Write a recollection (either lamenting or yearning) of your place.  Background Rodney Jones' "Hubris at Zunzal" until 1:20pm

To travel to another place with the flip of a page.  The library opens doors for all those that enter.  A place of study, a place to eat, socialize, escape, or reconnect, there are no limits.  The library offers endless opportunities within four walls.  Books, magazines, computers, librarians, coffee, students,  quiet floors, teachers, classrooms, redbull.  Silence and laughing, writing and reading, teaching and learning.  Those who enter the frosted double doors can either do so to escape from it all or explore the world.   Anything is possible in the library.

litany

i really liked collins' take on the love poem.  he has a sense of humor and makes his thoughts on traditional western love poetry known, it is a bunch of bs and really doesn't mean anything.  comparing your lover to random "lovely" things just shows you think they are lovely or pretty but what does that say about the actual love you have? not much. these comparisons just make the affection displayed shallow and ungenuine.  be real!  

procrastination

i don't know why but i never learn to NOT procrastinate.  every semester starts out strong, i'm on top of my homework, sometimes even ahead, and then it starts... "oh, i'll do it later."  later seems to always turn in to the night before, the day of, the hour before class and i'm screwed.  blogging has been especially hard to not procrastinate.  i think the ease of the assignments, the accessibility of the internet, and the flexibility in due dates has just made this paper the easiest paper to put off until tomorrow.  i don't know why but it seems that the convenience of the assignment has made me procrastinate.  no one likes 10 page papers double spaced due at 8am, but maybe its the painful requirements that serve as the kick in the rear to actually do it.  talk about irony...

stalking

everyone has/does/will stalk someone else.  we're all creepers, we just aren't always open about it.  this exercise was interesting because it forced us to be critical observers.  we became the predator mentioned in the poem dr. lay read in class, carefully and purposefully observing our surroundings and our prey(subject).  the exercise was designed to strengthen our observation methods.  good writers must be good observers to correctly portray whatever it is they are writing about.  the metaphor portion of the exercise had us thinking outside of the box which is useful in writing.  it is much more interesting to paint a picture using metaphors than tell the reader exactly what you see, allow your reader to use his or her imagination. 

Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swAXnznn2wg

for all of you who thought mike and i were crazy in class the other day, i thought i'd share one of the songs we were listening to.  i hope you enjoy : )

I could use another cigarette
But don't worry daddy, I'm not addicted yet
One too many drinks tonight and I miss you
Like you were mine

All your stormy words have barely broken
And you sound like thunder though
You've barely spoken
Oh, it looks like rain tonight and thank God
'Cause a clear sky just wouldn't feel right.

[CHORUS]
He's taken and leaving
But I keep believing
That he's gonna come round soon
(He'll come round soon I know)
You may be my final match
'Cause I chase everything when you play
Throw and I play catch
It never took much to keep me satisfied
But all the bullshit you feed me you miss me
You need me
This hungry heart will not subside

[CHORUS]
He's taken and leaving
But I keep believing
That he's gonna come round soon
Until I see him again
I'm staying believing
That it won't be deceiving
When he's gonna come round

Well I may seem naive if I cry as you leave
Like I'm just one more tortured heart
These cracks that I show as I'm watching
You go aren't tearing me apart
I may seem naive if I cry as you leave
Like I'm just one more tortured heart
These cracks that I show as I'm watching
You go aren't tearing me apart

The angels said I'd smile today
Well who needs angels anyway?

[CHORUS]

my own blog

sooo after posting for these past couple weeks i'm wondering if i will continue blogging after this assignment has been completed.  i went home over thanksgiving break and talked to my friend russell about his blog entitled shrubscan'trun.  i however, thought he said chubscan'trun, which got me thinking... maybe i should start a blog about my progress for my half-marathon training and title it chubs can't run.  thoughts? 

4. The Experientialist Perspective

My subject was Tom Eddy.  He is about 5'7'' and weighs around 150 pounds.  He has black hair and light skin.  He donned a brown plaid jacket over a white shirt with black stripes.  He also wore jeans and glasses.  Tom sat in the basement of the library comfortably, with his legs crossed.  

Tom was participating in the same activity I was.  I do not know who his subject was but he kept his gaze behind me, interchanging observation and writing.  He spoke to a couple of the students who were filming because he participated as an actor in addition to completing the assignment Dr. Lay assigned.  

I already  know Tom so I was not surprised with my observations.  He is quiet and did the work assigned as he usually does.  He is also polite and kindly participated in the filming when asked.

stickiness

The authors define stickiness as:

"Our interest is in how effective ideas are constructed — what makes some ideas stick and others disappear."

Post a two-paragraph blog entry that contemplates stickiness.  First define stickiness in your own terms.  Do you agree with the Heaths?

okay... what is stickiness?  well that question didn't stick, i had to keep looking at it which forced me to copy paste it on this blog soooo what is stickiness? stickiness is the level of sticky something is, like a post it note has a lower level of stickiness than super glue.  dr. lay probably does not want that for an answer.  what is stickiness? shit, i have typed that three times and it still hasn't stuck.  haha pun, funny stuff.  

anywho, stickiness.  stickiness is when ideas just stick.  the hansel and gretel commercial was sticky.  the stupid long panteen commercial was sticky.  the former was arguably better, and more entertaining, but it was not necessarily stickier.  why is that? i don't know.  maybe the level of obnoxiousness plays into the level of stickiness.  the more obnoxious the more you remember it.  think about it, things that annoy you tend to linger, which inherently makes them more annoying.  i couldn't get that stupid song she was playing out of my head for an hour after the commercial.  even a month and a half after watching the commercial for the first time i still remember it well.  it stuck.  but WHY?!

the heaths make some valid arguments but they act more as guidelines.  like the kiss method... keep it simple stupid.  don't over complicated things and you have a better shot at people remembering them.  keep it simple, short and sweet. play on people's emotions.  whether you made them laugh, cry, scream, or bitch about how annoying it was, you have tapped into their feelings.  that's my recipe for stickiness.  at least literary stickiness, i also have a good recipe for craft paste but that is for another time.

el perrero

body language matters.  as cesar's interactions with the dogs and their owners clearly displays, what you say nonverbally can have more of an impact than the actual words you use.  dogs pick up on everything humans do, but they don't speak english, or spanish, or any human vernacular.   dogs may understand what a certain word means for training purposes, up, no, treat, lay down, etc. but they can't understand a conversation two people are having word for word.  they can however, figure out if people are fighting, are laughing, are sad, etc. by their body language.  

 it is the tone of the situation that dictates how dogs will respond.  similarly, the tone in a piece of writing can greatly impact how the reader responds to the piece.  i wonder what the equivalent to body language is in writing.  is it the materiality of the piece?  the grammar?  the structure?  it clearly isn't the actual content of the piece, it is what is behind the words, the subtleties of the writing that constitute the body language.

Peter's Questions for Stitch Bitch

2. Why can't the producer of "Stitch Bitch" reveal herself/himself, in one appearance?

clearly it is because she is a schizophrenic and has multiple personalities.  she should really work on that before publishing confusing crap on hypertext without actually explaining WHAT HYPERTEXT IS.  maybe the author should figure out who she is so she can figure out what hypertext is and stop messing with her readers' minds. how am i supposed to take you seriously if you don't even know who you are?  silly shelley shelley/mary shelley/crazy person.

multiple personalities can make for a more interesting piece of writing or multiple pieces of writing. perhaps shelley shelley writes differently than mary shelley, i don't know.  but how can i take you seriously as a figure of authority on whatever you are writing about if you can't even tell me who you are?

stitch bitch questions

what is a hypertext?

what is jackson's purpose in writing this article?

who is this impostor the writer refers to at the beginning of the text?

how is the impostor relevant to hypertext?

why was this article assigned?

where does jackson get her metaphors for hypertext?

stitch bitch

Read Shelley Jackson's "Stitch Bitch" and blog your reaction to it. 

http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/jackson.html

okay so i read the article and i still have no idea what the hell i'm supposed to write or what i was supposed to get out of that crap.  jackson's article is wordy, annoying, confusing, and just plain sucked.  i have no idea what her introduction is about or who this impostor is or even why it is relevant to the following stuff on hypertext.  what the hell is hypertext anyway?  according to my handy little widget dictionary, hypertext is "a software related system that links topics on the screen to related information and graphics, which are typically accessed by a point-and-click method" what does that have to do with jackson's article?  i have no clue! maybe class will clear things up, but for now i am at a loss.

Questions

Did Collins' intend to mock western love poetry?

Is Collins' poem a love poem?

Does Collins want his readers to laugh?

Was the object for comparison/subject of the poem actually the inspiration for Collins' metaphors?

Plagiarism, Collaboration, Inspiration?

when musicians jam together, collaborate, build off of one another, are they plagiarizing? can artists create something real without being inspired?  nietzsche makes the claim that knowledge is built from multiple perspectives, "there are no facts, only interpretations."  lethem cites blatant forms of plagiarism that have been major contributers to current pop culture and the literary world as a whole.  would someone be bold enough to say that shakespeare is a cheater?  he basically ripped cleopatra straight from plutarch's life of mark antony and to my knowledge, did not include footnotes in any of his plays...what does that mean?  where is the line between artistic license and plagiarism? are we as a society ready to forfeit the creation of art to protect copyrights...  or are copyrights actually protecting artists? i would argue that the more lawsuit crazy we are, the more art is inhibited... what do you think?

Twain on Blogging?

It is no use to keep private information which you can’t show off.

An Author’s Soldiering, 1887

An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency.
Mark Twain in Eruption

is mark twain right?  is there use in keeping a private journal?  have blogs eliminated the need for leather bound journals?  the feel is different.  writing online doesn't feel the same as writing in a journal.  pen in hand is different than keyboard at fingertips.  but my journal i can close and hide, i can't hide my thoughts and feelings once i blog about them.  it is public.  it is online.  the WORLD WIDE web.  maybe that makes writing better, maybe that makes it worse...

everyone loves getting notifications on facebook, compliments on their pictures, compliments on their blogs.  does it matter if the source is incompetent? not really.  the internet is great for feedback.  sometimes positive, sometimes negative, not feedback is feedback right?  it seems like everything online now has a response section.  nytimes articles, recipes, blogs, facebook, myspace, they all have space for feedback. i wonder what mark twain's blog would look like...  i bet he would rip apart our blogs, that would be interesting...

Plagiarism

i was accused of plagiarism my freshman year in high school because i was the only person in class who worked on the assignment instead of watching the superbowl the night before it was due.  how is that fair?  we are requested to submit our papers to turnitin.com which to me is just a slap in the face.  many professors don't give their students the benefit of the doubt but instead assume they will plagiarize until a website says they aren't.  there is a reason why our justice system is founded on the premise of innocent before proven guilty, why doesn't the world of academia follow suit?  the argument that students plagiarize so they HAVE to use systems like turnitin.com is bullshit.  just because SOME students plagiarize does not mean that i do nor does it mean that you should assume every student is guilty of such until a website justifies our claims of innocence.