NOTES: Posting #5

 

November 8, 2003

 

Research Message:  (f) What is your position on these two types of spirituality?  How do you understand their difference?  In what way is this a relevant issue to your own life?

 

          You want to know what’s nice about computers?  The auto-fill in thing that it does when you’re filling out addresses on the internet.  I think it’s a nice touch for people who send a lot of time on the internet doing searches, or people who have to type a lot.  This is a pretty nifty function.  Why do I think about things like this? Because I just realized tonight that it is something that helps keep the kinks out.  It is so convenient that it makes searching or surfing the internet a little easier (especially when you’ve got long URL’s to type out!).

         

I bring this up because as I sit here on my Saturday night, at 6:30 PM, I opened up my internet to find yahoo staring at me.  The first thing I do is type goo…and the computer did the rest.  Enter….and there is the search engine, ready to go just waiting for me.

 

Sub-task: Searching for information of rational vs. mystical spirituality: total time 5 minutes

 

                   I’ve never heard of this before, so I was sort of scared of this topic.  I decided to do this sub-topic because I wanted to know what the differences between the two were, as a means to find a place to start.  As I said, google.com helped facilitate this research quickly.  I typed in “rational vs. mystical spirituality” and the first URL to come up was: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rational+vs.+mystical+spirituality .  I chose the first link, which took me to this page: http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/moses.html#_Toc41285992 , which is a very helpful link!

 

Sub-task: taking notes for posting: total time: 5 minutes

          Writing it here in my notes takes up less time by putting it here, instead of using a totally new document.  Hey! I’m getting more savvy.  I think that this topic is one that I should stay away from.  I am not a big religion person, and therefore feel uncomfortable thinking about this topic.  Not to say that I didn’t read the websites and learn about the difference, but just that why can’t a person just believes what they want and leave it at that?  Does every philosophy or theory need a label in this world? 

                  

 

Affective: 

          I am feeling very positive about doing this task.  It is pretty interesting that I’m taking the approach.  I’ve decided that I needed to keep a positive attitude if I wanted to see this to the end.  There’s no point in being negative about it, and I know that I personally am affected by my state of mind.  When I’m done with it, I’ll feel a lot better because I’m closing in on my goal of getting them all done.

         

And what an attitude change after I read some of the information I came across.  This is not a topic that I want to research again.  Just something inside my head said it didn’t like thinking about this.  So I listen to my “inerds” and walk away from this one feeling a little disturbed (as I always get when confronted with this sort of topic).

 

Comment Message:  c) why does optimism exist? What do people get out of it?

 

Sub-task: forming my response after reading another posting : total time : 20 minutes

         

Ok…whoever this Brian guy is (because he’s not in my class) found a really good site about optimism.  His quote was very profound (?) and I liked it.  In a way he’s right, that you are the master of your own destiny and that your state of mind will affect the outcome of future ventures.

         

 

Analysis:

 

          What did I learn about this?  Optimism and rational vs. mystical spirituality are not easy topics to research.  I thought that this would be an easy search, but instead it’s turning out that I don’t care for one topic and the other one is just almost common sense.  We’re told ever since we’re kids the whole “cup half full or half empty” phrase so did it really take 20 + years for it to finally sink in?  I don’t think so.

         

 

NOTES: POSTING #6

 

November 8, 2003

 

Research Message:  C) Why does optimism exist?  What do people get out of it?

 

          Wow, I’m going another weeks worth to make up time.  This is a fun way to spend my Saturday.  I figured that my best motivation is knowing that I’ll have more time during the week the study for my upcoming midterm and other research papers I need to do.   So I looked this up, and even though I said I didn’t want to do another posting of this topic, I decided that I should deviate from my schedule. 

 

Sub-task:  searching for information of why optimism exists…etc.  : total time: 15 minutes

 

          Opened up ask.com and typed in “why optimism exists”. I didn’t find a whole lot was helpful.  I can say that I got a broader understanding of why it does exist.  Most of the links on the page was about why optimism exists for their cause or another, and that’s just it.  It’s hope.  That’s why optimism exists. Because without it, a person cannot have hope.  Which I think can be tied into religion, and that’s why religion is such a big business today, Ever think about that correlation?

 

Affective: 

 

I am feeling okay right now.  Finding this information is not really exciting me.  Maybe because I already saw some of the material previously and sort of knew what was coming.  I am just trying to do the best job I can.

 

Comment Message: Information Literacy: a) What is it…how widespread is it?

 

Sub-task: reading and posting about another classmates posting : total time : 15 minutes

 

          I pretty much found that we all found the same information about what this topic is and how far spread it is.  Obviously the more technologically advanced a country is, the more information literate the people are going to be.  After all, in the day and age all forms of media can and are routed through computers and programs, the more hooked up you are, the more information you can access.

 

Analysis: 

 

I feel that I’m getting pretty proficient with this task.  The repetition is beginning to become boring, but I am learning a lot from the task itself.  As for my feelings of this right now, I am happy that I’m concentrating on getting this done.  It’s making me feel better about my work ethic, sort of like I’m trying to make up for slacking!!

 

 

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