Motion Blur

http://annularclipse.tumblr.com/post/100162686172
I think putting tumblr on a blogger is sort of redundant but it had to be done. I found this photo (click on link) and I thought it was so beautiful and interesting, I had to share it. It looks like its a long exposure of the inside of a bus and the city is going by. I love all the colors and motion blur in this photograph. I do not know who took it, but I wish I could complement them.
After a long day, this is what i envision things being like. It's as if you are aware but at the same time, you are not paying attention.
http://annularclipse.tumblr.com/post/100162686172

#TrainTakeOver

In December, there was an event that took place on the RedLine. There were a lot of performers and people recording the event. This is a short video I made. It is a compilation of a a couple of the people there. Hopefully I can put together a better version that includes more of the performers. This was such a unique experience.

A Study on Loneliness

I found a book titled Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick
It's a sociological/neuroscience-based study that tries to make sense of what loneliness is and what its role is within our society.
Since it is a publication of their findings and I think it sort of relates to what I am studying, I decided to compile some quotes that I thought the most interesting.

"the need for meaningful social connection and the pain we feel without it, are defining characteristics of our species. "

"social pain, also known as loneliness, evolved for a similar reason (like physical pain protects from physical dangers): because it protected the individual from the danger of remaining isolated."

"Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows us that the emotional region of the brain that is activated when we experience rejection is, in fact, the same region that registers emotional responses to physical pain." (8)

"Most neuroscientists now agree that, over a period of tens and thousands of years, it was the need to send and receive, interpret and relay increasingly complex social cues that drove the expansion of, and greater interconnectedness within, the cortical mantle of the human brain." (11)

"The social environment affects the neural and hormonal signals that govern our behavior" (11) and vise versa

"each of us inherits from our parents a certain level of need for social inclusion, just as we inherit a certain basic body type and basic level of intelligence." (14)

"the importance we assign to our place within a network of family and social relationships began to erode with the dawn of the industrial revolution." (53)

I definitely plan to read a little more and make time for a more in-depth blog post that connects their findings and my own hypotheses.

Sometimes Silence is Necessary

Happy 2015!!! (sorry it's been so long since my last post.)
In case you haven't noticed yet, it has been getting pretty cold these days, and the Sun has been setting pretty early, making it dark longer. Makes sense- its winter. Sadly, this natural change of weather has also meant that my ability to go out and interact with the people of Chicago has lessened. Taking the CTA is not the warmest way to travel, especially not if you have a lot of walking to do in between or if you have to transfer a few times. Despite this, during my winter break, I made a commitment to trying to take the train or bus everywhere I went. Of course, this commitment was limited by time (since my parents didn't want me out on the CTA after it got dark) and weather conditions (my parents insisted I layer up and even then, preferred to give me rides when it was too cold). Yet, I did manage to ride it quite a few times, more than I am accustomed to during the winter. In fact, I started the new year by riding both the bus and the train! It was weird because of how empty the city seemed to be. I guess it must have had something to do with Chicagoans and their visitors celebrating the change from 2014 to 2015 and needing their sleep the next day. I, unlike most of the city, was up at 8 am and after getting some coffee, hopped onto a bus at 9am that would take me to the nearest train stop– the Paulina Brown line. The streets were completely deserted. I saw only a couple dozen cars moving through the streets and spotted less than 13 people walking around or on the CTA. On the train cart, there were only three other people, all of which were asleep or falling asleep.

Riding the CTA on January 1st was by far, the strangest experience I have had with this city and the people. I felt like I could have yelled at the top of my lungs while waiting for the train on the platform, and would have heard the echo bouncing off the whole city with no one so much as stirring in their sleep at the oddity but the leaves that blew, pushed by the chilly January wind. The city felt abandoned, but that was oddly nice. Throughout this whole experiment of mine, I have been pushing the question, why do we refuse to interact with one another? and pushing the idea that we must constantly, as mutual inhabitants of this large city, acknowledge one another and interact. I think I might have been wrong. I'm not saying I don't still wonder this and think we should make an effort to occasionally get to know one another, but I think my focus should have been more on how aware are we of our surroundings? In the strange stillness that was January 1st, I felt far more in touch with the city that I ever had. It was nice. I sat and simply looked out to the city streets as they passed by and acknowledged the beauty of it all, the quietness. I think it is something city-dwellers rarely do. We don't stop and observe because we are often thinking about a timeline, where we must be, what hasn't been done, what needs to be done, etc.  I've come to the conclusion that sometimes, silence is needed and it should be entirely appreciated as a welcome pause from the noise of busy and must-do's that are our daily lives, that provides us with the chance to simply be and see.
Heres a little video i made out of boredom that morning while I waited.....

Darkness is Unknown is Unsafe is you Scared?

While I was conducting some interviews I noticed a trend between the responses to my question, "do you ever feel unsafe?"

Photograph by me

Nearly every interviewee mentioned being alone and being in the dark as attributing factors to feeling unsafe. It must have to do with the dark impeding what you can see, what you can expect. Because of this trend I found, I thought it worthy of a few minutes of research. What I found was there were studies that focused on the connection between the fear of the dark that children had and the fear that is present in adults (varying from nervousness when walking down an alley to a paralyzing fear).

 ["We were shocked by how many people acknowledged they were afraid of the dark as adults," study author Colleen Carney, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Ryerson Unversity in Toronto, Canada, told HuffPost's Catherine Pearson.]

It is theorized that it begins as a fear of the unexpected- which makes total sense. I'd like to provide a why or at least a hypothetical why but I can't, I don't know why. Even more interesting than this, I found that there was a survey done by Chapman University that asked 1,500 nationwide about their fears and concerns and it turns out that among the top five personal fears, involving public speaking, being the victim of a mass/random shooting, safety on the internet, and becoming the victim of identity theft, walking alone at night was number one. (USA Today) Apparently, this fear is far more prevalent between women than it is among men, probably because of safety. In an article from the Washington Post, it said women fear walking at night specifically because they fear for their safety.

[This fear of violence is as profound as violence itself because it shapes -- and narrows -- the lives of women in so many small ways: We forgo a nighttime event because we don't want to travel home alone afterward. We forgo an evening jog because running at night is a luxury only men possess. We forgo a comment or an outfit or a friendship because it might imply an invitation we don't wish to convey.]

So why are men also afraid/nervous? We don't really hear of guys being afraid of being attacked at night, or the stuff that commonly bother women. But maybe it is being attacked, or maybe just seeming 'sketchy.' Or maybe it is media influence. Apparently, one of the predictors to such a fear is watching a lot of talk shows and true-crime shows. This is a cognitive phenomenon known as the availability heuristic where the likeness of something is not based on real data, instead on what they know or see.
Weird, am I right? Maybe this is just inevitable for many of us.

Chicago Chicago vs Sorta Chicago

Escalator to platform

Waiting for the Brown Line at Fullerton

(The photos above are taken by me)

If you are from the City, you must be familiar with the differences between being from Chicago and being from the Chicagoland area. Any 'true' city dweller will without a doubt emphasize the big difference that exists between these two terms, these two groups of people. But how big is the difference really? Why do some of us 'true' city dwellers get annoyed at those who are not (be they suburbans or actual tourists). I recently asked a friend who has experienced both sides, having once lived in the city (14 years) and then moving to Evanston (3 years), if he thought there is a difference in the way people act in the city vs in Evanston. My friend, Lucas Ortiz-Young, told me that he definitely notices a difference. He seems to think it is mainly because of the size. Evanston has about 75,570 residents and is about 8 sq miles vs Chicago's 234 sq miles and population of 2.7 million residents, so its no wonder why there is less crime there and it generally feels safer than Chicago. He thinks the safety encourages people to go out more, I agree. With safety comes a willingness to step further out of comfort zones, and when it comes to interacting with strangers, feeling safe definitely helps. He believes, "the sense of unity within Evanston encourages people to be outgoing."  Now, I understand the impact the size difference has, but why is it that the sub-communities (neighborhoods) within Chicago don't have more of an "Evanstonian" feel when it comes to daily interactions? His thoughts, "the main difference between here (Evanston) and Chicago is the Township High School and Evanston's small size that keeps everything close together. If one were to sit next to someone at a Northwestern football game people would most likely interact. If I take the bus to school, I wouldn't hesitate to speak to the people next to me if they intrigued me."

In a previous blog post, I mentioned the interesting way that the city's demographics change during a long ride. I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this difference. Because he lives in Evanston, Lucas rides the red/purple lines a lot, and it being a long commute, he confessed he also noticed a difference. "There are times where I start way north in Evanston to end up way south past the loop. During a long commute, you can notice the different types of people entering and exiting the train, and how it changes as you move from area to area. Once I was south of the loop I started to see people that didn't appear to be so wealthy as those who go off/on the bus at the loop. I shouldn't assume, for I do not know their financial status, that people in different areas that get on the train are diverse in their wealth, health, genders, age and race."

It's actually pretty cool to see the transitions between Chicago's people and the areas they commute while riding CTA. It sorta feels like you are an outsider looking in. You're still, and the city life moves around you, without you, as you wait for your stop. 

Lady on bus route 36

This is the quick sketch of the lady that I managed to do before she had to get off.

A few weeks back, maybe three, I was riding the bus to my job. For some really odd reason, I prefer trains to busses, but sometimes that not an option unless I want to take a HUGE detour and end up walking 20 plus minutes... I'd rather bus it. I don't mind taking the bus as much if I am in company, but when I am by myself, I mind it a little bit. Maybe I can trace this back to when I was little and had to take the school bus home– on more than one occasion, I fell asleep and missed my stop, and no one woke me up until I was way from my stop. Maybe its some unconscious fear that has turned into mild discomfort as I have grown up.

Have you ever sat on a seat right after another person, and it was all warm and...odd?
I have yet to meet a person that likes that feeling. It's weird, but common. I have this one friend that hates busses because something about sitting on the same seat as multiple other people makes her really uncomfortable, especially if she's wearing shorts or something that exposes her skin directly to the seat. Weird. But she's not the only person. As I was riding the bus, I met this woman (who's name escapes me since I forgot to write it down!) who told me a similar thing. She's the lady depicted on the sketch above. I started drawing her because I felt really tired and was afraid I would fall asleep and miss my stop! Plus, her hair was really cool looking. She seemed a mix of mad and a tired. So I was slightly startled when she got up and came to a seat closer to me and asked if I was drawing her. I probably forgot her name because I was so nervous she was going to be upset that I was drawing her! I showed her what I had done so far and she complimented it (thankfully!). I then asked her where she was heading and she told me she was heading home from work. Then I asked her if she liked riding the bus and she replied very loudly, "oh god, no! Sweetie, look around, people look miserable while riding it!" It was kinda true. I asked her if she felt that way. And thats when she explained to me her discomfort. Whenever she would ride the train, she would immediately begin to think about the hundreds of people that sat on the same spot and all their not-so-lovely germs. We both wondered,  how often are busses cleaned? We mean, REALLY cleaned, with disinfectants and all that good germ-killing stuff.
I really hope that it's more often than we think, otherwise, I guess I can add that to my list of discomforts while riding the CTA.