interesting reading on the interweb

Reminders of Mortality Bring Out the Charitable Side

"Pyszczynski found that people who answered the survey while standing in front of the funeral home -- which had a large sign reading "Howe's Mortuary" -- were more positive about charitable donations than those interviewed 150 feet away."

With Power Comes a Selfish Point of View
". . . those who had been made to feel powerless were three times more likely to draw the E so that it was legible to someone facing them. Those made to feel powerful, however, drew the letter so that it looked correct from their internal perspective but was a mirror image from the point of view of someone facing them. . . Volunteers made to feel powerful, even in a trivial laboratory experiment, almost instantly lose the ability to see things from other people's points of view."

sometimes at night fears and anxieties seize me and don't let go. usually i lie in bed until it's over and i fall asleep but it's hard to stay still in that quiet darkness.

i wonder if it's just the looming graduation date that's giving me these existential heebie-jeebies? what am i doing with my life.

it helps to have a purring cat in lap. scared the crap outta me with her midnight scrambling at the window, but i guess floppy can occasionally be useful. writing the prelab will settle these nerves, maybe.

score, finished my first report for 150L a day in advance! While I was in the middle of writing it up, Floppy Cat scratched at our window and Kim let her in. Something about a purring fuzzy animal in your lap is very soothing, even if it's a creature as fickle and crazy as she. A lap cat makes homework more fun. Floppy snuggled and I melted like sap, despite the cold knowledge that to her I am not a fellow lifeform but some kind of soft, heated, wiggly seat. We're not sure about her real name. We call her floppy because her belly is pendulous and swishes in the wind. Too many kittens? She probably ate them. That's the kind of cat I think she is.

Weird RWOrwrwwwwing noises made me stop typing this and go look outside. In the hallway Floppy is in another standoff against Black Cat. Go Black Cat, I'm rooting for you.

experiment

i'm going to try this:

turn up the volume of how i talk, just one notch above my usual. apply to most conversation. one week. observe any differences inside myself, how the other person reacts, or in general.

well, i've molted and whined about being too far outside my comfort zone, but the truth is that i feel far more alive recently than i ordinarily do. the prospect of learning about acting in a class on the one hand, and actually performing for an audience with Theatre Rice on the other, is thrilling and terrifying rolled together. each night i go to sleep feeling eager and greedy for the next day, and the next. it's a fun way to live, a novel one for me.

this morning we had our first real class in acting, since last week it was just an overview. the instructor is irreverent and funny, but still philosophical and sincere. to me that's an ideal combination of traits. courtesy of theatre 10, here's 2008's gem of wisdom: be present. example: walking to class. walking to class, i like to feel the cold, see the streets, the trees, eavesdrop on briefly passing strangers - except i'm worrying about the homework. doing homework, i want to think about the ideas and the mesh they form that binds abstract theory to concrete life - but i'm actually thinking about dinner. having dinner, i'd love to immerse myself in the texture of bread, the crispness of juice, the thoughts of the friend who is talking - instead i drift away, out of this moment, out of this body, always somewhere other than here. "be present": simple to say and easy to mock. but it's so hard. and apparently, it's somehow related to acting. . . we'll see how this goes.

speaking of the texture of bread, i went to Gypsy's for lunch today and ordered the chicken sandwich. do NOT order a sandwich at Gypsy's!! soggy and dry at the same time. after a domestic battle with Kim last night we agreed he would wash the dishes if I would cook dinner today (for the first time ever), so into the pot my sad sandwich went, to become a Sandwich Soup. After 2 or 3 hours of intense effort, I also made mushroom+potato rice, and sauted zuchinni. Kim ate it dutifully. I applaud myself! Pat on your back, Leda, you chef extraordinaire! From henceforth all my takeout leftovers are doomed to a watery afterlife as soup.

AUGHGHGHGHG

Dissection of an audition:
4 hrs left: I have no material! WTF?? What the hell am I going to audition with?
3 hrs left: I better write something. Ok, this is kinda fun.
2 hrs left: Biking to BART. Oh god, the urinal stench of the elevators. Train conductor closes the doors on me as I try to maneuver bike on board.
1 hr left: Finally at Berkeley. Fuck, there's only an hour left!! I can't memorize this!
45 min left: My writing is total crap. This isn't funny, it's just embarrassing. I want to die. I have to memorize this, and then I'm going to die.
30 min left: Oh god. Oh god.
20 min left: Bike over to Wheeler. Wobble wildly in the bike lane. Cars narrowly miss me.
5 seconds left: What am I doing here? I'm feeling dizzy. Am I supposed to remember something?
Audition.
5 seconds after: Whoo. That's done, I feel so much better.
1 min after: Why did I say that? I sounded deranged!
5 min after: Bike back in sudden pouring rain. Only see through one eye. Grimace like a sailor. At one point, close both eyes while still pedaling because blinded by rain.
For hours thereafter: Sit at home. Decompose in shame and neuroses. Resolve to never speak or directly look at another human being again.

Golly, auditioning really brings out the best in me. I went way too far outside of my comfort zone this week. Comfort zone, I long for you.

acting is my only class tomorrow, and the fire of my curiousity is all that warms me in the cold hell berkeley has lately become. what kind of classrooms are in zellerbach? what kind of homework do the drama kids do? what kind of lectures? i'm envisioning bizarre exercises and bracing peptalks, ala Tootsie. Dustin Hoffman in drag: it's fearsome!

a good thing i enrolled in a yoga class before leaving berkeley, although who knows, i may also get a chance to learn more yoga in korea; i hear it's THE weight loss thing over there. and now i truly appreciate why that is. today's yoga session was not only ringing with the soothing chants of "Ω", but also the mellifluous groans, whimpers, and ok -i admit it- sobbing. the guy on the neighboring mat visibly vibrated. our first collective downward facing dog, and the instructor had us stay in it for minutes!! AGHH!! don't underestimate this stuff.

loopy. supposedly now an adult, i find myself totally getting into the world of make-believe again. next i try my hand at writing a short play in one sitting. likely to end in tragedy.