bugsii

Yesterday I woke up in Akron and went to bed in Cincinnati.  After Katie’s confirmation, Dan and I stayed the night with my mom.  She took the next morning off of work and made us pancakes.  Isn’t she nice?  Then, we headed back to Columbus so Dan and I could get some work done in the afternoon and then, we headed further south to Cincinnati for the weekend.  I’m running the half Flying Pig marathon on Sunday and we’re also celebrating mother’s day with Dan’s mom.  We’re getting pedicures together this afternoon (me, Dan’s mom, and Dan’s sister… not Dan).  This morning though, I’ve been at Panera eating and doing as much schoolwork as I can.  I feel like I’ve made pretty good progress, but I’m stuck on my analysis of my (soon to be very old) blog study.  How can you just say “Everyone’s sort of different,” or “Hey pal, it’s complicated?” That doesn’t seem like a finding.

I got up to do some work this morning, and had the Today show on in the background, when this segment caught my eye, “The dark side of mom blogs.”  Oh, why must they make up things to report on when there are so many more important things going on in the world?  Why not just play a loop of puppies for awhile, which at least would avoid making unsubstantiated claims about a non-phenomenon?

Here’s a link to the “story,” and yes, I had to make a comment of my own and yes, I plugged my blog, and no, I don’t care who reads it.  It’s obviously a pretty hot topic, what with the 4 comments so far.

Okay, well it’s hard to really pinpoint the actual first bicycle, but I spent a good part of the day reading (outside!) this really interesting book for a class (that I probably should have read a long time ago) called Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change by Wiebe Bijker and in the first section, he describes the history and erratic development of the bicycle.  This is one of the first from 1791:

hehehe

Notice how it doesn’t have pedals or anything.  The man has to sit and push with his feet.  Can you imagine seeing a guy in a suit pushing himself around on that today?  That would be pretty funny.  Which is sort of the point of the book, to show how technology haphazardly develops and is affected and affects different social organizations.  It’s not this linear evolution with a singular purpose and a singular inventor where things just keep getting better and better.  See, this was one of the first, but then for about 100 years, the “high-wheelers” were popular, because you could sit high and look like a dare-devil.

high-wheeler

People just couldn’t understand why anyone would want a bicycle with two of the same sized wheels; so ugly and uncouth.  It seems funny to us now, but I’m sure in 100 years we will seem awfully funny to someone else.  Although the author does think that there comes a point where technologies stabilize and while it is possible for change after that, it’s slim.  So, maybe our bicycle is here to stay?

Anyway, this book had some good connections to my work.  The point is that the technology is not just simply the technology, it doesn’t have an essential nature, it has much to do with how people use it, construct it, understand it, accept it, reject it, etc.  It makes me think of blogs.  They’ve been taken up in multiple ways by journalists, geeks, mothers, me, etc.  Also, just like how people are afraid of everything being “too public” on the internet, or of txt speech, or of losing “real” connections with each other, or of any of several other fears generated by things like blogs, the bicycle had the same aura of fear by some.  “”Bicyclists’s face,” this expression was called, and newspapers predicted a generation with hunchbacks and tortured faces as a result of the bicycle craze (Thompson, 1941: 18) (p. 38)”  Apparently they were hard to ride, so people made awful faces as they learned to ride.  But, on the other hand, check this out:

“The bicycle: the awakening of a new era.  The town comes into the village, the village comes into the town, the separation comes to an end, town and village merge more and more.  Cyclisation: the era of the bicycle, that is the new time with richer, broader and more mobile civilisation, a back to nature which however keeps all advantages of culture (p. 40).”

Doesn’t that sound familiar?  The internet will change the world, but the internet is also dangerous! Here’s another interesting quote:

“Pedestrians backed almost into the hedges when they met one of them, for was there not almost every week in the Sunday newspaper the story of some one being knocked down and killed by a bicycle, and letters from readers saying cyclists ought not to be allowed to use the roads, which, as everybody knew, were provided for people to walk on or to drive on behind horses. (Thompson, 1941: 18) (p. 41).”

Who knew that the innocent, childhood favorite could be so deadly?  This quote reminds me of the Dateline series To Catch a Predator, that epitomized the fearful discourse that surrounds the internet.  That, and all of the stories that you hear about teachers being fired over myspace of facebook, or bullying occurring in those same spaces, or kids spending their whole lives online, etc.  In the book then, the author found that the next logical step against the dangers of the bicycle were ordinances and rules.  This reminds me that when I was in teaching in Lakota Local Schools, all blogs and social networkng sites were uniformly blocked, as they are in many districts.  Businesses and government agencies are also setting out guidelines for their employees as they begin to use these technologies.  But, Bijker would say that it’s dangerous to assume that a technology is good or bad in and of itself.  It’s really more about the social construction of the technology, the mapping of the many uses and detours that happen along the way.  What we end up isn’t necessarily the best, finished product, but a negotiation on many levels.  Good stuff.

I set my alarm for 6 this morning.  I was going to run early, then work.  But, when my alarm went off, I kept hitting snooze until it was 6:40.  I grabbed my phone to check mail and guess what?  SNOW DAY!  To celebrate, I promptly went back to sleep for another hour and then leisurely got up, made breakfast and got to work.  I took a little break to run (around my house, no lie), but aside from that I have been so terribly productive, that I think I might just cry.  I caught up on email, I did work on my blog study, I submitted an abstract for a research forum, I edited an article and submitted it to a local journal and now I’m writing my blog!  I did everything on my list for today and two things from list for TOMORROW!  Did you hear that?  TOMORROW!  Oh, happy snow day.

And, in the midst of all of this work, I occasionally took some facebook breaks (of course) and these led me to two very interesting blogs.  I’m sure I was more interested because I had been writing about blogs all day, but still, there’s a connection, so don’t leave yet.  So, in my own writing, I’m trying to think about what’s going on with blogs.  I’m looking at women in grad school, but my real questions are:  What are women doing with blogs?  How are they using them?  Is this something new?  What is going on here?  (basically).  So, through facebook I was led to these two blogs…

The Sullivans

matt, liz, and madeline

Don’t even try to click on those links unless you are ready to cry your little eyes out.  I’m serious.  They are two blogs written by two men, who at first were only documenting their wives’ pregnancies, but then through two different tragedies, began to document their lives as widowers and single fathers.  Both have acquired a pretty large following and receive loads of comments of support daily.  They are definitely two different people, one a deeply religious person, the other curses and writes poetry.  But, both are using these blogs in ways that couldn’t have existed before the internet.  Journals would never have written back or given support, or spread throughout the country.  Talking to a friend would never have generated this type of response.  Both have started raising money for different causes and both are struggling publicly in this new space.  What does this mean for how we view old notions of a separate private and public life?  In lots of ways, these men are similar to my blogging women, struggling through grad school, garnering support, trying to figure things out in a public space… though admittedly their (our) lives have not been thrown into upheaval as these men’s lives have.  Most men don’t keep “personal” blogs.  Without their wives, are they searching for a connection they lost?  I don’t know, but if you have time, read, cry and show some support from a distant land.

Yesterday morning I went to the eTech conference.  I got to listen to the keynote and attend a few sessions.  Then, I taught another lecture for my middle school almost-teachers!   I felt a bit rushed, but was pretty happy with how it turned out.  I was exhausted when I got home and it was only compounded by the fact that, today, I had to present at eTech.

See my presenter ribbon?

I started my morning with my last Digital Tools class, which wasn’t as smooth as I’d like, but it wasn’t terrible either.  It was my last day with this group and next week, I’ll have new students.  Do over!  I like do overs.  Anyway, after that, I came home for lunch and then headed back to eTech.  I was able to attend a session before it was time to present.  I was nervous, but tried to calm myself down.  It’s just one little presentation in the grand scheme of life, right?  I presented on blogs and their implications for learning and identity, especially for girls.  I was kind of worried about presenting this because I thought it might not be “practical” enough for people.  So, I sort of prefaced my talk by saying that I was hoping to share research and have a conversation.  There were lots of presentations at eTech about “how to” use blogs in the classroom, and mine was much more… now that we’re using blogs, what’s happening?  What do we need to pay attention to?  I felt like the presentation got off to a slow start, but part way through, people started to participate and really ask some interesting questions.  We ended up having a good conversation about the blending of public and private and the types of stories girls/women are telling the world about themselves on blogs.  By the end, I felt totally comfortable and really glad that I was able to share my research and ideas.  It was neat!  AND THEN, it just so happened that this big wig tech lady at Ohio State was in the audience and she stayed a bit to talk and I saw her name tag and told her that I knew who she was and she complimented my presentation and said that we should talk sometime on campus. 

So, today in class, I got very worried. We read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and when I read it, it made me think about the way art has changed from something with a unique aura, to something that is easily reproduced ad infinitum.  Benjamin argues that this means that we are more likely to easily accept the image and less likely to contemplate upon it.  I sort of didn’t agree with this because I thought that surely older forms of art (paintings) were just as persuasive (maybe in different ways).  But, it turns out that Benjamin was making more of a political argument.  He was saying that the means of production (socialist reproduction) is changing the way we experience art.  And these new artistic expressions are merely distracting us from a real political reality.  So, since art is mechanically reproduced, we are distracted by these expressive forms created by anyone from the reality that we are living in a fascist, socialist society (this was written in the 1920s) that we cannot escape without changing the means of production (?).  I’m not really that clear on this idea because, frankly, I NEVER think about the means of production or capital or the economy in relation to my work (my blog study).  But, this had me worried that my blogs (my expressive mechanical reproductions) were just distractions from bigger political issues like the economy.

So, I spent a some time tonight just thinking about this and here’s what I came up with.  I am not a Marxist.  I don’t believe that the economy is the only thing that determines culture.  I think Foucault would say that it’s a more complex interplay of several types of power relations.  Yes, the economy matters, but culture matters too.  My blog (and lots of other new expressive forms of media) does work of its own.  It’s shaped by certain discourses, it has certain effects, it produces certain knowledges.  It does its little part.  So, if the economy is not everything, I don’t have to worry so much.  My blogs in some ways may distract the blogger, but in other ways, it is doing some work.  (Although I’d appreciate any sort of feedback on these very unclear ideas (to me)…)

This weekend, for me, was less a weekend, more an extension of the week.  I had a lot of work to do.  The main culprit was a midterm for my Visualizing the Curriculum class.  It was supposed to be ten pages, but when I did all I needed to do, it was more like seventeen.  And all I did was analyze the About page of two blogs!  I hope I don’t get dinged for being so far over.  I feel good about the paper, but man, it took me a long time.  Here’s the intro:

“Blogs are becoming passe.  “Everyone” has a blog.  And lots of these blogs have minimal readership, and yet, millions of people have begun blogs and many maintain them regularly.  Young girls and women seem to be particularly drawn to this medium.  Though men dominate the blogosphere with blogs related to technology topics, politics, and business, women dominate the “personal” genre of blogs (Nowson & Oberlander) and tend to make use of the social components of blogs more than their male counterparts (Pederson & Macafee).  The medium of a blog is essentially an online space.  Women and girls are engaging with this space in ways that could have implications for critical media literacy and education broadly defined.  I have conducted a study of the ways in which four female doctoral students have engaged with blogs in different ways.  In this article, I use semiotics and deconstruction to take a critical look at the “About” pages of these bloggers as one way to understand the ways in which these women represent their subjectivity in this medium as a part of learning their identities.”

Saturday was basically filled with reading, writing and running (I had my 11 miler for marathon training).  I did get a break that night to watch some UFC.  Sunday was more reading, writing and running (this time only 3 miles).  I also read an ENTIRE book yesterday.  And the “best” part is that, I read the first half, took a “beak” to finish writing my paper, came back to the book, only to find out that Foucault (the author) began the second half by basically saying, “You know all that stuff I put in the first half?  I was just kidding.  Now, here’s what I really think.”  Foucault, I don’t have time for your games.

Ah well, it’s Monday morning, I am NOT well rested and I am on my way to take Dan to the airport (he’s traveling to Arizona this week) and then I have to get myself to work.  Sigh.