Tag: life

The Continuing Limbo

sarahshu Leave a comment

feel a tightness in my chest

only to realize

i’ve been holding my breath

its been a dry well

parched for awhile

 

nevertheless

i bundle up every night

and eavesdrop on

conversations i will never be 

a part of

i’ve always existed in a continuum

of being in between

because i never truly fit in

despite trying

living a life of limbo

 

(Afterthoughts)

In some way or another we can relate to this. Sometimes we are caught in between, pressured to choose between two identities/groups. Yet maybe we can live in the middle. We don’t have to choose either one. Its possible, that we can inhabit two identities and yet still be, a whole person. Indeed that is something we all have to learn to be comfortable with, living in the crux of in betweens. If we can understand that some truths manifest in shades of gray instead of black and white, surely we wear more than one identity/label for ourselves.

I catch myself always having to choose between two identities. Are you Chinese or Malay? Are you a member of clique A or clique B? Introvert or extrovert? Liberal or conservative? Why do you remain ever so mysterious?

Just as I am pressured to ascribe to one identity, I back away quickly from both sides. And that is how I continuously live in a limbo. Just as I start getting closer to a group of friends, I catch myself wondering if I truly belong or just merely a visitor. What am I in this space? Am I a stranger-turned-member? Maybe I want to live in that shade of gray, neither one or another, just so I can understand both sides of the conversation. Outsiders to the group tell me their unsolicited opinions about the group. Granted, their views are valid. But being in the group also makes me understand the members and strangely I feel at home there too. I don’t intentionally choose to be occupying two spaces and be a stranger and a member all the same. I just find myself in such circumstances. Nevertheless, this limbo comes with the anxiety of asking myself, “Should I intervene when I sense conflict?”, “Should I tell them what people think of them?” or even importantly, “What if I got it all wrong and things are actually not as they seem?”.

However, wearing multiple identities has its perks too. It means you can mix with both groups, yet never be fully categorized as either one. It also means more social invitations from both groups. If I ever needed to take a step back, I can be alone, and contemplate my place in the group or identities people associate me with. In the end, ideally I hope we don’t ever have to need labels to truly identify where and how we have come to belong in a place. Labels, identities are necessary for us to find meaning in communities we choose to engage in, but these labels will only be a part of us, never to define us.

I’m not struggling with these identities anymore. I am content with being neither one or another, because it has allowed me to live in the grayest shade. I will not let labels define me.

Designers and Dreamers: Stress, Ability, and Capability

themichiganarchitect Leave a comment
taubman courtyard lights at sunset
photographed exclusively by @themichiganarchitect instagram

Apparently it has only been a month since college had first started back up. Yet, how do I feel so beat already? Is it me? Or is it my habits that are the issue?

I have spoken to many classmates and friends, and they’ve all given various responses as to how they feel at this moment of the semester. Some are super chill, living their life as they’d like to. Others are just barely scraping by, rarely showering, eating, and (if they’re lucky) sleeping. So, what’s the diversity from? Do some people just work or study more efficiently or something that others, or is it just mostly because of the different scheduling due to major and types of classes?

Ya’ll know I’m gonna say that it will most likely be a mixture of both.

Like they all say, “everyone is different.” Even with the academic motivations, skills, and level of stress.

Of course, as college students, we are constantly learning from every experience of our everyday lives, and our brains are still developing, constantly rewiring new skills, and deleting past ones sometimes.

So, “what’s the point of this post?” you may ask.

Well, it’s more of an opinionated informative piece on this topic.

Sometimes, it is the most simple, mundane things in life that we should be most interested in taking time to improve. Not necessarily asking you to re-learn how to brush your teeth (though I’m sure it would be useful with the amount of cavities and oral issues college students commonly have), but maybe taking time to re-evaluate ourselves fairly. I was once asked by a friend of mine, “How do you evaluate your self worth? Is it through your work? Or is it through your aspirations for your work? (work as in course assignments)?” I’d had a hard time putting together the words of my thought at the time, but as short as the question was, it holds a lot of weight and definition in life.

As an architecture student, we are constantly taught how to re-see spaces, tap into our imaginations, and look deepx

into mundane topics for the sparks of our project ideas. As great as that may be for our creativity and model-making skills, how does this system of education support our own mental worth? I suppose it is similar in other fields as well, but I feel that at least in design (art and architecture and anything in that general sector), lessons can be easily taken to the heart.

Our projects are born from our minds, our thoughts, and may even pull from memories for structure. Furthermore, our projects are essentially our life during the semester; if I’m not in bed or showering, I am literally always at my studio cranking out the construction of my models. This accounts for the stress, and constant anxiety around grades and competition. In studio, surrounded by countless talented folks working just as hard as you, it really is hard not to look around and see a battlefield. (Not to mention, there are moments of literal bloodshed when you find your exacto knife had slipped right into your skin at 2am.) And, for those who struggle with even just formulating an idea, or the lack of knowledge of construction techniques, studio sometimes feels like a place to prove yourself, and create your self worth through educational struggles. But, the best part is yet to come. So, you’ve spent the whole week being antisocial, rarely eating, scarcely sleeping, or even showering, and your project is finally finished, yay! Now, it’s time for the review, where your professor and a few guest critics come and evaluate your work and give feedback publicly after you present. For many, reviews make or break the ego. If it goes well, our ego soars, we feel at the top of the world. If the review is mortifying, we feel embarrassed, and worthless, and like a total failure for “wasting” so much time and hope during the construction process. Then, the next project is assigned, and we gotta do it all over again…

The point is, life does suck sometimes, and we are all allowed to set our own standards and have our own habits. It’s just that I wanted to say that we need to still recognize our own strengths through all of this, and NOT place our self worth into our works’ products. Just because you worked hard, doesn’t guarantee you will score an A in the course, or show that you’re the most intelligent or talented or something. Working hard builds character, an essential pillar to being a person. Learning slowly but surely transports you from crappy to excellent. Likewise, your portfolio, which I am sure that you definitely took the time and effort to make it look presentable and illustrate your best works, is definitely not an accurate representation of who you are; a portfolio is simply a visual attempt for employers to get to know you better in terms of your personality and style and technical abilities. With that said, just try your best to create your portfolio, and I want to remind yourself that the only person you should be battling in this process is yourself. Don’t look at your neighbor’s project, look at your own, and learn off of your mistakes. It is not fair to compare yourself to others when you do not share experience in your backgrounds, and then try to compare your results.

To all my fellow Wolverine designers and dreamers out there, keep shooting for the stars, and I know you’ll land there 🙂

A chair versus a skyscraper… how different could they be?

themichiganarchitect Leave a comment

I was at the Start Up Career Fair last Friday, talking with a few representatives of the furniture company Floyd, and my conversation with them struck my interest in the question: how different are architecture and furniture, really?
People say that architecture studies humanities to build spaces for humans to live their lives in. Sounds good. But when it comes to furniture, it’s almost as if nobody really cares about it; we take it for granted.
To me, my conversation with the Floyd team resonated with our beliefs that architecture and furniture design are really basically the same thing- the only difference is their sizing scale. This is our argument, which I’d love for any of you readers to comment on whether or not you agree!
1. Both architecture and furniture deal with societies and their habits.
2. Both architecture and furniture’s goals are for the design and aesthetics to be one and the same thing within itself.
3. Both architecture and furniture have the power to change our lifestyles.
4. Both architecture and furniture require stable engineering and general understanding of physics in order to function.
5. Both architecture and furniture fields have the power to influence one another throughout history.

Let me know what you think! I’d love to hear some thoughts!

That Time of the Year

WillJang Leave a comment

There is something about the sun going down so early – around this time of the year – that makes all the pressures of unfinished assignments all the more feverish. This eventuality of shorter days never crosses my mind until I finally notice that I have already fallen into a tired and somber attitude.
How easy it is to be ignorantly believing that everything is together and then quickly disintegrating into blah blah attitudes that bear no weight to anything, and in that absence of anything concrete, how disparate everything can be should you not tie each task, emotion, or thought with something that has weight and a semblance of togetherness.
By no means am I saying I sit with hopeless emptiness on my couch in my apartment as I write this blog post. No, this isn’t meant to sound depressing at all. The only reason why I remain happy is because I have to be. Also, listening to Feist’s Mushaboom helps a lot, but not really at the same time. Sometimes, if the moment is just not right, a song as happy as that makes me more tired and sad than I was before.
Another thing that helps, is writing, as much as I can. And when I am not typing or writing longhand on sheets of paper that I find strewn across my desk or in my little black notebook, I am thinking about writing. However, more broadly speaking, I keep thinking about English as an art form.
I guess what I am trying to say, is that keeping my mind occupied is a greater force to fend off the lulls of energy during this time of the year in comparison to delusional fantasies of happiness that are brought on by listening to Mushaboom.
In fear of this article becoming needlessly and annoyingly pretentious, because I am sincerely lacking material today for this blog post, I will cut this article short. I would rather not blab on about nonsense. For God’s sake, parts of this post are already nonsense.
Maybe I should just switch up my song choice, because I can’t be thinking about writing all the time, I got other stuff on my mind too.
Maybe I will listen to the It Ain’t Me Baby or some song by Haim or maybe…oh oh! I got it! Changes by Bowie.

Spontaneous! 4 Days Early

Taylor Leave a comment

At the beginning of this year, I made the goal to actively learn something everyday. Call it a “New Year’s Resolution,” call it a “goal,” call it an aspiration: to be more self-reflective in the ways I grow and change and develop and (mis)form and queer and . . . and . . . .

I realized a couple days ago that my need/instinct to control everything about my life (planning, organizing, etc.) was getting in the way of me actually living. It got in the way of me interacting with others, myself, and the world. “I learned that I am stuck in a routine from which I cannot currently escape.”

Change it up. Be more spontaneous.

Instead of planning for things a week in advance (and not allowing myself to do activities that happen unexpectedly) I stopped. WHAT?! My Google calendar is still in full force but I have open gaps that I have my “spontaneous time.” If people ask me to do something tomorrow, I actually try to see if I can fit them in or see if I have free time instead of falling back on the usual, “Oh, I need to study,” or worse, “I’m too busy.”

Instead of loathing and meditating and harboring deep angst and anxiety about unexpected changes, I’m taking deep breaths, I’m listening to Jazz, and smelling the new fresh spring smell and moving forward.

Oh! So a snow storm hits and an event you’ve been planning for months at work falls through. Move on, replan, reschedule, breathe.

Oh! So a friend asks you to coffee and you DO have a half hour. Go get coffee.

Oh! So your lover will be in a nearby building and is on break for 15 minutes. Go walk over and say hello and catch up.

Simple things. Simple changes. Simple. Simple. Simple.

Well almost simple. It’s that time of the month (full moon time!) where I set aside reflective time to reevaluate, feel myself and the world, and meditate on living (4 days to go!). And as the cliche goes: all good things come in moderation.

My spontaneity has freed me and, also, stressed me out. It’s important to have balance, and I’m working at it.

A book came to me that I need to write (while reading Virginia Woolf) last week. So I’m going to write it. I’ve never really written prose fiction, but, you know what, now is the time.

And, for me, spontaneity is allowing me to explore, create, and begin my days a new. Something that hasn’t happened for a very long time.

Art of of Being Basic

Taylor Leave a comment

1) Writing a passive aggressive blog, keeping in mind all the people that overwhelm you–with their ability to frustrate you, fuck everything up, and be real damn basic.

2) Quitting your thesis to basically watch a season of Gilmore Girls every two weeks.

3) Not living by your community’s living standards and then shunning/hating/abusing  those that called you out about it.

4) Standing up and feeling patriotic for a nation that allows for the active genocide of people in and out of its “borders.”

5) (un/in)tentionally Cutting off Black women during a speak out because you really want to share your (yes, valid) emotions.

6) Walking down the wrong side of the road and pushing someone without boots into 6 inches of water.

7) Saying “Arabic” when you really mean “Arab” all while basically making a joke of another culture because of a situation you found yourself in.

8) Saying “people of color” instead of “Black folks,” which is really what you mean.

9) Ordering off of your parent’s Amazon account just so you can get free 2 day shipping (and effectively avoiding the spending of your own money).

10) Quoting Frank B. Wilderson III and then talking over Black folks in a conversation; Quoting Frank B. Wilderson III and then calling yourself an ally to Black folks when you are in fact not Black; Quoting Jared Sexton and then non-ironically saying “multiracial”; Quoting Audre Lorde and just fucking it up bad because you can’t read the whole quote, or you forget the context, or forget that she is talking about something that can’t always be generalized or abstracted; Saying that you don’t like Beloved.

11) Assuming that because you call yourself an ally to “LGBT” people you are an ally to queer folks; assuming that because you “identify as the ‘a’ in LGBTA” that you are really an ally or really living the struggle of being “LGBT.”

12) Being a (white) scholar of South African tribal literatures and then calling “anti-Blackness” too strong of a term; ignoring the fact that global anti-Blackness is a thing.

13) Working in the office next to me, seeing me everyday in the hallway, but refuse to acknowledge my existence as you run into me because you’re too busy on your phone, refuse to say excuse me, refuse to say anything.

14) Any time the word “different” is used as an adjective.

15) (On the second night of a newly established gay night at a local bar) Hosting a “frat party” that depicts racism, sexism, sizeism, ableism, etc., in its cover photo.

16) Refusing to acknowledge the privilege you have in passing.

17) Wearing shorts in 35 degree weather, even if it is sunny.

18) Disliking Azealia Banks.

19) Flirting with someone majoring in English and Philosophy and telling them that you hate reading and thinking too hard.

20) Pronouncing my last name “Portabella” to be funny.

21) Being sex negative.

22) Calling yourself a feminist, as a man, and still using “bitch” in your everyday vocabulary.

22) Identifying as cisgender and gay/bisexual/lesbian and stigmatizing Trans* folks. Stigmatizing Trans* folks EVER.

23) Letting people stay in limbo, who are waiting for a reply from you, just because you don’t want to face reality and instead watch Netflix and go on Tumblr for a week.

24) Assuming people will help you even when you don’t ask for it, and then being mad and blaming others for not helping.

25) Not telling someone that you love them when you do; Not telling someone that you like them or want to be friends with them or want to fuck them or want to ask them out or want to be in their vicinity because you’re scared.

26) Leaving your clothes in the apartment building dryer for 2 hours while leaving other clothes in the washing machine for 3 hours.

27) Disliking James Joyce or Virginia Woolf because they are “too pretentious.”

28) When you identify as white and: always identify as a successful anti-racist activist, call yourself culturally Black, equate issues of class with issues of race, pride yourself in your “ability” to twerk.

29) Publishing a blog about your frustrations because you just can’t right now and don’t foresee any amount of can for the next week.

30) Calling out “basic” things/people/activities and not defining “basic.”

31) Thinking that Madonna invented voguing.

32) Referring to HIV as AIDS; shaming those that have sex without a condom; not being aware that HIV and AIDS still exists.