Alien-Human Hybrid

My first semester of graduate school is complete. Wrap it up and put it under the tree!

I have some rather lofty goals for the "winter break," which starts - for me - tomorrow afternoon, when my half-day at work ends:

• Blog every day, even if I don't have anything to say.
• Read a lot, including a big, fat classic novel and something by Stephen King.
• Successfully cook a dinner that is not microwavable or stored in a can.
• ...And if that goes well, bake something from scratch.
• Discover some crevice of X-Files fandom I have not yet explored.

In other news, I'm about as jolly as St. Nick himself lately. What a beautiful time of year. If I could, I'd wear a Santa suit 24 hours a day, for the next four days. Now that's festive!

Labels: Academics, Blogging, Christmas

Posted by Sara at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

So. This is the first class I've missed, and I just want to comment on how fantastic it is to be able to check in at trinblogwarriors.blogspot.com and catch up on what I've missed, from the professor's perspective as well as from my classmates' perspectives. I know it's now common to use the internet and email and even Blackboard in academic settings, but those tools do not seem to provide the same communal feel that blogs do. Because this class forces us not just to absorb information and respond to it, but to respond to it in a public forum and then respond to the responses of other students, we really do form a sort of tribe, a close knit community where we can continually challenge ourselves. And where a sick tribe member can feel like she's still part of the campfire without really being there. (Is this feverish talk?)

My initial point (the one I intended to make) is that I think blogging is an amazing tool for the classroom, one that has the potential to keep everyone active in the discussions or, at least, aware of the discussions. Maybe blogging will grow in academic popularity?

I'm mixing topics here (forgive me, Nielsen!), but Livejournal is going to be an awesome thing to discuss. I can barely contain my excitement. Squee!

Labels: Academics, Blogging

Posted by Sara at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'm back. From the flaming pits of hell otherwise known as annotated bibliography, which, by the way, I believe to be more difficult to produce than the actual critical essay. The process is intense: read as much material as humanly possible relating to your essay, discern what is useful and what is not, re-read the useful ones, succinctly summarize each of them and finally, bring it all together by relating each piece to your thesis. Oh, and do it in an orderly fashion. Or else!

Moving, er, blogging on, pseudonyms are kind of interesting in themselves, without considering the anonymity of them. What I mean is, the pseudonyms people choose are often revealing, just not revealing of identity. Think of Caffeinated Geek Girl, Bitch PhD (which was listed somewhere in the reading for tonight's class and which I like), Whiskey Bar, Spazeboy. They all hint at certain qualities of the blogger, either real or desired. So I think that pseudonyms, though commonly used to maintain anonymity, are chosen as a sort of mark or brand. A "hey, this is me" kind of thing. Of course, there are probably many instances where this is not true, but I think that because there's always some desire to personalize what you write and what you create, to mark it in some unique way, to own it or at least attach yourself to it, pseudonyms represent the blogger, if not identify them.

I chose to be known as Sara, my real name, when I post, but I put considerable thought into my site name and my url. Why? Because I wanted this blog to represent me in some way.

Also, the nutsy boltsy link about how to post anonymously is sort of strange. Solid advice, but it has me thinking about how I generally avoid blogging about work, about specific people or revealing events. It always seems like the "right" thing to do, but it would be such fun to let loose and blog the way that I journal. Maybe I should?

Labels: Academics, Blogging

Posted by Sara at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'm excited to launch into this week's assignment and discuss my relationship with information, but I think a "thank you" is in order. Thanks, CT Bloggers! You were engaging and informative and challenging. Not to mention, it was wonderful to see the faces behind the blogs.

Labels: Academics, Blogging

Posted by Sara at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments

I shall now be known not as Sara but as The Thing That Does Homework.

I've been drowning in a little sea I like to call Annotated Bibliography (AB), so I haven't posted much about what we're discussing this week, unfortunately.

A few notes:

1. Our leader's post is hilarious.
2. Kristen wrote a very thoughtful, well-written post that you might want to check out.
3. This was an interesting read, particularly the conclusion:
Internet political professionals often concentrate our attention on the particular tools we use to get our messages out, but the real effect of the Internet and the electronics explosion of the last 15 years has been the immense deepening and broadening of the sea of information in which we now swim. Our biggest task is just to get noticed as we drift along.
4. LamontBlog's "Last Call" post was fitting: a showing of success rather than defeat. Though Lieberman may have won, Lamont didn't lose. Well said: We took on one major party in the primary, and we won an historic victory. But, in so many ways, we had to take on the combined efforts of two major parties in the general - an even more herculean task that, amazingly, we almost pulled off too.
5. I'm looking forward to tonight's class.

Labels: Academics, Blogging, Politics

Posted by Sara at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

I can't. I can't write this annotated bibliography. I've done, oh, 85% of the reading (a good thing), but I cannot bring myself to sit down and start putting the damn thing together. I just can't.

Labels: Academics, Blogging, Internet

Posted by Sara at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments

Monday's class, despite Colin's absence, was wonderful. The casual group discussion allowed me to get to know the people of the class, not just the blogs of the class, which was a pleasant experience. Everyone was really engaged in the conversation and each person offered a unique perspective.

We dug into some interesting stuff about ethics in blogging, including the negative aspects to the anarchic internet "frontier land." While it's exciting to explore this generally lawless territory, there is both offensive and frightening material open for all eyes. Kristen, for instance, mentioned a particularly disturbing blog about abortion. And Kirsten, in her blog, addressed the issue of using full names when making threatening or disparaging remarks in blogs. The problem is, it's very hard to decided what, if anything, to do about such things.

It was great to bounce ideas around in class about possible accreditation for blogs/bloggers, guidelines about using full names, guidelines similar to or different from journalism guidelines and -- if we were to establish such guidelines -- how they might change in a political/journalistic blog vs. a personal blog.

Still, for me, the bottom line is that, for right now, the unrestricted nature of the internet prevents us from developing serious guidelines for everyone. And isn't some (or much) of the appeal of the internet and of blogging its freedom, its spontaneity, its anything-can-happen quality?

Either way, Monday's class was "good times."

Labels: Academics, Blogging

Posted by Sara at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments

This blew my mind. Though I've thought (and written) about the communal nature of blogs and delighted in the collaborative efforts of MetaFilter and Wikipedia, I've never pushed it one step further into what Teilhard calls a "vast thinking membrane...containing our collective thoughts and experiences." Since infancy, we're taught to work in groups, to share, and to listen. But to me, these things always seemed confined to classrooms and homes and office spaces (in other words, confined to person-to-person contact), but in thinking of the internet as a membrane wherein our collective thoughts and experiences lie brings a new dimension to the concept of "teamwork."

And when we join together, when we collaboratively blog and create sites like MetaFilter, are we building something that will soon take its own course, have its own "life" no longer under our control? It certainly seems that way. Let's look at MetaFilter. It was created by "bloggers" but now seems to sort of exist on its own, morphing as the users and their ideas multiply. Though I love The X-Files and have a geeky penchant for the Sci-Fi channel and horror movies, I've always found the idea of life in computers, within the internet or on blogging sites impossible.

Now, I'm not so sure about that.

Sheesh! I still have boingboing-ing to do.

Labels: Academics, Blogging, MetaFilter

Posted by Sara at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

I'm running the risk of oversimplifying my opinion of Wikipedia (and perhaps Wikipedia itself), but...it is what it is. Whether or not it was founded on (too) idealistic principles, whether or not the founders knew it was going to explode as it did, whether or not the system of addition and deletion is sort of arbitrary, and whether or not you like the site or use it, it is what it is: a free, experimental, communal website that attempts to distribute information of encyclopedia caliber (with a dash of popular culture).

I agree with Eric S. Raymond's analogy of the bazaar, especially: "With no central authority, order sort of emerges bottom-up from the actions and desires of the participants." That, I think, pretty accurately describes Wiki's unique structure.

And I'm OK with that. And that doesn't mean my attitude toward Wiki is "take it with a grain of salt," even though I think you must. I appreciate Wikipedia for what it is, for the structure of it, and for how it grew. I would never rely on it for a research paper, and I would always double-check the information it provides, but it's a useful site if you need information quickly, if you want to jog your memory, or if you want to explore some aspect pop culture. Where else might I find all of this X-Files information on one page?

Perhaps the one down side is that some people, especially younger people, make take Wiki's information as 100% true, either because they don't understand how the site works or because they trust internet information too much. But then, we probably shouldn't trust any information too much.

Labels: Academics, Wikipedia

Posted by Sara at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

I'm not sure when they came out with Spearmint Halls (with advanced vapor action!), but they, along with Puffs tissues and saltines, are my life lines. I'm sort of fretting about the fact that I feel like I've been run over and have to begin working on a paper for my Literary Studies class. Not to mention, the title I want to use for the paper -- First Person Plural -- has already been taken by this guy. That's a great book, by the way, so he deserves the title.

Labels: Academics

Posted by Sara at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments

I drove home last night thinking about whether the blogosphere is male dominated and whether blogs are equally conducive to male and female thought.

Since blogging can be anonymous and profiles can be falsely populated, I imagine it's difficult to conduct research on who blogs what, how many men have blogs, how many women, etc. Having done no research at all and having no right to make this assumption, I'm going to say that bloggers who blog frequently and blogs with heavy traffic are often written/owned by men. I only say this because it has been my experience (as a new blog surfer/lurker) that many of the popular blogs I've seen and many of the blogs featured in news stories I've read are written by men. This is not to say that men greatly outweigh the number of women with blogs, but...I just have a feeling. So that'll have to do for now. Until I can dig up some research (that will probably end up proving me wrong).

Anyway. The point I want to reach is this: I think blogging is an ideal medium for women, and more specifically, for feminism. Blogging is communal; it sparks discussion and new ideas; it can be inspirational or motivational; it can be confessional; it can be political; it's often heated; it can attract attention, both negative and positive; it can be creative. These things are true of feminism as well. The two seem a perfect pair.

More on this, probably, but I'm at work. And besides, there's homework to do.

Labels: Academics, Blogging, Feminism

Posted by Sara at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

The interview with Clotaire Rapaille was of particular interest to me for two reasons: 1) I love the study of language, of the meanings and emotions we associate with certain words, and of the simultaneously freeing and restrictive nature of language ; and 2) Before heading back to graduate school, I worked for two years in an Association for marketing and opinion researchers.

It's a little off-putting to think of our brains as reptilian, but I agree with Rapaille's idea that "when we [are] born, we have the reptilian brain" that concerns itself with survival. Then, development brings us to the "limbic" stage, which involves emotions, relationships and connections. Lastly, we come to the "cortex" stages, which -- as I understood it -- is the "thinking" stage, the "smart" stage, where we analyze and synthesize and all the other "izes."

Rapaille mentions that market researchers limit themselves by focusing too much on the cortex, on the thinking of consumers, and not on the reptilian (and limbic, too, I suppose) nature of consumers. So, I started thinking about something I buy regularly, a product that I love: Coca Cola. Now, at first, I could say, "I like the taste," but my drive to purchase it does, I think, come from my code for that word, which is familial. My mother and my grandparents we big Coke drinkers, letting the young ones have sips (we'd have to drink milk with dinner). As I grew older, I developed a sort of loyalty to Coke. I know this is a very simple example, but with it, I can see that what drives me to buy certain products is more than my "thinking." It's deeper than that.

Thinking about the spread of information in this way and about the codes we have for words (and how they vary from culture to culture) seems important, almost revolutionary (if you have not thought of this before).

I think Rapaille should speak at one of MRA's Conferences.

Labels: Academics

Posted by Sara at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

As I read the wikipedia entry on memes, it -- at first -- seemed to me that memes and ideas were synonymous. I kept thinking of a meme as an intangible mental gene, passed down (or around) via the brain. That sounded a lot like an idea to me, only viewed from a more sophisticated and scientific perspective. Apparently, this has been one of the criticisms of memes, memetics and meme theories: "no reason exists for differentiating or discerning the word 'meme' from the word 'idea' or from the phrase 'pattern of thought'." In response, the meme people say, "The creation of the term 'meme' as opposed to 'idea' or 'pattern of thought' allows for specific description and application of the meme as a phenomenon. Additionally, using a new term such as 'meme' allows one to avoid semantic baggage associated with well-known terms such as 'idea'; and conveys a (mistaken) connotation of novelty."

I still wasn't sure that I bought it, even though I agree that words are loaded with "semantic baggage" and using a new word allows for a more intense, less inhibited exploration of the meaning behind the word. Though I'm still not sure that a) memes are much different from ideas or b) I have any idea what I'm talking about, this list got me thinking. Those things aren't exactly what I would call "ideas." For instance, one of the items on the list is "internet slang." Internet slang seems to have started somewhere (not really as an idea or invention, but rather, as a shortened method of communication for internet-savvy folks) and spread rapidly and widely, developing word by word, phrase by phrase. To me, this is the epitome of a meme. And considering this, I now see that there is a distinction between memes and ideas (even if I can't clearly identify it).

In other news, memetic engineering is kind of creepy, no?

Labels: Academics, Blogging, Internet

Posted by Sara at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments