The Syndicate

*as an addendum to the marijuana vs alcohol question, I realize that not everyone lives in the US. As such, laws may be different. I'm not as familiar with the laws of other countries especially in regards to drugs, so I can't speak to that.

juliets wrote: ↑Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:08 pm Thanks Aeris, very interesting and I hope you are able to make inroads with respect to reformative justice. If anyone will you will.

thank you, juliets!

dunya wrote: ↑Sun Apr 22, 2018 6:24 pm Aeris, do you think marijuana is worse than alcohol?

It's not really a matter of worse.

Is it worse for you? I don't think that's a matter of opinion. I'm not informed enough to know about the health effects of marijuana vs. alcohol stack up. I am sure that with enough research, I would be able to come to an informed answer, and one that is objectively accurate.


Is it morally worse? It's a matter of degree. While I would not use marijuana myself as I dislike the smell, and don't really want to deal with snuffling like I've got a permanent runny nose afterwards, I also don't drink (except for a rare occasion like on vacation when hanging out with some friends. And I'll have 1 drink max). I think doing anything to excess is morally reprehensible. Drinking responsibly should be your goal, and drinking should not control you. Similarly, if you decide to use marijuana, do it responsibly and with full awareness of how it could affect your health. I don't really see a real moral distinction between marijuana and alcohol, as they are both mind-altering substances and are technically drugs.

In terms of legality, marijuana is not legalized in all 50 states. If you want to use it recreationally, you should abide by the law and just move if it's really that important. However, if it's that important, maybe you should rethink your life decisions because you might just be addicted. In terms of legality with regards to underage drinking, respect your local law. The alcohol law in the US is loosely based off of childhood/adolescent brain development. Before a certain age, drinking alcohol impedes brain development and has other potentially negative consequences on the pre-adult brain.

Alright, I tried to brainstorm non-music ones and here's what I came up with:
- If you could visit any place within the U.S. you have never been right now for say, a few days or a week or so, where would it be and why?
- Same question as above except outside the U.S.?
- What are some of your favorite foods?
- What is your least favorite food(s)?
- Do you have any fears or phobias?

-I'd want to go to either Yosemite or Yellowstone National Park. Or both. Definitely both. I love the beauty as far as I've seen in the photos, and I like hiking. I also really like exploring nature and taking a million photos with my <3 Nikon.

-I've always wanted to go to London, because I'm a huge Shakespeare nerd, and because I love tea, scones, and British accents. I also like museums and historical buildings, and London's got plenty of those. I want to visit the places I've read about. Such nerd. Ahhhhh
OR I would like to go to Vienna. I want to see the birthplace of Mozart, and also check out the museums and composer gravesites/homes there. Plus, I'd want to go to the Vienna State Opera, and also go hear the Vienna Philharmonic. Ahhhhhh
OR Venice. I want to go on a gondola ride, eat lots of yummy food, go to many bakeries, and take pictures. Also, I'd probably buy a lot of Venetian glass beads.
-Favorite foods: dark chocolate, red bean Chinese/Japanese/Korean desserts (buns, pastries, mochi, ice cream, etc, etc), green tea desserts, chai, Shoofly pie, lava cake, tiramisu, pork buns, xiao long tang bao (soup dumplings), ba bao zhou (red bean + other yummy bean sweet porridge/soup), zha jiang mian (really yummy noodles in this amazing sauce), kao fu (this slightly sweet and salty tofu thing that's just plain delicious), zong zi (sticky rice filled with meat and veggies), ci fan (Shanghainese specialty, sticky rice with pork rou si (which is a dried meat) with a little bit of sugar), bubble/boba tea (white peach, lychee, mango, green tea, red bean are all great flavors, + bubbles), curry, crab cake, Pad Thai, Thai tea, this one spicy fried eggplant recipe from this particular restaurant, this one breaded eggplant recipe from another particular restaurant, rockfish, Beijing kao ya (Beijing fried duck served with all the side dishes), Korean bbq.... and many more >.< I can't choose.
-Least favorite: mushrooms + related fungal family, papaya, durian, guava, bananas
-Whenever I'm eating, I'm always on the lookout for mushroom presence. I'm always suspicious that there might be a mushroom lurking in my food.
Other fears/phobias I have I don't really want to get into, as they're not that light-hearted.

M Plus 7 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:08 am Hello, Aeris! I'll throw some more questions at you. They'll be mostly music-related because that's how I roll and I'm not creative with these things, sorry.

- If you could instantaneously learn and master any instrument (besides the piano), which instrument would it be and why?
- What genres (or subgenres) of music are you interested in?
- What are some of your favorite artists / composers / bands?
- If you had to pick "desert island" albums, what would they be? (can be top 5, 10, 15, 20, whatever you are most comfortable with)
- Have you been to any concerts? If so, what was your most treasured experience and why?
- How do you feel about minimalism in music composition?

- I would want to instantaneously learn and master MANY instruments. My top picks right now are probably acoustic guitar and then drums. I already play/have played violin, viola, and harp, so I'm not going to count instruments I play decently well. Flute is also a fringe choice.
- So many... let me give you a broad overview:
power metal
prog rock
tasteful screamo (lol)
witch house
EDM
a capella stuff
twelve-tone music
modern atonality
Impressionist music (classical)
indie classical
indie rock
cool jazz
bebop
indie pop
some rap

-favorite artists/composers/bands, ohhhh boyyyy:
Francis Poulenc
Fryderyk Chopin
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
Amy Beach
Caroline Shaw
Judd Greenstein
yMusic
Purity Ring
Glass Animals
Akiko Shikata
Alan Walker
Christina Perri
Marshmello
ELO
Fleet Foxes
Yiruma
Gabrielle Aplin
Hillsong Worship
Boubil and Schoenberg (Les Mis)
Owl City
Pentatonix
Regina Spektor
Sara Bareilles
Tides of Man
Steam Powered Giraffe
Vampire Weekend
Telepathic Teddy Bear

-desert island albums... I need all of them??? I'm going to cheat a little with the classical music ones...:
Beyonce, Lemonade
Christina Perri, Head or Heart
Purity Ring, Another Eternity
Regina Spektor, What We Saw from the Cheap Seats
Sara Bareilles, The Blessed Unrest
Tides of Man, Empire Theory
Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, Surf
Owl City, Ocean Eyes
Taylor Swift, Fearless
Taylor Swift, Speak Now
All of Mozart's Piano Sonatas
All of Chopin's Nocturnes
All of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words
All of Hindemith's Concertos
All of Schubert's art songs
All of Poulenc's melodie
Poulenc Flute Sonata
Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht
The entire soundtrack of A Very Potter Musical (1)
The entire soundtrack of West Side Story
The entire soundtrack of Les Miserables

-I've only been to classical music concerts. My favorite one must have been when I got to hear Marc Andre Hamelin play. He was marvelous! Another favorite concert that I got to be a a part of was a pops concert that had members of the original cast of Les Mis singing!!! So amazing. Hearing Terrence Mann sing "Stars" was just so beautiful. It's my absolute favorite Les Mis song.

-I both like and hate minimalism in music composition, depending on how it's used. Minimalism a la Philip Glass? Hard pass. He reuses and repeats things so often that I get so sick of his music. It's fine to use a small amount or a limited amount of musical elements, but there still needs to be some variation that creates interest. If it meets that requirement, then I'll enjoy it. Generally, though, I'm a fan of things with hidden complexities and I love polyphony.


I'll get to the non music related ones in the next post.

juliets wrote: ↑Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:46 am @Aeris I'm so impressed with your choice of a career. How and when did you become interested in restorative and reformative justice? And are there certain law schools you are interested in? What are they? Finally, the $64,000 question: when are you going to mafia with us?

Hi juliets!

I became interested specifically in restorative and reformative justice after I took a course in college about the idea of crime. We studied methodologies for preventing crime, looked at the commonalities between people who were committed petty crime versus more severe crimes, and looked at the effects of a poor family structure, lack of connections to social institutions like school and church, and etcetera. The conclusion wasn't that some people are naturally born more likely to be criminals. In fact, the common story is that someone is born into a situation in which committing crimes is easy, you have many opportunities to do so, and it's difficult for you to stop once you start because of the long memory of the criminal justice system with regards to a criminal record. Realizing that even if people wanted to do the right thing and break out of the loop of committing crimes, going to jail, and committing crimes again once released, the entire system was rigged against them -- that led me to think that there must be something that could be done differently about crime and punishment. Although breakthroughs in reformative justice are few, it's definitely an area that needs more work and more funding from the government to explore. Restoration that incorporates the community, the victim, and the justice system working together could help reduce recidivism (which is people committing crimes who have done so before) and would be an alternative to condemning the person who commits a crime.

There are law schools I'm interested in! But I'm leaving it at that, because it depends on my LSAT score (how high it is, haha).

I will play mafia eventually with you guys, promise! Let me know when something interesting comes up. I almost played Fire Emblem Mafia because I love FE.

Oh whoops, I never finished c.

Let's say that was intentional and that I have another pet peeve that I totally can think of right now but am hiding from y'all.

Hi dunya! Thanks for doing this <3

As for what I'm studying, I'm an English and Piano Performance double major, minoring in Philosophy. I'm using English as a Pre-Law degree.
To give a general overview (I can elaborate about this if you guys are interested!) I'm very passionate about law, criminal justice reform, and creating a sort of environment in the US that is no longer couched in systemic injustice. I believe in restorative and reformative justice rather than incarceration and sentencing as punitive justice. To this end, I would like to become a different sort of prosecutor, and am pursuing an internship with a justice and research institution that works together with prosecutors and other people in law. I'm also doing piano because I've played since I was five, and I really enjoy music and the joy it gives other people. I decided to major in it also because teaching piano would be great to do in between undergrad and law school, and I would like to continue playing piano at a professional level. (I also intend to never retire, so piano would be great to teach when I'm old and gray :P)

My major pet peeves include:
a) When people mix up words when they're writing, such as there, they're, their (along with other grammar mistakes)
b) I'm not sure this would count as a pet peeve, but people speaking so loudly and so often that they don't give others a chance to speak. I don't mind being interrupted as much as never getting a chance to say what I want to (and I hate interrupting others in casual conversation!)
c)

I really enjoyed going to Seattle and meeting up with @Kylemii and a few other friends. Best parts of the trip: can I say everything? Haha! The food was great, the parks and the wildlife were so beautiful, everything was within walkable distance, I enjoyed every single tourist attraction and shop I went to, and I met a lot of new friends and got to catch up with the old. The worst parts of the trip: seeing Seattle's large homeless population and feeling really terrible about not being able to do anything about it. Realizing that I felt uncomfortable around them and that I still have this bias that I need to fight against and work against. That's probably more serious than you were anticipating, but it's out there now! Another more light-hearted worst part was that I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, and the city was pretty expensive to stay in for even a week.

I'm a mix, probably. When I was younger I was definitely a tomboy - I was the leader of a group of other children who were all boys but me, or so I'm told, back in my hometown. I was pretty rough and tumble, but I never hated wearing dresses or anything like that. I love to dress up and I love fashion, and always have, so I'd say that's girly? I know I had a real big complex about the color pink, because that's the epitome of girly to me, for some strange reason. To this day, I don't like a lot of pink, but it's okay in small doses.

:P