exclaiming everything! Oh shit!

I am making new friends, people (mostly women!!!!) that are exciting, eloquent, supportive and share my interest and all that shit that I’ve been longing for and it’s all happening. My expectations of grad school keep getting trumped and they were already really high to begin with. That isn’t to say there isn’t a lot of bullshit and problems with my program, but having a supportive network that are all in it together makes it so much more bearable. I love grad school. I love grad school. Now back to work on a photovoice project.

me by toby 2002 + 2009

It was sunny for once in Toronto, so I met up with Toby to go hang out in the park. It’s so rare for me to do something that isn’t outside of itself. To just be in the moment. He gave me a large print he developed himself of a portrait he shot in 2002! That is seven fucking years ago. It comforts me that I have known him for nine years. It’s been a really full nine years. Not one of those I know you through partying peripheral friend nine years either. It comforts me that by this point we will probably be friends forever. We walked around the city, ate food and one of his ex-girlfriends was working at Clafouti, meaning we got our order free and she gave us a berry custard tart to take home. It was fun to take photos. We used to take a lot of photos. I used to take a lot of photos. I used to do a lot of a lot of things that I miss now. Always with the yen.

toronto / uk 2004
Lately, several of my old lovers have told me that, “You and J really fit together.” It has an effect on you when someone that was the love of your life tells you that because they know you in that way better than any of your friends. I trust my old lovers because they all lived and died with me. I am all of them now. They are all in me. I could never extract them and I would never want to.

The phrase isn’t unexpected, but I was still very pleasantly surprised to hear such words come… all within the same time frame. Is it because I, myself, feel really strongly about us? I’m trying to be less erratic and forceful and maybe that actually works. It’s been so many years. I don’t write directly about my relationship in here too much, only because I feel it’s something I want to keep to myself, because as laid out I have made my feelings, there are parts of my life I can’t externalize, even if to many it appears the opposite.

I’m fired up about starting school again. It’s been three years. I will be critically engaging with cultural theory on a graduate level! It all seems so surreal. I’m totally romanticizing the whole experience, but I need it, I need to prove it to myself. I need that MA. I will also have access to all of Ryerson’s production facilities. I am making the promise now, that even with the stresses of school work I will use the facilities to their full extent.

x. 2009 is really kicking ass. I knew it would, but there was this nag behind the confidence that was worried maybe it wouldn’t all go as planned. Here I am. Dreams coming true. I’m going to graduate school. I am in love. I’m bringing Instra:mental to Toronto. I am going to travel Europe again. I finally met a girl that shares all my interests including music – a near impossible feat.
x. Last year, I told myself if I got into graduate school I would chop all my hair off to have it kind of like Jean Seberg in Breathless.
x. I’ve been listening to this Math + Science Machinedrum mix from 2007. I can’t find the link online anymore. It’s one of those sets you can just have on repeat for months.

I WISH THE PERSON I LOVED WOULD UNDERSTAND HOW MENTALLY, PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY DRAINING IT IS TO APPLY TO GRAD SCHOOL.

I take everything so personally as it is, so here it is, the most personal you can get, selling yourself to be accepted for a Masters program. Being able to articulate your vision and entire life past, present and future in either 500 words or less for some programs or five pages for another. Plus portfolios and writing samples and chasing down professors!

I want to throw myself against the wall and scream at everyone I see. Luckily work has allowed me to go in only three days a week for the next short while. When I am there, I am in such a pissy mood and it’s so futile. All I can think about is the deadlines and getting it all in as fast as possible.

Is it too much to expect gentle, “how are you? let me come over with food! let me give you a massage? can i read to you?” instead of, “i am so stressed, i need to finish music, why do i have to commute so far to see you? why don’t you ever think about my feelings?”

Because I have two weeks to finish it all, and I already told you that I need this time and I need more support than ever. It’s not my fault I live downtown and you live with your parents out in the boondocks. I’m becoming a monster.