I Was Down in the Basement

Sometimes, all it takes for me to be a productive writer is for me to just start the process. There has to be a direct line between how my brain works while typing out a blog and how my brain work writing a paper, right? Playing the bassline to "Bro Hymn" makes me better at playing "Maxwell Murder"?

The more important thing is that I believe this to be true, so I guess it's healthy to treat IMU as an essay placebo. The friendly green confines are wonderful at taking a mish-mash of garbage that is circulating and re-circulating in my head (I'm the eye monster, Becks is Leia, Flo is Luke, and Bobo is Han) and turning it into something else. Maybe not something of value, but at least taking it out of my head and turning it into something else.

Am I getting too surreal for IMU?

Quarantine has been tough lately. Even though I'm at home all day and it feels like a weird Premature (sincerely better than Groundhog Day) of a Saturday before a week where an essay is due, I need to remember that I'm actually still in grad school full-time and am still working as a TA. Nothing has changed for me except for where I do my work. I find that others are now used to our new crazy normal where everyone is basically available all the time and have a hard time wrapping their heads around the fact that I am SO busy with school right now.

This isn't something that's really bothering me, but it is something that I've noticed over the last two weeks of us all being inside. I stew over small annoyances because I can't leave the house and distact myself. Normally a bus ride or class would make me forget a petty nuisance quickly, but now I have to confront them *dun, dun, dun* head on!

While we're on the topic of being a grad student from home, something I sincerely miss is teaching my class on Fridays. It was such a nice way to end my week. Even if I had a lot of work to do, I found that my first-year tutorial would always remind me of what the good parts of academia and art history are. That learning is fun and teaching is important. I didn't get to have an IRL goodbye with my class and that makes me sad.

At the start of quarantine, one of the things I prioritized right away was an extended period of active TV watching. I immediately dove into season 1 of True Detective and hopped back onto my decade-long watch of the entirety of Cheers. With deadlines now approaching and my workload ramping up, I've ditched re-watching The Wire for the lightness of Community, which I've seen a million times. Funny how we fall into that so quickly.

Has anyone done a pysch or sociology study of the effects of Michael Schur half-hour comedies on mental health? I feel like there's a thesis in there.

While being at home, I've found that I've barely listened to any punk music, in favour of classic rock and pop music from the 60s and 70s. Do I only like to listen to punk while I walk around a city? How urban is punk music?

All this and more on the next edition of I, Musical Genius.*

*Bro, I'm not gonna talk about that.