Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

college

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From Copy Protection to Copy Protection, via AAA and a lot of chemistry that i very vaguely understand.

I’ve been alone in the house all day working on a paper on copy protection for my New Technologies in Communication class, and when Gina stopped by to say hello just after the second one a.m. she was only the third human i had spoken with all day . I was on a break from my paper at the time, sitting amidst a tangle of wires on the floor attempting to write a song in AAA form for my songwriting class. Gina inquired into this endeavor, and in my explanation of it i overstepped the bounds of simple differentiation between verse-chorus-verse, ABA, and AABACA to speculate on how song form effects the commercial prospects of an artists — perhaps dwelling on a day spent largely listening to Tori Amos.

I followed this idle chatter across our common area and into her room, by which point the conversation had switched over to inhabit a subject philisophically adjacent to the difference between Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Gina put on her new Donovan hits CD as i tooled around on my guitar in DADGCE, but the conversation eventually turned back to pop construction. After my obligatory monologue about the interrelation of image, genre, and songwriting Gina mentioned how pop music at least kept her awake and functioning during her grueling Saturday 7-hour laboratory class today. This particular exercise in weekly chemical punishment has become a favorite topic of ours, as Gina basically has eleven weeks to play a rousing game of “guess that organic compound” with the five seemingly random samples chosen for her by her instructor. I not only delight in the inherently game-show nature of this particular exercise, but also in the fun things Gina must do in her quest for knowlege.

One less than delightful thing Gina has to do in this quest for knowledge is use an array of photoscopic machinery to determine the nature of her compounds, rather than more traditional means like boiling things and making their colors change. However, Gina did all manner of machine-assisted processes at her co-op job, where she basically spent all day in a lab running reactions on organic polymers. After talking about several aspects of her employment, such as how she spent weeks getting a particular product to the ideal shade of “water white,” we finally came to rest on the benefits and similarities of ultraviolet and electron beam curing of… um… this thing that i’m going to ask Gina to name for me again when i wake up tomorrow morning. Basically, she was testing one element in the process that makes the wierd peely adhesive labels you find on plastic soda bottles, or the gloss and ink sealents on magazines.

This particular thread of conversation went on for a good long time, with several stop-overs for debates of when in their employment life-cycle a worker stops actively attaining/retaining knowledge of applicable technology and begins to merely sustain it. Coming back out of that, i attempted to make my understanding of electron beam curing more complete by asking what it would be more and less efficient to cure. Adhesive labels – good. Magazines – probably. Vinyl flooring – maybe not.


Consequently, Gina brought up that the sealants in questions were similar to those used on fiber-optic wire, which in turn sent me into a five minute discussion of fiber optics based on a presentation i saw in my New Technologies class this week. At the tail end of that it suddenly occured to me that the polycarbonate layer in the middle of a compact disc and the acrylic layer on the outside probably both made use of the chemical technology that Gina had been describing to me for the better part of two hours, and my mention of it lead into a brief overview of how a cd is put together. That in turn lead to an equally brief description of the differences between a CD and a CD-R, which in turn lead to a discussion of how CD-Rs are sometimes hard to read for older units but a cinch for CD-ROM drives. From there naturally headed into error correction and how CD-ROM technology error corrects more than a typical cd drive. And, before i knew what was happening, i was back at copy protection … explaining how sinister it was to corrupt the error correction of a disc to protect it from copying because it would degrade the overall lifespan of a disc.


I knew that extra hour would wind up being useful for something other than sleep.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/10/85607009/

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I just desperately want to be a part of our perceived intelligencia now, after snidely commenting against our sociological debate that we’d be lucky if Drexel could graduate 8% of a class that would qualify for such an honor. Suddenly it’s not enough to give attention-getting presentations or to write witty papers that easily meet and exceed length limits. I want to know classic things… movies and books for me to debate assuredly the way i easily peel “A Day In The Life” apart like so much ripe citrus in front of my sleepy songwriting class who barely collectively own a pair of Beatle’s albums.

Here’s an aside i’m not willing to concede into a pop-up window: How can you ignore the Beatles? I’m the biggest anti-snob i know a lot of the time — choosing to deliberately ignore or discount something that god-awfully popular just because i feel that it’s over-weighted. You simply cannot ignore the Beatles, though, because even if you successfully argue around their innovativeness you’ll still have to bring in ten or twelve other pre-1970 albums to cover the width and breadth that they easily stride in any pair of their albums. Yet, hyper-popular R&B artists routinely confess in my treasured bi-weekly sessions with the Stone that their friends would be surprised that theylsiten to the Beatles. It’s the freaking Beatles, people. Even worse, the fans of these artists are often even ignorant of their own musical antecedents, as my mother discovered when a co-worker who endlessly rants about Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill returned to her a blank stare when she started talking about the likes of Martha and the Vandella’s and Roberta Flack (and, i mean, “Killing Me Softly” is just a gimme anyhow). But i digress. I digress because i want to be able to do that for other arts, other things.

Vanity Fair is suddenly written two leagues above my head, talking about influences and movements that befuddle me so much that i don’t know if i should look them up in Elise’s art history book or Webster’s Dictionary. This weekend, awake long past my bedtime, i caught myself browsing the net for Doctoral Programs in Communications … despite having just told someone in the last few months that i was never meant to be called “Doctor.” But i still feel like i’ve just left high-school, or seventh grade, or the womb. I don’t seem to know anything.

I don’t seem to know anything, and today i discovered that i only have eleven classes left with four whopping quarters to complete them in. Not one of them will inform me about the greats in literature, sociological theory, modern international politics, or the rise of technology in society. Not to mention science or math. All of those classes are over, and looking at my all-too-blank schedule for next quarter i find myself debating what to do with my free time: take classes in soc, lit, h/pol, anth, or begin to obsessedly prepare for the GRE’s.

I think this is the opposite of Senioritis.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/10/85595004/

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On an unbelievably brief break from putting together my monster 1100+ piece mailing for Admissions today i took a moment to read a few blogs. Now, you have to understand that this is something i haven’t done for a fairly long time … i’ve even fallen behind on my tacet upkeep with Rabi, Tom, and Martha to the point where Elise has to inform me that the former was on break and the latter was back from hers. It didn’t take too much reading to remember why i enjoy this so much, and i’ll spare you the highly irrelevant details, but i was shocked the entire time by how out of the loop i am. Sure, i’m out of the teevee loop, as i’ve pretty much given it up cold-turkey. And, yes, i am out of the national news loop — i found out about the Washington Sniper in Linguistics class when someone mentioned it in a report they were doing about the speech community at WPVI News. But, i feel as though i’m out of some larger, more all-encompassing loop … instead just repeatedly running the Peter-circuit without a care in the world.


Hoping to amend that soon, but right now i think i need to take a minute to actually eat something before starting on homework or some indefinite quest to reclaim my witty bloggness.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/10/85578148/

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I have been transformed, though not completely.

The assignments in my songwriting class have so-far been very involving, especially to me — a non-music major. For example: write a melody for a completely instrumental piece and turn in an accompanying paper discussing your use melodic contours and devices. Less perplexing (though still very involving): write three different titles for each of three different subjects, then expand each title into a brief synopsis of plot, and finally re-write each original title using idiom/axiom or assonance based on what you outlined in your synopsis.


I thought i would be alone in my venture into this musical territory, and went to the length of getting the program head and my own dean (a music major himself) to sign off on adding me to the class. Much to my surprise, there were a few non-music major in my section of the class by the end of the first week. However, their introductions went something like “Hi, i’m Bob, i’m in this band…”


They all dropped the class after the melodic contour project.

To the best of my knowledge i am the only student in my section who turned the assignment in complete and on time, despite harrowing and somewhat vague instructions including having to notate the entire melody and perform it in class.


This week we had a myriad of assignments due, capped by one particular task: write a song. By no means did it have to be a good song, or a very well-written song, but it was meant to make use of all the exercises in title devices and word-painting that we had been employing earlier in the assorted assignments. As directed, I wrote a song, but i was less than pleased with what i came out with. Having already made a somewhat big point out of all the writing i’ve already done, i was definitely hesitant to turn something so equivocal and boring in masquerading as a masterpiece. So i wrote another… not my best song ever, but something i really enjoy playing. Because of my extra work i wound up scrambling before class to photocopy the scribbled lyrics out of my poetry book and to pencil in the chords, but i still had it turned in on time..


To the best of my knowledge i am the only student in my section who turned the assignment in complete and on time.


Complete and on time… there’s something about that. In the past i’ve been one of those students who turns things in incomplete and begs for extensions to wind up with their A. So far this year i haven’t done that — not once, even when i had the opportunity to do it to save myself from a logistical mistake.

I don’t know what’s come over me… could it be that i was destined to suddenly become responsible at the age of 21? I’m still trying to figure it out, but in the meantime all that i can be sure of is that i’ve entered every day of class so far with the intent to prove that i am a capable student, if not the most capable student, when it comes to completing the work in an acceptable fashion. Not only that, but when people show up with excuses like “i was sick” or “i didn’t quite understand the assignment” or “i missed the roll sheet last week” i just roll my eyes and go back to taking notes. I’ve done all three, and i’ve still made it out with an A in each situation, but being smarter than everyone else is so much more satisfying when i am really being more intelligent.

I really am.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/10/85568735/

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Elise actually had me convinced for a moment that i might be growing a tail, but after a few solid hours of slouching around reading Durkheim’s Suicide i’m starting to think that i’ve grown a tiny callous at the base of my spine to protect it from hard wooden chairs. Elise went on to point out that dinosaurs’ sometimes had “helper brains” located at the base of their tail to help communicate information to their brains in a more expedient fashion. This, she claimed, would mean the difference between “ouch, my tail seems to be on fire” and “mmm, do i smell cookies?”

Durkheim’s Suicide is a fascinating (and decidedly unmorbid) look at the Sociological phenomena that can be statistically correlated to the rate of suicide in late nineteenth century Europe. It works on the supposition that suicide can be view as an entirely unpsychologically motivated act — or at least that an individual’s reasons to commit such an act are entirely outweighed by the causal factors associated with their role in society as a person, worshipper, spouse, and so forth.

The remainder of this post will strive to address neither the topic of evolutionary adaptation nor the topic of one’s place in society can dictate behavior more than their personal intent. However, it is definitely about both. Sortof.

(If you don’t know me at all you probably should just skip down to the last post to avoid too much incoherent rambling).

As of two years ago today i had only completed three music courses on a collegiate level. None of them went towards improving my vocal skills. I was fully aware of that fact, and though i strove to improve both my volume and pitch on my own i had already begun to do the same through coursework. In 2001 i earned the ability to record in Drexel’s digital studio, and it was during the mixing of Relief that i became enamored with the idea of joining 8 To The Bar.

8 To The Bar is Drexel’s all-male acappella group. They’re about as close as one can get to being a certifiable Drexel Rock Star. I mixed Relief simultaneously with 8ttB’s studio album that Spring, sometimes literally finding both of our material on a single ADAT tape. The group’s then-president (and my co-producer) Bill spent the entire week coaxing excellent performances out of me, partially resulting in a tacit attempt to convince me that my voice could be used as more than just an implement of singer-songwriter angst. I, for the most part, disagreed.

In the weeks to come i found myself watching in jealously and awe as 8 To The Bar added new members — almost all of them in my singing range. It had never occurred to me to audition. The grace saving me from actual disappointment about this were The Treblemakers — 8ttB’s just-formed female counterparts. The Treblemakers were composed almost exclusively of my close friends (save for Selina), and as they began rehearsing i quickly became their groupie-at-large … locating errant members after practice began, fetching extra photocopies, and reserving seats for them at the 8ttB concert. By the following fall i was an actual member of the TM’s, albeit an honorary one, and i still gave no though to auditioning for 8ttB despite them adding two more people who sing the same voice part as me in addition to our collective friend Dante, to whom i cannot claim any semblance of vocal comparison.

As 8 To The Bar’s membership became updated, so did The Treblemaker’s … adding one of my roommates, one of the first people i met at Drexel, and one of my best friends. As the group’s membership shifted so did my honorary “role” … I went from being a photocopier to an arranger, and from fetcher of members to emergency practice percussionist. However, when the curtain went up i was still a seat filler rather than a performer — one role completely alien to me..

Yesterday night the girls held their yearly audition, and as of Monday morning they will officially be up to full vocal power. Meanwhile, 8 To The Bar is pretty much at full vocal power, but they’re also auditioning. In fact, auditions are Monday night right after Choir, as an email supplied by the 8ttB webmaster conveniently informed me this afternoon. From various grapevines i have heard that they’re looking for either a couple of exceptional tenors or as many as five or six new members. As tempting as this might seem, the odds really aren’t in my favor: i don’t have a stronger voice or range than any of the baritones currently in the group, and my reading and performing skills are equal at best to any basses who are planning to show up. But, for once, i’m actually considering the possibility of showing up.

Monday, effectively, is it. I’m in my second to last year at Drexel, and i vocally scratched and clawed my way into choir. Although i am by no means a fully qualified bass or baritone soloist, i am for the first time entirely capable of being a member of 8 To The Bar, and that leaves me with a choice: I can spend Monday night making them believe that i’m only not a part of the group yet because i haven’t tried out, or i can give it up entirely and get comfortable in my seat.

So many words to describe such an agonizingly small decision; it all comes down to a simple question of “will i, or won’t i.” Will is putting myself out on a line much more personal than the ones i’ve toed in auditions for theatre and choir, and won’t is admitting that after two years of becoming more musical i’m still not musical enough.

I really don’t want to grow a tail.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/10/385530228/