User:Alexandra

It wasn't until about a year ago that I was able to own the word and label "goth". For around six years, I have been drawn to the goth subculture's aesthetics, its eclecticism, its creative and artistic elements, the greater connection its members tend to have to the emotional dimension of their lives, and its various and associated styles of genre dress. However, I did not feel comfortable w/ the label, or w/ dressing in a way that would immediately lead people to assume I was part of a subculture. I assumed people would think I was immature, going through a rebellious "phase", that I practiced self-mutilation, or the other major stereotypes. It was difficult for me until my third year of college to start using the word "goth" to describe myself and dressing the way I felt most comfortable/visually indicating my interests/attraction to the subculture. It was difficult because I saw no one else who looked like me in my social sphere, or even on the street. It felt invalidating. It wasn't until my third year of college that I saw someone else who dressed like I did, and looked so immeasurably comfortable in his own skin one would think subculture wasn't sub to the majority culture. He identified as a punk, but I finally felt validated. I started owning the word "goth" for myself, rather than fearing the framework of others.

Anyway, I wanted to join this site because I now realize that community is important to me.

I enjoy being silly, thinking analytically, and savoring. Plus a lot of other things. I practice four visual arts, I write poetry and prose, and I am a scientist.

My Division III (what most of you would know as a senior thesis) is on joy and savoring through positive affect regulation, in which I am designing and executing an empirical study of gratitude versus awe savoring and their differential effects on facilitating/inhibiting creativity on a short creative writing task. The OTHER half of my Division III is creative writing, using the concept and theory of rasa from classical Sanskrit literary convention to craft short pieces of fiction suffused w/ "ambient emotion." Mainly joy, and contexts relating to joy (which I am not quantifying by the Webster dictionary's definition).

I like bunnies. :P