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daniedoodles · 5 years

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Danie’s Dilemmas Ep. 27: Hiatus Over

This is probably the third time that I am re-writing this episode, because the two previous times, finishing my thoughts felt close to impossible. Don’t ask me why, because I won’t know what to actually tell you. The wifi is down right now so I’m drafting this on notes first before I actually end up publishing it. Anyways, there have been a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. Boys being one of them (‘cause when does that not get talked about), and life in general, which are both pretty much on brand with everything else that I have written about in this series. I haven’t been feeling all that inspired to write as much lately because of how quickly the first month of summer has gone by, without me actually feeling like it ever was summer to begin with. It’s weird… it’s as if a lot is happening, but nothing too, all at the same time. I suppose it’s because this is the first summer break where I’m actually employed and can’t always say yes to hanging out with friends or staying home all the time. I’m gonna just write in accordance to whatever comes to mind, since it’s been a minute from the last time I wrote and formed proper, cohesive thoughts (and apparently I’m less to-the-point today too so u might be reading fruitlessly for a bit, be warned).

I almost have no idea where to begin talking about this whole “guy stuff” anymore because it always seems like there’s so much more to say about them in the summer. If you can recall every vent I had about one specific individual from last summer, I both question and congratulate you for coming this far. THIS summer and the experiences I’ve had with guys so far haven’t been all that bad, seeing that firstly, I’ve been spending a lot of time with some of my guy best friends, whether that be through FaceTime or actually hanging out in person, there has never been a dull moment. It’s worth the sleep deprivation. Actually, you know what, fuck this. I still have nothing to say about this one guy, mainly because we haven’t really talked much despite the countless snaps and I promised myself that I wouldn’t start feeling anything towards them unless the signs were pretty definite on which end of the spectrum it was pointing to (friends <————> relationship), which to be quite frank, I’m not even all that sure still if I want that. A relationship, I mean. Some part of me keeps trying to convince the other that all I really want is a summer fling, while the other part argues that all I actually wanted was a guy best friend, basically. They’d be able to tell me all about their girl problems openly, there’s far less drama, and it’s just a funnier experience overall. For awhile, I actually felt hella confused about how I felt towards certain people. Eventually though, I realized that I should at some point break the vicious cycle because it always turned out for the worse and needless to say, it made things awkward for a time. I’ve shot my shot in that type of situation last year and it didn’t necessarily go as planned so to prevent history from repeating itself, I’m taking a lot more precautions. I have no time nor patience to pick up the broken pieces of my heart after wearing it on my sleeve again, so instead I’ve resorted to keeping it hidden, not letting too much out at once, reserving it for the people in my life who actually deserve my undivided love and affection. Does this mean that the point I arrived at after this whole ass paragraph is that hot girls summer is still on?? possibly. But who knows. After spending this much time with a handful of specific people, I’ve become more accustomed to going with the flow and taking risks. Perhaps now’s the time to start making them, considering I practically missed out on all this dumb teenager stuff up until last summer. And still, there is so much to experience.

Like I said in the beginning, I feel as if so much has happened, but at the same time, nothing at all. Since the beginning of summer, I’ve spent a handful of my time with friends, some more than others but it’s time spent well all the same. If not, I’m at work for four hours, 3 days a week. It’s pretty light work compared to some of the hours my friends get with their jobs, but I’d consider it good still ‘cause I’m not as exhausted and the hours are fairly flexible. As I did before the beginning of last summer, I’ve put together another bucket list of the things I want to do or achieve this summer. Naturally, a lot of them I want to do with my friends, some of which require the mastery of a whole new art: sneaking out. I can’t disclose much about how difficult it is to sneak out of my house but put shortly, it is comparable to the level of security in Area 51, however the atmosphere inside feels a lot like what I imagined Alcatraz was like. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but you get the point. It’s difficult. All my friends know it’s difficult.And it makes me feel a lot like the Spongebob meme where Squidward’s looking out of his window, watching Spongebob and Patrick have fun blowing bubbles. Who would’ve thought that my own household would serve as such a MASSIVE cockblock, damn.

Now that it’s summer again, Snapchat’s been a doll with reminding me that everything from last summer is slowly but surely reaching its one year anniversary. The one that stood out the most was the meteor shower, and I bet you that if you don’t even know me all that well, you’d know that this meteor shower hit different. Even to this day, it’s annoying to talk about the memory because it reminds me of what once was but no longer is, yet I still can’t help it. I know that sounds fucking cheesy, but surely some of you know about the feeling I’m trying to get at here. As much as I hate to admit it, I would still consider it one of the best summer nights I have ever spent. Now it is merely a matter of watching the meteor shower again, only this time with people that won’t leave my life so readily and soon. I suppose you can take that last statement metaphorically as well, for any of the other endeavours you’ve got for the summer. Just make sure that you’re doing it with the people that are worth your while and who see you in the same way as you see them. Don’t fucking halfass it.

I’ve been creating all kinds of scenarios in my head of what I want this summer to look like. In a low-key kind of way, I would say that I’ve been on track with a majority of it. One of the most vivid, re-occurring scenarios go like this: long drive to a small town just on the outskirts of the city. The music blasts from the speakers and the windows are rolled all the way down to let the breeze fling your whole head of hair wildly. You reach the town at the point of the afternoon where the sun’s not quite right above you, but gives you that pre-golden hour lighting. You and your friends grab ice cream and take it with you along your stroll around the town, anything but shy about taking endless photos. Then finally, you sit on a bench facing a vast landscape in the direction of the sunset. The clouds come in slightly for the sun to reflect its pink and orange hues off of, in contrast with the rest of the clear blue sky. It cools as the night falls. You drive to another part of town for a quick McDonald’s run, which you take to-go, to find a spot some place else to watch the stars, devoid of any kind of light pollution and the buzz of people. You’re on top of the car, if not inside it with the seats reclined as far back as they go, and the sunroof wide open to a clear view of the twinkling sky above. Deep talk ensues naturally, and in the silent moment in between, you feel nothing but absolute peace. Shit, I forgot about the part where we ordered McDonald’s enough to feed a whole village and ate it all in no more than ten minutes (knowing how my friends and I are… it’s the truth). Anyway, the instruments come out, whether than be guitar, ukulele, or both, and you sing all kinds of songs. Hell, you could even make one just right then and there. Finally, you had home just before dawn when the roads are empty and seemingly endless. For the rest of the time before you and your friends decide to sleep, you reflect on the day’s events. Ignore the fact that I said “you” when really I should’ve been saying “I” since it was a scenario that I had in my head but I guess you can benefit from it cause it allows you to put yourself in my shoes while imagining this.

Fuck dude. There’s still so much to do. And I want to so badly do them all. This whole simulation is going by too fast, and it still blows my mind how practically everyone feels the same way about all these specific aspects of the simulation. Everyone’s living the same life.

I’ve been having so many fucked up dreams too lately. It just reminded me of them because yesterday, one of my friends said that he had a dream that he was sleeping in his dream but when he woke up he thought he woke up in real life, when in actuality, he was still dreaming. Just today, I was taking a nap on the couch and apparently, in the dream, a smiler thing happened where I thought I woke up in real life. Except the biggest indicator that I wasn’t awake in real life yet was that somehow, there was some sort of voice, sounding like it was coming from an intercom, and it said “welcome to universe *insert bunch of numbers here cause I can’t remember exactly what the numbers were*”. The another time, it was a far simpler dream, where someone and myself were just on a couch, and I had my head on their lap, while watching something that was playing on the tv. All I remember from that dream was that I felt an overwhelming sense of calm. I used to be able to remember my dreams thoroughly, but for some reason, ever since I hit my head on my racquet in badminton (don’t ask how I managed that - I don’t wanna talk about it - it was an all time low), I’ve only remembered snippets. It’s unfortunate… I feel like a majority of the one’s that I’ve been having for the last few days seem to hold some kind of meaning. Would’ve been a lot easier if I’d recall it all past 2 minutes after waking up.

Okay, I think this is more than you bargained for. I still have so much more to say but that’s for another episode. Keep up, will ya

For now xx

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cloakedsquire72-blog · 6 years

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Surveillance Scrapbook and Analytical Reflection

Deandre Brown

Eng. 212

6/30/18

Surveillance Scrapbook and Analytical Reflection

When you think about surveillance people usually only think about so cameras in a store watching. But it's so much more then that it's people, cameras and just about anything that keeps track of you. Throughout the semester the surveillance log assignment was an eye opener. Only because in the beginning I only looked for what most people think surveillance is. But I later noticed after the assessment I was being watched by my fit bit, social media, people and just my whole environment I live in. The main themes are consciously and unconsciously similar, but they are ethics, performance, politics, identity and technology; every surveillance type people should learn about to evaluate their level of surveillance.

When it comes to the themes of technology ethics is something that explores the concepts of right and wrong with surveillance. With that my scape book on tumbler showed and challenged how ethics is looked at. For my (Ethics 1-4) shows three comic/memes and one video the first comic is how a woman hands an NSA agent her number, but he already has it because that’s his job. The second is a meme of young adults walking and just looking down at their phones like zombies being controlled and surveillanced by the phone. The third comic talks about the book 1984 and how its non-fiction but really it holds a lot of fiction for are lives. The last ethic artifact is a video about terrorism and mass surveillance. All these Ethic artifacts challenge just how we traditionally think about surveillance ethically. Not just how they affect us as a society but as people in our everyday lives.

The second theme is performance something that discusses how people act differently when watched. When you are being watched wither, it be by people or a surveillance camera you tend to act different. For my (Performance 1-4) tumbler posts show many ways people act different. For the first one it’s a YouTube video of 2 Chainz rapping about the feds watching him and how he going to look fresh when they are watching. The second performance post is a meme about a SpongeBob fish being normal but gets called fact and looks then like a realistic fish. The third artifact was about a rapper named future and how when the fed did a sweep on him he went from gangster to just a guy on the ground with none of the power he raps about in songs. The last performance artifact talks about how self-sensor are ourselves when watched. All these artifacts follow the traditional idea of how performance changes are when being watched. With rappers saying their hard till their on the ground and from just how simple SpongeBob memes show us the traditional way of how we change when we are being called out.

Politics is something most people think about because of drones and the government putting up cameras. My tumbler post of (Politics1-4) show 3 comics and 1 video of how politics affect us with surveillance. The first politic comic shows a man coming home but being watched everywhere cause traditionally we agree to terms and agreement for the things the government controls. The second comic shows how the NSA hired Santa because he is all knowing this pokes fun at how much the government realty knows. The third is a meme about how we traditionally browse the internet but really it is challenging how the internet is really browsing us. The last artifact for politics is a YouTube video about the USA unmasked and goes into the big brother concept and traditionally tells us how we are being controlled. With all of the political artifacts talked about the actually challenge how we think things are happening but, in some cases, its reversed.

Identity is something that discusses how surveillance affects self, individuality, or Personhood. With this comes Anxiety the book "Under surveillance" by Randolph Lewis talks about this in away. Lewis talks about surveillance anxiety and how " 15 million Americans suffer from social anxiety disorder-the excessive fear of being judged in public?"(Under Surveillance pg. 43). My Artifacts of (identity 1-4) talks about the quote Lewis said on pg. 43. The first identity artifact talks about how we put on a front and adopt a social media personality that could be different in real life. The second identity artifact talks about how mass surveillance changes the way we behave traditionally and challenges you to think about how we do behave different when being surveillance. The third artifact talks about identity and challenges how we are becoming more silent the more mass surveillance. The last identity artifact challenges how we can fight surveillance with a new mask that cover is face and changes our identity to surveillance. All of these artifacts challenge how we look at ourselves and how we can change ourselves or just become mute to society.

The last theme is how Technology which is something that discusses the role of technology in surveillance. This is the most common thing people think about when it comes to surveillance. The Artifacts on my tumbler (Technology 1-4) show traditional and nontraditional methods of how surveillance is being used on use. The first technology artifact is a meme making fun of how surveillance cameras traditional point one way and is usually in one spot, but the meme has a group of them point towards one another. The second artifact is of a dragon fly spy cam and how its challenges the way we perceive surveillance. The third artifact talks about how triadically surveillance just watches you. But in china they have a program where you have your own personal score and it challenges the thought of how you act. Because the way you act under surveillance depends how good your life is from internet speed to credit score. The last artifact still talks about china and how it is traditionally using cameras surveillance and how it challenges the world to be the biggest surveillance networks. all these artifacts show traditionally how surveillance is used in technology and show how the evolution of technology is evolving.

Just by reading the titles don’t really do the justice of what the artifacts in tale. The tiles of the artifacts don’t just show traditionally how surveillance is being used on us but; how it is challenging how we perceive surveillance to get the better hand. These main themes will forever consciously and unconsciously show us how ethics, performance, politics, identity and technology are all in one. Performance and identity go hand in hand when being watched and politics and technology and ethics share some of the all roots. Every surveillance type should be learned about for us to not be taking over by the people in control of surveillance.

Work cited page

Lewis, Randolph. Under Surveillance: Being Watched in Modern America. University of Texas Press, 2017.(Pg.43)

Tumblr, www.tumblr.com/blog/cloakedsquire72. (All themes examples)

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