Clowns Live Forever

My immediate future

jhorna — Sat, 01 May 2010 06:58:43 +0000

I didn’t get in to UCBerkeley. I have to say, I’m really disappointed – I really thought I’d make it. No plans for the future yet, but plenty of time to make them.

Tomorrow I have plans to dance a lot, then on Sunday I’ll buckle down and look at my options for the immediate future. Here’s hoping for a great opportunity to come my way!

Books

jhorna — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:25:09 +0000

I never used to want to buy books – I read them so fast that there doesn’t seem to be any point in filling up my house with something I could just get at the library whenever I wanted. Books are heavy, too. I got pretty sick of packing up books into boxes and carting them around to a different home every few months.

But in the past year I’ve changed my appreciation of books. I’ve always re-read books, and experienced them in different ways over time. But Tom introduced me to the idea of writing in the margins – keeping track of thoughts and feelings as you read. It’s a far more effective and interesting way to explore one’s thoughts, and it makes the book your own – a personal experience that you helped to create.

So I’ve started a list of books that I want to own, so I can begin building my personal Library of Awesome.

1. Flow by Mihaly Csikczentmihalyi
2. How God Changes Your Brian by Andrew Newberg, M.D., and Mark Waldman
3. The Genius Engine by Kathleen Stein
4. The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow
5. Thoughts Without a Thinker by Mark Epstein
6. Anything by Annie Dillard
7. Anything by Mihalyi Csikczentmihalyi, for that matter
8. The Duck That Won the Lottery by Julian Baggini
9. Anything by Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers)
10. You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay

To be continued!!!!!

The Bay Area is the Yay Area!

jhorna — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:08:56 +0000

On Monday I spent the morning meeting some chickens that my friend has, and talking about meditation. So that was basically a two-person, two-chicken party.

Then later that day I spent 3 hours in the Library at Berkeley, researching Cognitive Science… it’s one of the most exquisitely beautiful libraries I’ve ever seen – I’m excited to spend more time there!

I’m sewing a lot – I have two dresses in the works, plus some adorable monster pillows that I’m going to sell on Etsy.com (a cool site – you should check it out if you don’t know what it is).

Here’s a picture of me enjoying the beach Pay no attention to that winter hat – the beach is the beach, and I enjoyed every frigid second of it.

Cognitive Science

jhorna — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:53:48 +0000

People often ask me what I’m going to study when I go back to school in the fall. I say I’m going to study cognitive science, a statement which is always met with an enthusiastic “huh?”.

It turns out that most people have no idea what cognitive science is, so I feel I owe the world an explanation.

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field. It’s a mix of Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Linguistics and Philosophy. It’s the study of the brain (through the study of neuroscience, and the modeling of thought processes with computer programming), the mind (philosophy), and how the brain and the mind affect us (psychology, linguistics).

To me, it’s a mix of everything I find completely fascinating and I can hardly wait to start studying it.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

jhorna — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:19:19 +0000

It has been SO great to be back!

I want to choreograph a dance I have in my head, and I have the opportunity to do that at a small local theatre that wants to give me free rehearsal space and a performance slot.

I want to take dance classes, and I was just accepted into the work exchange program at one of my favourite dance companies, so I get to take classes for free (I’ll work in their front office three hours a week).

I want to spend time at the beach, and the beautiful place I’m staying at is less than 10 blocks from the ocean!

I want to spend time with friends and so far, since getting back I have seen at least one friend per day.

I have always wanted to get more intimately acquainted with the noises that pigeons make when they think no one is watching, and it turns out that pigeons love to sit outside my window and make just those noises.

Ok then! Doing pretty well

Here’s a picture of me from the hill I climbed yesterday!