Beginning to conclude

Haste suggests in Sexual Metaphors that feminism must work to re-inform the ideologies that shape our institutions in order to actually create change, and it is largely the input we get from various sources that shapes our ideologies--what we buy, who we vote for, what we believe. That makes it important to read/receive the best knowledge possible in order to allow for the ideal shaping of our ideologies. Now, when there is so much information in so many forms readily available, this can be an extremely challenging task.

When I started work on my independent study, I was challenged by the incredible number of resources out there, and the lack of helpful information when it came to selecting the best/most relevant. Part of this problem is that the best academic criticism is only really available in elite places--like inaccessible theory in databases and academic publications that can't benefit anyone without the time, discernment and support systems afforded only in specific situations (like being a college student). I could read on university websites or in JSTOR reviews and suggested lists about which books would be the most useful (which I did), but at the end of the day I had to order my books from somewhere else. On Amazon, the reviews and comments about all of these dense theoretical books and compilations of essays were spare and generally not very helpful.

Because of this, I greatly overshot on reading materials for the semester, and have had a hard time figuring out what comes first. I realized that there needed to be a space out there where someone really provided information on what theory/books to read and what movies to watch. One of the most meaningful ways to have my work this semester make an impact on the larger discipline of women's studies, especially since as an undergrad it is hard to get ones work into more traditional public (and academic) forums, was to post reviews of the sources I was consulting on very mainstream resources, like Amazon, imdb, and Netflix.

Originally I thought that the most important thing in electronic resources was to keep each topic focused on a separate weblog, but now I think that I need to have everything in one place, linked to my identity. So, I m rolling this site over into my larger, new Wordpress account. I am calling this site "Collection Plate." I am eventually going to ask the women's studies department, Reves Center, IR department, Monroe Scholars/Charles Center staff and maybe even the English department to link my site on their pages once I get it fully up and running. I would hope they would continue to keep it accessible at least while I am studying at Oxford next year where I think I'll be moving towards research in nonviolent methods for sustainable international development with a focus on women. I want to keep my new site live then and update regularly, and in the future work towards featuring sections on each of topics in which I am engaged along the course of my studies in and outside the classroom. I am planning to have several pages including freshman year; Kyoto, Japan: classwork and case study; mytwolips; my classwork in my masters program at Oxford; and my case study international peace work/research in Rwanda in 2009-2010.

I've got a lot to say...

and it would seem, not always enough time to say it. I have been thinking and talking a little bit more recently about some of the specifics of using blogs as a medium for independent study and education. I have noticed in the past few weeks that I've gotten really far astray from my initial project, and while I've certainly produced a lot of posts comparatively, they're all over the map. I think it's because I was allowing myself to be so influenced by everything else that was out there to link to and experience, but I am going to definitely try to do some reigning in this week so that I get back on the right page before the end of the month and the end of the semester.

I was thinking too, though, about my posting style and the difficulty I have had in posting rapidly and thoroughly about a lot of the things I'm experiencing and working with because, since I know they are "for class," I feel like they are supposed to be of a certain caliber and academic value. I was observing one of my friend's own process for blogging, and found that there is a distinct difference in the ways in which we post. I made a comment on his most recent post exploring some of these issues, but I'm not exactly sure where to go from there. I just know that I think this medium is really worthwhile, I just have to figure out how to keep it focused enough to always be relevant to its mission.

Continuing to explore the potential of the Internet

So, I posted part of this as a comment a few days ago, but enough has developed with this situation recently that I wanted to put it on my main page:

Last night one of my good friends from high school contacted me to say that he found my weblog "inspiring." He and some of his friends who are at U Penn architecture school have thought about starting a weblog with a variety of information related to their field of study. It was cool to know that people are starting to use this sort of tool as an extension of their academic study.

I have recently started talking with a graduate student here who has some academic interest in the Internet who is also keeping a blog. Right now it's largely just random thoughts, but a lot of them are based with the work he is doing in anthropology.

I would love for this sort of use of the Internet to be a growing trend, but I know one important thing will be for there to be some sort of way to make sure that people can actually find these blogs when they're looking for things online. I really do think that these links need to be all collected together in one place. I know that my old study abroad program used to link all student blogs from the college's homepage. Maybe if universities provide students with the ability to link their work from the Arts & Sciences page or even a subdivision of it it would allow these things to be getting read by other people interested in the same field. That's an issue I'm still working on.

Something else, though, is that reading these other blogs has made me realize how my own writing can be a bit pretentious sometimes. A la the discussion that was taking place on Will's livejournal about how college kids can use crazy terminology that makes everyday problems into these academic concepts and arguments, I think it's really true that a lot of what is said is inaccessible to others. I want people to read this and get it...not feel like they've opened up a text book or something. I think that's going to be a continuing goal of mine: to ensure that what I am writing isn't a Judith Butler piece, but is instead something that could be read by a college freshman endeavoring to understand female sexuality for the first time.

Internet as academic dialogue.

I have been engaged recently in a debate on one of my good friend's livejournals, Fork.... I have talked about it and linked it here before.

We've been talking about one of his posts that included his views on the relationship between his friends from his high school days with his college friends, especially when it concerned academic dialogues. One of the key examples was racism.

I sent him an e-mail of a post I had written that I couldn't publish because it was too many characters and started a correspondence with him. It felt good to be talking to other people in my community about real issues we both care about. Even more than that, I felt like the forum of a blog or livejournal does provide a class-like atmosphere. The moderator is the owner of the blog; they teach us something, even if only how to start thinking about the issue.

I have considered most of the people whose livejournals I read religiously (Fork..., pragueislife, XCKD, subtled) to be my teachers. I have learned about male sexuality, poetry, gay life, teaching English overseas, physics math and humor all in the same package and the military, but not just from anyone--from my friends.

I love that this is a community I am participating in more actively. I think it is one of the most important learning and educational tools we have ever created. Now, with a stable cable or phone connection, the world is at one's fingertips even with very few other resources available. Bloggers have been looked at as maybe an unnecessary trend, but maybe that's because we're reading the wrong types of blogs. I think if there were a site to connect all of these really important conversations together in a moderated way that it would be really incredible. A way to provide a space for certain topics of common interest. Maybe this is one of the things that could eventually develop into an opportunity. I already know girlfriends that I would hire to help with the operation and people I would ask to contribute.

I realize that I have so much information right now on my hands with regards to my independent study and I have been having all of these very tangible conversations about my subject matter but I sometimes forget I might not have actually published a post on these things. I need to find the right balance between these non-visible experiences and ones that result in academic dialogue.

Back from Break

So, I am back from spring break now, and did a good bit of reading and thinking over the course of the week but was away from the Internet. One of the things I have been having a hard time with is posting regularly and in a timely manner. With weblogs, one of the important things is to post when things are happening, not weeks and weeks later, but I sometimes feel like I need a bit longer to really let my thoughts stew before I'm prepared to post about them. Basically, this is why I never ended up posting about the Sex Workers Art Show and I Love Female Orgasm, both really important, relevant things going on on campus that I had a lot to say about. I realized in retrospect that it wasn't necessarily as important for me to say everything exactly right as it was just to say something and get it out there while people were still thinking and talking about the event, so in light of this and in light of my recent return to campus, I am going to make an effort to post at least three times a week for the rest of the semester. I have a couple of drafted posts that will hopefully go up soon, but in addition to these, I'm going to try to have intermittent posts that summarize everything that I've been doing by way of my project.

This past week I led a service trip of a small group of W&M students and most of the reading material I took with me involved my independent study. Because of that, I ended up getting a chance to discuss a lot of the things I've been reading about and thinking about which was really wonderful for me. I've realized that I do actually have a lot to teach people when it comes to women's bodies and sexuality, especially since these are really sensitive topics and I am really comfortable discussing them, so hopefully I'll be able to continue formulating a conversation from my studies long after I'm done with the official independent study part of things. I know I'm already planning to maintain this weblog through my graduate work.

I've been watching at least two films every week on the broad theme of women's sexuality and bodies, and I have a lot of these I haven't written on yet and I've also been reading some poetry and a few books on the topic, so look for responses to these soon. Also, I would really like for my webpage to show up in searches, but I don't really even know how to go about getting it to show up on search engines, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

Techno-Ethics

I get concerned, sometimes, about the proper way to cite ideas coming from readings in the technical world. I just posted on my goals site, What I Will, a post entitled "some realizations." In this post I am drawing on some of my own ideas and experiences about everyday life and linking them to things I have learned recently, specifically from my Management Skills for Public Service Seminar I am taking through W&M's Career Center. On my goals post, I do not specifically cite where I am drawing the idea from, namely because in the presentation we had the man demonstrated two primary sources that use this same idea and since he was a secondary source, I don't feel the need to actually attach a bibliography. At the same time, I did feel the need to come here to this blog, linked under the same common blogger.com identity, to comment on my concerns about technical ethics. See, this section could just count as the bibliography. I also thought, then, that I should probably somewhere have a list of everything I am reading at any given time posted. There is a Facebook application that does that, but I generally don't add my textbooks, but maybe it would be worthwhile. And, then, would that count? I'm not sure.

Absurdist Livejournal Poem

Second Coming