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Razorpsyche
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Name: Psychedelic
Country: United States
State: Massachusetts
Metro: Boston
Birthday: 9/23/1981
Gender: Female
Interests: violin, reading, all things musical, drawing, friends & chillage, being amused
Expertise: The psychology of music perception and cognition
Occupation: Research and development
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/14/2004
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| I'm biased, but... social contracts of musicThere's a delicate social contract that dominates adult life. This
exquisite balance of human relationships is a game one must learn to
play or else risk being *gasp* outcast among friends, co-workers, and
any random social encounters as one fends for oneself in a big city.
How such a social contract develops can be infinitely interesting and
forms the subject of a few of my wonderful friends' professional
scrutiny, but it is certainly through living within the system that one acquires such social boundaries (and no, college does not make you smarter in that way).
One venue that transcends this social guessing-game is collaborative music making. There's an indescribable bond that is making music together. The harmonic feast for your ears and the rhythmic groove for your tippy-toes, the immense attention required to respond to each other, and the chillage that surrounds the party - can be a direct route to the heart in ways that the regular beer-drinking-party-going social scene fails to provide. I'm not the first to say it, but when it's good, it can be really good.
The movie Once, featuring charming Irish rocker Glen Hansard and the adorable Czech girl Marketa Irglova, was a nonmusician's sneak preview into that which musicians can have for each other. I love the movie to bits, and I find all the songs heartwarming, but as far as describing the bond that musicians have, I think anyone who's played good chamber music can give it the I-told-you-so look.
Of course, then there's the 1% of local musicians who are just mean - but we'll leave that discussion for another day.
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| And with a love like that, you know you should be glad.You know that feeling when somebody does something and it reminds you of the million reasons why you love them?
The past weekend was all about that, in multiple perspectives.
Hitting it off with new people gives me a high, but there's nothing like quality time with my good ol' peeps.
A few lessons relearned, though: 1. never disregard Murphy's Law, 2. I miss the West coast, and 3. I cannot function after a red-eye flight.
Congratulations, B&G: it fills my heart with joy to see how happy the two of you are together.
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| stepping out of the temporal shadowsFriends are in town and that makes me happy. Chris and Claudia's visit to Boston resulted in fun and the making of new friends, potentially even chamber music partners. More recently, Kyle and Rachel's visit is exciting because we got to go to parts of Cambridge and Somerville I barely know about, and at J.P. Lick's I got free iced coffee from the girl whose mouth resembled Scarlett Johannson. The iced coffee (not the girl) led to the most sober but fun Friday evening I have had in a long time. After meeting Kyle's ridiculously funny friend Ron, I went home wishing I were a big black guy (at least for a week - I would be so uninhibited!) Later, home alone during the small hours of the morning, I had a caffeine-induced writing spree in my journal/sketchbook, which led to all kinds of introspection about my life over the past year.
It's been almost exactly a year since I moved away from Berkeley. Looking back, here are some lessons I have slowly learned, in no particular order:
- you don't tell everyone everything (note that this first point does qualify all the subsequent points).
- a temporal shadow of unhappiness is influential for growth.
- loyalty and trust go hand in hand, and are close cousins with attention.
- having a PhD is fun for more reasons than one would expect.
- never be afraid to push the proverbial envelope with research, socialness, and friends; with boys, however, the jury's still out.
- look where you're going before you jump!
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| At home, for onceThe past week has been a little too eventful: KT Tunstall concert (more on that later), high school reunion, a former research assistant visiting (congrats to Chaz for landing a job in my lab), and tapas on Newbury Street. At work we also said a warm and touching goodbye to my favourite Indian post-doc, who, after a budding film career and a brief stint in this lab, is leaving with his missus and the unborn baby to start a new life as a resident in Chicago. All the best!
This weekend, besides helping friends move (which, according to PhDcomics, is a debt payable in blood) I am actually looking forward to staying in and thinking of ways to convince the government that tone-deafness research will save starving children in Africa.
OK, maybe I will go see Sex and the City too, because grant-writing on a Saturday night may be a little too depressing.
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