A thought...

The American notion of a popular jury, a jury of one's peers -- this is the most radical example of favoring the amateur over the expert. The Wikipedia notion of the power of the passionate non-expert has long precedent in our nation's history.

Samuel Pepys

I've had more productive Mondays than this one. *sigh* Whatever, here's the distraction of the moment:

A while back, when I was beginning to do the readings in archives and was considering the importance of documents as a way to preserve memories, I thought of beginning a new "project." Let me preface it by saying that I am rather concerned with my inability to remember the events of my life. I'm excellent at remembering ideas and concepts and authors and random details -- but if you ask me to remember a person from a couple of years ago or some important day that happened in my childhood -- well, I'm usually rather flummoxed. The proper solution would be to keep a journal, of course, but I already have one of those, and I use it infrequently, no more than once or twice a month, and I use it only to record the things that are on the level of life-changing importance. So I thought I'd attempt to keep a daily journal which, in contrast to my diary-journal, is a record of the events of each day.

Knowing my own erratic self, I doubt I'll be able to keep it going for long, but think of the value that this journal could end up having. In, say, a year or two, I could be like, "Huh, I wonder what I did on November 8th," and all I would have to do is open my journal and flip to the date and find the time at which I woke up, any important phone conversations I had, how I attempted to study and failed, and the insomnia that I struggled with that night. Even if I don't manage to keep it updated for long, it should be a fun little experiment. I'm not quite sure as of yet what kind of detail I'm going to provide -- ex: should I include meal breaks? trips to the bathroom? every time I saw a roommate? -- um, actually, after providing those examples, I do believe I'll avoid that level of detail. Another question to consider: if I commit any crimes (one never knows, does one), shall I include it in the daily account? I would have to, wouldn't I, in order to ensure the greatest accuracy, otherwise my professionalism would be called into question. :)

Anyway, I challenge my few readers to attempt doing the same thing. If only because you get to go journal shopping. Or because you'll be able to impress ppl by always knowing what you were doing at such and such a time.

Seriously, now...

....how does a graduate program require you to take "foundations" courses? How dare these ppl presume to know what is best for me? They do not know my background, and they shouldn't just lump us all together into one group and expect that one approach will succeed in teaching us anything. We're all here at SI for different reasons, as disparate as library science and computer programming and information policy. I understand the intent is to magically bring us together and establish a unity among us that will enable us to work together across specializations and to provide a basic understanding across the specializations. It certainly isn't working however. Or, if it is working, that's because of the other two foundations courses I am taking. Not because of the one specific course which is designed to create this sense of community.

Gah. Silly, trivial, uncritical assignments that irritate me with their illogicality....

End rant.

Some reflections after a conversation with GoGoJoJo

Gah. Yet another introspective post. I do apologize but I need a space in which to work things out, and GoGoJoJo provided some useful suggestions.

Going to Smith College was a valuable experience and deeply affected the way I act and think. My comp lit courses were responsible for quite a bit of the analytical nature that I am now (unfortunately) the owner of, but also, the general atmosphere of the campus taught me/us to interrogate everything. Being at a liberal women's college where gender (and authority to a certain degree) was constantly being evaluated and re-evaluated, you learned to question the most basic assumptions that are part of our society and to deconstruct the dichotomies that shape our society. Nothing was every simply one thing or the other. Divisions and boundaries were ever fluid, ever changing and this was a good thing. And it's so difficult to go from that environment to one where ppl just naturally accept basic assumptions and accept the authority of those who present these assumptions to you.

Another thing that GoGoJoJo reminded me to do is to put things into perspective. I tend to fail at that. I get caught up in what I'm doing, care too much and when I have problems, I get upset (like when I can't learn Python, I start to believe that I'm the world's biggest dunce). In some of the courses that I am taking, the discussions, the readings, the lectures are not always relevant. (And I don't simply mean "relevant" to what I want to do at SI -- I mean "relevant" as in useful to me in any broader sense. They aren't very enriching to my life or contributory to my general collection of knowledge -- in a large part bc of the failure to assess basic assumptions that lie at the core of these readings.) Anyway, rather than getting caught up in my frustration at these courses, I need to remind myself that in the span of my life, this course is NOT going to be all that important. Even in the span of my next two years. So it it okay to cull what I can from the courses and ignore the rest and accept that perhaps a C (if that) is a perfectly acceptable compromise between my happiness and my frustration.

Okay. Crisis of the week averted by good, sound logic from my darling Smithie.

I just keep coming back...

Alexis A. has written a very excellent introductory post about the concept of "archives 2.0". I'm very excited to see where she is taking this topic, and so should you! Over the weekend, I've just kept on thinking about the idea and her post -- something to watch out for!

Thinking about writing in a more intimate fashion

All these readings about memory, specifically short and long term memory, have given me a curious understanding of why we write. If you remember Socrates and his disdain of the pharmakon, writing (with which I am only familiar from Derrida's observations), writing has both good and bad qualities (again with the assigning of values to an inanimate thing!). What I'm particularly interested in, however, is how writing serves as a sort of object to store your ideas for a time so that you can go on to the next idea. Whenever I'm thinking analytically or creatively about something, I keep going over it in my mind, partially bc I'm afraid that I'll forget it, until I finally get a chance to write it down or type it out in an appropriate forum (like, say, on blogger.com). Once I've written it down, I am freed to move on to the next thought, which I was unable to do previously bc of my fear that I would forget my original idea. So there's the cathartic side to writing, of releasing and expelling something so that you can "move on." It can be especially aggravating not to have the chance to write it down, incidentally, and you remain caught in this never-ending loop of the same thoughts.

Order v. Access

I've been finding myself (uselessly, I'm suspecting) resisting against the larger trend at SI to bring order to everything. Perhaps I'm in the wrong program, but I have a problem with trying to organize everything and trying to make everything fit into a category. Perhaps that's why I'm bi (notice I did not say: "Perhaps it's because I'm bi" -- I long ago realized that my play with sexual expectations began as an almost purely intellectual endeavor and as a general resistance against society telling me that I should only like the fellas). I just really dislike the human tendency to slap labels onto everything (especially the need to say something is "good" or "evil" -- for godssake!), thus associating it with whatever other terms that label brings up, and then filing it away into its proper place. I understand that ppl don't like uncertainty. I really do. I just...don't know why they would choose to dislike it. I mean, really, when it comes down to it, to you want a stagnant, unmoving, unchanging life where everything remains the same and you get to go about complacently on your habitual business? Or do you want vibrancy, ever-constant change, new experiences that challenge your notion of who and what you are, so that in one year you will be someone different from who you are today? I should probably get off that rant....

The question arises, of course, as to why I would be in the School of Information which, regardless of what specialization you choose, trains you to be a mediator of information. I see two aspects to being this "mediator of information": 1. the concept of organizing the information into some grand system (which seems to be the main concern at SI), and 2. the offering of information to those who want/need it -- the question of access. I'm more concerned with this second idea. That's actually what my application essay was about: the internet as providing more ppl with access to knowledge and with the power to speak. Doing archives as I plan to do, it's more about providing ppl with access to the past and to an understanding of organizations and individuals through records and documents. Organizing the information is, of course, vital, but it's not so much an obsessive compulsive need with me as it is simply the most efficient method of access. Basically, I believe in giving ppl access to information and thus the potential to make more enlightened decisions and, well, essentially to have power in our "Age of Information."

Sidenote: why is it always so bloody COLD in the student lounge??

Sidenote #2: I'm a little trepidatious about declaring that I'm bi out of intellectual reasons, rather than biological, as I understand that this can be seen as taking the pow! out of the claim made by LGBT groups that sexual preference is biological and therefore should not be discriminated against bc it's "only natural." But I try to be honest....