catch!

I've been thinking about starting to blog again.

... just thought I'd throw that out there.

a mélange: my blog portfolio

The end of this semester seems a little surreal to me. In a week most of my friends and my sister will graduate, and I'll have to start seriously thinking about what comes after my own graduation in the next year. It's kind emotional actually.

I've been using this extremely emotionally-aware mood to reassess my semester as a whole. In particular, I think my blog is a physical representation of how I operate in any given class, and it's a tangible chart of learning and progress. To prove this idea, I've created a blog portfolio.

Complied below is a collection of what I consider my best and worst blog posts. Please observe the dates of the posts - you'll see a steady improvement in the work, albeit with a few bumps and lags along the way. I've also included a couple of comments I made on others' blogs.

I know I've grown as a blogger and a person through Blogging in Theory and Practice this semeseter. With this portfolio, I hope you will be able to see that, too.

In the Beginning
Before we delve into the goods and bads of my blog, I think it's to go back and look at my ideas of blogging at the beginning of the semester.

43 pages (30/01)
Here's the post that declared the topic of my blog. I've included it in this portfolio as a reminder of the purpose I declared in January. After reading it, you can see that I've consistently adhered to that quotation framework.

reflections (24/01)
This was my very first post. Before this class, I had a very negative view of blogging. Back then I equated blogging with online journaling, which I thought (and still think) was egotistical to write and boring to read. The first couple of blogging classes, however, really set me straight. I think my biggest realization has been that blogging is not just a writer's soap-box. It's a method of communication and the blogosphere is a community.

And a Blogger was Born
So now that we know where I started out, we can look at my journey into the blogosphere. I've listed a few posts that display my development as a blogger. Also, the number of links in these posts make them very "blog-like" as we defined in class.

ode to a bashful blogger (02/02)
Like I said before, I used to be opposed to blogging. The reasons I listed in reflections, are the public ones I cite in conversation. In "ode", though, I came out with a more personal problem: intense shyness. Early on in the semester, I realized that one of the virtues of blogging is that one can, to paraphrase Anne Lamott, stay at home and still be famous. Blogging is a great medium for those who have a lot to say, but maybe don't want to say it out loud in traditional mediums.

blogging/bleeding (04/03)
I admittedly strayed from my theme of quotations in this post, but I don't think the deviation takes away from its meaning. The main idea of this post - that blogging is a positive outlet for self-expression - is consistent with that of "ode to a bashful blogger." This time, however, I took the concept one step further and applied it to our discussion of teens and blogging.

a tango (21/02)
This post was inspired by our in-class reading and discussions of the relationship between blogging and journalism. I'm a journalism major, and at the beginning of the semester I'd had a hard time figuring out how I felt about blogging as journalism, and vice versa. In this post, I finally pin down my feelings about blogging and journalism by applying what I've learned about both mediums.

Learning to Talk...
Writing with a strong voice is one of the main characteristics of a blog post. Blogging with voice has been one of my greatest strengths this semester, and below I've listed three posts as examples. I also consider these some of my best and favorite work. When reading these posts, you'll notice that there is a certain sense of immediacy in each one. This shows the feeling with which I wrote each post, and thus the voice.

all around the limbo world (08/02)

today for you (22/02)

karma karma karma karma chameleon (07/03)

...And to Walk
It wouldn't be fair if I didn't note some of the posts where I stumbled over words and meaning. Below I listed two posts that don't represent my best work, two bad posts. Both of these posts felt incredibly forced as I wrote them. I simply wasn't "feeling" the topic of either, but wrote regardless, knowing that I had to fulfill the assignments since this blog was for a grade.

fair dinkum (11/03)
This post was an effort to fulfill the assignment to write about the art forms discussed in class and our reading.

novel ideas (07/04)
Here, frankly, I was desperately looking for a topic to blog and post about.

Becoming Part of the Community
A big part of being a blogger is being a part of the blogosphere. This means keeping up with your own blog as well as commenting on others'. I've made many comments on many blogs - not just my classmates' - this semester, so I chose two examples.

The first is a comment on a post from The Hamster's Wheel, "It's my religion, not my lifestyle." This post received a lot of comments, which makes it hard to not simply repeat what has already been noted in the virtual conversation. I chose to echo others' sentiments while providing my own.

The second is a comment I made on my own blog. Donna offered some interesting insights on my post "triple fault," and I wanted to respond and elaborate. I felt the best place to do so was on my own blog. That way the conversation could continue in the future.

Out On My Own
And so my semester - and thus my portfolio - is at an end. I've learned a lot about blogging in this course, and, perhaps more importantly, blogging has allowed me to learn a lot about myself. I hope you've been able to see that through this mélange of my work. Cheers.

bull's eye

I worked as a TA for a leadership development class last year. Before the year began, the instructors asked my fellow TA and I complete an exercise that required us to name the quote by which we live. I selected:

“If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I'm don't think I truly live by Longfellow's statement, although I probably did more so last year than I do now. But I think I've successfully been using that philosophy of achievement lately to get me through the end of the semester flood of tests, papers, finals and projects. Case and point: I spent about two weeks torturing myself/working on a major paper. I was a little unsure of whether I completed the assignment, but my teacher wasn't and gave a grade I am quite pleased with.

The good grade boosted my mood for a lot of reasons. I'm amidst a hell-ish week during which I have to complete finals in all of my classes, so a good grade is a great confidence booster. Plus it takes a little bit of pressure off my score on the final test in that course.

Kind of ironically, the greatest reason to smile that grade gave me actually depresses me.

Honestly, I'm not very smart. School's hard for me. The thing is, long ago, I taught myself how to study. I learned that I can't start a paper or project the night before it is due and expect to get a good grade. I'm not smart by nature, but I know I can be with the right behaviors.

The frustrating thing is, people don't really get that about me. With the exception of my best friend and my mom, most of my friends are fooled by the intelligence I create. They think I'm naturally smart, and ride me for my study/read/write-in-advance habits. Most of the time, such chiding isn't a problem. I can brush it off and we'll laugh together.

That's hasn't been the case recently. While I was working on my big paper, a friend or two were actually annoyed at the fact that I prioritized research over recreation. They made fun of me for writing for so long, and asked that I stop talking about the project that currently consumed my life.

I 'spose it could have been witty banter, but it sure didn't feel like it. I took it personally, though I know I shouldn't let that kind of stuff get to me. I really felt hurt.

So, circling back 'round to the point, this good grade is a pass for a huge "told-ya-so." And when doesn't it feel good to say that?

What makes me sad, though, is that these friends made me feel so bad in the process. Good grades are almost always a boost of confidence, but the boost should be about personal ability. Now, thanks to my annoyed friends, my grade justifies my study habits and the resulting recent lack of a social life. I shouldn't need justification for such things in the first place.

In the end, I know I'll end up taking the safer, more mature route and just get over the hurt. I'll continue my behavioral-smarts - my perceived over-achievement - to get to the grade I'm actually aiming for.

For tonight, though, I'd like to paste this 97 (one of the highest grades in the class) on my fridge. And flip the bird to all the naysayers. While doing a little dance around their decent grades that are lower than mine.

(Good luck on finals, all. Cheers.)

actual learning

I love it when material in one class overlaps with that of another. Partly because it makes understanding easier for at least one of the subjects, but mainly because I feel like I'm actually learning something for a change.

Today, the overlap was between lessons in my sociology and blogging classes. A concept found in my soc reading, Frederick W. Taylor's "scientific management," was referenced in our blogging reading and discussion. Taylor, an engineer, applied scientific management to factory jobs, equating time with production and money. With that connection, Taylor found that time can be more easily measured and charted to be saved.

In sociology class, The Family, we apply this scientific management to how parents divvy up their time spent doing paid work and housework or child care. In Blogging in Theory and Practice, we apply scientific management to a discussion of blogs as grids and networks. In my stream of consciousness, I apply it to the separation of my homes.

You see, my relationship with where I grew up has changed since I was a freshman in college, and I think that change has caused some unrest in my relationships with family members. But I think a variation of the sociological scientific management can be used explain it.

When I was a freshman I didn't consider Mizzou "home." My college life served a merely functional purpose. I didn't have close friendships here, nor did I have any sentimental feelings toward Columbia itself. Mizzou is where I did work, and that was it. So it made sense that I still placed the city I grew up in on a pedestal. Going back there was vacation: it was where my true friends were, it was the only place I felt I could truly relax.

However, somewhere along the line of growing up and old, the place I considered home flipped. I seem to have more close friendships in at Mizzou than I do in Wisconsin, and I've grown to honestly love the city of Columbia. I've learned that you can do well in school and still have fun. I've learned to relax and love life here.

It's not that I consider going back to Wisconsin stressful or painful. I still love my hometown and it's still up on a pedestal. But, to be fair, since distance prevents me from often traveling back, the home where I grew up kind of has become a place where I know I have to get work done. There's doctors' appointments to catch up on, and I always want to get my hair cut at my favorite salon. And when I go out, I feel like I have to make a point of looking good and/or putting on a good face in case I run into someone unexpectedly.

This flip of homes is similar to the one described in Ariel Russell Hochschild's book, The Time Bind. To describe why some parents want to stay at work longer, Hochschild employed the theory of scientific management:

"Home has become the place where people carry out necessary tasks efficiently in the limited amount of time allotted" (49)

Again, I want to stress that I love my hometown. My family is there, and even though I feel I have a stable "family-of-choice" in Columbia, I will always love my parents, sister, grandparents more than anything else.

The point here is that I've changed. And until now, when scientific management came up in two classes, I didn't really understand it. I hope my family, friends and you all understand it, too.

mapping middle school

As we talked about networking and how information is transmitted, I kept thinking about the middle school rumor mill. Actually, it was more like the middle school news-network - it seemed like anytime something happened, fact or rumor, the event had to be transmitted through at least three people before it reached the intended source.

The best example of this information transmission is the middle school relationship. Let's be honest, rarely did the pre-teen "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" actually talk to their love/lust/hormonal interest. So, for my mapping assignment, I chose to display the standard middle school break-up.


As you can see, several people know about the break-up before the unsuspecting girlfriend, and all of those people felt it was their honorable duty to tell her. Note the dashed line of communication between the boyfriend and unsuspecting girlfriend. The boyfriend was rarely the person to let the girlfriend know that they were no longer a couple. Of course, there are always a few exceptions where a boyfriend chooses to communicate semi-directly with his soon-to-be-ex; however, this exchange usually was in the form of a note passed while the history teacher was not looking.

when soul meets body

“Soul. The word rebounded to me, and I wondered, as I often had, what it was exactly. People talked about it all the time, but did anybody actually know? Sometimes I’d pictured it like a pilot light burning inside a person – a drop of fire from the invisible inferno people called God. Or a squashy substance, like a piece of clay or dental mold, which collected the sum of a person’s experiences – a million indentations of happiness, desperation, fear, all the small piecing of beauty we’ve ever known.” ~Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

We had quite the discussion in blogging class Thursday. J L brought up a great topic for his blogging/technology in the news presentation: inserting nano-chips in the brain as a form of medical treatment.

There were a lot of good points brought up during the discourse, but I was fixated on the moral/ethical/spiritual aspects of altering the brain with technology. In class, I asked if this technology would violate the line of separation between the soul and the body. Now, I just have a whole slew of questions about the soul itself.


Is there a difference between the mind - the brain - and the spiritual concept of the soul?

And, assuming that there is a difference, where does the soul end and the mind begin?

I'm not a big believer in intelligent design or anything like that, but I've never really questioned the reality of the soul. I wonder why that is?


I don't have any answers for these questions. And I don't have any clue about how to talk it out either. I just wanted to throw these questions out into the cosmos (assuming, of course, that an orderly universe exists.)

Cheers.

cruel and unusual punishment

Should you find yourself channel surfing at 10:30 tonight, do your best to scan past the WE Network.

At Monday nights, the network airs the worst show I have ever been unfortunate enough to catch: Style by Jury. It’s a make-over show that tricks an “unfashionable” person to come in for a job interview or audition. While the person talks to the show’s host, a jury of about 10 random people observe from behind a two-way mirror, ripping apart the contestant’s style and attacking his or her appearance.

Sounds like an average reality show, I know. But I think the whole concept is absolutely awful.

According to the dictionary on my computer’s dashboard, style is “a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed." This definition sounds like it's referring to art or architecture (the dictionary used the columns of a building as an example) but I think it we can interpret it a little differently to get my point across.

I think everyone should have a distinctive appearance. Sometimes that means nothing more than modeling personal style after catalogue cut outs, other times that means turning a bed sheet into an evening gown. Either way, no matter how cookie-cutter or unique, everyone has a distinct appearance. The catch is, though, the principles according to which that appearance is created are designed by each individual. What you wear on the outside is, consciously or subconsciously, a reflection of who you are on the inside.

Style and fashion are likenesses of your personality. More accurately, style and fashion are your personality. It's a physical representation of the intangible self. Which is why I have such a problem with Style by Jury. When these "jurors" rule on the ambushed contestant, they aren't just commenting on clothes and accessories - they're attacking the innocent's identity.

To prevent coming off as a hypocrite in this, previous or later posts, let me write a quick sidebar. First impressions and unfair judgments are at the heart of Style by Jury - there wouldn't be much basis for the show without those nasty snap criticisms. The act of judging, however, isn’t the issue. To quote the wisdom of Sex and the City:

Carrie: Do I judge?

Stanford: We all judge. That's our hobby. Some people do arts and crafts; we judge.

Judging’s not a bad thing – it’s kind of like an in-born defense mechanism like the gut feeling. The problem lies in actually acting on those judgments, when you give more weight to your personal opinion than others’ feelings.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as being in-style or out of fashion. People should wear what they are comfortable in. If you’re comfortable in your clothes, you’re confident in your skin. And being happy with yourself is always fashionable.