Damn memory palaces

Tuesdays are a pain in the ass. The day seems interminable. 10 am to 10 pm. Ugh...
Ran my ass all over Cambridge as well. Perhaps it makes up for not going to the gym today?
Spent practically the entire day talking and thinking about memory. Sherry's class was about Winnicott's transitional objects. Winnicott was a child psychologist/psychoanalyst during the fifties. Transitional objects are those that children use to replace the breast once they are removed from the mother. It is an object that is separate from the child yet makes the child feel whole. We were discussing whether or not a technological device can be this object. I personally feel that those whose psyche is positioned a certain way, perhaps an unresolved oral stage? (thanks Freud) will use technology to return to this state of completeness. We had to write about a personal object from out childhood and then read it out to the class. So far we have had to do this every week. Its starting to get annoying. I took the stereotypical route and said I had a blanky that became a stuffed animal. It made her happy and she left me alone. I refuse to let on how much I have read in terms of psychoanalysis. I want to see how she teaches it. My friend kestrell keeps trying to get me to engage in a conversation about it with her. No thanks! Not to say that she isn't nice but I am a little skeptical of her pedagogical style. I think she is using us to work out issues in her book. Not that that is a bad thing but it gives me reason to be a bit cautious. I asked her about Melanie Klein and she said "great question, we'll go over it in a bit." never happened.

tonight's class was all about memory palaces. I hated the readings with a passion. I won't go into it. If you are curious google that shit. Halfway though class the stupid one asked about differentiating between media and medium. The conversation took a turn for the worse. It reminded me of my first year in art school where we were asked to define "fine art" and "craft." One of the most absurd conversation I have been spectator to in quite a while. Finally I told them that they were rehashing the tedious arguments of structuralism and how attempting to define media was a conversation for the fifties. Aren't we past that shit now? What about post-structuralism, post-modernism, post-post-modernism. These issues have been discussed ad nausium in the art world and it is only just now that media studies is trying to figure this shit out? Christ, catch up people.
People just want nice, neat little boxes in which to line up all of their ideas. It is easier that way. God forbid you actually use your brain and realise that the world doesn't work that way.

UPDATE: There will be an article in the student newspaper "the Tech" on the anti-gay writings on blackboards around campus and the fact that no one is dealing with it. I am stirring up shit now! Ignore me will you? I'll go to the media!
I might have to forward the story to friends at Planetout.

going to try and sleep now. Insomnia beware!

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