I have to say, I have never been so exhausted in my life than after this trip--physically and emotionally! I kept imagining myself as a colonial kissing the ground I arrive .. being on the voyage for months and months--because that's what this felt like! My first flight from Tucson to LAX was fine--tiny tiny airplane, but I sat next to a normal looking lady and got the window, so that was cool. When I checked in my bags, they were supposed to take off the cat flag, since I was no longer bringing them, and told me my bags would be checked all the way through and then told me what to do once I got to LAX, which was a relief. So I blindly follow the lady's instructions once I get to LAX to get to the international section. I literally felt like I was in a different country as soon as I got into the terminal. When I first looked up my gate, I got it wrong...hey I had had four hours of sleep...and ended up sitting at a gate leaving for Tahiti...this obviously confused me so I walked allllllll the way back to the screens to check again and realized I had walked 16 gates the wrong way! Luckily I had a 3 hour layover. Once I finally got to the right gate, I was basically in Japan. Until we were boarding, I was literally the only non-Asian in the waiting area and they gave allllll of the instructions not in English, so i had no clue what was going on, until I heard the airport attendants call a "mistah Draves, Brittany" so I got up and went to the counter and had to explain that I had no cats again and they gave me new boarding passes in Japanese. Eventually, people started boarding, so I just followed...

Then it was off to Tokyo...the plane was huge and there were TV's on the back of the seats in front of you to watch movies, shows, or play games on and a flat screen on the front that showed a camera view of the front of the plane at take off, which was awesome--the flat screen also showed the planes progress and times. There were like 12 different movies to choose from...Indiana Jones, Sex in the City, What Happens in Vegas, Narnia, Konfu Panda, etc. and some Japanese movies that you could get in English subtitles. I watched one of those called Waterboys...it was very slapsticky about these high school boys who end up doing sychronized swimming...I ended up sitting next to a French Canadian so thankfully he spoke English--he was going to China...he was weird. He kept trying to give me some See's Candy...and took up his seat as well as the one between us with his stuff and himself. Then he would like stretch yoga style with his legs like straight in the air...he was about 8 times more flexible then the average person. Then at the very end of the flight he got all hostile--I asked how long he thought Japanese customs would take...and he snapped that he didn't know he had never gone through it before and that couldn't possibly be worse than going through American customas as a non-citizen...I was like well excuse me! The Japanese flight attendant thought we were traveling together because she kept asking me if he wanted food or if she could wake him up...I was like I don' t know haha. I slept maybe two hours on the whole flight because I just couldn't get comfy, but I was so exhausted I couldn't read or write. About three hours into the flight I started getting very anxious and thought I was going freak out, but then that is when I was able to sleep. The food was decent--chicken and rice, noodles, a roll, and ice cream and then what I told myself was Japanese lasagna because it was like doughy duplings with red sauce with...I think...bacon and onions and stuff in it. All of the instructions on the plane were first in Japanese, so the flight attendants or the captain would talk for like ten mins in Japanese and everyone would be doing stuff and I'd be looking around trying to figure out what was going on and then finally they would say, "Ladies and Gentlemen the seat belt like is back on.." I'd be like...seriously, that's it? But I was the jerk who turned off their electronics last or put their chair up last bc I didn't know till ten mins after everyone else!

When I finally arrived in Tokyo, I had no clue what I was doing! I sort of just followed people, but I only had an hour so I was trying to hurry. All they did through Immigration was take my fingerprints and picture. Then I went through customs...the lady asked me if I had a bag, I told her that it was being checked all the way through and she said no, that it had to be picked up and brought through customs--I was confused and had only 20 mins till boarding. Thankfully, although we barely understood each other she took care of me...she just started running around so I followed her and she passed me off to a customs guy who I then ran after and we got my bag and then the same lady told me to run straight, up the stairs and to GATE C...but she was like please run! hah so I did! I ran allll the way--I was so exhausted and had been sitting for 13 hours already so needless to say I was insanely out of breath haha (not to mention out of shape, too) oh and I had a backpack on too so ...imagine me running with backpack, purse...looking like a zombie... anyways I was the last to board, but I made it! By the time I got to Amber and John I was crying--I was so happy to be at my destination and so sleep deprived! It was weird driving on the wrong side. When I got to their house, their little dog, Scotch half greyhound half lab who they just adopted, did not like me apparently. He was growling at me and then when i was walking bit my foot! So we tried to get him to like me and he bit my hand! I was like are u freakin kidding me, I travel for 24 hours to get by a dog! I was then scared of him, but I gave him a treat and this morning he seems to be perfectly fine with me. I went to sleep about 11 here, so 26 hours after getting up from my four hour nap before leaving Tucson... I slept only till 7 bc when i looked out my window it was so amazing I was too excited to go back to sleep hah and so I woke up Amber and got up so I could write this. I'll keep in touch, this weekend we are going to some festival or something I don't know. I think we are going to go to the beach today. Talk to you soon!

I was not expecting to like this book (er rather the conclusion because there is no way I could have read the entire book) BUT, nonetheless, I am intrigued. And surprised. So if all of the things I have to say or thought of while reading it and then write in this post are insignificant or not at all what the author was really talking about, I don't care. I'm just going to go with it. Plus I'm all caffeined up. Forgive my lack of punctuation too I’m just feeling rebellious.

First off I'm going to go with the human voice as agent. I don't know why, it just struck me. I know it’s so blatant but like I said in the beginning of this class--I've never really thought about media or even what constitutes a medium. So to think of the human voice as a medium seems so optimistic--we have so much power in the sounds we make--ok this obviously isn't a new idea, but it can be easy to forget this idea. The idea that there is power in the sound of the voice and not just in the words being uttered by it. But its SOUND. Its tone, its intonation, its volume, etc. communicates as much as words can… I dont know...next fragmented idea.

How about the idea that sound technologies are social artifacts. Plus when these sound technologies came about and why--what the inventions mean in relation to culture and society. I have no idea--maybe if I read the book I will. It's just interesting. Maybe I will add more to this later, but right now I can't really think of anything to comment on.

I also thought it was interesting that Stern said it seems that society has a social NEED for new technology. When new inventions come out, people don't want them they need them. In a sense they do, if they want to continue communicating with everyone else by the same medium and function easily in society. I can remember not having a computer in high school and struggling to turn in papers that were required to be typed and missing out on all the Instant Messaging that was goin on! Then moving to college it was like I needed a laptop to do homework, because I couldn't take my home computer away from home in order to use it (and living with my parents I could NOT do homework at home). So then I needed my own computer and it needed to be the most recent trend of portable computers accessible to me--a lap top. I mean obviously I didn't NEED these things, but they made my life, I guess, easier because computers and the internet have become necessary in today's society for various reasons. It’s just plain weird if someone can't be contacted by email—it’s inconvenient. The internet too is connected to this. To have a computer means to have the internet. Of course all of the social aspects that go into the internet is unlimited. Not having access to the internet seems to disconnect a person from the rest of society. Well anyways this is supposed to be about sound not the internet...

OK this doesn't have to do with sound either, but I thought it was interesting when Stern said something about large-scale societies being needed in order to realize the political programs of the Enlightenment (liberty, democracy equality, and the pursuit of happiness) and that, “In order for people to be free to pursue these goals, they need to be born into a society large enough that the circumstances of their birth do not necessarily determine their life chances.” Well when I first read this I scoffed. Just because from grade school we are taught that these are the ideals that this country has been built on, and I do not think that we live in a society that, by this definition, would allow us to pursue such goals. To an extent, maybe, but I feel that if one is born to poor, or middle class, parents they will most likely themselves be within the same class. There are of course a few “American Dream” exceptions, but they are few. Those born to the upper middle class are more likely to be the upper middle class. I feel like these days it takes having an education to make money (unless of course your field is teaching) and in order to get a education deemed valid by society—it costs money—money that working middle class and lower middle class people find hard to fork over. If they do get the money they will be paying it back for years and years. Anyways, I could rant about that for a while.

Lastly, (I could go on for some reason this conclusion made me think of a million things) I thought the “Lost and Found Sound” thing that NPR is doing is awesome! What an awesome way to gain a peak into the histories of everyday people throughout time—first hand accounts and sources that are so real. Actually, I’ve always found it eerie to see old pictures or hear sound recordings of people from the past that are no longer—I can see why it was thought that the camera captured one’s soul. Anyways, it made me think of how my sister got a Karaoke machine when we were kids and how we spent hours and hours recording ourselves—making talk shows, soap operas, and game shows up. And then listening to them years later…which was always hilarious to us. Anyways, I want to look into that and see if I can get ahold of any of that. I’m just going to stop now.