04.25.08
Greener books?
Now that I have discovered the joy that is used books on Amazon.co.uk, I am in book heaven. I just ordered Belle de Jour and paid a pittance. It is like Bookcrossing, but with the ability to order!
04.22.08
It’s just like Yoda says, Mom!
My kids and I went bicycle fishing today. What is that, you may ask? Well, bicycle fishing is when you spot a bike close to the river bed and you fish it out (there are many). The first day we were able to fish one out that was quite close without any equipment. Today, however, a full plan and equipment was needed. The bike was located in a shallow-ish part of the river that was inaccessible to foot traffic. It was in the part under the bridge and close to where you can tie up boats (there were actually three in the same 2 meters). We knew we were going to have to try to hook it, drag it 30 meters to where we could access the bank, then pull it up. First we tied together several bungee cords and rope. But they were too short. We borrowed some rope from the local skate park and were able to make a long and weighty enough fishing hook. We caught the bike on the first try, but the bungee cords were not strong enough to suck the bike out of the mud and they broke. We then retied a hook and a rock for weight and tried again. It took many, many tries, but soon we were able to get the rock wedged between the spokes of the tire and pull. Yippee. But what suction from the mud! Or so we thought… It turned out that one handle bar was wedged under a fallen log and we could not get it unstuck. We got the rope loose and tried for the other tire, hoping that we could get the handle bar to turn the opposite way, freeing it from the log. It took many throws of our rope, and many rocks (they kept falling out of the snare), but eventually we hooked the bike between the tire and the basket and pulled it to shore. It put up a mighty struggle and at times small crowds would gather to watch.
My kids were full of adrenaline on the way home. My son talked about how we tried for an hour to hook the bike, and how it struggled to get away, but how we kept going, even when we thought about giving up. “It is just like Yoda says, Mom”- says my smart son. “If you believe in yourself, you can do anything.” I will have to call the police station about the legalities of keeping the fished up bikes (even though they have obviously been there for at least a year… probably several), but even if we have to turn them in, to hear their excitement… to watch them plan and persevere, and to be able to actually link our adventure to believing in oneself, I think that this fishing trip resulted in more than anything we could have dragged out of the water.
(and no, I do not fish for fish. It is a personal choice 
).
04.17.08
31 years today.
I love birthdays and I was well taught by my amazing great grandmother that age is irrelevant. This year was so, so difficult that my birthday feels a bit lack luster. I want to be my usual bouncy self, but I find my bounce a little weak. Instead I decided to take a look back at the happy times of this year. I made new, wonderful, dear friends. I made a stronger commitment to the lab. I worked on my thesis. I said goodbye to my grandmother. I spent time with my parents. I had special evenings and moved into a new, great home with my partner. I had forgotten how many smiles we shared this year. It is nice to look back on a year of pictures and remember.
04.11.08
I have a title!
I have a title for my thesis! I like the idea of ‘bursty’ communities. It is a concept I have read in several articles about CMC (and will cite) and feel that it describes the fluid and temporal nature of weblog communities and conversations well. Also, I do not want to refer to blogs as one ‘thing’, rather I will discuss the communicative and identifying affordances of the different spaces in a blog.
Bursty Little Communities: The influence of communities of practice on linguistic choices in individual and communal weblog spaces.
What do you think?
04.10.08
Flickr does video!
Did you know that flickr is now doing video… but not like YouTube. There is a 90 second limit. They are calling it ‘long’ pictures. Very cool. It is a pro feature, and I am now regretting letting my pro account lapse. Maybe that is what I will give myself for my birthday… I turn 31 next week! Yikes!
Brainstorming with Scrivener
A couple of weeks ago I was turned on to a program called Scrivener. I played with it a bit and was quite unsure about how useful it would be until I stopped looking at it as a word processing tool and started using it to brainstorm. (On Friday I will present my ‘kappa’ to my department (the introduction that pulls together all the articles). These can very short or book length, ranging from 50 pages to 150… it all depends on what you do with the chapters. I think mine will be a fairly long one, as I will end up cutting out an article due to time constraints.) Anyway, back to scrivener…
I started by brainstorming everything i have learned so far, then move
these ‘trains of thought’ onto separate cards. I can then take these cards and move them
around, trying to make a linear argument from a very non-linear way of thinking. Really worth trying out! Thank for the tip, Jon!
04.04.08
A few more firsts
Last night we had our first dinner party in our new apartment. The rooms are set up in such a way that movement between the ‘entertainment’ spaces (the first three rooms) allowed our guests to be located in several of the rooms, but still remain part of the larger group. It is a perfect place for entertaining! At one point I was in the kitchen and cutting up the fruit for a salad and I could hear the murmurs and laughter from the other room. Having laughter and life in the house made it a warm space- it made it a home.
My other first involved writing a few paragraphs for a EU proposal. I have never written such a text, but it was a really enjoyable change of style. I wrote about communities of practice in language learning. Quite fun! The entire project seems quite interesting. I hope that it is accepted. I am not really sure how much I can say about it at this stage in the planning. It is probably best to wait a bit ;-).
04.02.08
First real yoga class
I have done yoga at home before, and Pilates both at home and at the local gym, but tonight was the first time I did a real yoga class. I am not really sure how I feel about it yet. It was a bit painful, not stretching pain, but every time I would downward dog I would get shooting pain behind my eyes. By the end of the class I got a killer ache in my head every time my head went below my knees. Strangely, even with the headache, I feel quite relaxed now… like I have just had a massage. I think I need to try it a few more times before deciding if I like it or not. Maybe I was just too stiff. It was not the instant attraction to the primal pull of the African drums letting me through all my stressors into the wind, but there was still something there that gave me a ‘finally relaxed’ feeling. Hmmmm. I need more information.
03.28.08
Lara Croft had a breast reduction?
Today Yesterday I listened to Hilde G. Corneliussen speak in HUMlab about gender in computer games. She was a very good speaker and made some great points about what people want, or may want about gender representation in games. For example, in response to discomfort/outrage at the sexualized version of Lara Croft, she was given a breast reduction. I.e., market response changed the core symbol of the game. Another important point made during this talk concerned the demographics of gaming. Women who, according to these researchers, are most often not the target demographic, play in remarkable numbers. T.L. Taylor was referenced as saying that women are playing ‘despite’ the game. Discussing whether games even should be geared towards women, research by Cassell and Jenkins (1998) was brought up stating that games should *not* be created for girls only because they “teach girls to act like girls are supposed to act” - The subcontext, of course, is that being a girl is still a negative thing. This is an interesting question, and as a mother to an 8 year old girl, this is also an important question.
Should games be geared towards girls? A horrible example of gearing towards a stereotype of women based on Playboy and Paris Hilton, is MissBimbo. Touted as a fashion game, the girl moves through the game by dieting and earning breast implants. This is a message that is framed through so many other forms of media that I would never want my little girl to play this game. But what about games that are not marketed towards boys or girls, but have very obvious sterotyped representations? Do I want my little girl to play as Lara? Yes, I think I would be ok with this. Yes, she wears very little to play, and yes she has had very large breasts. BUT she also a very powerful woman. I like the duality of Croft. I like that she can be very feminine and very tough. Yeah, paint your nails - but don’t worry if you break one. To me, embracing your right to be pretty/sexy but also physically strong is empowering.
