Things That Might Make Responsible People Cringe Vol. 2

I feel like one of the first things a kid does when they are given scissors is try to cut their own hair.

Then a friends hair.

Then the scissors are taken away, and the child is told not to cut peoples hair.

Then you get older, and an (un)spoken rule is to never let a friend cut your hair.

Well, I broke that rule today.

Because the thing is, I can't get my hair cut in a guys salon (or should I say "saloon") because it is the Middle East, and at the women's hair places they don't cut it short enough and it turns weird.

Hair grows out. And so it needed to be shorter.

So today, I recruited Jordan to cut my hair. We used what is designed as a beard trimmer. The back is (I think) a 3, blended to a 5, and the front ever so slightly longer.

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that I didn't look in the mirror as this was progressing- I knew how I wanted my hair to feel length-wise, but I forgot how short that might be.

However, I love it. It is super low key, super (super) short, but it is comfortable.

<3

Looking back a day later, it is definitely a bit choppy. But that will grow out. 

"After all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring perhaps from afar what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free."
-Walt Whitman

Beautiful

I’ve been working on the first NYUAD student production- an adaptation and retelling of the Hindu epic The Ramayana. I was a stage management apprentice to start with, and then got shifted to a lighting design apprentice as the show came closer to opening night.

I saw the process from first read to final dress rehearsal, and then watched the closing show as a member of the audience. Even though I saw the performance go through so many stages, seeing it that final time, it was like a new show- with the masks, the costumes, the energy that the audience brought to the actors- the conversation was reborn.

It was beautiful, and reinforces my knowledge that all the hours are worth it, and that this is what I want to do.

(I don’t know yet in what capacity- maybe stage management, or dramaturgy, or design, or playwriting, or directing. But somehow.)

And now the show’s over. That is one of the beauties of theater- it is impermanent, and in that, aligns directly with human nature, but also battles human nature.

Nothing lasts, and our mortality alone is proof of that. But we try so desperately to hold on, to stop time, to make things stay.

That is an impossible attempt. As much as we try to fight our natures of impermanence, we fail at that. Theater is created, and then lives only through memory. You can’t freeze a performance, nor can you freeze a moment.

And in that, there is beauty. Memory preserves, but it also elevates.

However, we humans will still strive to live in that impossible attempt. And in that, there is beauty as well. 

<3

Things That Might Make Responsible People Cringe Vol. 1

Admittedly, this title could apply to many other decisions in my life, for example:

• Getting my ears pierced in India
• Sleeping on a beach in Oman
• Fighting in the SCA

... along with other lesser additions to this list (many involving a microwave). Today, according to some, might be a contender for this list. 

I have an assignment for Intro to Visual Culture to 'get lost in the city' and document what the visual culture manipulates and reconfigures as values. 

And so I took my camera and started wandering. Through the streets, the shops, the sun, the dust. Exploring. Finding new corners of the city I too - often ignore. 

I got some weird looks, but no different than the ones in the US when I take photos of less-than-picture-perfect objects. 

There were points where I was truly lost- I had lost sight of Sama (yay!), and everything looked unfamiliar- looked new. 

Taking those photos reconnected me to this city, and to reconnected me to my camera. I had the assignment in mind, but also allowed myself to diverge from that, and I ended up with some shots I am really proud of. 

Moral of the story: Wandering is good for my soul. Photography is good for my soul.

<3