April 2007 Archives

danah boyd said something in her panel presentation the other day that's stuck with me, and I thought I'd post it here before I forget.  In talking about social network sites like Facebook and MySpace, danah called them a public space to which youth actually *have* access to, as opposed to other aspects of public life where youth have been marginalized for years.  I'd never heard it framed that way, and I thought it was a really interesting point.  According to danah, online spaces like MySpace provide public spaces where youth actually have some control (to the extent that the coders/software permits, anyway) - which also provides some measure of motivation and ownership. 

Where this becomes worrisome I think, is when I hear administrators at universities talk about ways to harness Facebook, to tap into some of that enthusiastic participation.  Kinda makes me cringe.

It's been a busy week for listening to people speak on interesting topics... Just got back from AERA, where I presented a paper called Situating the Net Gen: Exploring the role of technology in the social identity of college students (download .doc handout/mini-paper).  It went well - we had a good, engaged crowd for the first day, first time slot of the conference (generally a buzz-kill, like being the first speaker after lunch or during the last day, last session).  The conference is huge, so I tried to hit up sessions on college students (we were pretty much the only one that talked about college students and tech) and also on qualitative methodology.  Definitely got some good tidbits, and also went to some fun parties.  Cheers to Syracuse and Vandy and their open bars! 

Today I was supposed to go to a one-day conference at Columbia on The Future of Undergraduate Education, which looked really interesting and pertinent to my interests.  Sadly, I got in 5 hours later than planned yesterday, and decided it was just to much to roll out of bed for another 8:15 am session.  I am going to rally however for danah boyd's talk this evening at the New School, as part of a panel called Democratization and the Networked Public Sphere.  All in all a good week for good info.

you beat them to a bloodly pulp and then scream in pain at the acidic juices seeping through your cracked and bleeding skin.

... or, you make lemonade?  Ok, lemonade it is.

So, my perfect awesome timeline for dissertation completion and world domination (ahem) has been altered by events out of my control.  No, I'm going to tell you what.  Suffice to say that it's been a learning experience, and academia has lost a little of its happy shiny glow.  Now, most doc students are type A by nature (or else why would we be in grad school?), and so you can imagine that the disruption to my perfectly laid plans has been a little difficult.  And then seeing Plan B tank too, well...  let's just say it's taken me a while to choose lemonade over bloody pulp.

Anyway, though my semester may have been lost, I am determined not to lose the summer as well.  I have a list of things To Do that should keep me plenty busy, and moving forward.  For example:

1. write up that article on last year's NRC presentation, like I've been meaning to
2. data analysis and report write up for a project I'm consulting on
3. revisit lit review and methodology from proposal with an eye toward beefing it up for diss
4. read, read, read

More important is the To Do list intended to keep me sane:

1. be outside as often as possible
2. rock climb as much as possible (the Gunks this year, baby!)
3. escape the city as much as possible

Lemonade, anyone?