Snowball Draft 1

What is the meaning to live life to the fullest? It sounds impossible when I am personally alienated from most of the aspects of experiencing life. RD Laing states "Our behaviour is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things." His statement is completely true and it describes exactly how my life flows. I do things the way how I see other people doing it. How I approach certain situations is controlled by my experience and how other people do it. My childhood does not compare to any typical lifestyle. Imigrating from the Philippines was a major turning point and as I adapted here in the U.S. I became less aware of my past childhood. This class has helped me connect with my past, my body and my dreams.

My past as an american child even was a blurr until I explored my childhood album. It's funny how I found out that a kid in my class who I rarely talked to was in my 1 st grade class in PS 3. Pictures helped me connect with lost memories. It was obvious that my mind secluded those memories because the album was hidden under piles of dust. Art projects from elementary school also made me realize that I was more creative before then now. On an african tiki doll that I painted over, had atleast 5 dfferent colors. I also notced that I tried changing the tiki doll to a business man. Back then that is how I pictured what grown men looked like. Guys with ties maybe intimidated me when I was little influencing me to morph my african guy to a wall street white coller executive. My view on older people and societies expectations for them morphed my creative art piece to a bussiness man. A some what colorful doll still resembles a working class person.

My dreams before this course were just blurrs. I never remembered what I dreamt the night before. My body became a machine, working, sleeping and then waking up to do the same thing again. School, I believe is training me for my future of being a capatalist machine. I have realized that dreaming is a way for me to connect with my creative mind. Subconsciously imagining scenes of happiness, sadness and fear proves the creativity of my mind. Although I am at times really creative consciously, I have lost a vast amount of memory when it comes to things that were unimportant. I have realized that I anticipate events for the next day and i lose the sense of dreaming at night. My past experiences of skimming through dreams became a habit. This habit imprisoned my creative mind.

As a new Yorker I have adapted the skill to fit almost everything in one scheduled day and walking extremely fast. I am currently realizing that I have never really stopped to smell the roses. I have never taken any classes to relieve stress and all that stress has grown out through the roots of my hair. It is a bit unnoticable but I have strands of gray hair. Breathing exercises which I now do at home, has helped me calm down and has also helped me think about life and how it runs me. Pain in my body were sometimes ignored because I use to believe that pain is something that will just go away. I was wrong. Through excercising, being sexually active and playing sports I was embodied. Ignoring pains and other pleasures like enjoying breathing proved that my lifestyle was unhealthy. Even if the air in NY is highly polluted, i enjoy talking walks. During those walks I try to sense all of my feelings all over my body. I sometimes even tell my friends that my feet feels wierd after walking with them. My past experiences of ignoring those sensations molded me into a robot and now my mind is more open to how my body feels. Now a days I analyze pain and i try to relax my muscles after a long day in my bed.

My unhealthy habits in the past created a robot but, now I am more open consciously and subconsciously. I try to share my dreams with my sister almost everyday even if I feel like she doesn't want to listen and after or even during eating I try to close my eyes to feel every sensation. i sometimes think I can follow where the food is traveling. I have been more aware of my bodies capabilities helping adavance in exercising. The more I think about my past, the more I figure out how much I have changed for the better and worse. My behaviour has shown improvement because I have freed my mind of ridiculous stress.

Thinking

RD Laing warns that we might think we are smart but, we are really really dumb. That we think our thoughts are original and creative but, it's just being repeated. Truthfully, each and every one of us have our own unique thoughts on anything. There are times that all of our reactions to certain situations are the same but, the our minds process at its own speed and have different interpretations.

I have noticed a lot about myself through how I intrepeted life or death situations. That my selfishness would kill others. I obviously can't be a superhero nor anything that puts my life on the line. Im not ever going to change because my decions on saving myself before others shows how I cherish my own existence. RD Laing might disagree with my selfishness, but truthfully I wouldn't take the risk to kill everyone including myself.

In the beggining of the year in math class, I have learned how to think outside the box. Solving puzzles using outside information to clarify the problems in the puzzles. In one of the puzzles given by our Insight into Daily Life course teacher, Andy Snyder gave us a dot puzzle in which we literally had to draw a line aka think outside the box.

Dreams

My experiences are based on events my mind encounters conciously and unconciously. It doesn't even have to be physical. My dreams are clips that are played in my mind when im unciously resting on my bed or where ever I pass out. I've been keeping a journal and have been writing in it when I wake up in the morning. It's not as detailed because I tend to forget my dreams quickly. In an experiment I have done over the weekend, I observed that when my mind relaxs every art of my body before sleeping I tend to wake up in the middle of the night craving for something to drink or eat. It's similar to my embodiment experiences because of the fact that my mind can't keep concentrated and I always want to be active.

Before this unit I was not able to remember most of my dreams and if I did, I would not be able to remember them past after a certain amount of time. This dreams unit helped me focus more into the dreams and I gained control over certain aspects of them. My observations throughout this unit, started to explain why I barely dreamt. One of my main observations was, if I slept for more then 10 hours I begin to dream more indept. Every night especially if it's a school night i only sleep for six hours, which is not enough time for my mind to open the doors of my imagination.

My observations were collected through my dream journal in which I only write in once I wake up. Some of the pages have scribbles occupying atlest 2 lines. My journal actually clears memory storage in my mind, and dreams that I often forget about are stored inside my journal. My journal actually helps me believe that stressed individuals should keep journals and write in them before they sleep to relieve all the worries in their mind. It would also help that person lucidly dream.

Insight into my childhood

It has been an extremely long 16 going onto 17 years of life. Experienceing the phenomenon of advance technology. I believe that that we are the mostly influenced through music, television, and other disembodied activities. Which also proves Laing's theory of living off of experience. As a child I remember dreaming big. One of my mottos were to jump like jordan. If he can experience the fame, then i could also. A very competitive drive for basketball fame.

There are pictures of me 2 feet shorter then I am now. Every night i would jump around trying to dunk on my five dollar mini basketball hoop. Breaking it almost everytime. it's only 5 bucks. What was money to me?

My childhood revolved around objeccts not dollar bills. Action figures to bikes, i wanted the best. IO was spoiled but, I was enjoying every minute of anangry parental face. Basketball hoops were "needed", never only wanted. Memories of driving the guilt bss for my mother. Leading onto second visits to footlocker just to get the new in style kicks.

This unit helped me connect more into my childhood. Before this unit, I have lost the flavor of being young and wreckless. I've made decisions off of my knowledge then. If those choices were in my grasp today, I might be able to make a better decision. In comparison to drinking milk and playing easy but competitive board games, I have responsibilities to complete and my knowledge is tested daily. What was important to me then, is something I can't even imagine thinking about now. I actually imagined a conversation between myself and a 9 year old of me. The conversation wasn't really insightful but more demanding to do the right thing and to not be initimidated by nobody:

J: Hey. What's up? What are you up to?
YJ: Nothing much. I'm about to play basketball with my friends.
J: That's good. Keep pacticing. Just don't keep your hopes up seeking for fame as a professional.
Trust me youngin, your chances are slim to none. Focus more in your school work. Give up procastinating
and make it a habit to do your work as soon as possible, then enjoy hanging out. I know our tutor has been
pressuring you to do the best in the SAT's, just be calm and take the test as soon after taking SAT courses
at riverdale.
YJ: That is so much work. I will do that. How will I manage my time like that?
J: Listen you spoiled brat, don't disobey your uncle Charlie. He is a very influencial part of your life and ever if your
decides to move you to Queens, say no. Keep your friends close and don't be afraid to experiment with anything.
If you start your experimentation in college, always remember your limist.

My younger, in comparison to me, is more emboied and active. When I was younger I enjoyed going to parks and running around. Now a days my activities cut down all the running. I have become lazier but, responisble at the same time. I now know my limitations and expecations. My goals from my childhood are up and coming (college).

Childhood Memories

I tend to remember more happy memorateies then the sad ones. Scars do last for a long time as a rememberence of injury. Imagine waiting for a late night train. The station is empty and your waiting with a friend of yours to go home. An unordinarly tall women walks by. This lady is not only tall in hieght but had a mans figure of no other.

Embodiment

Most teenagers are disembodied due to the power of elecricity. Hours of mind trap into books and interesting plots. Season Episodes and Movie series proves the power of entertainment and Intrest of most humans.

Embodiment & Disembodiment

"I used my other senses more like touching and hearing. I determined the shapes of things by touching. The memory of a rail, size of a step in a staircase and the flat surface of the wall. I was scared in the beginning but my awareness and memory of my morning routine of going to class started to come back to me. My heart beat intisified like a full on basketball game," (observations from Sensory Awareness exp. #5). The experiment was based on