About me

I'm Leah. I live in brooklyn. I have degrees in psychology, social work and theater. I write music, I sing, and I am a research analyst at a non-profit. My battle cry is (apparently): "DOUBLE MAJOR FOR LIFE!"

OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME (because you care deeply): I love chiptunes, I KNIT, and I watch more anime than the nerdiest kid you know (so, a lot...I watch a lot of anime).

A short, dumb, "all about me sjkdfdskjf!!!" for tumblr

I'm Leah. I live in brooklyn. I have advanced degrees in psychology, social work and theater. I write music. I sing. I am a research analyst at a non-profit (very fancy). I fucking KNIT. I watch more anime than your sexually ambiguous male nerd-friend (so, a lot...I watch a lot of anime). I love chiptunes. I have no idea what I'm doing.

"Ohhh...You're an ANIME nerd..."

So, yeah. If you know me really well...you'll know that I am a HUGE anime nerd. I don't push this information on anyone, because to some, "anime" is synonymous with "weird animated tentacle rape porn." These people who cannot make the obvious distinction between "anime" (any stylized Japanese animation) and "tentacle porn" (which is kind of a sub-genre of "hentai" anime) are retarded.

Also, yeh, it's pretty nerdy to like anime.

I've seen a lot of series, and I'm always looking for more. However, when asking around for suggestions I ultimately get this as a response: "Oh I LOVE Naruto! And Yu Yu Hakusho! And Dragon Ball Z! OH! AND POKEMON!" So, although I'm sure these series have their merits (I've seen more episodes of these than I care to remember), I don't really enjoy them as much as say Neon Genesis Evangelion, Death Note, or Paranoia Agent.

My favorite, favorite, FAVORITE of all time (so far) is Neon Genesis Evangelion. This series actually introduced me to something I'd never really seen in a tv series: I got a sense that the entirety of the story had been decided before the first episode hit air. The series was finite. To me, it seemed as though everything presented in every cell of animation had a purpose to further the story, it's characters, and/or the philosophy of the series as a whole--Using the adolescent understanding I had: "This is like the awesomest, longest movie I've ever seen."

Growing up with 1980's-90's American tv, I'd always assumed that a successful tv series just kind of stays on tv forever. I thought that milking story lines into as many episodes as possible, no matter how it effected the pace of the storytelling, was just part of what made a tv series, a tv series (thats why it's not...a miniseries). You want tight, purposeful storytelling? Go see a movie. TV was for long-term character development. When I was introduced to Evangelion, I asked, "well was it cancelled after only one season? Why isn't it longer if it's so good?" My sister, who initially showed me the series had to explain, "No, this is common in anime...they already know what's going to happen...they already have the beginning, middle and end...and this series is complex, so you really have to remember all of the details, or you won't know what's going on."

This series completely blew me away. It had so many intricate, purposeful layers. I watched it over and over, noticing new aspects and possible philosophical underpinnings every time.

So yeah, I had (and still have) a huge gay boner for Evangelion. And, like a naive emerging adult searching for someone to live up to the standard set by their first love, I tried to find another series that was equally fascinating and satisfying. But, yeah...like first love, you can't (and shouldn't) compare your first anime series boner to any subsequent anime series boners.

HOWEVER, I still find that I enjoy anime series most when:

1. They are finite and/or have well-paced story development (they aren't like Dragon Ball Z, Inuyasha, One Piece, Pokemon, etc.): Not that the never-ending series aren't awesome too. I just find that I get impatient with them. Sometimes these seem more like money-making machines than anything else (not that all series aren't $$ making machines, but the primary focus of these series seems to be "OH FUCK! STAY ON THE AIR! SELL TOYS!"). I mean, you could watch an episode of Dragon Ball Z, move to Guam, and come back 9 months later, and those fuckers would still be fighting Majin Buu.

Also, I know that in the U.S. we get a lot of the cancelled but popular, one-season anime run-off from Japan. I've actually seen a few (maybe two or three) of these that were pretty good. However, you can usually tell (without looking it up) when a series got cancelled or "concluded" before the writers could begin to answer fundamental questions posed. These are only good if the story telling was good to begin with.

A good example of a finite series that I would consider less successful is Ghost Hunt, an anime series that ended after 25 episodes. It ends with many unanswered questions, posed by the main character, which I interpret as "we would like another season, please?" Unlike Evangelion or Death Note (which I consider to be very well thought out), this series leads you down the path of "this element of the story is really important, we're going to use it as a through-line, and it will be explained eventually...we're gonna milk it though." However, in this example, the through-line was never explained, NOR was the ambiguity intentional or helping to recapitulate some fundamental theme of the series (eg:"some things cannot be explained, and that is not comfortable"). I'm not sure if Ghost Hunt was cancelled or not, but if it intentionally left unanswered questions and gaping plot holes, the writing isn't tight enough for me to even attempt a second look.

2. There is character and story development: Don't get me wrong, there are TONS of series that I just watch because those characters are so awesome, as static as they are, JUST KEEP PUTTING THEM IN WACKY SITUATIONS!! I know this isn't anime, but The Simpsons! I mean, come ON! They never change! And I LOVE it! I do have a soft spot for Inuyasha and Pokemon, I will say that, but I fucking get a boner and DIE when a series has characters/plot that progress in interesting and unpredictable ways. DEATH NOTE is a great example of totally fall-off-your-fucking-couch, intriguing plot and character development.

3. Explores Meaningful themes/Explores themes in a meaningful way:

Denno Coil? Holy shit! That entire series is so creative, and yet uses themes from cultural context! This series explores technology and how it can divide youth from adults, creating opportunities for youth exploration and also youth risk; communication and language between peers and between kids and adults, etc etc etc. Monster explores trauma, coping with trauma and poses whether or not true evil or good exist. There are so many awesome examples...

Anyway, series like Pokemon, etc, while fun in a certain guilty pleasure kind of way, are not really enjoyable for me and tend to make me impatient or frustrated.

So yeah, please don't insist that "Naruto is like crack" or "One-Piece is so fuckin' rad." If it doesn't have a brain...I can't watch it. I mean...I probably will anyway, but I promise I'll be multi-tasking if I do.

Non-threatening on the train (it sucks).

I don't know if this has to do with being physically teeny-tiny (I am teeny-tiny), or if this is an everyone thing, but even on nearly empty trains:

Huge dudes lean their weight on me, or actually step on me when the train shifts. They usually make eye-contact before or after (I had three toes broken this way before I started saying things like, "hey, I'm really sorry, but that hurts. I can't support your weight, I'm sorry"), and they never apologize.

I've had luggage, purses, plastic bags full of shoes, groceries, and even garbage literally leaned up against me, as though I am a tiny part of the scenery, a helpful inanimate object. When this happens, I move away, and the stuff that was carefully balanced on me sags, or falls over. This usually causes the owner to shoot me a dirty look, as if to say "that was your job, and you fucked it up."

Is there a kid on the train? Yes. How do I know? They are kneeling next to me, face pressed to the window, one sneaker in my lap. They always drag their parent(s) in my direction.

I am the FIRST one the crazy dude/lady talks to. A few years ago on "Manic Cycling Day," (the first warm day of the year, a few co-workers and I named it "manic cycling day," because random warm weather usually acts as a catalyst for manic episodes--causing our ER to be FULL of tangential, hyper, super-happy and grandiose crazy people) I had three psychotic people come up to me on the train, all word-salad. When I saw the fourth one (a lady with a huge "JESUS" sign) making a fucking bee-line over to me after entering the car, I looked up and said very plainly, "No. I don't want to know about Jesus, I don't want to know about the voices. No. Go away." She looked at me in the way that people who are actively hearing voices look at you when they feel rejected (which is: a little distracted, but hurt), and she left the car. The people around me, struck by the interaction, wanted to talk to me about it. "People talk to me on the train," I explained, "I mean, what made you get up the courage to talk just now? Mostly people ignore each other. I guess I'm non-threatening. Anyway, I'm going to go back to reading this and listening to my ipod, nice talking though."

The New Kid (Disclaimers about "Naivete" from a Social Researcher)

I am the "new guy" at my job right now. I'm the one that people know the least about (I'm not weirdly silent, or anything, I just don't frequently behave in the usual "here is my disarming response to your obvious insecurities...I can relate, also here is a funny joke" way, just yet). There are contextual reasons for this (My cube is isolated and I have a LOT of work to do...I stress "a LOT of work to do"). Anyway, as much as this relative, momentary isolation is stressful, it is also preserving my outsider's eye. It is forcing me to be a "truer" researcher, like in the Jane Goodall sense ("I am watching you, and watching me. AND I'm watching you, watching me, watching you, and I would like honest feedback about you feeling me watching you, and you watching me, watching you, etc."). I am noticing social platitudes more acutely: who wants to be liked, who gets their work done, what the actual structure is, what methods people use to get what they want (or "get their needs met," which, in this scenario, is really the same thing as "get what you want," but less sociopath-y sounding), etc.

Essentially: all of the things I will need to notice in the future when I assess the "climate" of the organization (part of my job), will be partially lost and biased once I am fully integrated into the social milieu. My ability to blindly assess programmatic details in global terms will ultimately be marred by "feeling some kinds of ways" about meaningless details and daily minutiae.

Inherent in the process of engagement is the concept of transparency. In other words, people are more likely to give you honest answers to questions when they feel: comfortable or "safe," that they aren't being judged, and feel that they "know" who is asking the questions. People tend to report feeling "comfortable" when they sense that they are not being judged or scrutinized. A really quick and easy way to prove that you "aren't judging," is by offering what they (the people you need data from) perceive to be equally or similar information about yourself, function, role or purpose. In other words, people feel more comfortable telling me, a stranger, intimate details of their life when I say things such as:

"seriously though, this is just a form, it goes into a HUGE database, we don't even know whose answers are whose. It's all coded, like instead of your name, there's like, random letters and numbers and stuff. I mean, I have a problem remembering names of people in my regular life, I'm definitely not like, watching and remembering the little boxes you check on this form."

Have I said these words before? Yes, I have. This has always put respondents at ease (always). Are the words that I say to respondents true? No, they are not necessarily entirely true, but I get the point across in language I wouldn't normally use (I try to sound a little less intelligent than the respondent. I play dumb. I ask questions under the guise of pure naivete, which, technically it is, this curiosity isn't a guise at all). I'm almost speaking a foreign language in order to get a more robust and thorough response. I have to hide myself for the sake of accurate reporting.

Yes, all identifying information is coded, and kept under lock and key. Yes there IS a HUGE database, and no, I don't really care about what boxes respondents check. However, I will remember their name, and I will certainly remember if respondents behave in markedly different ways in response to certain questions. Do I attribute responses given to personal character flaws? No, usually, I do not.

People also respond really well to free food. "Here is a bagel, fill this thing out." Just sayin'

Here is something boring about SEWING

I am attempting to hand-sew a one-piece jumper. That's right hand-sew. I don't have a machine right now. Fortunately, my mom (wisely) did not let me mess her her sewing machines unsupervised until I was about 15, so I can sew in straight lines sans machine. Just this thing would've been done in like, 20 minutes, and now it's gonna be done in like...I dunno...fucking HOURS. Anyone wanna get rid of their sewing machine? I make cool stuff. I wear some of the things I've made, and people think it's from urban. PLEASE. give me free things? I'll make you something cool?

More Reasons.