One of Professor Hope’s entries on perspectives inspired me to write this post. After I read it, I started to think about “perspective” in my daily life and after some critical thinking, I realized that I am different from my peers in this regard within the classroom.

During the beginning of the semester, students must find somewhere to sit, but how do they choose? Perhaps they are influenced by preferences, such as sitting up front so that they can see the board or sitting in the back so that they can text throughout class without the professor seeing their shenanigans. Or, perhaps they are influenced by friends and simply walk in and sit next to someone they know. Often, though, the chosen seat is relatively random. Yet, after a few more classes go by, this seat becomes fixed and students will return time and time again until the four month semester is over.

I, on the other hand, love switching up my seat. In one of my early morning lecture-based classes, I have sat everywhere from the front row on the right-hand side to the back up against the wall in the middle to a seat surrounded by other students on the left-hand side. Everyday I take a different seat and I love it because I have the opportunity to experience the class from an altered perspective every time that I go. Moreover, the course becomes all the more interesting as a result. I recommend that other students try to break out of this fixed seat pattern. Take a leap of faith and try mixing it up!

Tomorrow, all of my friends are getting together to cook our own Thanksgiving dinner. Some of us prepared our dishes tonight so that the kitchen did not get too crowded tomorrow though and, as we cooked, I started to take notice of each of our body techniques.

We chopped, poured, cracked, cut, stirred, peeled, mixed, spooned, unwrapped, mashed, blended, sprayed, washed…and as I watched everyone go through the steps of their individual dish, I began to see how different we all approached each of our tasks.

What I thought was a universal way of stirring, for example, is not at all. Indeed, people all stir in very unique ways. I usually take the spoon and spin it around the edge of the bowl as fast as I can and work my way towards the middle then back out again. All the while whipping it around as fast as I can. My friend, however, is very purposeful and delicate with her stirring. She starts out on just one section of the bowl, slowing making small circles with the spoon. Then, she repeats the same procedure with the various un-mixed sections of the bowl until the entire thing is at the perfect consistency.

I began to realize how something so small as how you approach stirring the ingredients for corn bread can make such a difference in the end product. It gave new meaning to the phrase “to cook with love” and I began to truly appreciate all of the nuances that factor into becoming an excellent chef. It is not enough to compile a list of ingredients and put them together. Small alterations in one’s technique can make all the difference.

We go through life disregarding all kinds of things on a daily basis. When someone takes the time to point out that which is “missing,” we suddenly tune into said things to a much greater extend than we had previously. Indeed, there are concepts in psychology that incorporate this very idea, such as the notion of priming or the availability heuristic. I have found that after taking this course, I have become much more in tune with my senses than I ever really have in the past.

For instance, the other night I was walking up to the apartments and spontaneously decided to take off my shoes because I had the urge to feel the grass with my feet. I closed my eyes and paid close attention to every step. The grass was dry, but it was so cold that it was almost as if it were moist; it was similar to times when the bath water is so hot that it could actually be cold. I was able to feel the ground sink beneath me, first with my heel and then all the way up to my toes. At first, I could feel each strand tickle the sides of my feet, but then as I stepped, it all came together underneath me and it just felt like a bed of soft, squishy bliss below my toes. Then, I stepped onto the gravel and I could literally feel every single pebble that had amalgamated at some point to form pavement. I grew such an appreciation for the process of creating such a simple stretch of pathway and, thought to myself, how much more environmentally friendly people would be if they just took the time to feel what was around them. Even when I would walk around barefoot in the past, I never took the time to concentrate on how my feet felt against the surface to such an in depth extent.

Another time, I was putting ice cubes into my drink. I was particularly hot because I was wearing too many layers. I decided to put the ice cube on my head in order to cool off more efficiently and, one again, I decided to pay close attention to how it felt. Instead of being concerned that it was dripping everywhere, I closed my eyes and felt it get smaller and smaller in my hand as the heat from my forehead shrank the cube down further and further. With every drip, I imagined that another thin square sheet was falling slowly from the ice to the puddle on the floor. Attending to the ice cube so intensely actually provoked a warm, tickly feeling inside. As many psychology majors would, I started to think about all of the crazy things that must have been going on with the neurotransmitters in my head at the time. It is amazing to think how we can purposely alter our state of consciousness in such an organic way and I thank this course for allowing me to come to that realization.

Explosions in the Sky – Your Hand in Mine

Here is another fun exercise! We have been reading and talking about how senses and emotions are intimately linked with one another. Listening to this song, in particular, evokes a lot of different feelings for me. I encourage you to listen and comment on what it makes you think of, what it reminds you of, and, most importantly, how it makes you feel. Also, sometimes when I listen to this song, I try and think of a story to go along with it, almost like a music video, but in my head. If you like, pretend that you have to make up a tale to correspond with this song and share it with the class!

Sunrise Earth – Milk Cows In The Morning – Part 1

When I was in high school, I used to wake up, make toast with jam, and watch Sunrise Earth before I walked to school. I recently rediscovered this series on the Discovery Channel and grew a new appreciation for it because of our course. Each segment takes place in a different spot around the United States and simply films the sun come up. There is no human narration and limited editing, which allows the audience to take in the natural surroundings in their purest form. Echoing some of my older posts, the experience is nothing like being in the place in the physical sense as the smells, feelings, tastes, etc. are all absent when watching a television screen. However, I find this series closer to “reality” due to the component of “pure” sounds. I put on “Milk Cows in the Morning” the other day while I was dong my homework, but  wasn’t facing the TV. At one point, I closed my eyes and just concentrated on the various noises coming from the DVD player. I tried to imagine the scene and think critically about which of these noises could be considered “soundmarks” of this rural area of Vermont. I’m not going to tell you what I pinpointed, because I thought it would be fun to try it yourself! I encourage you to listen to this “soundscape” and try and think of some examples. Feel free to comment and share the ones that you thought of if you like!

Soundwalk From Bixler To Pulver Just Before Midnight

So I was driving back from an adventure with the windows down when I sniffed the air, turned to Abbey, and yelled excitedly, “what do I smell?! what do I smell?!” At the time, we had a car full of empty beer cans that we were taking to the Redemption Center on Rice Rips and so she just scoffed, “garbage?” “No,” I said, “FALL.”

It was the smell of burning leaves, which I have associated with autumn ever since I was a wee girl inhaling the crisp air deeply and breathing it out slowing as I biked around the cul de sac near my home in Lexington, Massachusetts. As a result, this smell not only reminds me of my favorite season, but it also brings back a series of warm memories from when I was child all the way through high school and now college as well. Thus, I always look forward to the moment that I smell it for the first time every year because those burning leaves have become so comforting for me now.

Interestingly enough, I was talking to one of my younger sister’s new friends, who is a first year in college, and he told me that he never experienced fall before (he is from Santa Cruz, California). After a group of them spent the weekend in New Hampshire, he said that he was amazed by all the beautiful red, yellow, and orange tones. I asked him if he has ever smelled burning leaves before and said that he didn’t know I was talking about. Immediately, I got my sister on the phone and told her to point it out for him as soon as she smelled it. It got me thinking about how he has not formed any memories surrounding this wonderful scent yet, but now he might come across the fragrance again sometime in the distant future and it will bring him back to his first days at Boston University with my sister and all of the other connotations that he comes to form as his years go on there.

In another line of thought, I went to Starbucks the other day and noticed that they were taking advantage of the consoling aspects of the sensory experiences related to Fall in their advertising. They had a sign that literally said, “indulge in the comforts of Fall” with a picture of a Pumpkin Spice Latte next to it. I just thought it was interesting that they were manipulating people’s taste experiences and the emotions that are associated with them via marketing.

Tisk tisk or touche?

This is going to be short, but I wanted to post because I was excited to share it with everyone. I met someone who grew up in Waterville recently and we were driving back to campus last night when I mentioned our class and the idea of soundscape. My new friend and I started talking about sound marks and I gave him some examples at Colby, such as the Chapel’s bells, which are more iconic, or other instances of sound marks like the Colby shuffle. He immediately caught on to what I was trying to get at and so I asked him if there are any sounds that he thinks are distinctive to Waterville. Then, we proceeded to drive around for quite some time looking for certain moments in sound. One sound that came to his mind was that of this bridge. I can’t remember where exactly it was in town, but when you drive over, it makes a very unique rumbling sound. We drove over it several times listening to it from inside the car where it was muffled and the vibrations intense. Then we listened to it with the windows down, which brought the rumbling sound up from the background into the foreground to the point where we couldn’t hear the music or our voices anymore. Then I jumped out of the car because I wanted to listen to it from an outsiders perspective, but when he drove over it again, the sound was short lived and rather common to my ears in that it sounded like a lot of other bridges that I have come across. However, when we were in the car, it really did sound like nothing I have ever heard before. I am looking forward to doing more listening drive-bys and I encourage the class to do the same!

Over Fall Break, I went to the Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland where they had a 4D showing of Planet Earth clips. It seems as though the creators of this event were looking to address the limitations in the everyday movie going experience.

Usually, only sight and sound are captured in film. This Planet Earth showing enhanced these senses by making the animals jump out at you as if they were right in front of your face. The sound too, where different speakers throughout the venue provided perspective for identity and locality of various noises to ultimately create a feeling of layering much like “life-up-over-sounding”.

Not only did the creators optimize sight and sound, but they attempted to include other senses as well. Namely, tactility. For example, when a group of Penguins in Antarctica came on the screen, a snow-like substance spewed out from tubes on either side of the theater. Or, when an elephant sprayed water from his trunk after sucking it out of a river, the audience was drizzled with water from the ceiling. Or, furthermore, when they were walking across the desert during a sandstorm, a gust of air came out of the vents to mimic high speed winds.

All of these additions to the normal experience of watching a movie were an attempt to bring the audience closer to what it was that they were actually watching. It was almost as if the creators were trying to combine what it is like to go see animals from exotic lands right in front of you with watching them in their natural habitats on television.

Neither experience, however, is the same to any degree to actually being in a particular place in a particular space and at a particular time. I am sure that those filming Planet Earth could testify to how drastically different it is to physically interacting with animals up close and personal. Yet, this series attempted to simulate just that experience, but any simulation fails just by the fact that it is a simulation–it isn’t real. It scares me to think that one day people may stop exploring and just start seeking out simulation for stimulation.