GOSPEL CHOIR CONCERT

Hey Everyone! The UW gospel choir is having their annual end of the semester concert this Sunday (May 6) at 6 pm in the memorial union theater. It is always a really awesome show so you don't want to miss it! and I am in it!! So ya, be there.....its free!!!!

ANTZ

Over the weekend we were to read the second and third chapters from the book emergence. I thought that these two chapters were really interesting and I am starting to like this book even more. The second chapter talked a lot about ant colonies in general. The chapters explained that ants are very simple creatures with not a whole lot going on in their brains individually but then talked about how many of them are able to form a complex colony. Each ant acts locally but their collection produces global behavior. There are five principles in order for macro intelligence to form from local behavior. These include, 1. More is different 2. Ignorance is useful 3. Encourage random encounters 4. Look for patterns in the signs and 5. Pay attention to your neighbors. A common topic mentioned in these five is that when ants encounter other ants this informs them about the state of the colony based on the frequency of encounters and whatnot. One thing I didn't understand is how a colony can go between infant, adolescent, and mature stages because all the ants die within a year so there is never really a bunch of old "mature" ants. The difference between ants and humans is obviously that individual humans are very intelligent so the social patterns we form are much more complex.

The third chapter talked a lot about how the internet is thought of as a big brain. I agreed with most of the ideas that the author agreed with. I think the internet isn't really a true brain, it just forms relationships between sites and its not really forming new information by itself. Alexa, the website sorter thing, doesn't appreciate things and it doesn't have a specified goal in mind when searching through sites. This is like the little activity we did in class on Amazon.com where if you typed in some book you liked it would find books that other people enjoyed that had also enjoyed the books you liked. Its not really thinking about you in specific just common trends. Another question, are things like match.com emergent? because all they do is just match people who answered alike to certain questions right?

emergence...

This week we were to read the intro and first chapter of a book by Steven Johnson called Emergence. The introduction began by describing self-organizing communities using slime mold as an example. At first I was really confused as to how it was related but then it was explained that slime mold doesn't have one leader mold organism. There is not one pacemaker cell "calling all the shots". They each release something called cyclic AMP depending on their own assessment of their environment and then form to become a community based on that. One real life example that I thought of while reading this was riots. Particularly riots in Madison on Halloween. There is not one person that decides to have a riot at 2 in the morning. Everyone gets increasingly intoxicated and, based on their surroundings, senses the need to continue to drink and then all of a sudden a big mass of chaos forms all by itself! Maybe not the best example....but thats what came to my mind. I also thought that the part in the first chapter that talked about the ants was really interesting. It is weird that the ants know where exactly to put the garbage so its as far away from both the colony and the dead ants as possible. It really is curious how all the ants just do certain jobs without being told to. The queen doesn't assign them jobs like in the movie "Ants". But then again, isn't that how our world is? At least in our society we can just pick whatever we want to do based on what we are good at and what we enjoy. maybe that is how it is for ants. Or maybe the baby just picks an adult ant to follow around and ends up doing whatever their job is for the rest of their life....kind of like family businesses.

I also enjoyed reading about the formation of Manchester. The population began to explode and people basically organized themselves however they wanted. The poor ended up being confined to certain streets far away from the rich. This isn't all that strange when you think about it though. Poor people are obviously going to live near one another so they can support each other and the rich don't want to see poor people. So, wherever the first poor person decided to settle everyone followed. I wasn't quite sure how the homosexual secret clusters really tied in to emergence, other than that a guy that would go there wrote a paper on morphogenesis. I liked this reading a lot because it explained things well and didn't get too wordy like some of our past readings. I am excited to have a class discussion about it....but, class is canceled tomorrow :) because Scot is sick :( Get better!!!

Lost in Translation

We started watching Lost in Translation in class on Thursday and i am really enjoying the movie! One thing that I noticed about the movie is that there is not a whole lot of talking and the characters are kind of in a daze it seems. I feel like for them Tokyo itself was a non-place because they had no relations formed there and there was no history there for either of them. They couldn't become connected with the environment because they couldn't talk to people and the were living in a hotel which is a non-place itself. They were just there to accomplish a job and that was it. There were a lot of scenes in the beginning that took place in non-places like the elevator and their hotel room. They both seemed to be extremely lonely with this sudden sense of non-places all around them. I think this can be seen in our world today because technology seems to be creating more and more non-places and people tend to be less friendly when set into a non-place. I think Americans are especially at risk for this sense of loneliness because people are always rushing in and out to get to places.

When the two main characters began to develop a friendship I think that Tokyo started to become a place for both of them. There seemed to be more scenes that depicted places, like the club, karaoke bar, and game room they go to together. I am excited to see what happens in the end. I kind of want them to fall in love or something but first of all they are both married and second of all he is a bit old for her.

NON-PLACES

Like James, I too used the bus for my "non-place" observations. I ride the bus to work every few days and I was going to go today to kill two birds with one stone, but with the nasty weather I decided not to go in. Instead, I just rode the 80 to state street in the evening. As I got on the bus, I noticed most of the seats were full and I ended up sitting next to someone. I noticed that when people sit on buses they either A) Sit in a seat as far away from other people or B) If they must sit next to someone, they scoot away and try not to invade the other persons space. Everyone sat quietly unless there were friends sitting together chatting. Many people, including myself, were listening to ipods. I think that in non-places you are really not in that place at all, you either escape into a song, a book, daydreams, or a tv (at a hotel). You interact with as few people as possible and try to just slip into the background only using the space to accomplish a certain task. I suppose the bus can be a "place" for the people who work on the bus, but even then this is unclear on buses. I am not sure but, don't bus drivers switch routes every once in a while? In that case, they don't have one specific bus that can be their place of work. Plus, it is hard to consider a seat a place. From past experience on the 80 on busy days, i have noticed that people don't really seem to care about the other people on the bus. Everyone just objectifies everyone else. The passengers get mad when the people getting on move too slow, the bus driver gets mad when people don't move to the back, and those few who sneak in the back have no regard for the people patiently waiting to get in (legally) through the front door. It is a very hostile environment...where is the love?!

CALIFORNIA

Wow, I totally missed that we were supposed to do an open post for today. I think all this spring break madness has gone to my head! Whoops. So I am posting now. I am taking the bus at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning to the Chicago airport!! I called the badger cab tonight and asked for a cab for 4:30am and the guy said the latest they could pick me up was 4:15 if my bus was at 5. I think that is excessive. I mean I already bought my ticket....I am just going to be sitting outside mem. union waiting to get on the bus for 40 minutes. but I didn't want to argue with the guy. urg. I am going to bed pretty soon....its almost 10 o'clock!! geez, I haven't gone to bed this early since highschool. I am all packed and ready to roll. My dad bought me this awesome new rolling duffle suitcase a couple weeks ago when he was here and I absolutely love it! It has more pockets than I know what to do with and its the perfect size. Anyways, about the trip. Jack is flying in to LA from Kansas and his flight gets in about 1.5 hrs after mine. His friend who lives in Santa Barbara is flying into LA from Switzerland that same day so we are getting a ride with her and staying in her apt. for the weekend. Then we are taking the train to visit my Cousin, Rachel, in San Luis Obispo for a couple days. Then we are taking the bus or train up to Santa Cruz where we will meet up with my sister and my mom. We are going to take a day trip up to San Francisco with them one day. Then on the saturday before we leave we are going to visit my aunt and uncle and 2 more of my cousins for the day. It is going to be really fun! I need to go to bed.....I hope everyone has safe travels and a fun-filled spring break.

Am I a cyborg??

After reading the excerpt from Andy Clark's "Natural Born Cyborgs", I found myself debating as to whether or not I agreed with his arguments. He believes that we are all natural born cyborgs because of the fact that humans have the ability to use constructs, props, and aids. He claims that we become one with our best and most reliable tools. He feels that it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish where the world stops and where the person begins. Does this really mean that all humans are "cyborgs" though?

I found a definition for the word cyborg that states, "The term cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic organism, is used to designate a creature which is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology." I think the second half of this definition agrees with Clark in that we use technology to enhance our abilities, however, its not as though we have computers embedded into the palm of our hands. Is the fact that we use technology on occasion enough to constitute us as cyborgs. I think that the term cyborg is a little too extreme especially because of the mental images people already have when they hear that term. I thought that his term "mind-ware upgrades" was also very interesting. Does he mean that we really are increasing our mental capabilities, or are we just being able to use our preexisting abilities more effectively. I would agree with the latter. Another quote from the reading is that, "The mind is less and less in the head." I don't necessarily agree with that statement either. I mean, sure we use calculators to do long division, but that doesn't mean we are any less intelligent. We are simply being more efficient. The mind is still doing work to figure out problems.

I think that Clark's idea is one that is worth thinking about. Our world today is becoming very dependent on technology. However, humans have been using tools and aids to carry out everyday functions for thousands of years. Were we "cyborgs" then, or does it only apply to recent advances in technology? I think he has a good point when describing how different human beings are from other animals and what separates us from them, but I do not know if coining human beings with the term "cyborg" is necessarily accurate.

online lovers....please

This past week we read an excerpt from Sherry Turkle’s book “Life on the Screen”. The chapter we read was titled identity crisis. It talks about how life in virtual communities can help introduce people to the many different lives within themselves. She explains that there is no longer individual notions of self and that we are actually multiple personalities. I personally disagree with pretty much everything that this article argues.

I can sort of see her point that, as she states, “you can have a sense of self without being one self.” I understand that people have different personalities when they are around different people and placed in various situations. However, I feel that if you get involved in some online community and make up five different personalities for yourself, no one you meet online will really know your true personality. I just don't see how creating random characters can help you figure out who you really are. Also, I think that people often get much too involved in the online personae because they view it as an escape from the real world where maybe they don’t have many good relationships. Rather than working on improving their REAL life, they are spending time in a made up life so they can ignore their real problems. I think many people involved in MUDS and WELLS are insecure and have trouble with social interactions so they make new personae whom they like and where they don’t have to physically interact with people.

Later in the chapter Shelly describes a young woman named Ava who lost her leg in a car accident. She made a character on a MUD who, like her, had one leg. It then goes on to tell how Ava had sexual relations online with her virtual lover. This, in turn, helped her to accept her own body. I think that if Ava had just found a real person who accepted her just like her virtual lover had, then she would have found that having sexual relations with that real person would have led her to self acceptance in the same way. I really don’t think that the fact that it was in a MUD had anything to do with her self-acceptance. I think that people need to just spend more time working on real-life relationships and their personal development in the real world rather than using the internet as a safety net.

DREAMWEAVER 1 CLASS

Today I went to the dreamweaver 1 class. It was pretty helpful just to go over some of the main points again that were covered quickly in class. I started to get a little confused when he was talking about CSS but then the class ended so I didn't have to rattle my brain too much. I am having issues with fireworks and our current website project so I tried to have the instructor help me out. Unfortunately, he had never used fireworks and so I just ended up more confused. I thought it was strange he had never used fireworks and was teaching a dreamweaver class. The two instructors were really friendly though. At least they tried to help out......

Reading notas!

Last week we read an excerpt titled “Viruses and Fads” written by Albert Barabas. I had an idea of how viruses may act similarly to fads from our previous reading by Duncan Watts. The main idea was that we are all connected to one another, and for this reason, real disease epidemics and things such as computer viruses spread so quickly. In Barabas’s writing he related the spread of fads and ideas to viruses.

The first example that Barabas used was the spread of AIDS to North America. The disease was largely influenced by one man named Gaetan Dugas. This one man had sexual contact with at least 2,500 people while infected with AIDS. Barabas then goes on to describe a cartoon by Mike Collins regarding the 2000 presidential election and its almost instantaneous popularity. In the excerpt, Barabas states that, “they are both examples of diffusion in a complex network”. At first you may think they are different because one spread very slowly and one had spread around the globe overnight, but in reality, the networks used are in essence the same. AIDS spread through a sexual network spanning many years and the cartoon spread through the huge network of computers. Another thing that the spread of viruses and fads have in common is a small group of people termed as innovators. These people are not afraid to take risks and they jump on the bandwagon of new ideas right away. They don’t wait for something to become popular and then just join in with the masses. Another group found in both cases is a group called the “hub”. This group consists of one or more people that interact/communicate with more people than does the average person. In the AIDS example, Dugas was considered a hub because he had much more promiscuous sexual relations than the average person.

In class we discussed the slogan “Keep Austin Weird”. It started off very small and then got into the hands of someone who decided to really get it off the ground. Today, other cities besides Austin are using the same slogan. The funny part of this fad is that Cingular used that slogan in an advertisement in Austin even though the whole point of the idea was to rebel against big corporations. It was a fad against the fad of big businesses like wal-mart. If plotted, it can be seen that the spread of a fad overtime takes the shape of a bell curve. However, as later described in the reading, computer viruses do not follow normal predictions from epidemic models. The Love Bug computer virus was the most damaging computer virus ever. It destroyed about 45 million computers worldwide and although there is now an antidote, it still exists today. The reason computer viruses behave unlike normal viruses/fads, is because computer viruses are not connected randomly. The AIDS epidemic is more related to the spread of a computer virus because people are not connected randomly and some people will be larger hubs than other people. In the case of “Keep Austin Weird” there was one main hub at the beginning that got it going and then everyone just followed.

Understanding the spread of ideas and fads can help us to understand the spread of diseases like AIDS. In this day in age, we are more connected to one another than any other time in history. For this reason, it is important to study how this new connective ness affects the laws of diffusion and the spread of things such as fads and viruses.

The hunt.........

So for my coolhunt I decided to head to Starbucks mainly because I was meeting up with some friends before gospel choir. We have coffee there every Wednesday before practice and yes I feel cool sitting on the second floor by the fireplace. I asked the girls for some help because, honestly, I don't think I am a really "cool" person and according to our reading, if you are not cool, you can't spot cool things. I tried to observe some of the people sitting there, but then I realized the second floor is mostly for studiers and, well, maybe they weren't the coolest people. In regards to clothes, I found that almost everyone was wearing jeans. I think that jeans are a cool clothing item and they are one clothing item that will always be cool. Recently, I think that skinny jeans are becoming "cool". Walking to Starbucks I obviously ran into a coastie or two with the north face jacket, spandex black pants, and the ugg boots. This is where I am a little confused. From our readings it sounds like cool is new, different and rebellious. However, I have been seeing the SAME coastie style for three years. Does that mean its not cool anymore....they are all the same and its definitely not new anymore. I think it was also hard to pick out cool because now that it is winter, everyone is mostly concerned with staying warm and not their style choices.

When does something stop being cool.....after it becomes super popular? If something that is cool is "rebellious", then after everyone starts to do it, then it wouldn't be cool anymore. For example, when a band becomes popular you are bound to get the people who say, "I liked them before they were big" so, therefore, they think they are cool. Then, as soon as everyone else likes them they claim they aren't really into them anymore. I think that the difference between something being cool and something being a fad is that a fad is a certain item or a style that people really like for a short period of time. On the other hand cool is more of a personality trait. Things aren't necessarily cool themselves but when cool people try something different and take a chance, they are what makes something cool. Someone who is a risk taker and doesn't necessarily care what people think or who are very confident in themselves and cool people. In the reading it says that big fashion designers don't invent what is cool, it is the people who wear them that make it cool.

This week we read an excerpt from a book called Six Degrees written by Duncan Watts. I really enjoyed his writing style and how he presented his ideas. The excerpt was called "The Connected Age" in which Duncan describes ideas such as emergence and the six degrees of separation. He also talks about a new kind of science that is growing called the science of networks. Reading this article made me think about how "small" our world really is and how we are all connected either through connections with people or through technology.

In Bobby's blog post from last week, he described how many of the things that supposedly make our lives "easier" really end up making our lives more stressful. I agree with this in some ways, but I think that if used in the correct way, most inventions really do provide convenience and less stress. If people get too caught up in technology or computers and have their whole entire life depend on it, if one little thing goes wrong, they are out of luck. However, I don't think that anyone can argue that electricity or computers make our lives more stressful. Duncan writes about a couple electricity failures on the east and west coast and how horrible it was for the cities to be out of power for a day or so. Yes, I am sure this was a very stressful couple of days, but I think that anyone would rather end up having a day of stress once in a blue moon, than not having electricity almost everyday of their lives. This example sort of leads into Duncan's description of emergence.

Emergence is when many different things interact and hence become something new. A tiny bit of electrical energy is not really anything, but if you combine a lot of energy together you can end up with a huge city. I think that another great example of emergence is a developing fetus. Each cell in and of itself doesn't look like anything, but after nine months all of these cells create a human being! The hard thing about emergence Duncan says, is that, "the parts making up the whole don't sum up in any simple fashion. Rather they interact with each other, and in interacting, even quite simple components can generate bewildering behavior." To understand emergence, a new science is emerging called the "science of networks". Scientists from all different specialties must come together in order to solve problems. I think this type of science sounds very difficult because so many different types of people are going to have to work together. This is probably why people view "interdisciplinary" scholars as so valuable.

The last part of this reading was about the six degrees of separation. This theory says that everyone is connected to everyone else by just six people. I think this idea is very thought provoking but is also a little hard to believe. I can understand how you are probably connected to anyone in the US by six degrees, but a tribal person in the mountains of South America? What if that tribe has not even had other human contact? Or think about all the people in China....I feel like you would have to go through a lot of people to get to some random person. Have they actually tested this? Like drawn two random peoples names and tried it out, or is it just a theory based on numbers? It is something to think about though.

JACK!!!

I am not sure what our assignment for tomorrow is in regards to blogging because it still says TBA on the course calender. So I think I will just do an open blog just in case. So, tomorrow Jack is coming to visit me! I haven't seen him since February 11th when I went to visit him in Kansas. My travel time there was 9 hours and home was 10 hours! Also, on the way there my flight from Chicago to Cincinnati was delayed by almost an hour and I was FREAKING out because I was going to miss my next flight. Somehow the plane made it there in time and i RAN to my connection with five minutes to spare. It was so scary! I got there at like 10pm on Friday and had to leave at 3:30 on Sunday and then I didn't get home until 2 in the morning. Jack is staying until Monday but he has to leave at 5am. It should be a good weekend especially since it is our 8 month anniversary on sunday! Long distance relationships stink! At this same time last year I was in another long distance relationship but that ended up not working out. I think Jack and I will be alright though....it has been going pretty good so far.

Friday night I am singing with the UW-Gospel choir at a black history month event thing. It is at seven o'clock in Mills concert hall (Humanities) so if anyone wants to go it is going to be pretty awesome. We have a spring concert later in the semester around the end of April and it is always really fun so I will keep everyone posted and you should try to make it. We have a fabulous dance team that is really talented sooooo be there or be square!!!

too....much....information....

I thought that the excerpt by Katherine Hayles from “Writing Machines” was still a difficult reading, but I thought her arguments were a bit more reasonable than McLuhan’s. One quote that I really liked was on the first page and says, “As the vibrant new field of electronic textuality flexes its muscle, it is becoming overwhelmingly clear that we can no longer afford to ignore the material basis of literary production.” That quote emphasizes the point of this excerpt, which is that the actual material form of writing is extremely important. Lexia to Perplexia was really confusing and frustrating to look at but it showed how important the medium is to the message.

When compared to McLuhan’s writing, I feel that Hayles addresses the relationship between the message and media in a more realistic way rather than saying the medium is the message. I agree with this view much more. One interesting idea I found in Hayles writing was that the medium isn’t just the book, movie, or internet itself, but it is the actual physical aspects of the medium. For example, on page 22 she describes that the binding of a book or the opaqueness of the paper all effect how the message is received. I had never really thought about these seemingly insignificant aspects of a medium. One connection I thought of in class (and then was used as an example about one minute later), was Goosebumps “choose your own adventure” books. You would have to pick what you wanted to do and then the book would tell you what page to go to. According to Hayles, this act of being link driven is called hypertext. Hypertext can also be seen in encyclopedias, movies (Momento), and obviously the internet. Some of the other words that Hayles describes in her writing are cybertext, which is more focused on images and is seen in computer games, and technotext, which has a body and has rich connections between its material properties.

In the next chapter she talks about Talan Memmott’s “Lexia to Perplexia”. I read her article before I viewed the website and I was really confused. I had no idea what she was talking about, and so I thought that looking at the website might help. After looking at the website, I realized why I was so confused. The website was a total overload. There were so many layers and it kept changing. The main point that I got out of her writing on this was that the website would not work without you, but the website also had a lot of control over what was happening. This is why it was so frustrating to look at. Hayles describes this when she states, “the subject does not exist apart from the technology.” While I was exploring the site I saw so many words and definitions I had never heard of that after about 15 seconds I just began to click furiously and did not read anything. Perhaps the author was trying to say that its meaning is unstable and that there is no way to make a full interpretation of it. Moreover, that meaning is multiple and that it evolves.

Both Hayles writing on how the media effects the message and on lexia to perplexia, made the it clear that how a subject is presented has huge effects on how you recieve the message. Lexia to Perplexia was a great example of an extreme presentation of a certain message. It made you frustrated, yet it also made you think about WHY he presented this information in such an odd way.

Here is my website. I hope this works!!

There would be no need for a medium without a message.....

The reading “The Medium is the Message” by Marshall McLuhan was very difficult to get a handle on. I could tell I was not the only one who was slightly confused by the article after reading Bob's blog, and I was glad I wasn't the only one! I felt that it was very philosophical and it made me think about how new media effects culture in a different way. I am not saying that I agree with all of his arguments, but some of his ideas were thought-provoking. I thought his basic idea that the medium through which we express our ideas is the message, was in itself pretty complicated. I also liked the second part of the text talking about hot and cold media, just because I had never heard of any of it before.

When Marshall McLuhan states that the “medium is the message”, I think he means that it is not the content that delivers the message, but the medium. This idea has a direct connection to our previous discussions about rhetoric on form vs. content. McLuhan would argue that how the content is presented is what makes the content worth listening to. The way he describes it, he feels that the medium is even more important than the message. I disagree with this because if there was no message to give, than you would not need the medium. I think that the medium enhances the message, but the message is still the most important part when presenting something. I agree that new media is important and it shapes our cultures, but ultimately the message is the reason for inventing new media in order to deliver it better. I do think McLuhan’s point that electric media will bring us back to a more oral rather than print based culture is very valid. However, although the internet may not be considered “print”, it opens up new ways to communicate to one another through writing. Then again, McLuhan was not around to see the internet. The other point in the article that I found interesting was that the content of any medium is always another medium. It is kind of a never ending circle. A few examples he gives is that the content of writing is speech, the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.

The other section of this article focused on hot vs. cold media. I did not have a clear understanding of this distinction until our class discussion on Tuesday. We were all a little confused about a few topics such as TV, but overall I think we got the idea. McLuhan says in hot media there is low participation, high definition, and more information. Cold media is just the opposite. Some examples for hot media are movies, radio, the waltz, and writing. On the other hand, cold media are things like conversation, telephone, the twist, and TV. I am still a little confused about how TV and movies can be in opposite categories. I feel that watching TV does not take any more participation than going to a movie. The only explanation I can think of is that, in McLuhan’s mind, TV was a family affair, and that, while watching TV, you were participating and talking with one another about the show. I think over time TV may have shifted more into hot media. One paragraph that I completely do not understand or agree with is on page 41 of his article where he describes that he thinks we can control the emotional climate in countries if we allow them to either listen to the radio or watch TV more. Does he really believe that that is possible? To me, that whole idea seems completely outrageous.

I see the connection!

The first word that comes to mind which is used in many of my classes, and was also mentioned in class, is "networks". The first obvious way in which this word is used in our english class is in regards to the internet and blogs. There is a huge network of people and information all at the click of a button. This got me thinking about my psychology class that I had last semester when we were learning about the nervous system and the huge network of nerves we have in our body and how we recieve information from our surroundings. In my nutritional sciences class we are talking about the digestive system which I think could just be considered a huge network of organs and processes. Another common term in my classes is "transfer". In physics and food science we learned about the three forms of heat transfer which are conduction, convection, and radiation. In this english class we talk about transfer in terms of transfer of knowledge, ideas, and opinions through different media. Another example of the use of the word transfer is in transferring food through the body (from one end of the GI tract to the other) and also transfering nutrients throughout the body. The word "law" has also appeared in many of my classes this semester. I am in a food laws and regulations class and we are learning about many different laws and regulations as they apply to food manufacturing. In physics and chemistry this word is also used when describing theories. For example, Newtons three laws of motion. Lastly, the word "media" is used to describe how something gets from one place to another. In english it means how information is transferred to people through TV, books, internet, etc. In my food science class it is the same idea, but it refers to the media that energy can move through such as liquid or air.

People wanna know things....

In the very beginning of the article “Blogging as Social Action” by Carolyn Miller and Dawn Sherpard, it is mentioned that many rhetorical issues are raised by weblogs and that the most interesting of these is “the peculiar intersection of the public and private that weblogs seem to invite.” Basically, within blogs you have no private sphere. It had been obvious to me prior to reading this article that weblogs were public posts available to anyone who wished to look at it; however, I did not understand the full history or depth of this interaction in weblogs.

Blogs originated in an era where the American culture was fascinated by making regular people into celebrities and celebrities into regular people. The examples used in the article were the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal and reality shows like the “real world”. People are basically just interested in knowing details about everyone’s life even if it doesn’t concern them. This interest is defined in the article as “mediated voyeurism”. One point I would like to make is that, in the article they make it seem like this “mediated voyeurism” can violate a persons’ privacy, but, in the case of a blog, a person creates it with the full knowledge that anyone can read it. So, in my opinion, if something goes wrong (as in some of the examples at the very beginning of the article), or if people get mad at a blogger, or a blogger feels their privacy has been violated, it is not the fault of the curious reader but of the careless writer. Humans are always going to be interested in other peoples lives, and things like blogs, reality TV shows, and cell phones make it easier to become intrigued by someone else’s life. If you put it out there in the open, you should expect it to be read and perhaps criticized. It is at the persons own risk to put themselves in the public eye. However, some people want there ideas known and heard and in this case blogs are a great thing.

Our discussion from class helped me to determine what exactly blogs are used for. Blogs, I think, are mainly a form of self-expression. You can put yourself out there and express your ideas, thoughts, and opinions. Once you have posted these, others can comment on your blogs, which is how blogs can be extremely useful in creating communities. People with the same ideas can come together and discuss topics of interest and form a group of like-minded persons. Jeff Rice also points out this connectivity of people and information in his article when he is talking about “the space on the page”. I do agree that networks are very important in this respect, but I still feel that basic writing on paper is valuable and my hope is that it is not taken over completely by new media. In my small discussion we also talked about how blogs can be used as a more permanent journal. On some blog sites you are allowed to make your blogs private, so it is basically just like a diary but it is safer than using word which could be deleted if your computer crashed. I think this is a great idea because you really can preserve memories for a lifetime with almost no chance of losing what you have written. They can also be used to stay connected to family without having to write separate letters or emails. These last couple examples are times when none or just a few people will be reading a persons blog, but in many cases, blogs are being read by tons of people even if the blogger is unaware of this fact. Although blogs can be useful in creating communities and sharing knowledge, it is a place where very private information should not be displayed for all to see. There is no separation between public and private spheres in the blogging world.

yay for new media!

In my previous writing classes at the University, all of the writing assignments have been extremely organized and polished. I took English 100-Introduction to Speech Composition. In this class we would spend about two weeks outlining, writing, and preparing our speeches. We would turn them into the TA to be reviewed and commented on and we would also have peer-review days. All the speeches we constructed had to follow a strict format. I also took Zoology 152 which is considered a comm. B class because we had to turn in a 20 page scientific research paper at the end of the semester. This was a very formal paper and was also reviewed by TAs and other students throughout the semester. It was an extremely long process to get it to its final draft. After learning the content of this class I was excited to learn some new things rather then having to write another formatted essay.

New media challenges this sort of “slow rhetoric” writing (as Lester Faigley would put it), in that, with new media you can create a piece of writing in about 20 minutes. You don’t have to brainstorm ideas for days or have anyone review and comment on your work. It is a very fast process and it is pretty informal in terms of formatting and structure. I think some people feel that brainstorming, writing, reviewing, and perfecting are the only way to make a good piece of writing. However, in this day in age when everything is moving so fast and communication is at a click of a button, I feel it is important to incorporate this sort of curriculum into academic writing.

In the coming generations, new media is going to become even more prevalent than it is today and slow forms of communication will probably become nearly extinct. For that reason, I think it is important that college students have the opportunity to become informed as to how to use this new media. Students will be much more prepared for work environments in which they will need this knowledge to succeed. If they don’t need this knowledge directly in their field of work it is still useful in everyday life and helps those educated to be one step above the rest. However, I don’t feel that new media should be the only academic writing option for students. I think slow, thought out processes of writing are also of great value and should not be overshadowed by this new wave of media. I think this overshadowing could be a major consequence since students will probably be more inclined to take a new media class rather than an old-fashioned English writing class. Moreover, some students who come from less privileged backgrounds may not have any experience with computers and new media and may feel inadequate to take these sorts of classes. I think it is important for everyone to learn these skills, but if a student cannot exceed in a class based on lack of previous knowledge I don’t think that is fair.

What is writing?

Why does everyone hate rhetoric?

One week ago I really had no idea of what rhetoric was. After reading the assigned articles and blogs from other classmates, I feel fairly confident in my grasp of the whole idea. The two readings helped to give an idea of the characteristics of rhetoric, where it is used, and how it is practical to our everyday lives. Our class discussion on Tuesday made the theory of rhetoric even clearer to me and I loved hearing everyone’s ideas. In Erin’s blog on rhetoric she explained how she had always seen rhetoric as very negative and even after the reading, some of her negative perceptions still remained. One question I had before our discussion was, why does rhetoric have such a bad reputation in the first place?

The second paragraph in Herrick’s introduction began talking about Plato and his negative attitude towards rhetoric, but I did not completely understand everything until our discussion in class. Scot talked about the long history of rhetoric and its origins in ancient Greece. He explained how Greek men wanted to learn the art of rhetoric and sophists were those who taught it. The sophists talked style. They would explain how to use language colorfully, and how to craft the message to each audience. Plato was really the first person to give rhetoric a bad name because he disliked the sophists since they were paid. Plato thought teaching should only be for the benefit of the students. So, this helped me to understand where these negative feelings began. I think that people who dislike rhetoric in our world today only focus on the ways in which rhetoric has perhaps been corrupted (politics) and completely overlook how rhetoric is used for good in our everyday lives. This can even be seen with Plato. When he made arguments against the sophists, was he not also practicing rhetoric? The last part of Herrick’s introduction was a great explanation of how rhetoric can be used for good as in building community and spreading knowledge.

The clips from the movie “thank you for smoking” were very interesting and I thought it was a great way to visually see the use of rhetoric. The first clip we saw was when he was talking to his sons classmates. In this clip he used one characteristic of rhetoric mentioned in Herrick’s introduction which is adapting your arguments to the audience. He made connections between his argument and things that were familiar to the children. However, he was basically trying to convince the children to try smoking and find out if it is really bad. So, here is a perfect example of how rhetoric can be used in a negative way. The second clip is when the father is trying to explain his job as a lobbyist to his son. They begin to argue about which ice cream flavor is better, chocolate or vanilla? Instead of his father arguing about how good vanilla was, he began talking about liberty and that people should have the right to choose their favorite ice cream flavor. He did not try to win the argument, he just tried to make the other person wrong. He kind of goes around the question and doesn’t answer it directly. This is an example of how rhetoric is planned. He knew what his intentions were when he first started his argument. This concept is also explained in detail in Herrick’s introduction. One other example of rhetoric I thought of in class was the movie "The Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. The whole movie uses rhetoric to get his point across.

Based on all of our readings and class discussion, my overall perception of the art of rhetoric is that it is a good practice. However, like all things, it can be used in negative ways. We can try to reduce the ways in which rhetoric is used wrongly, but someone will always be eager to corrupt its use. Rhetoric is an ancient practice and it is not going away anytime soon, especially since it is essential to our everyday lives.

Not all animals put on a layer of fat in the winter

The title to this blog was the quote on the back of a t-shirt I had from my highschool cross-country ski team. I am writing this blog to help you understand why 1) Cross country skiing is, well, the best sport ever and 2) why Cross country skiing is WAY better than downhill skiing. I have been skiing since I was about 5 years old. It is, in my book, the absolute best sport ever. First of all, Cross country skiing is a fabulous cardiovascular workout. Usually races are 5k (3 miles) long, so it takes a lot of endurance. Even if you are just skiing for fun, trails go on forever so you can't really start and then stop 10 minutes later...you have to finish. Unless you want to wimp out and turn around, but then you will crash into other skiers and that is never good. To ski you have to be able to tolerate very cold weather and that alone takes a lot of strength. I mean, honestly, what is better than wearing spandex in the middle of winter? Cross country skiing puts to work every part of your body. Legs, arms, abs, they all get an amazing workout. It is also extremely relaxing if you are doing it for recreation. You get to enjoy being in the middle of a winter wonderland, just you and nature. Now for my second point....cross country skiing is far superior to downhill skiing. In downhill skiing you are only on the slope for maybe 20 seconds in a race (downhill). On the other hand, in cross country skiing, you must be able to go up AND down hills for 3 miles or even more depending on the race. Cross country skiers don't have gravity to help them out. Downhill skiers seem to have that an attitude of, "I'm a risk taker, I can fly down a hill really fast and put my life in danger". Cross country skiers aren't trying to prove how brave they are, they are proving how skilled and strong they are. I recommend that everyone tries cross country skiing on a warm, sunny day where you can go out and meditate in nature!

Rhetoric???

To be honest, prior to reading Herrick’s introduction, I had a very limited idea as to how to define rhetoric. I was intimidated after reading the title for this course and found myself not even knowing exactly what it meant. I must admit I am still not quite sure what to expect. Before reading this excerpt, I would have described rhetoric as being closely related to the art of persuasion. Moreover, that it focuses not only on the content of what is being communicated, but also on the fashion in which it is presented. Unfortunately, that was the extent of my knowledge of rhetoric and I looked forward to reading Herrick’s "An Overview of Rhetoric" in order to become more acquainted with the subject matter we would be discussing for most of the semester.

After reading Herrick’s introduction, I felt much more informed as to what exactly rhetoric is. I was partially right in my original definition that rhetoric is related to persuasion, but I feel that I missed the big picture of what rhetoric actually is. Rhetoric is present everywhere and is essential to our everyday lives. Herrick’s reference to George Kennedy when he describes rhetoric as, “when we express emotions and thoughts to other people with the goal of influencing (persuading) them,” really helped to give me an understanding of rhetoric. This quote leads into the other parts of the reading that I found most interesting, which are the many forms in which rhetoric can be used. Kennedy says rhetoric is when we “express” (not write or speak about) our emotions and thoughts. Originally, I only thought of the use of rhetoric as being confined to writing and speaking. In actuality, rhetoric can be seen in music, dance, acting, painting, and even architecture. This really opened my eyes to how much rhetoric exists in our everyday lives. People use all kinds of symbols and art in order to persuade or convince someone on any given issue. This reading also describes rhetorical discourse and the social functions of the art of rhetoric. These two sections were organized extremely well and provided me with an understanding of the characteristics of a rhetorical discourse and how rhetoric applies to different aspects of our lives and communities. When the author was discussing rhetorical discourse, he mentioned that rhetoric is usually directed towards a specific audience, and is often adapted by the rhetor to accommodate for the beliefs of that audience. One thing I found interesting is that the "audience" can, in fact, be yourself. For example, if you are debating the pros and cons of a situation, you are, in a way, persuading yourself act in a certain way or not. It is true that rhetoric has had a bad reputation in that past, but after reading this article I feel that, perhaps, it only got that reputation because the people using the word rhetoric did not completely understand its definition entirely. Anther possibility is that the general definition of rhetoric has changed over time yet the negative associations still linger today.

Overall, my definition of rhetoric has expanded dramatically. I can say that it is not only persuasion, but the study or practice of symbolic expression. Rhetoric has a role in almost all human interactions. In so many things we do, we are trying to convince one another of our thoughts or opinions, and these can all be considered forms of rhetoric. Although there is still criticism of rhetoric existent today, I think rhetoric is definitely worth studying and analyzing.

How did I end up here?

How did I end up here? Anyone who knows me knows that I refer to myself as "technologically disabled". I really dislike dealing with computers, TVs, or any sort of technological device. If anything happens to go wrong with my computer I usually get frustrated and pout rather than try to fix it. Eventually, someone comes to my rescue and repairs it for me. So, I find it amusing that when I registered for English 201 I ended up in the section titled "Rhetorics of Network Culture". However, the more I have read about the class the more intrigued I have become. I have actually managed to convince myself that this class is going to be fun and I might learn something useful. Being that I am a dietetics major and hoping to go to medical school, it is unlike any course that I have taken. Overall, I think this should be a pretty interesting course.
I suppose I should introduce myself a little more for anyone who may run across this, and for the other students in my class. As I mentioned above my major is dietetics and my longterm goal is to go to medical school. I am a junior but unfortunately I won't be graduating until the fall of 2008. This is partly my fault because I did not declare a dietetics major until my sophomore year and I took it easy during my freshman year. However, I must emphasize that the amount of classes required for dietetics and premed are quite extensive. I also took many Spanish classes to prepare me for a month long trip to Costa Rica I took last summer with my best friend. We lived with a host family and volunteered in a food shelter and a kindergarten. It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life and I hope to go back next winter break. I love to travel and see new places and experience life to the fullest. For this reason I sometimes question medical school. Do I really want to spend the best years of my life in school? Tied down for 9 or more months out of the year? Whenever I have these doubts I always come to the conclusion that it will really be worth it in the end and I know I wont regret it. Class is about to end and then I am off to research (hopefully not for too long). I must say this "blogging" is pretty exciting!