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(Source: leahhkaye)
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thepastweekend
well since my last post, i have done the following:
- gone to chicago
- ate REAL deep dish pizza!
- chilled in millennium park with my brother.
- chilled back stage with brother + musical talent aka brothers best friend for an LMFAO + the brothers BFF show.
- watched a fight happen at said show….and parents with their children dancing to the song shots.
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- bonded with my 25 year old brother.
- contemplated my perspective on life after reading tuesdays with morrie.
- flew back to new york.
- drove to see the best guy in the whole wide world (:
- favorite party activities occurred, including cutting out paper snowflakes, eating chocolate and pretzels.
- marched in my last parade ever!!! (7 hours later..)
- helped momma bear shop and possibly purchased some clothes myself…
- had my first day at work.
and here i am. my feet are sore and my body aches but i’ve done it once more.
another bizarre weekend survived, despite walking around various airports, states, cities, stores, houses, etc.
and minimal sleep.
here i am.
you know, sometimes it’s the little victories in life that keep me satisfied. not a bad thing at all. after all that happened in the past 3 days, my biggest fear was my first day of work. it almost surpassed all of my other feelings, (there were a lot).
but i think i’ve conquered that fear - i can handle any day at work after this long, long weekend. nothing will be worse than this day 1. it takes a lot to exhaust me entirely - this weekend, it was done.
and i’m so happy about that. it feels wonderful to feel, and realize i’m actively living every moment i get.
the best part is having this wonderful realization….followed by some much needed sleep.
i’m happy.
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Paris corners (by jukka_re)
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(Source: reasonsforsilence2)
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What if men were photographed the way women typically were? I love this!
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(Source: lved)
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(Source: another-cough-syrup)
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thefightorflight
tonight i will be in a different city. its name is chicago. i’ve never been there, and my reason for going is simply that. i’ve never been. i want to eat their pizza more than anything and see a different cityscape.
but more than anything else, i want to leave here for a bit. i want to challenge my attachments from home once more. i’ve grown too accustomed to my routine weekends.
i need space from here, so i will take a flight to another city with my brother.
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Anonymous asked: One day you will change the world. Maybe not in the conventional way, but in some way, by the sheer fact of your existence, the world will be better. I know mine is. Never stop creating. The world needs more beautiful minds like yours.
wow…thank you. I’m so glad you think so, because I hope to be the person you describe. Ever since I was little I wanted to do something for the world or at least the people living on it. I’m honored to have touched you in such a way. Thank you so much for your kind words. They mean more to me than you could know.
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Ink Wants to Form Neurons, and an Artful Scientist Obliges
1. The Secret of Shimmer
Dunn has been recently been playing with iridescence, adding more colors while still allowing the metals to shine. This painting of the cerebellar lobe is an example of his newer work.
Listening to him explain iridescence, you can see how his scientific background factors into his art: “[Iridescence] is when you have small crystalline patterns at the microscopic level which break up the incoming light and distribute it a different way, and so you get light coming into your eye from different angles in just a planar surface,” he explains. Dunn gets his paintings to shimmer and change under different light with a special technique he developed—and which he keeps under his hat.
2. The Fractal Solution to the Universe
In his second year of neuroscience grad school, Greg Dunn was moonlighting with a different kind of experiment: blowing ink across pieces of paper. The neuron-like pattern it formed was instantly recognizable to him as a neuroscientist. “Ink spreads because it wants to go in the direction of less resistance, and that’s probably also the case of when branches grow or neurons grow,” he says. “The reason the technique works really well is because it’s directly related to how neurons are actually behaving.”
Dunn calls this the “fractal solution to the universe,” which he sees as the “fundamental beauty of nature.” He’s fascinated that this branching pattern holds true across orders of magnitude, whether that’s nanometers for neurons, centimeters for ink, or meters for a tree branch.
3. Asian-Inspired Art
The branching tree motif of Asian art is especially fitting for Dunn’s neuron paintings. Simplicity is key: “What I love about Asian art is that you boil away all the unnecessary crap, and you’re left with an expression of an idea that’s done with spontaneity and grace.” There is nothing extraneous here in this painting of two pyramidal cells, a type of neuron found in the cerebellum and hippocampus.
4. Artistic Creation, Scientific Method
Before he ever touches a brush, Dunn mocks up his paintings in Photoshop, setting the composition and color scheme. Paintings, like a set of experiments, must be planned through in advance. “If the silhouette isn’t great, that painting will never be great. You’ve got to build on a strong foundation,” he says. “That’s true of science as well.”
The curled structure depicted here is the hippocampus, one of the most-studied parts of the brain. It has an integral role in memory and spatial navigation. The famous patient HM, who’d had his hippocampus removed, was unable to form new memories.
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(Source: almostgrownup)
