Life teaches. And living on your own, I mean for real (not in college; that's kind of halfway there)*, is kind of a big unknown before you start doing it -- so there is a high concentration of lesson-learning in the beginning. I realized this applies to general lessons, and to lessons about myself. I was musing in the shower, so here are a few.
A shower curtain is pretty critical. Plastic bags cut and tied together will NOT make a very good substitute.
A good friend with whom to laugh and take two-minute breaks at work does wonders on days that drag. And on days that don't.
Paying for Starbucks drinks with your college dining plan dollars truly rocked. Now, anything but a straight coffee is expensive.
Being able to leave work at work, and to not feel obligated every single night to be working on some kind of homework or project, is an undeniably AWESOME freedom.
Follow-up: who says college is the best years of your life?
Showering at night is far less stressful than in the morning, when bus arrival deadlines loom.
Philly is an amazing city for loving good beer.
I like managing my own place to live... but sometimes, it does feel lonely.
Addendum 1: No way do I want to live alone for my entire life.
Making friends with people who have cars comes in handy. (I mean real friends, of course, who happen to be kind enough to give you rides.)
Utilities included in rent? Seriously convenient.
Family is still there for you, loving, teaching, and supporting. (* This is why I'm not 100% there. It's still a process.)
The college sleep schedule, um, doesn't exactly work anymore. It's a little more feasible, though still unhealthy, when you have classes at all different times of the day across the week, and you can show up and in many cases not have to be particularly productive (just hope that you don't fall asleep, if it comes to that). For a 9-to-5 type of schedule? Yeah, really not so smart.
It's sadly too easy to lose touch with college friends when everyone scatters geographically and begins busy lives somewhere else.
The (swing/blues) dance community is full of basically the best people ever. (Westie is seeming pretty good so far too.) I could go on about this. :)
Two ways to improve your commute:
1. Move 20 blocks closer to the office.
2. Take a bus route that operates right on schedule. So much frustration relieved!
Becoming a local is fun. The pizza shop guy knows my order every time I walk in. Albeit small, it's a nice way to feel belonging.
24-hour CVS is the best kind.
Student loan repayments are - shall we say, a little painful?
One reason it's great to live in a city: you can get by, and even access many places fairly reasonably, without a car. However, then you start discovering places and events a little out of reach without one. See previous related point.
Showing posts with label realizations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realizations. Show all posts
Monday, April 9, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
a little lost
As I prepared to get in the shower tonight, like I do on every typical night, I noticed once again that I've still got slivers of teal-green nail polish at the tops of both my big toenails. Those bits of color remain from (no joke) last June or July. The summer's memories come back for a moment - warmth (a particularly nostalgic one, considering how tired I'm getting of bundling up in heavy clothes and layers these days), sunshine, a new friend with a shared passion, learning to make trips to NYC on my own as I found how much I liked their blues dancing scene.
Accomplishments. When I realize the steps I made over the summer, the new experiences then that are now under my belt, I feel good. But as I shower (always a useful time for thinking), I attempt to summarize the big picture. Where am I, in growing up?
I guess the summary would be that I'm not an adult yet. Yeah, I'm way past the legal milestones of 18 and 21 years of age. And more importantly, I have some major things checked off. I graduated college - it was a hell of a hard time sometimes, but I got through it. I've been beyond lucky in my internship experiences, always working with wonderful people and learning things, and the icing on that cake was attaining a full-time job to start immediately after graduation. I have my own apartment now, and right in the location I want, no less. In no way am I looking past these. They are major achievements in the game of Life (ha), and sometimes I feel so lucky (for these successes as well as other goodness in my life) that I figure my luck is overdue to run out and something is not going to work out for me soon.
My nature, though, is to analyze, largely including my own thoughts and experiences. Of late I have been noticing some ways in which certainly I have some adult steps yet ahead of me. Some are kind of straightforward: find a dentist near where I live so I can start going for yearly checkups and avoid possible awful tooth problems later. Some are going to require some learning: how to do my taxes, so my dad does not have to do them for me. Some are going to require some serious habit changes and effort to tackle an issue I have had difficulty with so far: cooking and eating better.
Those are a few concrete to-do/to-learn items. I am also just beginning to realize that I need to find my balance. There are so many activities I want to do: new things I want to try, learn, practice, and existing ones I don't want to lose time to fit in. And amidst this, I want to see friends, or talk with those who aren't local. This monumental set of desires really can't be accomplished all at once. Sleep is important, as I have long been aware, but beyond that, I'm starting to feel tired from all the running around trying to do everything. Relaxation and self time - including learning to be comfortable with time by myself - is key.
Maybe sometimes I need to remind myself I can't do everything at once, or try to start fixing or accomplishing all the steps at the same time. Life is long, and I have time to work on things, and to try things, and to learn more about what I like and how I want to live.
Accomplishments. When I realize the steps I made over the summer, the new experiences then that are now under my belt, I feel good. But as I shower (always a useful time for thinking), I attempt to summarize the big picture. Where am I, in growing up?
I guess the summary would be that I'm not an adult yet. Yeah, I'm way past the legal milestones of 18 and 21 years of age. And more importantly, I have some major things checked off. I graduated college - it was a hell of a hard time sometimes, but I got through it. I've been beyond lucky in my internship experiences, always working with wonderful people and learning things, and the icing on that cake was attaining a full-time job to start immediately after graduation. I have my own apartment now, and right in the location I want, no less. In no way am I looking past these. They are major achievements in the game of Life (ha), and sometimes I feel so lucky (for these successes as well as other goodness in my life) that I figure my luck is overdue to run out and something is not going to work out for me soon.
My nature, though, is to analyze, largely including my own thoughts and experiences. Of late I have been noticing some ways in which certainly I have some adult steps yet ahead of me. Some are kind of straightforward: find a dentist near where I live so I can start going for yearly checkups and avoid possible awful tooth problems later. Some are going to require some learning: how to do my taxes, so my dad does not have to do them for me. Some are going to require some serious habit changes and effort to tackle an issue I have had difficulty with so far: cooking and eating better.
Those are a few concrete to-do/to-learn items. I am also just beginning to realize that I need to find my balance. There are so many activities I want to do: new things I want to try, learn, practice, and existing ones I don't want to lose time to fit in. And amidst this, I want to see friends, or talk with those who aren't local. This monumental set of desires really can't be accomplished all at once. Sleep is important, as I have long been aware, but beyond that, I'm starting to feel tired from all the running around trying to do everything. Relaxation and self time - including learning to be comfortable with time by myself - is key.
Maybe sometimes I need to remind myself I can't do everything at once, or try to start fixing or accomplishing all the steps at the same time. Life is long, and I have time to work on things, and to try things, and to learn more about what I like and how I want to live.
Monday, February 6, 2012
a new kind of freedom
It's 9:17pm on a Monday night. In all normal Monday paths in my life these days, I would be, in the next ten minutes or so, getting dressed and ready to head to Powerhouse Blues. Blues dancing is among the most-loved activities in my life now, and I don't miss the Monday dance for anything but a few very special exceptions. In fact I am listening to a particularly delicious blues song at this very moment - John Hammond's version of Same Thing - and starting to half-regret the decision...
Today my good friend at work reminded me that we have not gone out for a beer and a nice talk for quite awhile. We almost waited til tomorrow, but at the last moment decided to hang out today. We went to a bar I've passed many times on the bus and recently saw claiming to have 20 craft beers on draft. We had a wonderful, in depth, and honest talk about some shared threads in our lives. I am happy to have such friends.
So I made it home at 8-something in the evening and realized, man, I am tired. And hungry. I am so lucky as to have leftovers to eat this week, the results of my parents' visit and cooking with my mother (a well-versed experienced cook) over this past weekend. So I microwaved a plate and it was utterly delicious.
While tired, I had been intending on heading to blues at 9:30 as usual. Then I remembered this week is the once-monthly house party dance held two bus rides away from where I live. Now, I know I am incredibly spoiled to have merely a 30-second walk to the regular weekly venue. I am not saying I'm complaining about the change of location. I merely had - for once - a simple realization and resulting decision: I'm feeling tired, in the mood for relaxing indoors, not for going back out a half hour from when I walked in the front door. I realized that I don't have to bind myself to a weekly schedule just because the event opportunity is there and because I love it so much. I realized I can listen to my gut feeling and take a night off, and while I'm lamenting a little bit that I'll now probably go two weeks in between blues dancing (such a painfully long time to wait!), I am okay with this for right now, and I think it will be good for me.
What do you know! Life is changeable.
Today my good friend at work reminded me that we have not gone out for a beer and a nice talk for quite awhile. We almost waited til tomorrow, but at the last moment decided to hang out today. We went to a bar I've passed many times on the bus and recently saw claiming to have 20 craft beers on draft. We had a wonderful, in depth, and honest talk about some shared threads in our lives. I am happy to have such friends.
So I made it home at 8-something in the evening and realized, man, I am tired. And hungry. I am so lucky as to have leftovers to eat this week, the results of my parents' visit and cooking with my mother (a well-versed experienced cook) over this past weekend. So I microwaved a plate and it was utterly delicious.
While tired, I had been intending on heading to blues at 9:30 as usual. Then I remembered this week is the once-monthly house party dance held two bus rides away from where I live. Now, I know I am incredibly spoiled to have merely a 30-second walk to the regular weekly venue. I am not saying I'm complaining about the change of location. I merely had - for once - a simple realization and resulting decision: I'm feeling tired, in the mood for relaxing indoors, not for going back out a half hour from when I walked in the front door. I realized that I don't have to bind myself to a weekly schedule just because the event opportunity is there and because I love it so much. I realized I can listen to my gut feeling and take a night off, and while I'm lamenting a little bit that I'll now probably go two weeks in between blues dancing (such a painfully long time to wait!), I am okay with this for right now, and I think it will be good for me.
What do you know! Life is changeable.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Life status - Oct. 14, 2010
At work, most projects we have end up having a weekly status meeting on the calendar, to update everyone involved on where things stand. Well, I've been living here 4 months and change now, so I thought I might collect a few conclusions and realizations so far.
- The Septa buses aren't always on schedule. But sometimes they are, so don't be late, or I'm gonna miss it by 30 seconds. I've done this more times than I can count.
- Try to do laundry more often than once every several weeks. Otherwise I end up with three loads' worth to do when I'm running out of clothes to wear.
- No matter how tired I am on the night of a social dance, I should go to it anyway, because I don't think I have ever regretted it afterwards.
- The plain coffee at independent cafés is usually really good. This does not in any way negate that Starbucks and Wawa coffee is also really good.
- Talk to people for a minute or two once in awhile at work - non-work subjects are preferable. It might be the most welcome interruption of the day.
- Meet new people. Especially social dancers.
- Buying coffee, breakfast, and the like on a daily basis adds up far faster than I like to think about.
- Visit family once in awhile for a change of pace.
- People don't often respond to really long emails at work. (Not sure if they read them, at least.)
- Happy hour is a good thing.
- Walking feels better when I'm not rushing, so don't rush if I don't have to.
- Not having to work outside of work is probably the best thing ever.
- Sandwiches for dinner get boring fast.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
That 30-second epiphany that defines the clarinet player's life in the band
So earlier today (it's still Monday in my head), we're playing Pinball Wizard at Penn Band rehearsal. Cool song, right? Well, I guess. At any rate the drum major decides to have only the clarinets and flutes play their part at the beginning of the song. The part is a rhythmic pattern of 8ths/16ths that repeats in each measure and I believe is meant to imitate the guitar strumming. (As a side note I'll say it took me til senior year to figure out the rhythm... or at least I think I've got it now.) The action proceeds as follows:
Clarinets/flutes: (begin playing the part, several measures go by)
Trumpet player: Wait, that's the part?!? ...... Wow, that's gross!
Major sigh. In the space of 30 seconds it was plainly illustrated how a) we sometimes get stuck with annoying, boring, or otherwise undesirable parts, but far worse, b) very often the rest of the band doesn't even have a clue what we're playing cuz they can't hear us at all. This was one of those moments when I'm not sure how much I really contribute to the band. Oh well.
Clarinets/flutes: (begin playing the part, several measures go by)
Trumpet player: Wait, that's the part?!? ...... Wow, that's gross!
Major sigh. In the space of 30 seconds it was plainly illustrated how a) we sometimes get stuck with annoying, boring, or otherwise undesirable parts, but far worse, b) very often the rest of the band doesn't even have a clue what we're playing cuz they can't hear us at all. This was one of those moments when I'm not sure how much I really contribute to the band. Oh well.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
That road
My butt's glued to the hard wooden chair; I'm plugged into my music; my mind's in another world entirely from my body. I'm lost in a history I've mostly forgotten. I mean, isn't this the way it works better? When everything happens by accident, because you aren't paying attention to it like that? For some time now I've been rollercoastering (no that's not a word) through waves of confusion, lulls, new and old interactions. Yeah, in a way, it's nice and all.
But it's like you're swimming, and then one day you come up to breathe. The air is a taste of something possibly unknown and beautiful. Inhale, exhale... if there's even the time to do that. The water is all around, though. Allowing no mercy, it takes you back. Then all you can do is keep on going.
Is it worth all the hours of a mind lost in pondering and thoughts of old? There's always the practical path. If I go that way, though, I think I lose the depth on both ends, the good and the bad. And I just might want that depth, its pain along with it.
music of the mood: Brazilian Girls – Don't Stop and iiO - Rapture (Soulside Chillout Mix)
But it's like you're swimming, and then one day you come up to breathe. The air is a taste of something possibly unknown and beautiful. Inhale, exhale... if there's even the time to do that. The water is all around, though. Allowing no mercy, it takes you back. Then all you can do is keep on going.
Is it worth all the hours of a mind lost in pondering and thoughts of old? There's always the practical path. If I go that way, though, I think I lose the depth on both ends, the good and the bad. And I just might want that depth, its pain along with it.
music of the mood: Brazilian Girls – Don't Stop and iiO - Rapture (Soulside Chillout Mix)
Monday, March 30, 2009
bits & pieces
the other night:
allegro's at 1am
blueberry beer
fmylife.com
music sharing via youtube (and some figure skating, for the old days' sake)
comfiest blanket ever??
ignoring responsible life crap that matters
and another night before that one:
indian foooood...is really good
tea
that same blanket
relationship stories and later just really talking about them
(there was prolly some youtube in there too)
...this is what makes college really meaningful to me.
different night:
salsa.salsa.salsa
i really can't balance when i spin (usually)
everyone is sooo nice...yay
friend&guys
i think i love bachata
must go social dancing [a lot] more
i'm kind of a sucker for when guys dress nicely...
steaks on south//i can't contribute to conversational topics about the world??
totally different:
i love climbing, and i don't exactly know why
seems like everyone there is nice (helpful) as well
good place to be female? O:-)
conquering top-rope routes is .. awesome
argh need to get belay-certified
i'm a geek:
cuz i'm excited to set up a mysql database ahaha
and want to swallow php whole
wanna:
go dress shopping
go shopping for clothes in general ...(ok, so i'm such a girl sometimes)
be good at dance
go social dancing...hopefully to more of a variety than mainly salsa music
go climbing like all the time hah
be with friends; i'm running out of college time
i wish i had joined PLBD in freshman year. largely so i'd be kinda good at dance by now, but also cuz i'm starting to really see how these groups bond. i don't have that - not in band, not in dance (at this point anyway, but i don't think it'll change that much), not where i live nor where i lived, not amongst my major. this doesn't mean i don't have friends; i do and i love and appreciate them. what i wish i'd experienced is group friendship (mine are all scattered from various "sources").
(2:12:50 AM) Tory: i just thought of something
(2:12:56 AM) Tory: maybe cuz of the impracticality of it all
(2:13:01 AM) Tory: it wouldn't relaly hurt to tell him
(2:13:02 AM) Tory: heh
allegro's at 1am
blueberry beer
fmylife.com
music sharing via youtube (and some figure skating, for the old days' sake)
comfiest blanket ever??
ignoring responsible life crap that matters
and another night before that one:
indian foooood...is really good
tea
that same blanket
relationship stories and later just really talking about them
(there was prolly some youtube in there too)
...this is what makes college really meaningful to me.
different night:
salsa.salsa.salsa
i really can't balance when i spin (usually)
everyone is sooo nice...yay
friend&guys
i think i love bachata
must go social dancing [a lot] more
i'm kind of a sucker for when guys dress nicely...
steaks on south//i can't contribute to conversational topics about the world??
totally different:
i love climbing, and i don't exactly know why
seems like everyone there is nice (helpful) as well
good place to be female? O:-)
conquering top-rope routes is .. awesome
argh need to get belay-certified
i'm a geek:
cuz i'm excited to set up a mysql database ahaha
and want to swallow php whole
wanna:
go dress shopping
go shopping for clothes in general ...(ok, so i'm such a girl sometimes)
be good at dance
go social dancing...hopefully to more of a variety than mainly salsa music
go climbing like all the time hah
be with friends; i'm running out of college time
i wish i had joined PLBD in freshman year. largely so i'd be kinda good at dance by now, but also cuz i'm starting to really see how these groups bond. i don't have that - not in band, not in dance (at this point anyway, but i don't think it'll change that much), not where i live nor where i lived, not amongst my major. this doesn't mean i don't have friends; i do and i love and appreciate them. what i wish i'd experienced is group friendship (mine are all scattered from various "sources").
(2:12:50 AM) Tory: i just thought of something
(2:12:56 AM) Tory: maybe cuz of the impracticality of it all
(2:13:01 AM) Tory: it wouldn't relaly hurt to tell him
(2:13:02 AM) Tory: heh
Sunday, January 25, 2009
length of post is not in proportion to enjoyment of subject
Today was the first day of this quarter of the social lessons run by PLBD. I think I forgot how much I really like dance. When I go, I'm friendly, I chat with people, smile a lot, joke around... A lot of it's probably because I can't help but be in such a good mood there. And there's almost always a bit of awkwardness mixed in, especially in the earlier weeks when we don't know what we're doing, and we don't know each other, etc. But that helps cuz most of us are in the same boat. And for some reason, people that dance just seem to generally be friendly. I get to move, to music, with someone else. Plus Garincha is just so completely awesome; he is funny and makes it so much fun with his personality. I just love it. It makes life good.
Oh yeah, and today, we danced hustle to What is Love and Pump up the Jam. somuchfunnnn :D
I need to go social dancing moreeeee.
Oh yeah, and today, we danced hustle to What is Love and Pump up the Jam. somuchfunnnn :D
I need to go social dancing moreeeee.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
crazy, again
I've been hooked on the music these days. It's what I want to listen to in the morning when I'm getting ready for the day. And I want it at night too, which is probably not the best idea for concentrating on the work I should be doing. It has moved me into a genre I hadn't tested out much before, but as always I am happy about this musical expansion. And I'm even finding enjoyable variations among the three albums I downloaded.
At first it was just about the music. That's probably how I usually start listening to something a lot, anyway. Now, though, I'm starting to notice the lyrics. Somehow they keep taking me back. They want to offer explanations, they put my emotions into words; they tell me the story I've got in my head. I don't suppose this helps, in any way, the notion of getting this unfinished story out of my head.
People - friends - are telling me this is what I need to do. The story was cut off, a bit harshly, and trying to pick it up is not what I should do. They tell me I'm better off this way. I'm not going to flat-out contradict them, because their logic makes sense. I've also been on the other side of the disconnection process, so I remember the way it finally worked. I guess I could do it; in fact, I was even kind of on the path...
The music's crazy: it's my life, right now. The irony leads to that beautiful, familiar bittersweet emotional taste. That's the problem. The bitter part should make me want to give it up. The sweet part, though, is powerfully there. And - as I've been through before - the bitter part has a strange attraction as well. I think I might know why: as long as I'm living the bitter part together with the sweet, it means I haven't given up totally. I'm going to survive on through it, against the clearer path of letting go, because this path is too special to give up yet.
I lean over close to my window, balancing with a hand on the heater. To the right are the changing-color lights and below's the diner. I breathe onto the cold of the window, obscuring the view. Like the circle of condensation on the window, things aren't clear. I know I hold on. I know I have bad nostalgia sessions. I know of the attraction of the bittersweet situation. These are my tendencies. Even with these factors, my mind is defying my own sensible logic. I didn't know for sure, I jumped in maybe a bit lightly. When I tell others I will summarize by the quintessential moments, but there were probably at least as many times that weren't like those - and just as I'm trying to argue why I shouldn't still be so gripped, the opposite reasons flood into mind. So I try to counter them with further logic. Time is supposed to create distance, right? Thinking relatively, there should easily be enough time now to have created enough distance. That argument, of course, cracks, threatens to explode to pieces, when the distance is removed in a few hours' time.
In this circle of logic I get sometimes get stuck, but probably more often I give in. I don't try to combat the good reasons with the push-away ones. I go down this path and my mind becomes enthralled again. Then I step back, seeing that this level of entanglement might actually be pretty crazy. Here's where arguments of whatever kind fall to the background: on their own, the inputs and outputs just don't make sense with each other. Probably I'm increasing the outputs by my own thoughts. Even this is an example. I don't think I can find an answer, at least not the way things are right now, and so I've gone on putting here what I feel and think, but I doubt I've "gotten" anywhere.
As much as it engulfs me, now and so many times these days, sometimes the want comes to mind for it never to have happened this way.
But how can I deny that path of events?
--
I would add lyrics... but there are just too many coming at me all at once.
At first it was just about the music. That's probably how I usually start listening to something a lot, anyway. Now, though, I'm starting to notice the lyrics. Somehow they keep taking me back. They want to offer explanations, they put my emotions into words; they tell me the story I've got in my head. I don't suppose this helps, in any way, the notion of getting this unfinished story out of my head.
People - friends - are telling me this is what I need to do. The story was cut off, a bit harshly, and trying to pick it up is not what I should do. They tell me I'm better off this way. I'm not going to flat-out contradict them, because their logic makes sense. I've also been on the other side of the disconnection process, so I remember the way it finally worked. I guess I could do it; in fact, I was even kind of on the path...
The music's crazy: it's my life, right now. The irony leads to that beautiful, familiar bittersweet emotional taste. That's the problem. The bitter part should make me want to give it up. The sweet part, though, is powerfully there. And - as I've been through before - the bitter part has a strange attraction as well. I think I might know why: as long as I'm living the bitter part together with the sweet, it means I haven't given up totally. I'm going to survive on through it, against the clearer path of letting go, because this path is too special to give up yet.
I lean over close to my window, balancing with a hand on the heater. To the right are the changing-color lights and below's the diner. I breathe onto the cold of the window, obscuring the view. Like the circle of condensation on the window, things aren't clear. I know I hold on. I know I have bad nostalgia sessions. I know of the attraction of the bittersweet situation. These are my tendencies. Even with these factors, my mind is defying my own sensible logic. I didn't know for sure, I jumped in maybe a bit lightly. When I tell others I will summarize by the quintessential moments, but there were probably at least as many times that weren't like those - and just as I'm trying to argue why I shouldn't still be so gripped, the opposite reasons flood into mind. So I try to counter them with further logic. Time is supposed to create distance, right? Thinking relatively, there should easily be enough time now to have created enough distance. That argument, of course, cracks, threatens to explode to pieces, when the distance is removed in a few hours' time.
In this circle of logic I get sometimes get stuck, but probably more often I give in. I don't try to combat the good reasons with the push-away ones. I go down this path and my mind becomes enthralled again. Then I step back, seeing that this level of entanglement might actually be pretty crazy. Here's where arguments of whatever kind fall to the background: on their own, the inputs and outputs just don't make sense with each other. Probably I'm increasing the outputs by my own thoughts. Even this is an example. I don't think I can find an answer, at least not the way things are right now, and so I've gone on putting here what I feel and think, but I doubt I've "gotten" anywhere.
As much as it engulfs me, now and so many times these days, sometimes the want comes to mind for it never to have happened this way.
But how can I deny that path of events?
--
I would add lyrics... but there are just too many coming at me all at once.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Stepmania + perception/attention is crazy
As is somewhat obvious from the previous post, I play Stepmania. To keep the history short for now, I've played for awhile, and I'd say I'm pretty good at it. I've often noticed a quite interesting phenomenon involving the interaction of two factors - perception and my level of attention - and the resulting score/grade on whatever song I'm playing at the moment. In the case that someday someone reads this and doesn't know what Stepmania is: it's DDR, played with fingers on the keyboard - which means, a stream of arrows (each one is up, down, right or left) moves towards the top of the window, coordinated with a song, and as they hit the outline of arrows, you must press a key on the keyboard. You don't need to use the arrow keys though; I started with that, but typically you'll move to using more comfortable keys: I use e, f, j, i in correspondence with the order of the arrows in the line at the top.
Now, as one gets better at this game, the intuitive thought is that the harder you concentrate, the more you focus your attention on hitting the keys at exactly the right time, the more accurate your key hits will be, and the better your score for the song. Well, I started noticing that this wasn't happening. Actually, if I relaxed just a little, and didn't try quite so hard to read the arrows, but rather let the stream fly by as if I might be just about to let my eyes glaze over, I found that I did better. I could hit a stream of keys more accurately and score better overall. (Quick disclaimer...this discovery did not cause a sudden major improvement in my skills. I don't always get the attention level just right to make it work; it's a little more random.) And someone pointed out the key to me one time: muscle memory. This makes sense and sounds rather obvious, but it's still intensely interesting to me. It might also mean that I play the same songs a very large number of times. hahaha.
The strongest and most interesting example of this occurred over winter break. My younger brother came by while I was playing what I think is a pretty crazy song and stepfile:
(Note that this video makes it look a little harder than it does when I play it. I set it to space out the arrows more, and they move faster to compensate for that.)
So there I was, telling my brother to hang around and listen to this crazy song. And he thinks it's not even a song; he's going on with this analogy, narrating the song as sounds of a computer breaking down... I'm laughing at all of this cuz I love him and it's pretty funny the way he's saying it, so definitely I'm not really able to give full attention to the game. It's even possible my eyes were starting to tear because that happens really easily for me when I laugh, which would mean I couldn't even see the screen totally clearly. Somehow, with these combined reductions in rapt attention, I ended up getting some kind of personal record score (like my second best, or something) on the song. Insane! It means I'm perceiving the arrows, this information is flying through my brain, all the visual system, the recognition stuff, and then my brain's processing which arrow is which and commanding the corresponding finger to hit the key - ALL happening before I can realize the arrow-finger-key combination. Becoming cognizant of what my body is doing is slower than my body doing it. (Actually hmm when I word it like that, it seems to make sense...) It's just that usually, we think of the process as: first we decide we want to make an action, then we do it. Here, the action is done before I know what it is!! Woahhhhh. This is really awesome. And it's my psych class on perception in real life. :D
Now, as one gets better at this game, the intuitive thought is that the harder you concentrate, the more you focus your attention on hitting the keys at exactly the right time, the more accurate your key hits will be, and the better your score for the song. Well, I started noticing that this wasn't happening. Actually, if I relaxed just a little, and didn't try quite so hard to read the arrows, but rather let the stream fly by as if I might be just about to let my eyes glaze over, I found that I did better. I could hit a stream of keys more accurately and score better overall. (Quick disclaimer...this discovery did not cause a sudden major improvement in my skills. I don't always get the attention level just right to make it work; it's a little more random.) And someone pointed out the key to me one time: muscle memory. This makes sense and sounds rather obvious, but it's still intensely interesting to me. It might also mean that I play the same songs a very large number of times. hahaha.
The strongest and most interesting example of this occurred over winter break. My younger brother came by while I was playing what I think is a pretty crazy song and stepfile:
(Note that this video makes it look a little harder than it does when I play it. I set it to space out the arrows more, and they move faster to compensate for that.)
So there I was, telling my brother to hang around and listen to this crazy song. And he thinks it's not even a song; he's going on with this analogy, narrating the song as sounds of a computer breaking down... I'm laughing at all of this cuz I love him and it's pretty funny the way he's saying it, so definitely I'm not really able to give full attention to the game. It's even possible my eyes were starting to tear because that happens really easily for me when I laugh, which would mean I couldn't even see the screen totally clearly. Somehow, with these combined reductions in rapt attention, I ended up getting some kind of personal record score (like my second best, or something) on the song. Insane! It means I'm perceiving the arrows, this information is flying through my brain, all the visual system, the recognition stuff, and then my brain's processing which arrow is which and commanding the corresponding finger to hit the key - ALL happening before I can realize the arrow-finger-key combination. Becoming cognizant of what my body is doing is slower than my body doing it. (Actually hmm when I word it like that, it seems to make sense...) It's just that usually, we think of the process as: first we decide we want to make an action, then we do it. Here, the action is done before I know what it is!! Woahhhhh. This is really awesome. And it's my psych class on perception in real life. :D
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