about me, vee

my name is vivian.
i live in and love the pacific northwest.
i do freelance graphic and web design.
i run an independent music and art magazine called REDEFINE.
i will talk to anyone and everyone, anytime and anywhere.
i am a sagittarius through and through.
i believe in the beauty of calculated chaos.

the longer bullshit:
i like music, art, social experimentation, traveling, writing, bright colors, drawing, making up words, reading, and talking to strangers. i need healthy doses of alone time. i live life like i want to live it. sometimes it’s glamorous, and sometimes it’s hideous. i go with the flow and like to embrace the things that “chance” happens to bring. i am totally a romantic, but most people would never know by interacting with me.

this blog is dedicated to ramblings from my travels and my musings on daily life. there’s not much filtering, and the only filtering is if certain people are directly involved and what i write might hurt feelings or reveal feelings when i’m not ready to reveal them. but as far as my general emotions and sentiments and states of minds go, they’re all here. i’ve learned a long time ago that i don’t really care. i don’t really care if people know my deepest, darkest secrets. i don’t have taboo questions. you can ask me anything.

in general, i enjoy communicating with absolute strangers. please feel free to e-mail me at hellomynameisvee@gmail.com about anything at all. i’m serious. i encourage you to talk to me about absolutely anything. have problems you want to share? want to tell a funny story? desire to expound on how much you disagree? whatever you want. let’s connect.

in other news, here are some shameless links so that i can publicize my own crap:
REDEFINE MAGAZINE — i run this.
ILOVESOCIALEXPERIMENTS — experiments and documentation.
SUSHIMONSTERS — find sushi restaurants in your area.
CREATE OR DIE — 365 days of art creation.
MAYBEDREAMS — a blog about dreams and meanings.
PICASA — personal travel photos.
FLICKR — the more artsy fartsy of the photos.
LAST.FM — my musical tastes.

7 Comments to “about me, vee”

    
  1. Schpilkas
    June 18, 2009 at 19:27

    just wanted to say thanks for rockin’ my track “This One” back in 2001. I’ve got plenty more…

    peace.
    -

    Reply
  2. Oguz
    May 19, 2010 at 07:07

    Hi, I saw your video on youtube about Istanbul and that video led me here. And I had a look at your blog and really liked it especially the photos. Though I live in Istanbul I havent seen some parts of Istanbul I think I’m kinda jealous:) It seems that in everycity you tasted different foods that’s nice but If I ate that much food I would be dead I suppose. After looking at all those food photos I feel hungry… a lot.
    Anyway nice blog and nice photos all of them. I need to study for my final exams now. Another dark month trapped in home for studying.
    Have fun!

    Reply
  3. soopahvi
    May 19, 2010 at 15:33

    thanks for stopping by! i wonder what parts of istanbul i’ve been to and you haven’t? funny!

    Reply
  4. Oguz
    May 23, 2010 at 17:35

    Sorry for the late answer as I mentioned *ucking stressful exams. There is a city wall in one of the photos. I even dont know the exact location of that city wall. And I have never seen that graffiti in Istanbul. I study in Istanbul University, it’s close to Grand Bazaar. It must be on my way to school but never seen that. I’ve become suspicious about myself. And I’ve been to Bursa, Izmir, Canakkale but never had a chance to visit touristic parts “thoroughly”I visited Anzac Memorial, it was nice though it made me sad.
    And about the blockage for cigarette on tvs. Our stupid government enforced that law to prevent youth from smoking. Idiotic and unnecessary law…
    Liked your blog, there are so much to read. Sorry for grammatical mistakes, it’s been long time I havent practised english.
    Have a nice day.

    Reply
  5. soopahvi
    May 24, 2010 at 00:03

    exams for what? :) the graffiti i saw near the galata tower (very close to it), but i really saw it EVERYWHERE! i’m surprised you haven’t seen it! i have a lot more entries about turkey to come, but i haven’t had time to post them yet. also went to cappadoccia and antalya… i love turkey!!

    the cigarette thing is really funny. i’m going to post a picture later where some people are in a room and there are like 20 cigarettes on the table… FLOWERS EVERYWHERE! :)

    your english is just fine. it’s good! thank you for reading. :D

    Reply
  6. Oguz
    May 24, 2010 at 15:37

    University final exams Classic Western Literature, Ancient Mythology, American Literature etc etc They are fun sometimes but boring sometimes for a student :) I go to Antalya every summer it’s a really nice city but it’s too hot for me. It is hot for everyone I guess except locals.
    And yep in some movies you dont or “cannot” see the movie all you see is bouquet of flowers… I really wonder is there any other country censoring the cigarette on tv’s…
    I’ll be looking forward to seeing those other photos.

    Reply
  7. Bill Main
    October 9, 2011 at 16:55

    Hello Vivian:
    It was good to talk with you at Zuccotti Park on Friday. I’d been following the news about Occupy Wall Street, but Friday was the first time I went there myself.

    I took a quick look at your website (hellomynameisvee.com) and also Redefine. There’s a lot of information and articles there that look interesting. I was also impressed that you have travelled a great deal (I’ve never been out of the country except for a few trips to Canada).

    I’ve been reading a lot about the Arab Spring. I’ve been fascinated by events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. Ironically I’ve probably been more interested in the protests that have been happening in the Middle East than I have about the protests hers in the USA – at least until now.

    Actually (and as you probably realize) the protests against the current economic situation are a global phenomena that include not just Wall Street and some Arab countries but India, Israel, Greece and Spain as well. Of course, it makes sense that a global economic crisis should spark global protests.

    As I think I mentioned, I’ve been out of work for most of the past year. I’ve been looking for work in the non-profit sector and I have experience working or volunteering with several non-profit organizations. I went back to grad school to get a Masters in Public Affairs thinking that would help me in a non-profit career, but so far I’ve spend more times as an unpaid intern or volunteer than at a paying job.

    When I’m not looking for a job (which takes up most of my time) I’ve also been trying to understand the current economic crisis. What exactly has gone wrong than has left me and millions of other people unemployed? That’s been the question that now consumes my mind (aside from the immediate problem of finding just one job for myself).
    When I was in grad school I had to take two courses in economics. As a proud autodidact, over the years I’d focused on literature, history, philosophy, but neglected the subject of economics. Throughout the economic classes as I listened to the professor I had the feeling that something wasn’t right… somehow or other the ideas the professor presented didn’t seem convincing to me, but I lacked the background to know what was wrong. (Interestingly I graduated just at the beginning of the current economic difficulties in 2008 – I wonder that the professor would have said about it all…)

    After I graduated I continued to gnaw at the ideas the professor brought up. I had the opportunity to continue reading in economics (when I wasn’t busy looking for a job, doing volunteer work or just worrying about the future). And I did finally manage to locate the missing element in my economics class whose absence made the classes seem so empty and now helps explains the current economic crisis.

    The missing element in my economics classes was John Maynard Keynes. He was an enormously influential 20th Century British economist who published his most famous work General Theory of Employment Interest and Money in 1936. His ideas had a direct influence on FDR’s New Deal policies during the Great Depression. Indeed, Keynesianism of one kind or another was the most influential economic policy from the end of World War II until the early 1970s. (Richard Nixon famously said “We are all Keynesians now.”) In other words, Keynes’ ideas helped lead the US and the UK out of the Depression and were instrumental in helping to bring about 30 years of unprecedented economic growth.

    However, Keynes’ ideas have now virtually been banished from the realm of academic economics – the professor I had did not mention Keynes at all and his ideas were not even alluded to in the textbooks or lectures assigned for the class. (And Keynes is not an economic crank: he taught at Cambridge, was a high ranking official in the British treasury and an important participant in the Bretton Woods economic conference after World War II.) So my experience in graduate school economics was rather like taking a class in biology that doesn’t mention Darwin or a course on physics that doesn’t mention Einstein.

    But just what are Keynes’ ideas on economics? To be honest, I’m still slow in understanding economic theory so I’m not the right person to give a succinct explanation of some complicated economic ideas (and I won’t bore you with a long lecture). Also Keynes offers a critique of classical economics (that is, the ideas associated with Adam Smith, David Riccardo and later economists including Leon Walrus and John Marshal); so in order to understand Keynes first you have to understand the basics of classical economics and then you have to understand Keynes’ critique. You can get a quick hint of Keynes’ ideas from the entry about him on Wikipedia and a quick Google search on his name brings bring up lots of information. So far the best books I’ve discovered about Keynes include The Keynesian Solution by Paul Davidson (which is written as a basic introduction for non-economists like me) and Keynes: The Return of the Master by Robert Skidelsky (who wrote a three volume biography of Keynes). (Chapters from both of these books are available on Google Books.)

    I plan to go back to Zuccotti Park soon and maybe I’ll get more involved with the movement. Judging from just that one visit there doesn’t seem to be one single issue that unites all the protesters. Although the protest is based near Wall Street there are also people protesting the war in Afghanistan, various environmental issues (including fracking) and many other topics.

    I guess the reason I bring up Keynes (aside from the fact that I’ve been reading a lot about him lately) is that there doesn’t seem to be one set of clear ideas put forward by the people at Zuccotti Park that can provide insight into the current economic crisis. Of course, maybe that’s exactly the point – I remember the quote you mentioned from Aldous Huxley about how no one tradition or point of view can provide all the answers. However, I wonder if it can be a limitation for a political moment not to focus on one point of view and settle on one specific issue. For example, I think one of the reasons the Tea Party has been so influential recently is precisely because they were willing to focus on a handful of simplistic ideas (no taxes; reduce the size of government; anti-immigration, etc.).

    Perhaps I’ve gone on long enough for one letter. Again it was great to talk to you at Zuccotti Park and I hope we can stay in contact. Drop me a line when you get a chance and feel free to ask me anything you like.

    Good luck with everything in your life

    Bill Main

    Reply
    

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