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.

two recent poems

These poems aren't super recent, but they do both mention some of the issues I've been thinking about with my independent study, though in a bit of an indirect way. I still wanted to link them here so that you could explore them at your leisure.

Train to Brugge


night driving


Also, I posted links today on Fork... for people to hopefully follow. I would love to get more regular traffic because that would encourage me to actually post every day instead of only once in a while. I also finally posted some information about my first sources although its way back in the archives at this point. I have a lot of other notes to transcribe from my notebook, but it's sort of a slow process since they're a bit scattered.

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.

words for women writers part one.

Don't tell long stories that don't change subject or have a greater meaning.

They're never as interesting to everyone else as they may or not may be to you.

I know that probably sounds pretentious, and that's not my purpose, but it's not fair to you for you to go on in life not knowing that. It's one of those things that your friends will never tell you because they love you, but it is not one of your more redeeming qualities.