Date Taken: 2/28/12
Setting: Honey's - a quaint little restaurant in Northern Liberties
Thoughts: This picture will haunt my dreams. Possible 6 word captions:- I'm going to eat this baby
- Things grow fast, in the boudoir...
- Interested in advertising your business baby?
- Sinister eyes make framable glamour shots
 I'm scared...  apparently I am unintentionally just as creepy as that creepy man in the above picture...
This series of pictures is pretty random, but, perhaps that randomness speaks to the variety one can experience during any given day. In the first picture, Brian is making me a sandwich for my snack pack. My Liz Lemon-like appetite can only be sated when my snack pack bulges with a day's worth of food. At about 6:30 am, he helped me get ready for the day by making me this delicious treat.
Date Taken: 2/27/12
Setting: Some cafe in south Philly with a shiny facade....ouuu shiny
Got this news
Date Taken: 2/26/12
Setting: Broad Street - South Philly
Thoughts:
"Some folk'll never eat a skunk but then again some folk'll like
Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel
Hey whats going on on this side
C: Hey Brandine you might could wear these to your job interview
B: And scuff up the topless dancing runway? Naw you best bring em back where from you got em
C: Ok, Back you go to waits for a woman of less discriminating tastes
Most folk'll never lose a toe but then again some folk'll like
Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel
C: Hey you know what I could call my ma while I'm up here...Hey Ma! get off the dang roof!"
-The Simpsons -- Twenty-Two Short Films About Springfield Setting: En Route to a friend's house - power walking down Broad Street
Thoughts: Now that I just put this series of pictures together they seem kind of perfect next to one another. I like the way height is represented in each image and the progression of that height across the images. I kind of hate when people take pictures of their food and constantly post it so that everyone on facebook has to look at it...and here I am, taking a picture of food and posting it. I don't belong in a kitchen, I can't cook, I have absolutely desire to cook and on this particular day, I told my friend to put bread under the broiler to make it crust and we forgot about it and it started a fire in her oven...so yeah, I could never create anything as pleasing and tasty as this.
Date Taken: 2/25/12
Setting: My Room
Thoughts: Oh Kitty...Not much to say on these pictures, except, I have way too much stuff. That mountain of clothes is horrifying. I have been trying to organize my life by purging all of the belongings I do not need. There is so much stuff in my room, just stuff. It serves no purpose and I certainly don't need it. For some reason, even though I enjoy this process of downsizing, I continue to buy more clothes. I don't really even like shopping, although I suppose my recent surge in clothes purchases suggests otherwise. When I saw Kitty sitting on top of the pile, I realized how absurd my lifestyle is. Even as a poor graduate student, I still have more stuff, more excess, more of everything than most people. Not good.
Date Taken: 2/24/12
Setting: My room - an angry birds hooded blanket/cape
Thoughts: I adopted Kitty about three years ago from an amazing center called Tabby's Place. When I got there, I had some other cats in mind that I saw pictures of on the website. When I visited with them, they were timid and I just didn't get good vibes. The women there showed me around and took me to visit some more cats. We walked into a large pen area with different levels and tubes and play huts for the kitties. I sat down on the floor and kitty came right over to me. She purred and meowed and nuzzled right into me. She. Was. Working it. She won me over instantly and I knew she would make a great companion. As she walked away to go find a nook she had a spat with another cat, and I knew she wanted out of this place. She didn't seem to enjoy being encaged with some many other cats.
She cried the whole way home, crammed into a small cardboard carrying case. I tapped the lid to the beat of the music, hoping the gentle rhythmic drumming would soothe her. It didn't. When we got home, she immediately ran and hid. I would peek under the couch now and then to check on her. She stared back, blinked, came out when she was hungry. I noticed she liked to drink out of cups and started giving her water to her in one of our human style glasses.
Over the next few weeks she adapted and now she snuggles with me at night and owns the basement (her killing fields). She runs all over the house and comes running down the stairs to greet me when I come home and call her name. She is my buddy. She is the prettiest kitty in all the land and I love her.
Kitty took to me, but seems to dislike all other humans. Even my dad has a difficult time tracking her down. She likes to do this thing where she comes up to be pet and then runs away, taunting you, engaging you in a game. When Brian came into my life, kitty was a bit wary, but she took to him. She lets him pet her and doesn't run or hide when he is in the room. She snuggles with us at night and walks all over him while he sleeps. I love the second picture because she is all curled up in her I'm-so-sleep-and-happy-and-please-pet-my-belly pose, demonstrating her comfort with him. as he watches a funny video on his phone. I like to think that animals have a great sense of people's personalities. Cats in particular make you work for their affection, so when one accepts you (as Kramer says about gorillas) you got it made in the shade).
Date Taken: 2/23/12
Setting: Septa Train, possibly the quiet ride car
Thoughts: Well, this is not a particularly flattering picture...but, when have I ever shied away from taking unflattering pictures of myself? This is what my friends and I like to call...the creepy wink. The creepy wink, which is even less attractive when frozen through the modern wonder of digital photography, is always a great way to make people laugh...and by people, I of course mean my friends and not strangers.
I will say that this picture epitomizes our relationship. It was a creepy wink on our first date that won me over. I knew if I could creepy wink at him and he could do it back then we would be just fine. To be totally and utterly silly and bizarre and myself around my partner is freeing and it reminds me of my friends and all of the amazing-silly-wonderful-wild adventures we had together in college.
So, I decided to start a little picture of the day project. It is not original. I imagine it will not be terribly exciting to anyone but me, but I think that is exactly why I am doing it. In the last few years, it seems I have come to know myself better than I ever have...a decidedly good thing considering I am an actual adult now. I thought it would be interesting to track the days visually, particularly because it is do easy to do now given the capabilities of a smartphone. I like to think that when I look back over this catalog of photos, I will see things I didn't at the time. Perhaps this project will enable me to see amazing little tidbits of life when I otherwise might over look them. Perhaps, it will just be fun.
Date Taken: 2/22/12
Setting: We were somewhere in the vicinity of a Marshall's on an unseasonably warm, albeit beautiful winter day.
Thoughts: I am always amazed by the iphone and its capabilities. We now have the capacity to have a computer, a music player, and a digital camera all in one small, compact device. While we still hold the camera out at arm's length to take the kinds of up close self photos my father took of himself when he was a young man, we now have the added connivence of a phone camera that enables the user to take photos from a lens on the front screen of the phone.
At first I didn't realize he was taking pictures. Now, looking back at these images, I was struck by the reflection in his sunglasses. Even more compelling is the progression of the reflected images in the glasses. That progression suggests movement, the passing of time and space, yet our images remain static, caught in this seemingly inconsequential moment in time. These images make me wonder how our lives have changed and will change because of our ability to instantly document our lives and store that documentation endlessly. I wonder, if we took one picture of ourselves every single day for the rest of our lives, would that compendium of pictures be worthwhile for us, for someone else? When we look back, will it be the immobile nature of the images, of ourselves that capture our attention, or will it be the passing of time, the constant movement in which we are uncannily frozen? Is it important to remember who we were in those static moments, or who we have become through the passing of time? Perhaps both, perhaps neither. But, regardless, the experiment begins...
 Just rockin some shades
Yesterday, Brian and I organized our lives. We went to each other's rooms and helped one another to straighten up our belongings. In the past year or so, I have had the urge to consolidate my possessions and to purge unnecessary items. I want to down size, despite my seemingly ever growing desire to purchase more clothing. I keep buying dresses and jackets - perhaps the dresses are a nod to my desire to enter into my real adult life and the jackets are linked to what feels like a deep seated need to contain all that I need on my person at all times.
Brian took on the job of going through several boxes containing the entirety of a childhood Garfield collection. It was a task I wanted to do, but didn't really want to physically do. I turned to some shelves that I have been loading with books and binders and papers and photographs and all matter of crap over the last decade. I stumbled across papers I had doodled on as a child, pictures from my adolescence, pieces of paper and books that no longer held any relevance for me now as an almost 27 year old. My mom was laced in all of those things - her smile, her laugh, the sacrifices she made to make sure that my life was pleasant and full of hope and possibility. It was odd to remember her in the discarding of things. Since her death, it has often felt like I have gradually been throwing her away. I find it increasingly difficult to remember so many of the times we spent together. Sometimes, I have difficulty remembering her face and her voice. .
While so much of my being is devoted to the "getting rid" of things, so much of me wants to gather and store and horde the objects and memories that remind me of her, that remind me of me. Stuff...well, I guess I know that stuff is not going to bring her back or strengthen my memory enough to make her feel real again. I can't help but feel that she would support my recent moves to organize items for sale, to condense my belongings, to free myself from the traps these possessions create. But then, I wonder, as I have often wondered am I remembering her inaccurately? When I think - she would have liked that or she wouldn't have liked that - am misinformed?
As we cleaned, I felt a sense of relief. Compiling that which I cherish and which reflects my hard work, and discarding that which is inconsequential felt good. Perhaps though, what made the process so enjoyable, was that Brian was there with me. He is a partner, through and through. He patiently did as I asked. He worked his way through boxes of toys and stuffed animals and every different kind of Garfield paraphernalia while I blasted 90s pop from my phone. He made himself his own little nook in my room; he blended our spaces so easily and so thoroughly. It felt good. It felt right. And when we were done, and I curled up on the ground, tired, he lifted me up and held me. It was a perfect, simple, pure blending of our worlds - born out of a need to discard was a need to hold tight to me something deeply fulfilling. I found that fulfillment in a man who thinks of my needs often, who wants to be a part of my life, who hugs me fully, and whose presence in my world is so perfect it makes me think I am dreaming.
"Reality has disappeared from the modern world" - Movies in the Age of TV
"You don't get to be good-hearted by accident. You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain." - Marty (1955)
As I sit in my doctoral classes, I can't help but wonder how our system of higher education came to embody the complete opposite style of teaching as primary and secondary education. So often, professors are not teachers, they are scholars whose depth and breadth of knowledge that labels them as experts in a particular field. However, just because someone is an expert in a particular subject matter does not make them a good teacher, or even a sub-par one.
The result of professors who are not teachers: a mass quantity of students losing out on opportunities to learn, to understand, to grow, to change, to grapple with real world problems and philosophical notions. So often, I see students sitting in class bored, zoned out, sleeping, or doing other work - all of which I am guilty. Is it wrong to want my professors to be compelling, to capture my attention with their enthusiasm, with the way they distribute knowledge and foster a classroom environment in which all participants contribute to learning?
As I embark on the second semester of my 8th year as a college student, I can't help but feel exhausted by the lack of teaching techniques so many of my professors have displayed. At Lehigh, I had some of the most engaging and brilliant professors. I was excited to go to their classes, and when I left, I felt enlightened, challenged, I felt like I had learned. I looked at those professors and thought, that, that is what I want to do. I found, through them, my calling to become an educator. Now, as I look back at professors I have had, the ones that stood in front of the room and droned on and on, went off on unintelligible tangents, and entertained asinine student questions, I think, that is why I need to become an educator. I hate to imagine myself as better than anyone. In this case, I must keep my ego and anger in check, but I must also acknowledge that I feel cheated by the system. I feel that I could do better. I could teach better. I could educate.
Is it wrong to think this? Is it wrong to believe I have the capacity to be outstanding as an educator? Is it wrong that I am typing this post in the middle of a class?
American education, in general, is woefully inadequate. I want to become an educator so that I can change lives in a positive way and so that I can change the system for the better. Cliche? Perhaps...but necessary.
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