MORE TECHNOTEXTS, April 28: , Kevin Eure and Jennifer Kramer

The presentation by Kevin and Jennifer about technotexts was interesting. I really enjoyed watching “While Chopping Red Peppers.” It was a very odd thing for me and I found the audio slightly chilling. I was a little freaked out mainly because of the way the narrator spoke. It was almost emotionless, but it was also filled with a sort of sadness that she had become somebody her father had molded her into. I felt at times that the class discussion was very hesitant and was lacking for much of it. Eventually, we got to a point where we had pretty regular class involvement, but I do not believe that Kevin and Jennifer captured the class as much as the other presentations.

WORD PROCESSORS & COMPUTER WORD PROCESSING, April 21: Leah Wolfeld and Celeste Lohr

The presentation about word processors and computer word processing by Celeste and Leah was pretty good. It was a fairly well put together project, but I believe that Leah asked a lot of the really good questions that the class was involved in. I really enjoyed the discussion about how using the computer to write differs so much from using pen and paper. I also thoroughly enjoyed the writing prompt in which we all had to switch our methods of organization and either type and outline on the computer or write one by hand. That was a fun experiment that really had the class thinking. The class did not necessarily think about the topic in which it had to create an outline for, but we all thought of how switching to either computer or writing by hand affected the way of execution. It was a good thing to have our methods tested and see the outcome of the change of regular process.

MOBILE WRITiNG, April 14: Pauline Parikh and Victoria Mangam

I thought this presentation by Pauline and Victoria about mobile writing was very interesting. We had a lot of good class discussion about how cell phones are an extension of ourselves. Because of mobile writing we are able to communicate faster and this allows information to constantly be up to date. When the topic of cell phones is brought to the table, the class always has something to say about it. The topic of cell phones is always an interesting one that brings a lot of good intellectual ideas of where our society is going. This presentation was well put together and had a lot of good information that really got the class going in discussion. It was enjoyable to listen to the presentation and information that was presented, as well as the interesting class discussion that ensued.

I do remember we had a very good discussion about spimes and they introduced me to the wonderful website called mykidissafe.org. We had a lot of fun talking about how parents are overprotective and how it is absolutely crazy that there are ways of being constantly updated on your kids' whereabouts and even text messages. I very much enjoyed the fact that I learned a lot about spimes and other sorts of new technologies in this field. I believe that in our class discussion we might have digressed quite a bit and maybe that was a good thing because we did talk a lot which equals an A for the presentation.

UNCREATIVE WRITING, April 9: Sarah Kabi and Barry Wong

The presentation about uncreative writing by Sarah and Barry, but I did not take much out of it. Perhaps, it is due to the fact that uncreative writing is not a very interesting subject for me. I did not fully understand its purpose nor did I understand why anybody would be interested in doing this uncreative writing at all. It is simply copying whatever you choose to write about. I guess people would want to do it for the challenge that it creates because it is a very restricted form of writing. When I did my uncreative writing, I did not try and change anything, but I did not feel the need to elaborate in my own words about the clothing labels that I chose to wear that day. It just seemed like a waste of time to me to copy everything down and it was also slightly stressful. I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything the same for every article of clothing in which I was copying down its label. It was hard in regards to keeping the format the same, but otherwise, I found it pointless. I do not remember much class discussion on this topic during the presentation, but I believe that most of the class has the same sentiments as I do about uncreative writing.

UNCREATIVE WRITING, April 7: Abbey Verrillo and Scott Douglas

The presentation about uncreative writing was informative and interesting to listen to, but it kind of freaked me out because of the youtube videos of the uncreative writer, Kenneth Goldsmith. He was absolutely crazy. I suppose anybody who takes uncreative writing as seriously as he does would be a little crazy. The whole topic of uncreative writing is an anomaly to me. First, it’s uncreative because the writer is just writing down every detail of every action that the writer’s body goes through during one day, but then the idea of writing all of this information down is very creative to me. I do not see where we can have uncreative writing without creativity. The presentation did well to ask that question and the class discussion was very intellectually stimulating. Abbey and Scott were very informative and really knew their stuff on uncreative writing. I very much enjoyed the presentation, even thought I might not thoroughly understand the topic. However, this is not due to their lack of information on the topic, this is solely due to the fact that I am unable to completely wrap my head around uncreative writing. I understand the method, but I do not understand how this writing is fully uncreative.

PAPER, LETTERPRESS, BOOK ARTS, April 2: Lindsey Hawk, Matt Kiehl

I thought this presentation was VERY informative. It was very intellectually stimulating and I truly believed that I was being presented this information by experts. Because Lindsay is an artist herself, I really enjoyed hearing her personal opinions that came from an artist's point of view. I also enjoyed listening to the information that Matt provided about the history and beginnings of book arts. I also loved the examples that they showed. It showed a lot of different facets of book arts and how many ways one art can be achieved. It gave me a lot of inspiration for my own book arts project. The presentation really gave me an idea of how the media used to create the artist’s book really intensifies the message that the book is trying to convey.

I also thought it was interesting and really helpful to see Lindsay’s personal collection of zines. They were quirky and fun to look at. I also thought that the class discussion about zines was very interesting to listen to. I do not think that zines will ever be looked at as a reputable source of information, but they will be looked at with interest and an artistic mind.

Blogs and Social Sites

While reading “Facing my Facebook self,” I thought it was very interesting how he described his Facebook self as something better than he ever could be. He also claimed that it was a consistent version to which he could not commit. I do not understand this at all. I believe that people are putting their Facebook self on this pedestal which it should not be placed upon. Also, I believe I have mentioned this before in my other blogs, I really do not understand why people cannot be true to themselves on their Facebook profiles. I completely understand untagging yourself from pictures of you underage drinking due to the fact that you probably will get caught if you are involved in school activities or are trying to get a serious job. However, untagging a goofy picture because you are afraid of what people might think of you is idiotic. People need to stop trying to be what others want them to be and just be themselves. There is no way anybody could be happy living with these restrictions and with the guilt that their friends do not actually know the real person inside.

When I read on in “Facing my Facebook self,” I read about how he made up his profile and how he put so much thought into it to make sure that his “favs” showed different, good qualities about him. When I created my Facebook profile, I really did not put that much thought into it. Some of the parts are not even completed because I got lazy. Granted, I am friends with a lot of people on Facebook, but the people who I really care about already know what I like and know who I am so there is no need to try and be at the top of my game when it comes to my Facebook self.

After reading “On Facebook Scholars Link Up With Data,” I thought it was very interesting (and goes along with my way of thinking about Facebook) that studies showed that people with 800 friends or more are seen as popular on Facebook, but they are actually insecure. I completely agree with this. How could somebody have that many friends. Well, I guess the point is that they really do not have that many friends, they just friend random people or they accept friend requests from people they barely know to look like they have a ton of friends. I think it is all so silly. Get over yourself, people!!! Stop trying to be somebody you are not!!!

Now on to blogs… When reading “Blogging, the nihilist impulse,” I could not believe the numbers of people blogging. I think blogging is ridiculous. Well, the personal diary ones that people make public so everybody can see how dumb their life is. However, I do think it is acceptable (notice my use of acceptable and not cool, neat, or awesome) when people document a trip via blog, so their friends can see what nifty things they did while in Jamaica.