Eighth-and-a-Half Post
da-da-da-da-da-da BRAINPOWER! da-da-da-da-da-da brainpower.
Archive for January 2008
Eighth Post
Harr harr…my friend Lars did one of these silly things with some of us work peeps in it: Square Dance. Sweet!
Seventh Post
I got a great email today from a past instructor of mine, Dr. Ellsworth Lapham Fersch (yes, that is his amazing name — and scroll down to the bottom of that link to get a great little intro on him). I took all three of his courses: Law and Ethics, Law and Psychology, and Delinquents, Criminals, Psychopaths, and Terrorists (that last one went by a much shorter name when I took it), and I’d say we’ve become something like friends as a result.
Or, I think he’s really great, and he’s nice enough to remember my name and chat me up whenever we run into each other. In fact, he calls me “Mr. Herwitz,” out of which I can’t help but get a kick.
Anyhoo, we were looking for a date to have coffee, and we settled on this coming Wednesday. In his email he wrote, “I’ll recognize you that day by the ashes on your forehead!?” To this, I had to muffle my laughter…naturally, I had NO idea that the 6th was Ash Wednesday, and even if I did know that, my utter lack of religious affiliation would preclude me from participating.
My response to him was thus: “Don’t be fooled by my first name — its combination with my last makes no religion suitable for the person those names describe!” Let’s be real, people. I mean really real: my name makes no sense. Christian Herwitz is about as oxymoronic as a name can get (my friend Johanna’s student’s name, Christian Pagan, notwithstanding).
This of course got me thinking in a more general sense about what I’ve noticed is the fairly contradictory nature of my…well, existence, basically. I was going to go into it in more detail, but then I realized that I’d probably end up with something of an autobiography, so here are just five handy-dandy bullet points:
Why Christian Herwitz is Inherrently Contradictory
(in addition to his name)
- He was born in the south — Hotlanta, specifically — but maaaaan does he hate him a southerner.
- He’s a vegan (sorta…read: freegan), but doesn’t give half a damn about animal rights.
- He’d consider himself an artist, but he really just doesn’t care very much for artists.
- He appears to be very outgoing and outspoken, and yet struggles to evade panic attacks in even the most casual academic or professional settings.
- He comes off as white male, middle class, but his childhood was spent as white trash, lower class.
It’s funny…whenever I try to think of how to describe my feelings of contradiction, the words are hard to produce. I get one image in my head, though:
…and one word does make itself prominent: suspension.
Heheh, I think my posts have BPD.
Sixth Post
I just read the coolest thing: Whales Snooze Half a Brain at a Time. Apparently, sperm whales can move — with their what, physical brain-half, I guess — while their cognitive brain-half SLEEPS.
Imagine if we could do that…imagine if we could exercise while sleeping, or, I dunno, eat, even! I guess we can do the opposite right now…chatting with friends or something while reclining on a couch…but here’re my top 5 things I would certainly do while sleeping:
- The sex. Duh. Or wait…maybe I’d prefer to be awake for that. Hmm…it’s still gotta go on as #1. At least for the occasional late night.
- Using the toilet. I just calculated how much time I’ve spent on the toilet in my life thusfar, and the *conservative* estimate is 4270.5 hours. I’ve never been more pissed over lost sleep.
- Showering. When I wake up in the morning, I’m practically asleep in the shower anyway. I’m ready to make the full commitment.
- Jogging. I don’t even know what that is…I think it might be pronounced with a soft j. Anyway, let’s make it happen while I’m asleep — at least that way I’ll be doing something productive at the same time.
- Driving. I don’t drive, but…this would probably be awesome. Although criminally dangerous. Don’t do this while I’m sleep-biking.
Oh, and below is the first footage ever of sperm whales sleeping. The woman taping it is totally freaking out, because I think she might think they’re dead or something. It is definitely pretty creepy.
Fifth Post
A response to my last post — how exciting! This comes from my friend Jessica, and it really goes a long way towards giving me a basis for a decent perspective on the topic.
I’d like to throw my two cents in on your observation about women and their attitudes towards other women with eating disorders.
First off — and this is no exaggeration — I’d say almost every single woman/girl/female has come close to unhealthy eating practices, or has at least considered eating patterns that would be considered disordered. The pressure is really unbearable. Even staunch feminists deal with it on a daily basis — you just can’t get away from it.
That said, I think that condescending labels of eating disorders from women applied to other women comes from a place of insecurity. It’s easy to look at someone who is skinnier than you and feel inferior — so, instead of owning up to that, I’ve seen many many women try to knock skinny women down a few notches by using the dismissive defense of “Oh, well, she has an eating disorder or something. Ha.” It’s a defense mechanism, and a way to make it seem like you’re someone above it all. No one wants to admit that they’re feeling threatened and upset at the sight of some model-skinny woman, so they place the blame on her.
You’re right though, it really is upsetting in terms of gender solidarity. One of the results of all this pressure on women is the feeling of being in constant competition with all the women around you.
I think it’s different from athletes who take human growth hormone because that’s a pressure places on a very specific — and relatively small — part of society. Not to say it’s OK, but it’s different.