E-mail, shmee-mail. lmorita@hawaii.edu
Week 12
Sizing Up
Lori N. Morita
Psychology 409
Dr. Leon James
Ah, to ask me to evaluate myself. We should all be so lucky as to flay ourselves on the Home Page roast. Because you know we will, Dr. J. Or at least I will. It's never as good as I'd like it to be.
In assessing the first weeks, are we talking about completion of the report? If we are, then it was miserably adhering leech-like to the requirements, once I figured out exactly what those requirements were according to my experiences. It is difficult to categorize one's experiences with another person's labels, although that is essentially psychology, que no? How do I translate desperately trying to e-mail Kevin Bogan into a sense of lacunae (that word, that word!), or look at my CyberAdventures and find what made me feel was a valuable skill in the future? Aack. But eventually, it got straightened out (I believe), and I began addressing the questions as posed by Dr. J. And that is about where it remained. The reports alternate between curtness and literary elephantitis. At times, I go on and on (like now, ya think?) about something another may find completely irrelevant, but which strikes me as either important/interesting. Others, I will describe in 10 words or less (really, it happened) a procedure which, upon reflection, was probably deserving of a bit more attention.
If we are discussing the skills in the beginning weeks as compared to the latter part of the semester, what can I say but DUH? I can say with some semblance of pride that I had no clue in the beginning. (This is not to say I actually have a clue now, but I feel much better about this darn thing.) This had a dual effect on me: it hindered my questions in the computer lab, and it propelled me to spend more and more time in the lab. Defeat, looming black and large over my terminal, smiling at me, really made me...well...shall we say angry? And so I bothered the computer lab in Keller till I got somewhere.
At this time, I think I should say thank you to a few people in Keller, because they tolerated me then, and still tolerate me now when I ask for #36 or #37 in the back. Lenny, you are mahvelous, and Vince, I owe you a lot. You kept me smiling when I was ready to cry from frustration. There is a really pretty young lady whose name I do not know, but who was awfully nice, especially when the damn 2 hour warning showed up. And the rest of the computer lab, whose names I do not know, but whose faces I see more than they'd like, thank you very much. You put up with me when I was the last to leave and the first to arrive, and the frequent visitor hanging on the desk asking what happened to my terminal. If you need something, G3 and beyond, I suggest Keller. Please respect them. They're nicer, it's cooler, and you'd better be nice to these people. They work hard. (Okay, sometimes. But they work well.)
Reflection and hindsight make you realise weird things, no?
Skills exhibited? Would saying
Because in the final analysis of this class, that is essentially the lesson.
No text. No conventional lectures. No instructions and papers and papers and papers to tote around. Figure it out yourself, and tell us how you got where you did.
But figuring it out meant using skills I hadn't consciously utilized in a very, very long time: ask questions as creatively as you can. Be as imaginitive as you can. If I were a link, where would I be? What can I do with myself today? Be as clever as you can be and don't keep in mind the limitations.
This is learning how to learn. And this is the skill that will last me longer than knowing how to work in HTML, which is rapidly becoming a commonplace skill, and that means it is not going to be of much use anymore. But the questions and imaginative adaptability are not commonplace, because so many of my colleagues outside of our class have regarded this skill as something to be squashed under the heel of banality. Why not be as intelligent as you want? Why not ask questions and propose ideas that seem outrageous and fresh? There is no reason to eat pablum if your brain doesn't need it.
Some skills I wish I had learned were figuring out how to produce my own graphics, and how to remain on task for each report. I have an embarrasing habit of not posting at the right times lately. Well, these will come. I hope.
But on to the dissection. Ryan's first week was much more upbeat than his following few weeks, but I attribute that to a mind which allows one's travelling companion to be a Grapefruit. How down can you be? In the next two weeks, the reports were more fragmented. I could see happiness in some areas...like Jawbreaker (I won't ask you about these names, Ryan. Really.) and well...and Jawbreaker. The tone of the report is frustrated, and I can see Mr. Yamauchi silent and glowering at his screen, punching in keys like faces. And then I can see him making his eyes into glitter when he finds what he likes, which inevitably becomes a skill he wants to cultivate. The reports stick to task, which is refreshing (yes, I'm talking about myself, damnit.) as compared to other reports I have seen. They are no nonsense when it comes to summing up the week at hand, but they retain personality and a distinctness that made me want to read his views in this fanzine of his. (So can we talk, Ryan? Where is it, gunfunnit?)
The paragraphs are short, and the background is grey, and I like the asides, which Ryan sometimes believes are tangential and perhaps therefore a bad thing (I wonder why...). The reports are simplicity itself, and while I appreciate the spartan nature of the beast, I wonder why the Dancing Grapefruit has not inspired similarly produce-driven pages...I liked it. The reports get longer as the semester continued, and whether this is due to a greater degree of comfort on the computer itself or just because you finally got that Toyota Finger, Ryan, I really don't know. However, the reports are not longer and without substance, which is an easy thing to do (I heard that). This I find excellent, mark professional. The performance is there. Why do I say this? Well, from the man hissef:
"I guess that's it for this week. Talk to you next week and remember, why do I do what I do? For the credit? For the grade and the accolades of academia? No, I do it because I care. Until next week kids."
Something I just gotta say: I love the table. I really love the table. I am now stealing the source file because I really love the table. (Get the picture? OOOOoooohhh, bad pun.)
His week one was chock full of numbers that I was looking at and just nodding, like I knew what he was talking about. The following weeks show improvement in the reports...he goes further and deeper into what he started, which I find quite admirable. This is something I need to develop. The links to the previous reports are really nice, and this is an idea I am going to incorporate in my Home Page. Overall, this project came out spankin' good.
Yo' mama and me iz real proud o' ya, sun. Yous did real fine.
Well, Mr. Nakao, you retained your sense of self throughout the semester. I should probably congratulate you on that more than anything else. And I suggest you go out with your co-worker if possible. After that kind of compliment on the Internet, how can she say no? Besides, you two would look pretty cute together...(blink blink).
The page should not take forever to load. I realise this is dictated for the most part by the speed of the visitor's computerware, but it's got to be within reason. All of our classmates were rather good about this, I thought. The reports need to have links. I cannot stress that enough. There is nothing worse than a dead-end document, and you've got to scan to the end of the page to go back, go anywhere. Icky-poo. Or hit (gasp!) the back button in Netscape. God forbid we should have to resort to the browser. One thing I would like to see is more structure, not necessarily in the reports, but in the presentation. It can be difficult to read line after line of text on a flat, grey, driftwood background. There should be demarcation in documents, simply to bait the reader to continue being the reader... I would suggest more pictures in each weekly report, maybe one or two. Something to entice. (Am I in the wrong major?) And a sense of each week being a piece, even after one is beyond the Home Page and all its strand presentation. Maybe a common background, a follow-through...heck, for future generations and HTML editors, this might be possible...
E-mail, shmee-mail. lmorita@hawaii.edu