Adieu

Change has always been a part of my life. As an Army brat, I used to move every year and a half or three years. I'm used to meeting people, connecting with them, and then saying goodbye with the expectation of never seeing them again or seeing them next week - it was all the same. I find the same sense of personal change and connection in my Trinity classes. You meet a new group of people, perhaps a few you knew from other classes, you spend time each week talking and exposing small bits of yourself. You grow comfortable with the group and then, poof, it all ends.

I will particularly miss this class because it was an unusual, mixed group of grads and undergrads; the young and not so young. I will also miss it because no other class had such an immediate impact on my daily life, communication skills, and work life. This blog will continue in one form or another and will be a legacy of the class. My class blog is another legacy and probably now takes more of my time than this one. It will be interesting to see if I continue to write here or create anew - we'll see

Simple

I was intrigued by Fimoculous and absolutely loved Indexed. With my ongoing obsession with the way the blogs look and how that attracts readers, I always try to both react naturally and analyse a blog when I first view it (how stupid does that sound). I've come to realize I like darker colors and clean lines, certainly a feature of Fimoculous. I also like sites that I can learn something from, or one that makes me laugh. Fimoculous also attracted me because it gave me a limited number of blog choices that someone took the time to vet. This, I realize, is also important to me. I love books but get depressed in bookstores, especially the big ones. There is so much I want to read, but I can't read them all, and I can't decide , and I walk out even more depressed than I entered, without a book. I like it when someone says,"hey, read this." I was in a book club several years ago and read some great books. I read more often because I had a deadline and the opportunity to discuss what I read. When I think about it, my blog is an opportunity to fill the discussion void when I now read or see something. I think many of us attend graduate classes to read and discuss and use the furthering of our education as the excuse to do so.

Now, Index. I liked it because of its visual simplicity, its humor, and its thoughtful complexity. I believe that poetry, specifically haiku, is a wonderfully thought provoking literary art form. These seemingly silly little cartoons also force you to think, and then think again. It's neat to think about a person who thinks in terms of words and the visual. Cartoonist obviously fit into this category. It is an art form we take for granted, but it can frame or dissect an issue more effectually than many, many words. I use the Cagle site in class when I teach Dante to discuss how Dante uses words to create visual images that satirize the person or topic. My students always remember the cartoon not Dante - some teacher.

Having convinced, OK, coerced my 15 year old to let me onto his My Space site, for research purposes mind you, and viewed his friends, including two of my niece’s sites, my academic analysis is list below:

Ouch! Argh! Eeek! Stooooooooooooooooopppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp!

As a parent, my reaction is

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Now, ethical dilemma - does a graduate student doing a class project tell his in-laws that their daughters are posing and posting pictures of themselves on My Space for their, obviously (uncle talk) lowlife, red neck, someone needs to slap you around boyfriend (can’t she do better than that) or assume that as a caring parent they are fully aware (i.e. sneaking on to her site) of their daughter’s technological forays into to this, obviously benighted, evil, gosh, Joe Lieberman was right, cyber world of ours.

Conversation over phone:

Jim: Hey, it’s Jim. Happy holidays.
In-laws: Jim who? Oh, my god! What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?
Jim: No one. Gee, why do you ask?
In-laws: In 24 years as a brother –in-law, you’ve never called us. So we were concerned. Sorry…so, what’s happening?
Jim: Oh, nothing much. I just happened to be surfing the net, specifically My Space, for my graduate class at Trinity College.
In-laws: What the hell kind of college has a class where you cruise My Space? Is it one of those internet colleges? What is it called, Phoenix something…
Jim: Let’s not go there. So, how is your daughter doing? Hey, how’s her My Space site doing?
In-laws: (Silence)

All joking aside, I was appalled by what I saw. I know that it is silly. I work with teenagers in school all day long. Still, what I saw reinforced the concerns that everyone has talked about. My own son’s account was benign, probably a function of being grounded so often for grades he can’t spend time being more creative. Besides he’s a boy and it was intriguing how less mature and open they were than the girl’s sites. I felt like a voyeur. I asked my son, and will ask my students, why does everyone post pictures of themselves? Hasn’t anyone been watching TV? He posted a picture of himself and his sister. He says he’s from down south but his picture shows them wearing Red Sox gear at Fenway. No, he’s no 007. The talk about parents, drugs, alcohol, the bad grammar and spelling…I think I’ll block My Space and then call Lieberman’s office to apologize for that Lamont vote.

Wow, I’m depressed. I’m going to bed. I think I’ll dosomething adult and mind expanding. I’m going to watch “The Girls Next Door”