May 2006 Archives

Before Greenland's glaciers completely melt and we're totally screwed, here are a few handy things you can do to reduce your CO2 impact:

Yes, I went to see An Inconvenient Truth today.  I thought it was compelling, and I learned quite a lot about the nature of climate change.  The bad: if things keep warming like they have, we're in trouble.  The good: we can actually do something about it!  It's always seemed to me like one of those huge issues... but as the movie points out, we already have the tools in place to bring our CO2 emissions down to regular levels.  The tricky part is getting the issue in front of the public eye, and getting politicians to give a shit.  I think this movie can go a long way towards the former, if not the latter.

One devil's advocate argument got me thinking: what if, as some say, this warming trend is part of a natural cycle that will self-regulate with time?  Well, it's not a coincidence that the warming trend began in the post-Industrial era, and has continued to keep pace with new developments in technology and trends in consumer consumption.  This all raises an interesting question about whether or not human-made technology is, in fact, natural - however we might define it.  But a) I find it terribly disturbing that we as humans have had such a destructive impact on the planet, and b) when the ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica finally give way, displacing hundreds of millions of people - and it will, if the current warming trends continue - we'll have a global crisis on our hands.  And as we're figuring out how to deal with the aftermath of post-Katrina New Orleans times millions, are we really going to care whether or not it's part of a natural cycle?

A common phase of the experience of moving to New York from Elsewhere (in my case, VT) involves alternating, sometimes daily, between Love New York and Hate New York.  Living in New York is full of inconveniences that take getting used to, and even now I have a hard time with the noise level.  Still, this makes the Love New York moments all the more precious.  Though I've been in the city for three years and am no longer swinging as wildly between Love New York and Hate New York, I had a surprising Love New York moment the other day that I wanted to share.

The moment occured on Wednesday evening, around 10:00 pm, in Central Park.  I know what you're going to say - Central Park at night?? - and in fact, this was my first time in the park past dark.  A group of us had just finished a heavy German dinner on the UES, so we decided to get some exercise via the park before hailing a cab on the west side.  We originally intended to stay on a path that paralleled the road, but got off track.  This turned out to be a good thing, since the park has this hidden nightlife that we wouldn't have discovered otherwise.  There are tons of people walking their dogs, often in little groups, and the dogs are off their leashes (I found out that they're allowed to be after 9 pm). 

As we crossed by the Great Lawn, we were treated to an amazing view of the skyline, the bright lights in stark contrast to the darkened trees.  At the same spot, we chatted with two men who had impressive-looking telescopes; turns out they were amateur astronomers doing some deep-sky observation.  That upended another one of my assumptions; since you can't see much with the bare eye, I figured the light pollution from the city would render any astronomy futile.  But no, we were treated to views of Saturn and Mars.  The guys told us that they observe almost every night, sometimes until 2 am (the cops usually look the other way, once the curfew begins). 

Anyway, not that I'd make a habit of wandering the park alone at night, but it was a very pleasant surprise to discover what Central Park at night has to offer.

I've set up a free WordPress blog for Technologies and Literacies, which begins today.  We're asking the students to blog each week, and to respond to classmates' posts.  We toyed with the idea of each student having a blog, but we liked the idea of everyone on the same blog as a way of showing class community.  We also went back and forth a bit over the prompt; should it be a specific question tailored to each week's readings?  But it's pretty clear that an open-ended, informal, reflective assignment is a best fit for the blogging environment, and for the class.   So the assignment is as follows:

"Our class blog will be a space for us to informally exchange ideas based on our readings, as well as our own personal experiences and insights drawn from our encounters with 'new' literacies. Blog posts will generally be due on Tuesday, while responses to others' posts will be due on Thursday.

You are also welcome to use the blog to reflect on any other topics related to technology and new literacies or to the class itself, to collect links to interesting sites as you come across them on the web, to share stories of encounters with new literacies and technology in your lives."

I like the idea of multiple registers for the class; they'll be writing two short papers in a formal academic style, and then blogging informally.  I'm under no illusions that this won't be a challenge for most of them; when you've had classes = formal academic writing schooled into you for 18 some-odd years, it's a hard habit to break.  I think I'm going to post as well, at least for the first couple of weeks, to model content and style.  So, we'll see how it goes.

And can I say how impressed I am with WordPress?  I know that it's been one of the more popular blogging platforms lately, but I had no idea that they give away WordPress blogs.  Blogger is laughable in comparison; WordPress gives you categories, the ability to easily add a blogroll, gorgeous templates that are very tweakable, and all the trackback and tagging bells and whistles.  Did I mention that it's free?  I pay $9 a month for this here TypePad blog, and I'm not sure that I'm getting a whole lot more.  Although I must say, TypePad's user interface is definitely friendlier.  Anyway, WordPress seems to be a great option for someone looking for a free blog with some oomph.

Well, the spring semester is over, I turned in a masters project, I passed my certification exam, work has been productive, and yesterday I had a beer in the middle of the afternoon.  All is well with the world.  (Can't you just hear the birds chirping in the background?)

In other words, summertime! 

Although I've been living in New York for 3 years, this will actually be my first summer in the city.  My usual gig in Vermont is no more, which is kind of a bummer.  It was really nice to get away from the whole school routine for a couple of months - make a clean break, and come back in the fall with batteries charged, ready to go.  However, summer in the city has its upsides, so I'm told.  :)  On the list: biergarten in Astoria, more rock climbing (hopefully outdoors as well!), movies in the park, and LOTS of sitting on my butt in the park, reading a book (preferably fiction), with an iced beverage in hand (have lately been addicted to the Green Tea Frappuccino at Starbucks, though Le Pain Quotidien does a nice mint lemonade). 

But it won't be all fun and games, oh no.  I'll be continuing my RA work with CTELL, and doing some workshops and writing for NITLE.  I'm also TAing a class in the summer A session - Technologies and Literacies - and am very pschyed for the opportunity.  I'm pretty sure that I'm also going to take a discourse analysis class during summer A; I was going to put off taking a class until the second session, but this is really the only one that would actually be useful.  Plus, it'll piggyback on the methodologies section of my diss proposal (which I'm supposed to be working on as well).

So, it's shaping up to be a busy time, and much more school than I'm used to at this time of the year.  Then again, everything I'm working on is interesting stuff, so maybe it's not a bad thing after all.  And there will be more drinking of beer in the middle of the afternoon, oh yes.