science is the new black (now a series)

so until my smart science sister has that science blog of hers i told you about up and running (yes it's still in 'development' phase) i'm going to do my own version of vague-she'll-laugh-at-me-science-ish posts until she finally can't take it anymore and gets so embarrassed for me that she just decides on a title for her authentic science blog, registers it, and writes her first entry (which, by the way, i encouraged her to write about when she recently explained to my parents how to make a home-remedy disinfectant using a bottle of vodka-- or at least-- that was the story they gave me when i found the empty bottle of really old vodka on the kitchen counter, that's what they claimed to have used it for.)


and since science is the new black, today my vague science-ish topics will be as follows :
(because i personally believe that in science organization and lists are probably important)

• the book my sister is reading
• a quote from darwin (that i got from my sister)
• the effects of medications on creativity (a personal anecdote from yours truly)



the book my sister is reading right now sounds fascinating, i'm actually dying to read it. and that never happens when she's reading about proteins or cells. this book literally combines our two passions, our two ways of looking and thinking and understanding, our two worlds of thought-- literature and science, poetry and uh-- you know-- science... just kidding. but seriously it sounds like an clever and involved book that she will read slowly and digest every detail and i will read sentence by sentence and get such inspiration with each sentence that i'll stop to write for a day and them come back the next day to read the following sentence. the book is called proust was a neuroscientist by jonah lehrer a young writer who has now got my attention. i'm going to pick up this book in the next few days.



next on our agenda is something i keep thinking about, and she (my sister) keeps thinking about -- and i'll let you think about it now. it's her 'status' online, a quote by darwin. read it. over and over.

"it is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change"

charles darwin

and lastly, since we're discussing neuroscience and change, we can touch on the recent happenings in my headache saga. this new treatment i've been on (aka the reason for my blog absence, twitter disappearance and unprecedented block of the writing kind) is an anti seizure medication, the latest method in migraine prevention. but here's what i've noticed. (other than the obvious side effect of losing my thoughts in mid-sentence-- everything just goes on pause--- the ideas and words evaporate and i completely forget what i was saying) it's as though it has literally stopped the 'seizures' of thought, of passion and inspiration in my head. let me insert here, poetic surges of inspiration and passion and thought, because other things like focus on work and developing curriculum for my writing students has increased, productivity and creativity in this area has expanded, but where, i keep asking myself, are my desires to immerse myself and wade out too deep in poetic words and flashes of haiku that stop every other happening in the world, every other thought, poems that come over me like-- (see this is where the words would have come over me, or simply flowed from my fingertips and metaphorically showed you the arrival of the poems, instead, there's a pause--- a slight hollow buzz) or perhaps i'm putting too much pressure on myself and i'm still in the adjustment phase. i know. the words are in here, but perhaps a seizure of words isn't so bad every once in a while, when all of a sudden i fall down because this idea hits me like-- well like-- well-- you know--

the first in the science is the new black series : here : the beginning of the end some might call it, my sister might call it etc...

x c

science is the new black

my sister is starting a science blog.

no— wait— don’t stop reading this— don’t run away or fall asleep!!! it’ll be good stuff, her target audience is people like me— a science blog with info that your average everyday chantal would come back to and actually want to read more of : science issues that concern, interest and touch all of us, and written by this incredible mix of charm and brains, serious focused concentration and loud music. she's one part laughter : one part nerd : one part shopping (yes nini i realize that’s three parts.)

so she called me for help and inspiration with setting up the blog. last night we were on the phone for two hours figuring out all the details— and by all the details i mean just the name of her science blog !!!! uuuuggghhh you precise methodical science people (hi nini thx for reading today love you) then she decided to sleep on it and figure it out in the morning. so if anyone needs a list of about 40+ science-y blog titles (but with charming creative hard-sought-after twists) just let me know......... and i will be sure to let you know when she finally types in that carefully crafted title and proceeds to the next step in the process of creating her blog. we may have to pull an all-nighter when it comes to choosing the blog colors (love you nini!)

and if you’re wondering, her name’s janine, i call her nini. you just don’t find many nerds as cute as this one...... she talks about cells and proteins with so much enthusiasm and genuine enjoyment— the same way i talk about clothes or coffee or haiku... but she also genuinely loves what she does, as i love words and writing, and she wants to find ways to make areas of science more accessible and enjoyable to others. this blog will just be the start of her attempt, and i’m sure i will have to learn a thing or two!! she’s also a fantastic cook and quite a mélange of health-conscious (understatement) gourmet (yes, oxymoron— gourmet grad student, but she is) and plans on sharing recipes and food tips on the blog as well. if the title ever gets through the final selection phase, i’ll let you know, cuz she’s got a lot on that plate.

and hey, maybe with her help science will be the new black. hey! that’s not a bad name for a blog.... science is the new black i’m gonna call her right now. i’m sure she’ll veto that one too... ;)

x c

"facts are not science --

as the dictionary is not literature."

martin h. fischer

photo credits 1 : jerry yoon 2 : chantal (aka c)

the tunnel, the end, in this light--

photos : by c

well, maybe i used to have a really different sort of life a few years ago, the kind where people still tell me, wow that's the kind of life i only dream about, what was it like, it must have been amazing. and sure yes it was. these days i don't even mention it anymore. time to-- because-- you see, between that and the world constructed in my mind through creativity and words, and from behind these headaches and sunglasses, i haven't seen much of reality. i haven't even looked at what's right next to me because none of it even resembled what i thought it would or should or-- or what i thought i knew i wanted it to look like. the life i was supposed to have. and that probably sounds familiar and i guess they say it never is or does or will--

photos : by c

and then i just sort of-- after all this time, started taking pictures everyday of every day with my old, temperamental digital camera. we have an on-again-off-again relationship in that it only actually takes pictures on occasions, when i hit it or shake it or when it's not telling me 'memory card error' or 'corrupt data' or when i can at least identify who is in the blurry photos. but it works. sometimes. and in these photos i've captured-- there's simplicity in the perspective, change, colors, fade, or focus. seeing things in another light or if nothing else-- trying 'in this light' and muting the shades of my words, to the simple, the corners of my world right now. corners of my mind and the corners that i've discovered right here, i was perhaps even hiding in them, and now i see, i don't have to go anywhere and they are taking me somewhere completely different.


photos : by c

it's been three years now since i moved back home from the five years of my life that i spent in paris but you won't see any pictures of eiffel towers these days, just cars and pavement buildings and suburbs for now and hours that glow when you really can't tell where i am or where any of us are. and i'm not looking away from these photographs anymore because they're even better in this light-- this isn't to say that i've figured it all out and everything is suddenly perfect for me, because you should have seen me yesterday, but i have my good moments, i don't think that the light at the end of the tunnel was just the flash of my camera, i think you were there with me and actually we both could have seen it but we just didn't-- too busy hiding in the shadows. and really, everyone has pictures of the eiffel tower, so in a way our subtle every day photos are most spectacular because no one else has captured lived laughed or written the moment in this exact light.



x c

:: blue sweater haiku :: {.....and another sapphire remembrance}

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

:: the bright blue sweater
lightens my dark exterior
then hang it back up ::



i have this bright blue cardigan that i wear often because i love the color and it's a nice contrast to the consistently black wardrobe that hangs in my closet. the other day with my sister {when i was in santa barbara} we somehow got on the topic of my blue sweater, i was wearing it that day, and one of us {i don't recall specifics} or perhaps both of us decided that a blue sweater haiku might be in order. so as she scurried around her apartment doin' something {again, i don't recall...} i scribbled down this blue sweater haiku, and in my usual indecisive nature, created a series of final lines for the haiku that i liked and i couldn't narrow it down to just one, thus i decided to create a blue sweater haiku series, because with the simple altering of the last line, each haiku meant something, signified something completely different. this is the first in a series i'll continue... and, as always, i adore the challenge of finding the perfect images to go along with each one.

and now, i'd love to stay and chat but i've got to get dressed and ready to go! i got a new yellow sweater the other day... perhaps the next installment...? we'll see.

and ps please if you haven't yet check out my sweet friend eni's photos you can see them all right here
i often use her images with my writing. they're so colorful, capturing moments of life... she has a great series of images on istanbul that i will share soon {where she lived for many years} and also on tirana, albania the beautiful city she calls home.

bonne journee

x c

ashes and wine

been a bit ailleurs this week {ie somewhere else} was literally supposed to be in santa barbara visiting my sister... and then the jesusita fire started, and everything got...smokey, so to speak. so i didn't go to santa barbara and instead kept my eye on the fire, the evacuations, the devastatingly captivating images of the fire in the mountains and streets of a place i'd once known as home. beautiful and nostalgic images in my mind of my years spent in the gorgeous town of santa barbara were dominated, more than anything, by my constant concern for my sister's safety. and i twittered a lot. and i don't mean anxious chatter or jittery fidgeting {though restlessness abounded} but i mean literally twittered about the fire, read constant updates on twitter, and got way too much information for my overly active imagination that proceeded to run away from me.

anyway, during the worst night of the fire, sometime well after midnight as they were still evacuating people, i needed distraction but couldn't look away long enough to find one. and my dad, lost for any way to really help me calm down, said in a serious-bordering-on-exasperated tone "why don't you, just, write some poems or something." alas it's not easy for an engineer integrated circuit designer dad to have an overly creative, imaginative, emotional, sensitive {etc..} daughter, but he tried. and in fact, about a half an hour later i found myself absorbed in turning the verbose, redundant thoughts that were overwhelming my mind at a furious rate, into simple, sleek, perfectly shaped haiku poems.

if you haven't noticed, i've been a bit obsessed with haiku lately. it all started just with me attempting to find a fun form of poetry to work on with one of the girls i tutor {hi olivia ;)} and then i got kind of hooked.... because the challenge of streamlining my thoughts into seventeen syllables became fascinating, and rewarding. and helped to clarify, and speak louder than i'd anticipated, and set these thoughts to a new rhythm. then i worked on haiku with another one of my students {hi abby :)} and we were all hooked. at times the rhythm lulls me into..something...somewhere else...

and especially on this fiery night, it soothed my fears a bit. and took me away. i posted the haiku on twitter each time i wrote a new one, one after another, hoping that anyone else who was worried about the fire, might too, find some element {other than fire :)} of comfort in the brief words. and how gratifying to hear from readers that in fact, they did.

here are some of the poems i wrote during those tense days in the beginning of the jesusita fire in santa barbara, and a few of the spectacularly calamitous images of the fire. the flames were all along and above the 101 freeway, and my sister said that while driving on the freeway beside the fire, it was hard to look away {though dangerous, as she was driving} from the dramatic view.

and all along, the song ashes and wine by a fine frenzy has been playing in my head... {santa barbara is known for its vineyards} and in fact, funnily enough, it's playing on my sterio as i type this. 'don't know if our fate's already sealed. this day's a spinning circus on a wheel ... there is nothing left to say but is there a chance, a fragment of light at the end of the tunnel, a reason to fight? is there a chance you may change your mind? or are we ashes and wine. the day's still ashes and wine, or are we ashes..'

it's the not knowing
and knowing what you know won't
stop fire from burning

a sky so dark, thick
air, smoke hard to remember
yesterday's calm blues

we sit and wait, i'm
here on twitter while she's there,
watching fire and news

it's the little things
you want to hold on to when
it's time to let go





she sees fire light the
mountains, sky, smoke in her eyes
close mine, i see her





ash falls from the sky
gentle like snow nothing's as
it seemed anymore




you don't feel until
it touches you, don't see 'til
you look in their eyes



images via latimes and noozhawk

bon week-end.

© Eni Turkeshi Photography eni's {delightful} flickr

"i will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet"
gandhi

special delivery

"inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered." john updike

opened the front door yesterday and there was a package from santa barbara on the steps. my sister had sent an overnight delivery of croissants from my fav french bakery in sb. a french pastry chef and his wife moved to santa barbara last year and opened a very small, always bustling, line-out-the-door bakery called renaud's patisserie and bistro. these are hands down the best croissants, pain au choco etc... that i've had in the states. mmmm had one for breakfast today. merci nini!

{image by a new flickr fav littlegirlblue}

"The best way out is always through."

r o b e r t f r o s t

{image: martin morrell via desire to inspire}

piece of cake

So on Friday my brilliant little sister passed the orals for her bio-chem PhD. It was actually an encouraging journey for me to search for the quotes of courage and perspective that I posted here for her, while attempting to shine some light along the way in her quest for victory, I stumbled across words and thoughts that show us all the bigger picture, and make us realize what we're doing this for, whether we win or lose, fail or succeed. Of course accomplishing something you never thought possible feels pretty darn good..and I feel relieved and proud that she succeeded, but now I guess it just makes it official: she's the smart sister.....and I'm..I'm the one who tries to make her laugh :)

((this is another image by the Californian artist Wayne Thiebaud, who years ago, was a dear friend of my great aunt))

good luck, bonne chance, courage....

and remember....

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
t h e o d o r e r o o s e v e l t

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in."

v i r g i n i a w o o l f

"When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened"
w i n s t o n c h u r c h i l l

"They say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
a n d y w a r h o l

"I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks."
w i n s t o n c h u r c h i l l


((image: photographer sabine weiss via carla loves photography))

laughter and a view

the algerian asked me one day if i were an animal what kind would i like to be. i'd never considered that question but almost without hesitation answered 'a monkey' because they seem to have fun, they're silly and laugh all day ((well, at least, in my mind they do)). much later he showed me this picture that he had, i think his brother took it, of monkeys in algeria. they're not exactly laughing, but i don't know why, for some reason, they make me smile.


"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."

e. e. c u m m i n g s

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him."

d a v i d b r i n k l e y


((image: photographer sabine weiss via carla loves photography))

in the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.
c h a r l i e b r o w n

"The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster."

o s c a r w i l d e

turning on the brights

this is my first post from my shiny new macbook, fumbling around the keyboard as it glows beneath my fingertips...



my hard-working and very clever younger sister ((i like to refer to her as my 'little' sister though in reality she's much taller and far more mature than i will ever be..)) is in Southern California, half way into her inorganic biochemistry PhD and up for her orals in less than two weeks. though less than half of that last sentence makes any sense to me, i can sense the tension all the way from here, only attempting to grasp the pressure that is placed upon an individual in such a demanding circumstance.



i realize that nothing i can say will calm her nerves and that my words of inspiration seem inadequate, my gawking creative view of the world is simply incompatible with the calculated importance of this event, and thus, i'm left searching for words of encouragement from others, thoughts that seem to posess a meaning somehow relavant to both our worlds, and i'll be mailing, emailing and posting them from here on, though she may not even have enough time to read them, at least i will have sent them out into the universe and in some form or another they may reach her.



i'm sending her quotes for...well, inspiration sounds too romantacized, and sucess perhaps too forceful, i suppose really, these are quotes of strength, of courage, of gentle support, never trite but rather offering perspective to any of us, dedicated to doing what we feel we are meant to be doing, and against all odds and any measurable manifestations of contrived sucess, shining a hint of light onto a winding path, as we hope to better find our way there. despite the length of the road or, at times like this, a frightful inability to see even two feet infront of us.



today i found myself reading Emerson's essay Self-Reliance. i was marking up every page finding perspective and conviction in every word, every phrase....i could put the entire essay on here, but for the sake of everyone's time, i will put a condensed version, a best-of passages, if you will, of the very beginning..... more to come..


"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion...

The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."



"We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents...

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events."



and this one's for my sister, because i think that kinda looks like candy in a glass beaker...;))

courage!!!
x c


((these images are by the Californian artist Wayne Thiebaud, who years ago, was a dear friend of my great aunt))