&paintbrush

I found this great site where you can draw like Picasso.

It’s great to just get your mind off of things

Try it! Mr. Picassohead

Well, not exactly.

My blogs were primarily about psychology and design. I put up some posts about my art, and there were more often than not complaints about my life.

But none of this really struck me out as passionate. What I really care about, besides design and psychology, is actually health and nutritions. It seems kind of strange, I know, because I am a JUNKFOOD-A-HOLIC. Also, people who care about healthy, low-calorie foods usually have no weird eating habits. I do. But food and I go a long way. It’s my enemy and my savor, as many of women would agree. So I naturally got interested in learning about nutritions. For a time I wanted to become a nutritionist. But I dropped that idea quickly because where would I work for? Who would I work for? Anyway, I didn’t want to admit that I cared about many things involving health, exercise, and nutritions because I never really put all the information into action. Whenever there’s an opportunity to go out exercising, I make up an excuse not to go. I am so lazy and unhealthy that even my brother, who never says anything to me, told me how pathetic I was. If there’s a huge piece of cheesecake and a cup of broccoli on the table, of course I would pick the cheesecake. But always, in the back of my mind, I felt guilty of eating anything that seemed ‘unhealthy’–and this guilt has cumulated up to the brim of my neck, and even though I don’t say anything when I eat, I always feel guilty afterwards.

Believe me, this isn’t something to roll eyes about. Because many girls, especially at my age, have these problems. I know, for a fact, that many girls out there are getting influenced every day to become skinnier and skinnier–it’s the new “in” thing to do. Psychologically speaking, human beings want to get accepted into any kind of group. And during teenage years when teenagers are ’searching for their identity’, it’s easy to look up to the new fashion trends, the stars and models, and the impossible sizes that these girls want to be fitted in to. They go on extreme diets and exercises–some throw up after eating, some don’t eat at all, some thinks that food is attacking them if they eat anything that as 1% fat in it. Yeah, this is reality. I know, because I’ve been through it all.

Why didn’t I realize before that this is the topic that I really cared about? Maybe because I was denying it for this whole time. I was ashamed, partially, because I have gotten over the eating disorder. That doesn’t quite make sense, I know, but eating disorders are like a secretive asset for those who have it. They think that it’s something personal that no one else knows which in turn gives them satisfaction. It’s a weird, twisted disease. I don’t have it anymore (considering I can eat a pint of ice cream in less than an hour), but I still feel the guilt. I still feel I cannot look into the mirror because it shows how much heavier I have become, and how much willpower I have lost over food. The one thing that I could control is now gone, and this is probably why I feel so insecure these days.

But I am starting again. Not an eating disorder, of course, but looking at food in a healthy way. Nutritious, beneficial way. Of course this is going to be a slow process, but I need it, I think. No matter how trivial this might seem to others, it’s important for me. I need it.

Photo credited to: felipe_sanchador, naoko123

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, aplit07, kiswrites, eating, disorder, nutrition, health, food

I took an AP Psychology test today on Human Development. What interested me the most during the study was how just important the infant-parent relationship is. When we are born, psychologists say that we find our parents by their body odor. And once we get familiar with their body odor, we start our “critical period”– the period where we develop cognitive, moral, and psychosocial developments.

So if infants don’t have this attachment and security that we find in our parents, the results can be quite scary. Some kids develop autism, which is a disorder of comprehension and learning development. Some kids get very anxious and withdrawn, and some cannot make relationships easily.

Then it’s quite unfortunate to find kids who get abandoned at a young age and never see their parents, or a parenting-figure. My question then, is what would happen to those kids? How would their brains develop psychologically? Does abandoned, non-cared for children have difference physically?

For right now, I have no idea what the answers to my questions are. But I am sure it’s out there somewhere. In my opinion though, these orphaned children have a psychological difference even if they are not aware of it. Humans were designed to touch–it is one of the five senses, after all. By touching, we feel like we belong with someone. By touching, we know we are here. By touching, we know who we love. But orphaned children, children whose parents were careless enough to throw them away, doesn’t know these feelings.

Why am I talking about this? I am just fascinated by the psychology of the human mind, that is all.

Photo credited to: manitu@ , Gone Away Productions

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, kiswrites07, psychology, critical, period, developmental, children, orphan, abandoned

Because I lived in the States for almost eight years, coming back and living in Korea was rather new for me.

It was new for my parents, too, because they didn’t realize how changed I was.

And I don’t think they still realize that I am 18, that I am going to college in about 6 months, and that I am officially legal in a lot of things.

There was clash of culture, too–I couldn’t adjust to the strict, obedient children of Korea to the American kids, who talk back to their parents and have at least the freedom to hang out with their friends.

And just yesterday, I had a big clash of culture experience with my dad. He was telling me how he was going to lock me up in my room if I don’t behave myself and stop hanging out with my friends. He wanted me to sit in front of my desk and study 24/7–studying for god knows what. He didn’t understand that this was my senior second semester, where seniors just don’t have the energy nor motivation to do anything productive. Of course, this is not the norm, this is something a lazy-ass person would do, and it will just make me a fat blob. When my dad started talking about responsibility and adulthood, I didn’t get how I was supposed to become an ‘adult’ by staying at home and watching T.V. all day. How was this any better than for me to go out and maybe see a movie or go to a cafe to talk about college & life? How is sitting home alone and eating bowls of ramen noodles being ‘responsible’?

Maybe I don’t understand my parents much because I am not old enough. Maybe I didn’t experience ‘the world’ so much yet and therefore I am acting rather childish. But please, oh please, if parents decide to make us be more responsible, I don’t think grounding us to ‘think about what we did’ is not the right way to go. That makes us feel even more rebellious and act childish, is what I think. I think adults need to give us, especially teenagers, some freedom and responsibility, not take it away and tell us to study it in a text book.

You Don’t Know Me

oil paint
14″x19″

Don’t get close to me. Don’t get near me.
Stay far away, because nothing good comes from
being dependent on someone.
Don’t act like you know me.
Don’t say things that you know nothing about.

I drew this picture actually, out of a photograph that Jenny, my friend, took last year. It was around March, and I was very new to my school. I had just been through a lot of difficulties just the previous months, and I was still ‘closed up’ in my mind. I didn’t want anyone close to me, because I was insecure of myself, of my body, of my mind. Have you ever had that kind of experience? Where you just don’t want to get close to someone in fear of being too attached to that person. Or, when you don’t have the guts to tell anyone your true feelings. To make the long story short, I was extremely scared. Scared out of my wits. Scared because I didn’t know if I would be accepted by anyone in my life, scared that I wasn’t ‘fit’ enough to be in a group–especially in a new environment like Korea. But most of all, I was scared of myself, because I knew I was the worst enemy of myself. I don’t know if that makes sense. Maybe this has some kind of psychology in it–but anyway, these experiences, my confused feelings, the need to identify my problems–were the reason I got interested in psychology. I wasn’t sure, but I believed that learning about the mind and the brain might give me some kind of clue to the crazy bundle of spit-firing neurons in my head.

But I still cannot find the answer to my insecurity.

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, kiswrites07, art, painting, identity, psychology, thoughts

It’s 5:30 AM in the morning, and my eyes are closing as I mindlessly type these words. In all honesty, I have no motivation whatsoever to do any shape or form of homework–perhaps because it was beating the life out of me for the past nine or so years. I have a huge essay that I need to finish but it seems impossible to complete. Maybe I am not diligent enough, or maybe I am just plain lazy. Whatever the reason, I cannot get inspired to write about something that I cannot connect with. And that’s what school wants us students to do almost 99% of the time.

In 9th and 10th grade, it was easier for me to work on homework for the highest possible grade (although that didn’t seem to work either). I didn’t think about anything else but ‘I’ve got to finish this assignment because it’s DUE tomorrow’, or ‘I need to get at least 85% on this one in order to maintain an A average’ or something close to that. As time pushed me to my junior year, and SATs and colleges and whatnot came into my life, I was so buried in homework that I could literally smell ‘homework’ from far away. And the more I got assigned with pointless homework that I will never remember, the more careless and less enthusiastic I got. Then came my senior year.

Ah, senior year in high school. I am in no position to recall high school like as if I already have a husband and two kids, but it seems obvious what this year in high school does to us. It makes us freaking lazy. Not just lazy, a sleepy, sleazy, slug. Especially as senior second semester comes along, we get even lazier than before, which seems impossible. And we lose all motivation and inspiration in order to actually finish a task.

Why am I writing about this? Is this pointless? Maybe. Actually, probably. But it’s interesting how I can write hours and hours about art, or psychology, or things about education, and not about biochemicals and moles in a particular atom. Everyone has their different interests and talents, and I don’t get why high school wants us to become the same end product as decades of years previous.

Perhaps seniors become a bunch of blobs at the end of the school year not because they are idiotic and careless, but because life has been battered out of them from caring too much about grades, community services that we don’t care about, and school activities that we would much rather do on our own.

Photo credited to: Zamm , Lord V

Technorati Tags: aplit07, kiswrites07, lazy, senioritis, highschool, education, homework, laziness,

Dementia
Mixed Media
15″x20″

My expression of anger.
Aggression.
Craziness.
Lost Identity.

I drew this in the spring of 2005, I think. It was pretty long time ago–but I remember one thing for sure. I took out a piece of drawing paper, and grabbed a bunch of magazines. I didn’t think nor did I plan about this piece of work. I just cut shapes, pictures, and anything that corresponded with my mood–anger. And angry it came out to be. Sad, distorted, insane–whatever I was feeling at the moment, the frustration of life–came out on this piece. I cannot describe how I am feeling in words. I just can express it in drawing. I think everyone has different talents that they are designated for when they are born. I just hate the fact that schools assume that students should be graded based on the basic skills (writing, math, reading, science, and whatnot). If they asked me to do all of this in a form of art, I would think it would be quite easier than right now.

By Cindy Oh

Technorati Tags: kiswrites07, aplit07, dementia, craziness, insanity

Title: Involuntary Metamorphosis

Media: Acrylic & Gouache

Size: 15″x 20″

I am involuntarily morphing into something that I don’t want to be.
I am involuntarily becoming a robotic, non-thinking animal.

Someone please give a chance to change.

Someone, please, help me escape this slow, painful death.

Painting by Cindy Oh

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, kiswrites07, artwork, art, metamorphosis

The brilliant French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, taught that aggression results as a psychological defense against threats of fragmentation.^[1] That is, as infants, we are just a jumble of diverse biological processes over which we have no authority, and our first task in life is to develop a coherent identity which “pulls together” this fragmented confusion. This identity may give the appearance of a unified personality, but it really is just a psychological illusion that hides our essential human vulnerability and weakness. And so, when anything or anyone threatens us with the truth of our essential fragmentation, the quickest, easiest, and most common defense available—to hide the truth of our weakness and to give the illusion that we possess some sort of power—is aggression.

http://www.guidetopsychology.com/anger.htm

I was feeling particularly angry today for many different reasons. And I note this not because I want condolence, but because the aggression that I felt was stronger than other days. It felt like as if my heart was filled with hard rocks and I was becoming really dizzy. My voice got high and unmanageably loud, and I couldn’t breathe normally. The strange thing was, I didn’t know what I was angry with. Or even if I did, I didn’t want to admit that I was angry. When I got home, I was curious of what causes anger and where it came from– and above is what I found.

It was strange to learn that we turn our fears of fragmentation and lost identification into aggression. Actually, this information was completely new to me. What did ‘fragmentation’ actually mean? And we turn our fears into aggression? It didn’t make any sense. And our preferred personalities were just psychological illusion? That didn’t make any sense either. But if I think about this starting from infancy, we ARE indeed, a bundle of biological phenomena and there’s nothing more to us. Or is there? And for the rest of our lives from our birth, we struggle to find who we are, where we belong, and what we came into this life for. At least, for some of us. And during that time of struggle and exploration, we face confusion and frustration which turns into aggression.

So why was I so angry? At first, I was mad because I was being treated less than what I thought I deserved to be. From friends, from teachers, and from myself, I was getting ridiculed for whatever mistakes that I had made in my life. Of course, I could be overreacting and that’s probably what other people would tell me. But I was angry nonetheless. Everything seemed to be messed up, a cluster of failures. Plus, I was losing myself. I was losing myself, becoming part of the cruel, heartless world, an animal, an automaton who obeyed what the authority told me to do. This seemed to fit along with the analysis of Lacan. And because I was frustrated with the truth, I was becoming more aggressive and angry.

Who knows. I just might be tricking myself into believing Lacan. Or maybe Lacan is right, and all the frustration and anger I have is due to my loss of self-identification.

Photo credited to: jon-e, Nikko Myers

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, kiswrites07, fragmentation, psychology, anger, aggression, identification

There’s a group of people in my school. We are wild, we can be crazy, and we love music.

But the one thing that makes us serious is art. Creating art, criticizing art, observing art…anything involving art and its form.

We are easy to identify because often times we have paint stuck between our nails and hair, and sometimes on clothes. We usually have hard time concentrating during class, especially math classes. But we usually pour most of the lost concentration on drawing a piece of art.

We laugh at the weirdest jokes, we love unique styles of clothing, and we get lazy really easily.

Deadlines are the hardest thing to keep up to, we love and hate charcoal, and we love the smell of a fresh new paper.

We have lots of mood swings, which we can control but we decide not to. We can get as high as singing “Put Your Hands Up in the Air!” in the cafeteria and as low as staying in bed and sulking about how sucky our life is.

We are over flowing with emotions, and can be quite spontaneous.
But this is where our source of inspiration comes from, so don’t stop us from being too sentimental.

We are students,
Teenagers,

& Artists.

Welcome to our world.

Photo credited to: bo_gazi, anna.hawaii

Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, kiswrites, aplit07, arists, students, teenagers,