Yesterday morning, I chauffeured my eldest daughter to her first day of high school. It was an emotional event for both of us. For her, there was the usual and expected fears of a new school and all the inherent socialization issues potentially awaiting to ambush her within. For me, it was a rite of passage of an entirely different variety as I wistfully replayed the movies in my mind of each of the previous "first school day" car rides we had shared together. My mood was both melancholy and also imbued with a sense of paternal fear. I was all too aware that the young woman now sitting in the back seat was about to enter a fray unlike that she had ever experienced. And that my role as chief champion and protector might not "fly" anymore. Sure, she would always need her Daddy in some capacity. But very soon - all too soon - I know that my most important functions will be as a "wallet" and a "ride" and REALLY too soon, I would prove most valuable only as a wallet. I remembered the young girl who still required the protection of a car seat until mid-way through second grade. I remembered the gawky, buck-toothed, bespectacled adolescent who still carried a lunch box and eagerly reported her every thought, concern, social drama and achievement. Now the girl was no longer gawky, the braces achieved their purpose and been removed, contacts providing perfect 20-20 vision and her personal life still not a completed closeted diary, but more filtered and non-chalant. Like the majority of daughter's fathers before me, I let her off in front of the school and watched with hate as the older boys reviewed the new "freshwoman meat" arriving in droves to their campus. I sat in very organic and understandable sadness, processing the acceptance that my little girl was now entering her true learning years, while understanding that much of the learning would be about herself, her true heart and her choices.
I hope that all she has already learned from her mother and me will serve her well.
And I hope that I don't find myself compelled to break too many teen boys' legs.
Oy vey... And so it beeeeggggiiinnnnsss....
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
REFLECTIONS ON PRODUCING "ESCROWING PAINS"
REFLECTION ON PRODUCING “ESCROWING PAINS”
MY SECOND DST PROJECT
By: Don Grant
1. What is the essential story behind the piece you created?
The story behind my second DST project was a media documentation of my more than eighteen month journey as a prospective first-time home buyer in Los Angeles. The word “prospective” actually suits my quest well. Throughout the arduous, competitive and often disappointing process, I frequently felt like a gold prospector from 1849 who has heard tell of an endless supply of treasure just waiting to be mined, but who instead discovers himself scrambling amongst endless masses of desperate others chasing his same dream, the authentic nuggets few and far between and most of the promised “treasure” turning out to be mere Fool’s Gold.
2. What was your purpose in creating this piece of new media? Do you feel you were successful in communicating your purpose?
My purpose in creating this project was to stretch my abilities beyond what I produced in my first DST project. Because all of this is still relatively new to me, my thrill even at the most basic of technological functions involving something I uploaded, downloading to the proper place was almost ridiculously thrilling. I also decided to explore a more creative and perhaps esoteric format with regards to the voice-over underneath both the opening and closing credits. Like many “artists,” I wanted to take a risk. I hope it works! Finally, I of course had the goal of authentically delivering my story. Although, I now must be honest and admit that it was quite possibly a cathartic expression of the angst I experienced throughout my entire house hunting “adventure.”
3. Who was your audience? Do you feel you were successful in reaching your audience?
As with my first DST project, my initial audience will, I expect, be my professor, course peers and also friends and colleagues with whom I have shared this project. Because we are required to also “post” our work on a public forum (I chose both YouTube as well as my personal Facebook page), I suppose that there appears no limit to the audience it will ultimately reach. I cannot know at the time of this writing if I will be successful in reaching my initial audience save those with whom I have already shared my work, but I hope that my professor and peers will view it. However, I hope that it ultimately enjoys more external validity with the digital population.
4. Why did you use your particular approach to media production and media selection? Were you successful?
My approach to the project was guided by the assignment presented. I certainly made choices regarding production style and design, but what was important to me was that I not sacrifice content for the sake of impressive technological exhibition. I had originally considered a much “darker” project. Because I am still a novice in terms of my digital media skill set however, I decided to suppress my ego and focus instead on properly producing a good story, rather than attempt a “mood” piece which would deserve a production style I believe is still beyond my current ken.
5. What did you learn during the process of crafting your media piece that you can use in creating future new media narrative?
I learned once again that my ambition sometimes supersedes the pragmatic. I really wanted to go further with this project than I did in the first assignment, so I crafted a script that although was longer than required, offered I think a more sophisticated construction than my last piece. I also faced my almost pathological perfectionist nemesis. This piece of my persona invariably reveals itself primarily in my creative pride and in the case of this particular project manifested in my unconditionally committed search to discover the best possible images to accompany my words. Because this is a digital storytelling piece sans autobiographical video, it was vital to me that the images presented reflect not only the scripted words supporting them, but also deliver variances in color, humor and insight that in another media form might otherwise have been translated by facial cues. It was also important to me that the images synchronized exactly with the emotion I wished to convey and I hope that I was successful in that goal. I do believe that I improved my abilities to produce this type of user-friendly media. The confidence I gained in that process will, I know, provide me with less anxiety when faced with more sophisticated media production programs in the future. As a result of this stronger self-efficacy, I enjoyed this project much more than my first foray, because it did not feel so foreign to manipulate either the images or style tools. Like many “filmmakers,” I also discovered that production timelines are prone to expand! As the script for this piece was indeed much longer than its predecessor, and both the real life experience explored in the story as well as an unanticipated protracted illness interrupted my work, this project was much more protracted than I anticipated. This be neither anticipated nor avoided, but it was frustrating. I am confident, however, that I am not the first, or last media artist to encounter such unforeseeable delays!
MY SECOND DST PROJECT
By: Don Grant
1. What is the essential story behind the piece you created?
The story behind my second DST project was a media documentation of my more than eighteen month journey as a prospective first-time home buyer in Los Angeles. The word “prospective” actually suits my quest well. Throughout the arduous, competitive and often disappointing process, I frequently felt like a gold prospector from 1849 who has heard tell of an endless supply of treasure just waiting to be mined, but who instead discovers himself scrambling amongst endless masses of desperate others chasing his same dream, the authentic nuggets few and far between and most of the promised “treasure” turning out to be mere Fool’s Gold.
2. What was your purpose in creating this piece of new media? Do you feel you were successful in communicating your purpose?
My purpose in creating this project was to stretch my abilities beyond what I produced in my first DST project. Because all of this is still relatively new to me, my thrill even at the most basic of technological functions involving something I uploaded, downloading to the proper place was almost ridiculously thrilling. I also decided to explore a more creative and perhaps esoteric format with regards to the voice-over underneath both the opening and closing credits. Like many “artists,” I wanted to take a risk. I hope it works! Finally, I of course had the goal of authentically delivering my story. Although, I now must be honest and admit that it was quite possibly a cathartic expression of the angst I experienced throughout my entire house hunting “adventure.”
3. Who was your audience? Do you feel you were successful in reaching your audience?
As with my first DST project, my initial audience will, I expect, be my professor, course peers and also friends and colleagues with whom I have shared this project. Because we are required to also “post” our work on a public forum (I chose both YouTube as well as my personal Facebook page), I suppose that there appears no limit to the audience it will ultimately reach. I cannot know at the time of this writing if I will be successful in reaching my initial audience save those with whom I have already shared my work, but I hope that my professor and peers will view it. However, I hope that it ultimately enjoys more external validity with the digital population.
4. Why did you use your particular approach to media production and media selection? Were you successful?
My approach to the project was guided by the assignment presented. I certainly made choices regarding production style and design, but what was important to me was that I not sacrifice content for the sake of impressive technological exhibition. I had originally considered a much “darker” project. Because I am still a novice in terms of my digital media skill set however, I decided to suppress my ego and focus instead on properly producing a good story, rather than attempt a “mood” piece which would deserve a production style I believe is still beyond my current ken.
5. What did you learn during the process of crafting your media piece that you can use in creating future new media narrative?
I learned once again that my ambition sometimes supersedes the pragmatic. I really wanted to go further with this project than I did in the first assignment, so I crafted a script that although was longer than required, offered I think a more sophisticated construction than my last piece. I also faced my almost pathological perfectionist nemesis. This piece of my persona invariably reveals itself primarily in my creative pride and in the case of this particular project manifested in my unconditionally committed search to discover the best possible images to accompany my words. Because this is a digital storytelling piece sans autobiographical video, it was vital to me that the images presented reflect not only the scripted words supporting them, but also deliver variances in color, humor and insight that in another media form might otherwise have been translated by facial cues. It was also important to me that the images synchronized exactly with the emotion I wished to convey and I hope that I was successful in that goal. I do believe that I improved my abilities to produce this type of user-friendly media. The confidence I gained in that process will, I know, provide me with less anxiety when faced with more sophisticated media production programs in the future. As a result of this stronger self-efficacy, I enjoyed this project much more than my first foray, because it did not feel so foreign to manipulate either the images or style tools. Like many “filmmakers,” I also discovered that production timelines are prone to expand! As the script for this piece was indeed much longer than its predecessor, and both the real life experience explored in the story as well as an unanticipated protracted illness interrupted my work, this project was much more protracted than I anticipated. This be neither anticipated nor avoided, but it was frustrating. I am confident, however, that I am not the first, or last media artist to encounter such unforeseeable delays!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
EXCROWING PAINS...
I invite you to view "ESCROWING PAINS," a digital storytelling journey of my first foray into homeowning... I'd love to know what you think, or if you have "enjoyed" a similar experience!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Goin' To The Chapel...
No, not me... I'm off to Las Vegas this weekend to serve as Best Man for my friend (really brother-from-another-mother) Nick. I hate Vegas. I don't drink. I don't gamble. And I certainly don't believe I should have to pay for sex. But I love Nick. Nick is the kind of buddy who you could call at 3 a.m., tell him to come to your house and bring his gloves, a shovel and his car with the big trunk... and he would do it. He wouldn't ask any questions, would even probably bring snacks, would do whatever you asked no matter what (or who) it entailed and would never mention it again. Or judge. Or rat you out. Not that I expect ever to require such an act of unconditional friendship from Nick, of course, but he's just that kind of friend.
I hope that everyone has a Nick in their lives. I am honored that he chose me to be his wing man on one of the most important days of his life.
I hope that everyone has a Nick in their lives. I am honored that he chose me to be his wing man on one of the most important days of his life.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Astrology?
I've never been a big disciple of astrological belief systems, but I gotta say, after realizing today that too many of the people I love the most all have a July birthday in common... well, maybe there's somethin' to it! I guess many of us want desperately to believe in "something greater than ourselves" or a pattern to the universe or meaning or karma or... ANYTHING... but I suspect I have too much of a scientific mind to believe that the period in which you were fertilized and/or birthed is the REAL blueprint guide to your destiny. Still... I AM lovin' so many folks who have that lion totem... Hmmm...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
JUST WANTED TO SHARE...
... a few shots of the absolute BEST fireworks display I've ever seen. Probably because I viewed it from my cousin's boat, in the middle of a lake, and the display was exploding directly above my head. Fantastic show, great company, beautiful night...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
BACK HOME IS... I DON'T KNOW WHERE REALLY!
So... after spending a bit more than a week back East visiting my family, I have come to a few conclusions. Firstly, I love my family. Secondly, I love living in Los Angeles. Coming back home from being back home is good. It is weird in some ways because although I have lived in L.A. for 25 years (certainly longer than I lived back "There"), when I return to my hometown, the only thing that really feels like home are the people. The topography has changed profoundly, I don't really feel any connection to the geographic location and although I have friends from growing up still there, I have created a family of friends in Los Angeles that often feel more like family than my family. Well, that's not QUITE correct; family is family and that can be a powerful connection, but the family I have created in L.A. were chosen by me. The problem with some of the family back East is that although I love all of them, I didn't chose them. Anyone who has relocated probably knows what I mean. I think that after my mom died, my "hometown" - or at least the feeling of home - died somehow with her. I don't really feel any affinity for any one place there. The home I grew up in was sold after she died, so maybe that's a big part of it. I think that if when I went back home, I was going back HOME to an actual HOUSE that WAS home, it would be different. But now I stay at my sister's and going back there feels a lot like being a guest.
But the people do create a sense of belonging and familiarity. That is not to be dismissed as important. They know my history. But, they really don't know much past the time I moved except what I have shared or they have surmised from visits out here. There is a part of me that wishes I could move back and just pick up where I left, when I left, but of course that is impossible. It is kind of like a time warp; some/many of them still treat me and react to me like they remember me from long ago - like nothing has changed. I guess that's to be expected. Like some sort of arrested development stuck in the past. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it feels.
I had a GREAT time seeing everybody. And I did try to see EVERYBODY. Many of my aunts and uncles are older and I do cherish them. It's also not like I haven't seen them a lot. I made the decision long ago that if I was going to make the choice to move, the onus was on me to go back and visit as often as possible, if I wanted to remain close. And we are close. But it's not the sort of closeness they all have with each other. They have battled out hundreds of day-to-day dramas, celebrated all the little triumphs and shared thousands of moments together that I have missed.
As I have gotten older, the connection to my family has become strangely more crucial. As I watch the generation above me and the one above them grow older, I suddenly am reminded of how temporal everything is. And, although I do return back quite frequently, considering, the shock of seeing the aging process is a bit... well... scary.
I wonder if they look at me and think the same thing?
I also secretly fear that each time I see them could be the last time. We have already lost some members of our tribe and have several others who are getting up there. Ironically, the same sense of uncomfortableness I feel when they treat me like I am an adolescent, has a draw for me in that the aunts and uncles especially are my connection to my children. They DID know me "when." My friend-family in L.A. has no history of that from which to draw. They all met me when I moved to L.A. and "reinvented" myself.
Also, each time I visit back East, I confess that I feel less and less connected. There are the next generation progeny, children of cousins and even relative-spouses with whom I have absolutely no connection at all. I don't like that, but it's the way it is. That feels uncomfortable as well. We make small talk and are "family," but there is not too much depth to the conversation or visits. If I had remained back there, I would be "part of" instead of "the cousin/uncle/in-law who moved away to L.A. a long time ago."
The bottom line for now is that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting, tried to not get conscripted into too many family dramas or gossip wars and am happy to be back home.
I just don't like change...
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
MY SPAWN SUCCESSFULLY "MATRICULATE"...
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Although when I "graduated" from both elementary and middle school it really was not met with any fantastic fanfare (basically, the bell rang on the last day of school in June, I went home for summer and then showed up at a new school 3 months later in September), apparently we parents (or at least we insane Los Angeles types) decided at some point that these (standard?) rites of passage should be marked with parties, limos and even gifts... What???? I don't get it, don't agree with it, but certainly would not deign to deny my child the same unalienable rights as their peers! When taken to the furthest Nth extreme in Hollywoodland, I believe this is called: "Keeping up with the Jolie-Pitts." At least this new way of spoiled parenting did not include the J-P requirement of also adding a few adopted children to the dinner table. I really had to keep my opinionated disdain regarding this issue to myself. It would have been met with equal horror from both my own progeny as well as the Harper Valley P.T.A. So, I quelled my feelings of once again succumbing to peer pressure and acted as if I was on board for the entire charade... At least I got some got souvenir photos of my gorgeous daughters out of the whole thing...
Thursday, June 24, 2010
SYNCHRONICITY & BALANCE
The past month has been a study in patience... Negotiating escrow on my new house truly proved the litmus of my ability to just "roll with the universe." In the end, all worked out great, but the process is not something I want to repeat ANYTIME soon! Every day was a new adventure of paperwork facilitation, responding to inquiries from lenders, escrow reps, agents, etc. Because the real estate market has so profoundly changed (at least in Los Angeles), everyone is extremely cautious. The frustrating part was that I have spent my life establishing and maintaining responsibility and excellent credit - even when things got REAL DICEY... This integrity ended up saving me in the end and pushing through my needs, but it seemed like the lenders got into every drop of my "Kool-Aid" they could possibly investigate. I was waiting for them to ferret out my elementary school teachers to inquire if I'd ever cheated on a third grade test! It really was that intensive of a personal/financial/historical investigation. But again, all's well that end's well: I got my loan and my patience got a work out. At least now I understand clearer the litmus of how much it can sustain!!!
The move itself was tough, too. I am a warrior and pushed myself to the infinity and beyond. Got everything done, but it almost took me out. I think perhaps I am too old for this! No - I didn't say (write?) that! I had great professional movers, but felt the need (bad pattern) of trying to do it all myself. I justified this by telling myself that only I knew what needed to be packed or jettisoned from my old pad, how boxes needed to be handled, etc. etc. Thinking it would make the transition less stressful, I overlapped close of escrow on the new place with a week of still paying rent on the old one.
Then I got sick...
I NEVER get sick...
I have never even called in sick one day in my entire working career.
I just don't get sick...
I got sick.
This variable really threw off everything. Still ventrally the eternal warrior however, I refused to rest or surrender. Pragmatically speaking I also couldn't afford the luxury... I had to get out of the old place and into the new. Getting out of the old meant trying to donate, recycle or just throw away anything that didn't make the cut to the new place and then cleaning up the whole apartment. I was trying to fulfill my mother's advice to "always leave everything better than you found it - and that includes people."
I tried. I really did. Schlepping resonant items to Goodwill was the most grueling of it, really. Everything in me screamed to just throw it all away. But I couldn't do it. I ended up sacrificing the "thorough" cleaning of the old place and just did the best I could. I got it all done just about at the eleventh hour. But I did it.
And paid for it physically for almost 10 days!
Then there was the frustrating adventure of waiting for workers to help me set up the various requirements of daily living that are inherent to moving into a new place. I must say that I was seriously disappointed by the lack of care, professionalism and time scheduling I experienced overall at the ends of egregiously slacking techno, computer, cable, telephone, maintenance, lock and key, contractors, etc. It was like a pandemic of carelessness, sloth and "baditude." I just smiled all the way through, kissed a lot of butt and held my tongue. My favorite was when the cable tv guy (who just didn't show for our first appointment and was 90 minutes late for the reschedule) arrived without my account set up, the wrong equipment and actually asked ME if I had any spare tv cable lying about. I did not, so he had to leave and return a third time. For which he again arrived an hour late.
Don't worry that I am sick, need to get to work and am paying YOU, Cable Guy! ;)
It took him more than FIVE HOURS to get everything set up and was also a... storyteller. I finally had to politely tell him that I didn't feel well and ask that he please just finish the job so I could go to work in order to earn the money I would need to pay him.
He appeared disappointed at losing his captive (albeit flu-wracked) audience, but finally accomplished his task.
There was more frustrations with unpacking, getting ethernet to work, assembling IKEA purchases without the benefit of understand a word of Swedish, and much more. I expect anyone who has ever moved OVERstands how rough it really was.
But... it's done, I'm in, feeling MUCH better and learned a lot about myself, at this juncture of my life, and that is probably a good thing.
I know the new house is a GREAT thing, so what am I really complaining about? Well, this is a "blog," right - and it's mine - so it is my privilege to "share..."
Till next time...
The move itself was tough, too. I am a warrior and pushed myself to the infinity and beyond. Got everything done, but it almost took me out. I think perhaps I am too old for this! No - I didn't say (write?) that! I had great professional movers, but felt the need (bad pattern) of trying to do it all myself. I justified this by telling myself that only I knew what needed to be packed or jettisoned from my old pad, how boxes needed to be handled, etc. etc. Thinking it would make the transition less stressful, I overlapped close of escrow on the new place with a week of still paying rent on the old one.
Then I got sick...
I NEVER get sick...
I have never even called in sick one day in my entire working career.
I just don't get sick...
I got sick.
This variable really threw off everything. Still ventrally the eternal warrior however, I refused to rest or surrender. Pragmatically speaking I also couldn't afford the luxury... I had to get out of the old place and into the new. Getting out of the old meant trying to donate, recycle or just throw away anything that didn't make the cut to the new place and then cleaning up the whole apartment. I was trying to fulfill my mother's advice to "always leave everything better than you found it - and that includes people."
I tried. I really did. Schlepping resonant items to Goodwill was the most grueling of it, really. Everything in me screamed to just throw it all away. But I couldn't do it. I ended up sacrificing the "thorough" cleaning of the old place and just did the best I could. I got it all done just about at the eleventh hour. But I did it.
And paid for it physically for almost 10 days!
Then there was the frustrating adventure of waiting for workers to help me set up the various requirements of daily living that are inherent to moving into a new place. I must say that I was seriously disappointed by the lack of care, professionalism and time scheduling I experienced overall at the ends of egregiously slacking techno, computer, cable, telephone, maintenance, lock and key, contractors, etc. It was like a pandemic of carelessness, sloth and "baditude." I just smiled all the way through, kissed a lot of butt and held my tongue. My favorite was when the cable tv guy (who just didn't show for our first appointment and was 90 minutes late for the reschedule) arrived without my account set up, the wrong equipment and actually asked ME if I had any spare tv cable lying about. I did not, so he had to leave and return a third time. For which he again arrived an hour late.
Don't worry that I am sick, need to get to work and am paying YOU, Cable Guy! ;)
It took him more than FIVE HOURS to get everything set up and was also a... storyteller. I finally had to politely tell him that I didn't feel well and ask that he please just finish the job so I could go to work in order to earn the money I would need to pay him.
He appeared disappointed at losing his captive (albeit flu-wracked) audience, but finally accomplished his task.
There was more frustrations with unpacking, getting ethernet to work, assembling IKEA purchases without the benefit of understand a word of Swedish, and much more. I expect anyone who has ever moved OVERstands how rough it really was.
But... it's done, I'm in, feeling MUCH better and learned a lot about myself, at this juncture of my life, and that is probably a good thing.
I know the new house is a GREAT thing, so what am I really complaining about? Well, this is a "blog," right - and it's mine - so it is my privilege to "share..."
Till next time...
Sunday, May 23, 2010
X-GROW UP!
So, as I enter the final days of what has been a pretty rocky ride through the throes of the escrow process, those close to me keep asking why don't I seem excited? I mean, I scored my "dream house," right? Well, considering that the past 28 days (only 2 to go...) have been filled with stress, sleepless nights, over-thinking, fear and panic attacks over the financial commitment to which I am conscripting myself, I can only answer:
"When I finally have the keys in my hand."
Now I know I have been gifted beyond belief in getting this beautiful loft. I know that. I know that I fought hard for it, was devastated when I thought I lost it to someone else and feel so grateful to have had the chance to win it back. I know it was mine from the start, I deserve it and that it is not only perfect, but a literal steal in terms of what it offers versus its cost.
But there it is: THE COST!
My panic attacks at 3 a.m. stem from the outrageous price tag on not just this pad, but ANYTHING in the Greater Los Angeles area. It is really crazy. So, when I start to sweat it, I have to just thinking about how much it will cost me PER MONTH, not how much it cost overall or how long I'll be paying it off (I believe my last payment shall be made sometime after my 112th birthday). I also have to remember that it is indeed EVERYTHING I could ever want - even for more money.
OMG - did I really just write that?!
MORE money?!
But the reality of the situation is that L.A. is pricey. And it's time for me to X-GROW UP. I need to live in a place that is a home where I can re-begin my adult life. And the truth is, I'm getting KILLED in taxes. So I need the write-off.
Still, I am scared. Every other property out there seems to be either in foreclosure or in a short sale. I'm sure none of those owners thought when they bought that a few years later they would be bankrupt and have to surrender their home.
But I'm doin' it. And underneath all the fear is a real sense of excitement. It's there. It's just being smothered by all the other worries. I'm sure once I get past all the moving and transitional bookkeeping stuff, I'm going to be really happy. I also am absolutely confident that if I didn't do it, I'd be sitting in my old place, miserable and feeling like a loser.
Did I mention the tax benefits?
So... in a couple of days I'll have spent every dime I have and then some and will officially be what some refer to as "house poor." I don't think that sounds either admirable or glamorous, but it's what I'll be. But at least I'll be beautiful house poor.
More to be revealed...
"When I finally have the keys in my hand."
Now I know I have been gifted beyond belief in getting this beautiful loft. I know that. I know that I fought hard for it, was devastated when I thought I lost it to someone else and feel so grateful to have had the chance to win it back. I know it was mine from the start, I deserve it and that it is not only perfect, but a literal steal in terms of what it offers versus its cost.
But there it is: THE COST!
My panic attacks at 3 a.m. stem from the outrageous price tag on not just this pad, but ANYTHING in the Greater Los Angeles area. It is really crazy. So, when I start to sweat it, I have to just thinking about how much it will cost me PER MONTH, not how much it cost overall or how long I'll be paying it off (I believe my last payment shall be made sometime after my 112th birthday). I also have to remember that it is indeed EVERYTHING I could ever want - even for more money.
OMG - did I really just write that?!
MORE money?!
But the reality of the situation is that L.A. is pricey. And it's time for me to X-GROW UP. I need to live in a place that is a home where I can re-begin my adult life. And the truth is, I'm getting KILLED in taxes. So I need the write-off.
Still, I am scared. Every other property out there seems to be either in foreclosure or in a short sale. I'm sure none of those owners thought when they bought that a few years later they would be bankrupt and have to surrender their home.
But I'm doin' it. And underneath all the fear is a real sense of excitement. It's there. It's just being smothered by all the other worries. I'm sure once I get past all the moving and transitional bookkeeping stuff, I'm going to be really happy. I also am absolutely confident that if I didn't do it, I'd be sitting in my old place, miserable and feeling like a loser.
Did I mention the tax benefits?
So... in a couple of days I'll have spent every dime I have and then some and will officially be what some refer to as "house poor." I don't think that sounds either admirable or glamorous, but it's what I'll be. But at least I'll be beautiful house poor.
More to be revealed...
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Journey...
So, it's been a while since I posted... during that time I have struggled to balance life - as usual. Completed my first media project. Cool. It was amazing (and pathetic) that the task appeared so facile, but for me - the digital immigrant - was a practice in patience and tolerance. My glee when I would download something, then upload it and have it land where I had intended it to land was almost shameful. Also completed another course on brain chemistry which was a study in... well... brain chemistry. I really worked my #$%% off in that one and I think it paid off.
The past month has been spent putting myself through the ringer trying to buy my dream house. I had been looking seriously for over 14 months and never found "that" place. When I finally did, the struggle to actually win it was majestic. And painful. And humbling. And scary. But... yesterday... I FINALLY WENT INTO ESCROW!!! I am amazed that it even happened, even though all along the way to win this incredibly perfect pad I fought and tried to remain cool. I wasn't THAT successful at the cool part, but I just put it all out there and it also paid off.
Now, I am in abject terror trying to figure out how I'm going to pay IT off...
More later...
The past month has been spent putting myself through the ringer trying to buy my dream house. I had been looking seriously for over 14 months and never found "that" place. When I finally did, the struggle to actually win it was majestic. And painful. And humbling. And scary. But... yesterday... I FINALLY WENT INTO ESCROW!!! I am amazed that it even happened, even though all along the way to win this incredibly perfect pad I fought and tried to remain cool. I wasn't THAT successful at the cool part, but I just put it all out there and it also paid off.
Now, I am in abject terror trying to figure out how I'm going to pay IT off...
More later...
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
REFLECTION ON MY FIRST DST PROJECT
1. What is the essential story behind the piece you created?
The story behind my first DST project is an honest description of my decision to return to school to pursue a Ph.D after a two decade hiatus. It details the initial foray, the struggle to retain integrity, a scary leap of faith, my battle with bridging an arduous technological chasm and my current dedication to the balanced and patient pursuit of my goal.
2. What was your purpose in creating this piece of new media? Do you feel you were successful in communicating your purpose?
My purpose was, of course, a successful fulfillment of the required project. I also wanted to stretch my skills, master the technological conditions of basic digital moviemaking production and explore the art of DST. I do feel I was successful in the communication of my purpose, but, like all creative expression, the ultimate critique of how well I achieved that purpose will fall to others. Although, like many artists, I am really pleased with what I have created and feel extremely satisfied with both what I learned and shared through the work.
3. Who was your audience? Do you feel you were successful in reaching your audience?
My initial audience will, I expect, be my professor, course peers and also friends and colleagues with whom I have shared this project. Because we are required to also “post” the project on a public forum (I chose both YouTube as well as my personal Facebook page), I suppose that there appears no limit to the audience it will ultimately reach. I cannot know at the time of this writing if I will be successful in reaching my initial audience save those with whom I have already shared my work, but I expect that my professor and some of my peers will view it. However, I hope that others view and enjoy it as well.
4. Why did you use your particular approach to media production and media selection? Were you successful?
Because I have never attempted a project like this before, I was not quite certain which “approach” to attempt. Like all of the other skill sets I have attempted to learn, I utilized, I confess, a great deal of “trial and error” and must confess that it thrilled me to no end when a production element actually “worked!” I did enjoy creating the script and felt strong about being able to be honest in telling my story. I appreciated my professor’s guidance regarding editing; left to my own devices, the project would have probably ended up become a feature-length film and taken years to complete! My selection of media was drawn from imagining what images would best resonate with the words I have written. I explored a vast array of images and the ones I ultimately chose to include were those that just “felt” right to me. I was very pleased that I did not feel that I “settled” with any of them. I was pretty assiduous about my research and final selections because this is at heart a piece of creativity that represents me and I wanted it to retain the integrity I address in the actual story – both literally and metaphorically. I knew the song I wanted to utilize as a “bookend” to the piece and made the decision to whistle it at the beginning and sing it at the end as a creative choice that again, just felt correct. I chose the layout, fonts and title/credit styles because they seemed to me to best represent the flavor and tone of the piece. Regarding my success with any of this, again, unfortunately with creative work, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
5. What did you learn during the process of crafting your media piece that you can use in creating future new media narrative?
So much… As I explained in my answer above, this was all new to me. So, I learned a myriad of new technological skills, from crafting an autobiographical narrative piece meant to be married with visual imagery, to locating (then correctly uploading and downloading!) my chosen images, negotiating the creation and recording of computer-mediated audio, matching images to narrative, editing images to both appear at the right moment and also remain fixed for the right amount of time, revising and editing both to rightly express my vision and then, when all was completed, figure out how to publish and post the piece on a public forum! All of this was both a struggle and a thrill. I also learned, as with all things technological of late, that I CAN do it; I just have to be thoughtful and patient! I am hoping that future project will be easier to facilitate from a production sense, which will allow me to explore more sophisticated opportunities in presentation and value.
The story behind my first DST project is an honest description of my decision to return to school to pursue a Ph.D after a two decade hiatus. It details the initial foray, the struggle to retain integrity, a scary leap of faith, my battle with bridging an arduous technological chasm and my current dedication to the balanced and patient pursuit of my goal.
2. What was your purpose in creating this piece of new media? Do you feel you were successful in communicating your purpose?
My purpose was, of course, a successful fulfillment of the required project. I also wanted to stretch my skills, master the technological conditions of basic digital moviemaking production and explore the art of DST. I do feel I was successful in the communication of my purpose, but, like all creative expression, the ultimate critique of how well I achieved that purpose will fall to others. Although, like many artists, I am really pleased with what I have created and feel extremely satisfied with both what I learned and shared through the work.
3. Who was your audience? Do you feel you were successful in reaching your audience?
My initial audience will, I expect, be my professor, course peers and also friends and colleagues with whom I have shared this project. Because we are required to also “post” the project on a public forum (I chose both YouTube as well as my personal Facebook page), I suppose that there appears no limit to the audience it will ultimately reach. I cannot know at the time of this writing if I will be successful in reaching my initial audience save those with whom I have already shared my work, but I expect that my professor and some of my peers will view it. However, I hope that others view and enjoy it as well.
4. Why did you use your particular approach to media production and media selection? Were you successful?
Because I have never attempted a project like this before, I was not quite certain which “approach” to attempt. Like all of the other skill sets I have attempted to learn, I utilized, I confess, a great deal of “trial and error” and must confess that it thrilled me to no end when a production element actually “worked!” I did enjoy creating the script and felt strong about being able to be honest in telling my story. I appreciated my professor’s guidance regarding editing; left to my own devices, the project would have probably ended up become a feature-length film and taken years to complete! My selection of media was drawn from imagining what images would best resonate with the words I have written. I explored a vast array of images and the ones I ultimately chose to include were those that just “felt” right to me. I was very pleased that I did not feel that I “settled” with any of them. I was pretty assiduous about my research and final selections because this is at heart a piece of creativity that represents me and I wanted it to retain the integrity I address in the actual story – both literally and metaphorically. I knew the song I wanted to utilize as a “bookend” to the piece and made the decision to whistle it at the beginning and sing it at the end as a creative choice that again, just felt correct. I chose the layout, fonts and title/credit styles because they seemed to me to best represent the flavor and tone of the piece. Regarding my success with any of this, again, unfortunately with creative work, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
5. What did you learn during the process of crafting your media piece that you can use in creating future new media narrative?
So much… As I explained in my answer above, this was all new to me. So, I learned a myriad of new technological skills, from crafting an autobiographical narrative piece meant to be married with visual imagery, to locating (then correctly uploading and downloading!) my chosen images, negotiating the creation and recording of computer-mediated audio, matching images to narrative, editing images to both appear at the right moment and also remain fixed for the right amount of time, revising and editing both to rightly express my vision and then, when all was completed, figure out how to publish and post the piece on a public forum! All of this was both a struggle and a thrill. I also learned, as with all things technological of late, that I CAN do it; I just have to be thoughtful and patient! I am hoping that future project will be easier to facilitate from a production sense, which will allow me to explore more sophisticated opportunities in presentation and value.
Monday, March 22, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r2xG6qxPgY
Here is the link to my very first Digital Storytelling project... It pretty much speaks for itself. Enjoy!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Yes, It Happens Here, too...
As I am watching this, I am thinking of how we have already witnessed dissenters in countries around the world organizing their protests via text messages. Here we see it at UC Irvine. It reminds us all that with video recording capabilities pretty common as a cell phone applications, we must be ever vigilant with behavior, and aware that any public expression can be recorded (either knowingly or unknowingly) and end up forever broadcast for public access through any number of video showcasing websites. I also wonder if perhaps that was indeed the goal of the protesters at UC Irvine? Was this a calculated desire to showcase their "solidarity" to others? Was the goal to utilize sites like Youtube as the vehicle through which to spread their support? Hmmmm... Makes a media psych student ponder...
ISRAEL AMBASSADOR OREN DEFENDS FREE SPEECH AT UC IRVINE
By now you probably know that Muslim students tried to silence Israel's U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren when he spoke at UC Irvine's Pacific Ballroom on Monday afternoon, February 8.
Ambassador Oren had come to share his historical and personal perspective on the U.S.-Israel relationship. An author, professor of history, and diplomat, Ambassador Oren is politically centrist and regarded as an expert on many issues of vital interest today. But the Muslim students were determined to silence him, deny him the right to free speech, and deny the audience the right to have civil, intellectual discourse at UCI.
The Muslim students had carefully planned their tactics. Shortly before the event began, large numbers of them gathered for prayers outside the Ballroom. They then entered and scattered throughout the room in order to disrupt the speech from different locations. They did. After every few of Ambassador Oren's sentences, a student would stand up and scream unintelligibly at him while the other students involved raucously clapped and howled. The student whose turn it was to disturb the event would then walk proudly out of the Ballroom, escorted by police, while glaring at the understandably upset and frustrated audience of over 500 people who had come to hear the Ambassador's remarks.
After at least ten interruptions, the uncivilized demonstrators marched outside to a spot closest to the wall of the Ballroom. From there, they shouted more slogans, hoping they could continue to disrupt the event. But they could not.
The Muslim students angered the audience and embarrassed the UCI administration. They ignored pleas and reprimands from UCI officials who took the microphone. They ignored Ambassador Oren's request that he be granted the civil hospitality due to a guest of the University. They ignored his urging that they raise their concerns during the Q and A.
Interesting point for media psychology is the point about the protesters allegedly coordinating their interruptions through text messages between them... We have recently discovered that this tactic has been used in other parts of the world... Here it is at UC Irvine... It is tragic, however, that the protesters could not hear any voices but their own. They would have had their chance to share their opinions and those opinions would have held much more weight if presented along the guidelines of the dialogue as organized by the university officials. Now that the dissenters' ungracious actions are being showcased on Youtube, it just creates a negative image for them. This also shows how cautious we must be when there are any types of video recording devices (including cell phones) present. Your behavior could very well show up on a website. I was wondering while watching if perhaps this was in fact the very intent of the protesters. Did they know the potential end result and in fact was having their "solidarity" broadcast on Youtube so that others could see it, the goal all along? Hmmmm... makes a media psych student ponder... In any event, my overwhelming thought is: Can't we all just get along before we blow it all to smithereens???? I hope we can...
The good news is that Ambassador Oren refused to be silenced. He had come to UCI to share his thoughts and did not abandon his right to free speech even as dozens of students coordinated this hostile demonstration. With his elegant manner, he remained calm, and stood his ground. He stood up for free speech.
There are lessons to be learned from this event. The University will need to identify the participating students and decide what consequences they will suffer for their uncivilized behavior. The organizers of the protest were seen coordinating the screams from their seats by text messaging on their cell phones, and the Muslim Student Union president may have been among the eleven arrested for disrupting the event. The UCI administration will need to consider sanctions for the MSU since it was clear to everyone in the audience that the MSU had orchestrated the raucous effort to prevent free speech.
Every speaker can learn from Ambassador Oren's example. Whether the speaker is a U.S. General, an academic, or a representative from another country, his or her right to free speech may very well be challenged. We have seen this pattern spread throughout the U.S., especially this past year. Just a few hours before Professor Oren's event, Israel's Senior Legal Advisor, Daniel Taub, had spoken at the UCLA Law School, and also faced a disruptive demonstration. Like Ambassador Oren, Mr. Taub responded with calm, dignity, and a sincere invitation to the demonstrators that they ask questions during the Q and A. Instead, they, too, refused to cooperate, and marched out, escorted by the police.
The main lesson from Ambassador Oren is that we must stand up with dignity and eloquence for free speech. If we do not, if speakers give up and walk off the stage, we risk sacrificing the civil dialogue essential to education and a bedrock of American values.
Roz Rothstein, CEO, StandWithUs
ISRAEL AMBASSADOR OREN DEFENDS FREE SPEECH AT UC IRVINE
By now you probably know that Muslim students tried to silence Israel's U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren when he spoke at UC Irvine's Pacific Ballroom on Monday afternoon, February 8.
Ambassador Oren had come to share his historical and personal perspective on the U.S.-Israel relationship. An author, professor of history, and diplomat, Ambassador Oren is politically centrist and regarded as an expert on many issues of vital interest today. But the Muslim students were determined to silence him, deny him the right to free speech, and deny the audience the right to have civil, intellectual discourse at UCI.
The Muslim students had carefully planned their tactics. Shortly before the event began, large numbers of them gathered for prayers outside the Ballroom. They then entered and scattered throughout the room in order to disrupt the speech from different locations. They did. After every few of Ambassador Oren's sentences, a student would stand up and scream unintelligibly at him while the other students involved raucously clapped and howled. The student whose turn it was to disturb the event would then walk proudly out of the Ballroom, escorted by police, while glaring at the understandably upset and frustrated audience of over 500 people who had come to hear the Ambassador's remarks.
After at least ten interruptions, the uncivilized demonstrators marched outside to a spot closest to the wall of the Ballroom. From there, they shouted more slogans, hoping they could continue to disrupt the event. But they could not.
The Muslim students angered the audience and embarrassed the UCI administration. They ignored pleas and reprimands from UCI officials who took the microphone. They ignored Ambassador Oren's request that he be granted the civil hospitality due to a guest of the University. They ignored his urging that they raise their concerns during the Q and A.
Interesting point for media psychology is the point about the protesters allegedly coordinating their interruptions through text messages between them... We have recently discovered that this tactic has been used in other parts of the world... Here it is at UC Irvine... It is tragic, however, that the protesters could not hear any voices but their own. They would have had their chance to share their opinions and those opinions would have held much more weight if presented along the guidelines of the dialogue as organized by the university officials. Now that the dissenters' ungracious actions are being showcased on Youtube, it just creates a negative image for them. This also shows how cautious we must be when there are any types of video recording devices (including cell phones) present. Your behavior could very well show up on a website. I was wondering while watching if perhaps this was in fact the very intent of the protesters. Did they know the potential end result and in fact was having their "solidarity" broadcast on Youtube so that others could see it, the goal all along? Hmmmm... makes a media psych student ponder... In any event, my overwhelming thought is: Can't we all just get along before we blow it all to smithereens???? I hope we can...
The good news is that Ambassador Oren refused to be silenced. He had come to UCI to share his thoughts and did not abandon his right to free speech even as dozens of students coordinated this hostile demonstration. With his elegant manner, he remained calm, and stood his ground. He stood up for free speech.
There are lessons to be learned from this event. The University will need to identify the participating students and decide what consequences they will suffer for their uncivilized behavior. The organizers of the protest were seen coordinating the screams from their seats by text messaging on their cell phones, and the Muslim Student Union president may have been among the eleven arrested for disrupting the event. The UCI administration will need to consider sanctions for the MSU since it was clear to everyone in the audience that the MSU had orchestrated the raucous effort to prevent free speech.
Every speaker can learn from Ambassador Oren's example. Whether the speaker is a U.S. General, an academic, or a representative from another country, his or her right to free speech may very well be challenged. We have seen this pattern spread throughout the U.S., especially this past year. Just a few hours before Professor Oren's event, Israel's Senior Legal Advisor, Daniel Taub, had spoken at the UCLA Law School, and also faced a disruptive demonstration. Like Ambassador Oren, Mr. Taub responded with calm, dignity, and a sincere invitation to the demonstrators that they ask questions during the Q and A. Instead, they, too, refused to cooperate, and marched out, escorted by the police.
The main lesson from Ambassador Oren is that we must stand up with dignity and eloquence for free speech. If we do not, if speakers give up and walk off the stage, we risk sacrificing the civil dialogue essential to education and a bedrock of American values.
Roz Rothstein, CEO, StandWithUs
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Yin & Yang
It's been awhile since I've posted here, I know. I have been trying, as usual to keep all all the "plates" in my life balanced and spinning properly. Working on a digital movie for one class, while at the same time studying neuropsychology for another has been an interesting trick in compartmentalizing, to be sure. But thus far (and at least today!), I feel pretty good about where I'm at. Of course I've no doubt that it will all change as deadlines approach, but for now... all is good. I didn't win an Oscar again this year, but I also didn't lose one. So... I guess I can't complain!
My fellow SAG-ians are ALL OVER THIS!
SAG Advocates For Actors Against Digital Theft
Combating the destructive practice of online theft of copyrighted motion pictures and TV shows is a top priority for Screen Actors Guild.
Illegally downloading or streaming stolen content and/or purchasing illegally made or copied CDs and DVDs poses a considerable threat to the livelihoods and futures of the tens of thousands of actors and others employed by the entertainment industry.
SAG has worked with labor allies and industry partners to engage in intense activity designed to combat this destructive practice. Among the activity SAG has undertaken over the last 12 months:
• SAG President and AFL-CIO Executive Council member Ken Howard, along with other labor allies, urged passage of an Executive Council statement in support of industry efforts to fight digital content theft. Howard’s remarks addressed the impact of digital theft on entertainment union jobs and workers. The measure was unanimously approved by the AFL-CIO Executive Council. See the full Statement of Support here
• SAG Secretary-Treasurer Amy Aquino, National Executive Director David White and other labor leaders participated in a roundtable discussion with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Under Secretary for the Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos. The event was hosted by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
• Former SAG President, National Board Member and National Legislative Chair Richard Masur, and SAG National Director of Government Affairs Nancy Fox joined with the DGA, IATSE, the MPAA and several studios to have an in-depth meeting with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and key staffers to discuss how DHS, Justice and the rest of the U.S. Government can work with us to interdict theft of film and TV work.
• SAG NED David White and other labor leaders met with Vice President Joe Biden. In a joint press statement, White said, “We greatly appreciate the opportunity presented by Vice President Biden, Attorney General Holder, Secretary Locke, Secretary Napolitano, Director Mueller, I.P. Coordinator Victoria Espinel and other Administration officials to participate in the discussion of how to prevent the theft of intellectual property.”
• SAG NED David White and other labor leaders met with White House officials Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Larry Summers, director of the President’s National Economic Council, to discuss the need to address digital theft in upcoming Network Neutrality discussions.
• SAG President Ken Howard along with White and other SAG staff attended a congress of the International Federation of Actors and, along with SAG's sister unions, gave support for a presentation by the Motion Picture Association of America's Robert Pisano and Fritz Attaway regarding TV and film theft.
• SAG Secretary-Treasurer Amy Aquino, NED David White, National Board members, committee chairs and staff received presentations from Paramount Pictures regarding digital content theft.
• SAG NED David White and other labor representatives met with the Office of the United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk and other personnel from that office. USTR is the lead U.S. Government agency on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, Free Trade Agreements and Special 301, and is a key player in the development and implementation of U.S. international intellectual property policy. The event was hosted by the MPAA.
• SAG NED David White, along with other labor leaders, met with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Deputy Under Secretary of Labor for International Affairs Sandra Polaski to discuss labor issues and prepare for the upcoming G20 meeting and international meeting of labor ministers.
• SAG, DGA, IATSE and AFTRA jointly filed comments with the FCC on the issue of Network Neutrality. You can read the statement here
• SAG has partnered with other entertainment unions and the MPAA to create a broad-based educational campaign to de-romanticize so-called "piracy" and name it for what it is—the theft of our work.
More work is ahead. SAG representatives are to meet with other labor leaders in a roundtable luncheon with Under Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Robert Hormats to discuss the U.S. motion picture industry’s priorities for intellectual property protection overseas.
Our concern is not simply for actors working today, but for the actors, directors, writers and craftspeople of the future. We will continue to publicly and visibly engage in a sustained effort to protect members’ livelihoods. Those new developments will be posted on SAG.org
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
THE BLOOM BOX...
Large corporations have been testing a new device that can generate power on the spot, without being connected to the electric grid. Will we have one in every home someday?
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n&tag=api
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6228923n&tag=api
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thank Goodness, There May Be Hope For Us "Elders!"
REFERENCE: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/brain_functions_that_improve_w.htmluP
BRAIN FUNCTIONS THAT IMPROVE WITH AGE
Can I still compete?"
It's a question many of us increasingly ask as we reach middle age.
We watch younger colleagues master new computer systems with ease or pull all-nighters with nary a hair out of place and — quite naturally — we're concerned.
Luckily, recent research in brain science suggests that perhaps we should fret less.
Over the past few years, neuroscientists have begun to zero in on the brain's changes in middle age, and what they've found is encouraging. Results of long-term studies show that — contrary to stereotypes — we actually grow smarter in key areas in middle age which, with longer life spans, now stretches from our mid 40s to our mid to late 60s.
In areas as diverse as vocabulary and inductive reasoning, our brains function better than they did in our 20s. As we age, we more easily get the "gist" of arguments. Even our judgment of others improves. Often, we simply "know'' if someone — or some idea — is to be trusted. We also get better at knowing what to ignore and when to hold our tongues.
Not long ago, a mid-level executive told me how he'd recently changed the way he deals with younger colleagues. When gathered to discuss a problem, he keeps his "mouth shut'' and listens. Even though — more often than not — he has a good solution, he waits. He does not speak.
"I find it works best if I let the younger workers talk first, wrestle with the problem in their own way,'' he told me. "Then after a while, I say what I think might work. I'm not sure why, but this seems to work best and to help us all learn and solve the problem better.''
In fact, though he did not realize it, the executive was using the best parts of his calmer and more experienced middle-aged brain to help him manage his situation — and get better results.
It's true that by midlife our brains can show some fraying. Brain processing speed slows down. Faced with new information, we often cannot master it as quickly as our younger peers. And there's little question that our short-term memories suffer. It's easy to panic when you find you can't remember the name of that person you know in the elevator, or even the movie you saw last week.
But it turns out that such skills don't really matter that much. By midlife our brains have developed a whole host of talents that are, in the end, just as well suited to navigating the modern, complex workplace. As we age, we get better at seeing the possible. Younger brains, predictably, are set up to focus on the negative and potential trouble. Older brains, studies show, often reach solutions faster, in part, because they focus on what can be done.
By the time we reach middle age, millions of patterns have been established in our brains, and these connected pathways provide invaluable perspective — even when it's subconscious. For instance, some middle-aged managers I've spoken with talked about how solutions seem to "pop'' into their heads "like magic.''
It doesn't come from magic, of course, but from the very real — and often unappreciated — talents of our middle-aged brains.
Barbara Strauch is a deputy science editor and health and medical science editor at The New York Times and author of The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind (Viking), coming out in April.
BRAIN FUNCTIONS THAT IMPROVE WITH AGE
Can I still compete?"
It's a question many of us increasingly ask as we reach middle age.
We watch younger colleagues master new computer systems with ease or pull all-nighters with nary a hair out of place and — quite naturally — we're concerned.
Luckily, recent research in brain science suggests that perhaps we should fret less.
Over the past few years, neuroscientists have begun to zero in on the brain's changes in middle age, and what they've found is encouraging. Results of long-term studies show that — contrary to stereotypes — we actually grow smarter in key areas in middle age which, with longer life spans, now stretches from our mid 40s to our mid to late 60s.
In areas as diverse as vocabulary and inductive reasoning, our brains function better than they did in our 20s. As we age, we more easily get the "gist" of arguments. Even our judgment of others improves. Often, we simply "know'' if someone — or some idea — is to be trusted. We also get better at knowing what to ignore and when to hold our tongues.
Not long ago, a mid-level executive told me how he'd recently changed the way he deals with younger colleagues. When gathered to discuss a problem, he keeps his "mouth shut'' and listens. Even though — more often than not — he has a good solution, he waits. He does not speak.
"I find it works best if I let the younger workers talk first, wrestle with the problem in their own way,'' he told me. "Then after a while, I say what I think might work. I'm not sure why, but this seems to work best and to help us all learn and solve the problem better.''
In fact, though he did not realize it, the executive was using the best parts of his calmer and more experienced middle-aged brain to help him manage his situation — and get better results.
It's true that by midlife our brains can show some fraying. Brain processing speed slows down. Faced with new information, we often cannot master it as quickly as our younger peers. And there's little question that our short-term memories suffer. It's easy to panic when you find you can't remember the name of that person you know in the elevator, or even the movie you saw last week.
But it turns out that such skills don't really matter that much. By midlife our brains have developed a whole host of talents that are, in the end, just as well suited to navigating the modern, complex workplace. As we age, we get better at seeing the possible. Younger brains, predictably, are set up to focus on the negative and potential trouble. Older brains, studies show, often reach solutions faster, in part, because they focus on what can be done.
By the time we reach middle age, millions of patterns have been established in our brains, and these connected pathways provide invaluable perspective — even when it's subconscious. For instance, some middle-aged managers I've spoken with talked about how solutions seem to "pop'' into their heads "like magic.''
It doesn't come from magic, of course, but from the very real — and often unappreciated — talents of our middle-aged brains.
Barbara Strauch is a deputy science editor and health and medical science editor at The New York Times and author of The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind (Viking), coming out in April.
Friday, January 29, 2010
RECENTLY FINISHED A PAPER ON "THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF FACEBOOK"
Nice to see my schoolwork is pertinent, fresh and something others are interested in as well! See article below...
From: "The Economist"; http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15350972
A special report on social networking
Global swap shops
Why social networks have grown so fast—and how Facebook has become so dominant
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
Illustration by Ian Whadcock
FACEBOOK has not only helped people to make zillions of new connections, it has also inspired a screenplay. A film called “The Social Network”, due to be released later this year, will trace the site’s meteoric rise from its foundation in 2004 to become king of the social-networking world. How have social networks managed to shoot to such prominence that they are already being given the Hollywood treatment?
The most important reason for their phenomenal growth is something called the “network effect”. Originally coined to describe the rapid spread of telephones, this states that the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. This implies that the audience of a social network will grow slowly at first, then explode once it passes a certain point. Jeff Weiner, the chief executive of LinkedIn, which now has some 58m members, says it took the company 16 months to reach its first million users, whereas the most recent additional million came on board in only 11 days. Facebook has had a similar experience. It took almost five years to drum up its first 150m users, but just eight months to double that number (see chart 3).
The network effect has been amplified by the internet’s global reach. Gina Bianchini, the boss of Ning, says that within two months of the firm’s launch in 2005 people from 80 countries had signed up to networks that it had created on behalf of others. The Ning-hosted network of 50 Cent, a rapper, has 490,000 members the world over, from Australia to Zambia. Some firms have specially tailored their service to broaden its international appeal. Facebook, which is available in 70 different languages, offers Facebook Lite, a stripped-down version of its main site that is popular in countries without fast broadband connections.
All this has allowed social sites to grow quickly without having to spend a fortune on marketing. But it has also created a huge technical challenge. Most web businesses can add servers and databases in a fairly linear fashion as they acquire more users, but social networks find it almost impossible to gauge exactly how much computing power they will need because of the network effect. Some sites set up in the 1990s suffered a series of outages as they struggled to keep up with demand.
The latest crop of networks, most of which were launched five or six years ago, have benefited from a dramatic fall in the cost of hardware needed to store and process data. They have also been able to use free, open-source software to build systems that scale quickly and easily. And they have come up with some tailor-made solutions to cope with rapid growth.
Thanks for the memory
At Facebook, for example, the firm’s software engineers built a system called MultiFeed that searches databases near-instantly for relevant news from a person’s friends. This has allowed the network to add many millions of new users without damaging its ability to provide a constant stream of up-to-date news to people’s pages. In another feat of technical wizardry, its engineers have quintupled the performance of an open-source memory system called memcached, which allows frequently used data to be retrieved faster than if stored in a database.
Such creativity has enabled the networks to cope with a tsunami of data, many of which are being produced by another set of technologies that have also helped to drive the growth of social networking. Personal digital cameras and video recorders have greatly reduced the cost of producing high-quality images and made it easy to publish them online. Over 2.5 billion photos a month are uploaded to Facebook, making it one of the largest photo-sharing sites on the web. In Asia video content is hugely popular on services such as Cyworld.
One reason that people are willing to share so much private information on social networks is that many of the sites have developed detailed sets of privacy controls that let users decide what others can and cannot see. This process has had its hiccups. Facebook, for instance, got into hot water when in late 2007 it launched a service called Beacon that tracked users’ purchases on some other websites and automatically alerted their friends to them. After a furious reaction from users, Beacon was first modified and then buried for good. Last year Facebook was named one of America’s 20 most trusted companies on privacy issues by TRUSTe, an organisation that rates companies’ online privacy policies—though there was another outcry in late 2009 when it modified its privacy policy yet again.
Another reason that the networks have become so popular is that there is so much to do on them, mostly because companies such as Facebook and MySpace have allowed independent developers to create programs, known as “apps”, which run on their networks and tap into their treasure trove of customer data. These apps range from the inane to the inspiring. SuperPoke!, for example, lets people “spank”, “grope” and “kiss” their Facebook friends online, whereas Causes enables them to create virtual groups to pursue charitable endeavours.
This division of labour pays dividends all round. Developers get access to the networks’ huge audience, network users enjoy free access to thousands of clever apps and the networks acquire more users because the apps make their sites more addictive. Facebook now has over 1m developers creating software for it and its online directory contains over 500,000 apps. Twitter has spawned over 50,000 apps, including offerings from firms such as Twitpic, which lets people post photos to their Twitter feeds, and Twitscoop, which highlights popular topics being talked about on the service at any moment.
That leaves the networks free to concentrate on innovations that encourage even more sharing. The most striking of these is Facebook Connect, which the company launched just over a year ago. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, describes this as “inverting the model” of social networking. Instead of being obliged to come to Facebook’s website, users can take their Facebook identity and network of friends to other websites and to devices such as game consoles. This means they no longer have to create a new online group of friends each time they visit a different destination on the web.
The way it works is that Facebook’s partner firms install Connect buttons on their websites and devices which give Facebook users automatic access to information about their friends’ activities. At HuffPo Social News, a site run by the Huffington Post, a well-known American blog, Facebook users can see what their friends have been reading and exchange stories and comments with them. At Netflix, which hires out DVDs and Blu-ray discs by post, they can see which films their friends have watched and what other people have written about them. Facebook says there are now some 80,000 Connect-enabled websites and devices, such as Microsoft’s Xbox console.
Connect is just the latest in a long line of innovations that have helped to turn Facebook into the dominant global social network. It also reflects the scale of Mr Zuckerberg’s ambition. “For the social web, I think the killer app is Facebook,” he says. His goal is to connect as much of the world’s population as possible via the network and then to get its users to use it as their main doorway to the internet. He is so keen to realise his vision that he is said to have turned down offers to buy the company which would have made him an instant billionaire.
Mr Zuckerberg also wants Facebook to map out as much as possible of what people in the social-networking industry refer to as the “social graph”, a fancy name for a model of nodes and links in which nodes are people and the links between them represent friendships. He thinks that the relationships between people and objects such as their office buildings, schools and other things can be represented in the same way. The more people that join Facebook, the greater the insights the business will have into the nature of these relationships. And the more it knows about what matters to people, the better it should be at profiting from that knowledge.
Some people think that Facebook’s network effect is now so great that it will be impossible to knock it off its pedestal as the world’s largest online meeting place. “It’s basically Facebook’s to lose”, says Mark Pincus, the chief executive of Zynga, a social-gaming firm that develops apps to run on the service.
Not so long ago, exactly the same thing might have been said of MySpace. The site was riding high when News Corp bought it for $580m in 2005. But a few years later it was going downhill (see chart 4). Some see this as a sign that large social networks are destined to disintegrate when they become too big. But there was nothing inevitable about MySpace’s decline: the site simply made a series of strategic mistakes. Faced with demanding revenue targets from News Corp, it neglected its technology and added new features such as job listings and horoscopes that drove web traffic but had nothing to do with its core users’ interest in music, film and other entertainment. As the site became more cluttered than a teenager’s bedroom, some of those users logged off for good. MySpace’s share of the American social-networking market fell from 67% in September 2008 to 30% in the same month of last year, according to Hitwise, a research firm.
Network defects
Owen Van Natta, the network’s new boss, has already got rid of many of the products that were added and brought in a new management team. MySpace is also cleaning up its pages and developing tools that will let its 100m users search its huge range of content more efficiently. And it has stopped pursuing Facebook to concentrate on a strategy that Mr Van Natta describes as “offering people the ability to engage in content and socialise at the same time”.
The idea is that people with, say, similar tastes in music will connect with one another on MySpace and then swap other material too. Last year the firm bought iLike, which allows users to share playlists, and Imeem, a music-streaming service. Its new focus, Mr Van Natta insists, will allow MySpace to rise Phoenix-like from the mess in which he found it. But the—admittedly brief—history of social networking suggests that once a network effect has gone into reverse it rarely returns to form.
Facebook, for its part, is unlikely to make the same strategic mistakes as MySpace because it pays much more attention to the plumbing that connects people with each other than to the content that flows through it. “The people at Facebook are essentially utilitarians,” explains Matt Cohler, a former employee who is now a partner at Benchmark Capital, a venture-capital firm. “They want to give people the very best technology for sharing and then get out of their way.” That technology is so good that people are willing to stick around on the site as it grows, rather than abandoning it for something edgier.
Another reason for optimism is the firm’s hacker-type culture which has produced the innovations that have made the service so addictive. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s head of engineering, says that one of its mottos is “move fast and break stuff”. What matters is getting fresh products out to users quickly, even if they do not always work as intended.
To help generate new ideas, the firm holds all-night “hackathons” at which engineers work on their pet projects, fueled by Chinese takeaways and energy drinks. It also gives its people plenty of freedom to try out their ideas on Facebook’s site. Mr Schroepfer is particularly proud of the fact that the company has only one engineer for every 1.2m users.
It is always possible that a better plumber could turn up, which explains why Facebook’s bosses are so wary of potential competitors. The network has been watching Twitter closely and even tried to buy it, but was rebuffed. Despite their differences, both firms are powerful communication tools that compete for people’s attention (see article). They also have something else in common: an enormous price tag. Last year Twitter raised a round of venture capital that valued the company at $1 billion, even though it had yet to turn a profit. And an investment in the preference shares of Facebook by a Russian company valued it at $10 billion. Such astronomical sums are a sign that investors think the best social networks will become big money-spinners.
Global swap shops
Why social networks have grown so fast—and how Facebook has become so dominant
Jan 28th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
Illustration by Ian Whadcock
FACEBOOK has not only helped people to make zillions of new connections, it has also inspired a screenplay. A film called “The Social Network”, due to be released later this year, will trace the site’s meteoric rise from its foundation in 2004 to become king of the social-networking world. How have social networks managed to shoot to such prominence that they are already being given the Hollywood treatment?
The most important reason for their phenomenal growth is something called the “network effect”. Originally coined to describe the rapid spread of telephones, this states that the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. This implies that the audience of a social network will grow slowly at first, then explode once it passes a certain point. Jeff Weiner, the chief executive of LinkedIn, which now has some 58m members, says it took the company 16 months to reach its first million users, whereas the most recent additional million came on board in only 11 days. Facebook has had a similar experience. It took almost five years to drum up its first 150m users, but just eight months to double that number (see chart 3).
The network effect has been amplified by the internet’s global reach. Gina Bianchini, the boss of Ning, says that within two months of the firm’s launch in 2005 people from 80 countries had signed up to networks that it had created on behalf of others. The Ning-hosted network of 50 Cent, a rapper, has 490,000 members the world over, from Australia to Zambia. Some firms have specially tailored their service to broaden its international appeal. Facebook, which is available in 70 different languages, offers Facebook Lite, a stripped-down version of its main site that is popular in countries without fast broadband connections.
All this has allowed social sites to grow quickly without having to spend a fortune on marketing. But it has also created a huge technical challenge. Most web businesses can add servers and databases in a fairly linear fashion as they acquire more users, but social networks find it almost impossible to gauge exactly how much computing power they will need because of the network effect. Some sites set up in the 1990s suffered a series of outages as they struggled to keep up with demand.
The latest crop of networks, most of which were launched five or six years ago, have benefited from a dramatic fall in the cost of hardware needed to store and process data. They have also been able to use free, open-source software to build systems that scale quickly and easily. And they have come up with some tailor-made solutions to cope with rapid growth.
Thanks for the memory
At Facebook, for example, the firm’s software engineers built a system called MultiFeed that searches databases near-instantly for relevant news from a person’s friends. This has allowed the network to add many millions of new users without damaging its ability to provide a constant stream of up-to-date news to people’s pages. In another feat of technical wizardry, its engineers have quintupled the performance of an open-source memory system called memcached, which allows frequently used data to be retrieved faster than if stored in a database.
Such creativity has enabled the networks to cope with a tsunami of data, many of which are being produced by another set of technologies that have also helped to drive the growth of social networking. Personal digital cameras and video recorders have greatly reduced the cost of producing high-quality images and made it easy to publish them online. Over 2.5 billion photos a month are uploaded to Facebook, making it one of the largest photo-sharing sites on the web. In Asia video content is hugely popular on services such as Cyworld.
One reason that people are willing to share so much private information on social networks is that many of the sites have developed detailed sets of privacy controls that let users decide what others can and cannot see. This process has had its hiccups. Facebook, for instance, got into hot water when in late 2007 it launched a service called Beacon that tracked users’ purchases on some other websites and automatically alerted their friends to them. After a furious reaction from users, Beacon was first modified and then buried for good. Last year Facebook was named one of America’s 20 most trusted companies on privacy issues by TRUSTe, an organisation that rates companies’ online privacy policies—though there was another outcry in late 2009 when it modified its privacy policy yet again.
Another reason that the networks have become so popular is that there is so much to do on them, mostly because companies such as Facebook and MySpace have allowed independent developers to create programs, known as “apps”, which run on their networks and tap into their treasure trove of customer data. These apps range from the inane to the inspiring. SuperPoke!, for example, lets people “spank”, “grope” and “kiss” their Facebook friends online, whereas Causes enables them to create virtual groups to pursue charitable endeavours.
This division of labour pays dividends all round. Developers get access to the networks’ huge audience, network users enjoy free access to thousands of clever apps and the networks acquire more users because the apps make their sites more addictive. Facebook now has over 1m developers creating software for it and its online directory contains over 500,000 apps. Twitter has spawned over 50,000 apps, including offerings from firms such as Twitpic, which lets people post photos to their Twitter feeds, and Twitscoop, which highlights popular topics being talked about on the service at any moment.
That leaves the networks free to concentrate on innovations that encourage even more sharing. The most striking of these is Facebook Connect, which the company launched just over a year ago. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, describes this as “inverting the model” of social networking. Instead of being obliged to come to Facebook’s website, users can take their Facebook identity and network of friends to other websites and to devices such as game consoles. This means they no longer have to create a new online group of friends each time they visit a different destination on the web.
The way it works is that Facebook’s partner firms install Connect buttons on their websites and devices which give Facebook users automatic access to information about their friends’ activities. At HuffPo Social News, a site run by the Huffington Post, a well-known American blog, Facebook users can see what their friends have been reading and exchange stories and comments with them. At Netflix, which hires out DVDs and Blu-ray discs by post, they can see which films their friends have watched and what other people have written about them. Facebook says there are now some 80,000 Connect-enabled websites and devices, such as Microsoft’s Xbox console.
Connect is just the latest in a long line of innovations that have helped to turn Facebook into the dominant global social network. It also reflects the scale of Mr Zuckerberg’s ambition. “For the social web, I think the killer app is Facebook,” he says. His goal is to connect as much of the world’s population as possible via the network and then to get its users to use it as their main doorway to the internet. He is so keen to realise his vision that he is said to have turned down offers to buy the company which would have made him an instant billionaire.
Mr Zuckerberg also wants Facebook to map out as much as possible of what people in the social-networking industry refer to as the “social graph”, a fancy name for a model of nodes and links in which nodes are people and the links between them represent friendships. He thinks that the relationships between people and objects such as their office buildings, schools and other things can be represented in the same way. The more people that join Facebook, the greater the insights the business will have into the nature of these relationships. And the more it knows about what matters to people, the better it should be at profiting from that knowledge.
Some people think that Facebook’s network effect is now so great that it will be impossible to knock it off its pedestal as the world’s largest online meeting place. “It’s basically Facebook’s to lose”, says Mark Pincus, the chief executive of Zynga, a social-gaming firm that develops apps to run on the service.
Not so long ago, exactly the same thing might have been said of MySpace. The site was riding high when News Corp bought it for $580m in 2005. But a few years later it was going downhill (see chart 4). Some see this as a sign that large social networks are destined to disintegrate when they become too big. But there was nothing inevitable about MySpace’s decline: the site simply made a series of strategic mistakes. Faced with demanding revenue targets from News Corp, it neglected its technology and added new features such as job listings and horoscopes that drove web traffic but had nothing to do with its core users’ interest in music, film and other entertainment. As the site became more cluttered than a teenager’s bedroom, some of those users logged off for good. MySpace’s share of the American social-networking market fell from 67% in September 2008 to 30% in the same month of last year, according to Hitwise, a research firm.
Network defects
Owen Van Natta, the network’s new boss, has already got rid of many of the products that were added and brought in a new management team. MySpace is also cleaning up its pages and developing tools that will let its 100m users search its huge range of content more efficiently. And it has stopped pursuing Facebook to concentrate on a strategy that Mr Van Natta describes as “offering people the ability to engage in content and socialise at the same time”.
The idea is that people with, say, similar tastes in music will connect with one another on MySpace and then swap other material too. Last year the firm bought iLike, which allows users to share playlists, and Imeem, a music-streaming service. Its new focus, Mr Van Natta insists, will allow MySpace to rise Phoenix-like from the mess in which he found it. But the—admittedly brief—history of social networking suggests that once a network effect has gone into reverse it rarely returns to form.
Facebook, for its part, is unlikely to make the same strategic mistakes as MySpace because it pays much more attention to the plumbing that connects people with each other than to the content that flows through it. “The people at Facebook are essentially utilitarians,” explains Matt Cohler, a former employee who is now a partner at Benchmark Capital, a venture-capital firm. “They want to give people the very best technology for sharing and then get out of their way.” That technology is so good that people are willing to stick around on the site as it grows, rather than abandoning it for something edgier.
Another reason for optimism is the firm’s hacker-type culture which has produced the innovations that have made the service so addictive. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s head of engineering, says that one of its mottos is “move fast and break stuff”. What matters is getting fresh products out to users quickly, even if they do not always work as intended.
To help generate new ideas, the firm holds all-night “hackathons” at which engineers work on their pet projects, fueled by Chinese takeaways and energy drinks. It also gives its people plenty of freedom to try out their ideas on Facebook’s site. Mr Schroepfer is particularly proud of the fact that the company has only one engineer for every 1.2m users.
It is always possible that a better plumber could turn up, which explains why Facebook’s bosses are so wary of potential competitors. The network has been watching Twitter closely and even tried to buy it, but was rebuffed. Despite their differences, both firms are powerful communication tools that compete for people’s attention (see article). They also have something else in common: an enormous price tag. Last year Twitter raised a round of venture capital that valued the company at $1 billion, even though it had yet to turn a profit. And an investment in the preference shares of Facebook by a Russian company valued it at $10 billion. Such astronomical sums are a sign that investors think the best social networks will become big money-spinners.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Back in the "Reel" World...
After a week of being completely submerged (almost literally, in fact, considering the typhoon we experienced!) into the world of academia, I confess that it felt good to get back home to my comfort zone. My academic environ is so polar from my day-to-day work/family/friends life that the transition both to and from always requires a bit of decompression. I always find myself somewhat of a "fish out of water" when ensconced within these academic "sessions," as I fear that my tendency toward tomfoolery and levity may unnerve and annoy my peers. It is the only place where I feel trepidation and a sense of discomfort. Not from the academic part; one of the downsides of my "other" life is that I often feel it is more than a little anemic in terms of philosophical dialogue. I crave the learning. What my academic peers don't know, I think, is that the clown they experience is actually TEMPERED from the norm!!! Ironically, in my "real" life, I hear that I am very respected and looked at as somewhat of an expert and mentor. I take my career extremely seriously and although am also notorious for being "playful," it seems I am pretty well regarded. I think it would surprise some of my classmates to know that!!! ;)
Clearly my child is 14 year old is an advanced member of this species... Good to finally have identified her...
chicagotribune.com
Tribune Voices
Kids home on college break: Homo studentus universitatus season is winding to a close
Barbara Brotman
January 11, 2010
For nature lovers, this season has brought the appearance of a special species, homo studentus universitatus, a.k.a. the college student on break.
This highly social creature, which travels in packs and leaves a trail of unwashed dishes, is apparently drawn to return every winter to its parental nest. Researchers speculate that it is attracted to large-screen TVs, down comforters and a ready supply of food.
The initial arrival of homo studentus in late December is heralded by the appearance of a large pile of dirty laundry. This is followed by other piles of shoes and clothes, as the denim-rumped primate marks its territory by covering all flat surfaces with its possessions. Within days, the floor of its den is nearly impassable, though interestingly, the creature itself seems not to notice.
It generally remains in its winter habitat through mid-January, displaying the characteristics that make it a particularly intriguing form of wildlife.
A nocturnal animal, homo studentus is rarely glimpsed before mid-afternoon. Observers are warned: Do not attempt to disturb it before it awakens, as it can become hostile.
Once it begins to stir, it generally moves slowly to the vicinity of a television and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Again, do not approach it; at this point the creature appears to be unable to engage in conversation or even to hear sounds such as requests to walk the dog.
By late afternoon, however, homo studentus becomes fully conscious and begins to interact with other members of its species.
Homo studentus communicates largely by using its opposable thumbs for texting. The species' social structure is complex and communal. Individuals gather in collectives, similar to hives, with different individuals fulfilling specific roles. One may buy the beer; another may surf YouTube for funny videos of animals.
They will often congregate on sofas in family rooms, burrowing underneath fleece throws and blankets. The pack can grow so large and dense that it may be difficult to discern which feet belong to which body. Observers trying to track the populations are advised to count heads.
Homo studentus is an extremely intelligent species, judging by the creatures' GPAs, their verbal interactions and their speed with answers to "Jeopardy!" However, scientists are puzzled by their inability to fold blankets or put dishes into a dishwasher. It may be that their brains have evolved to specialize in such tasks as remembering lines from movies and applying to graduate school, to the detriment of those parts of the brain that are involved in such tasks as hanging clothes in a closet.
They appear to be cold-blooded, judging by the levels at which they set the thermostat. On the other hand, their preference for indoor heat may be a function of not paying for utilities.
Those who hope to observe this species closely can attract them by providing the right environment. Set out feeders, e.g. pizzas. Scatter indoor areas with pillows. Provide premium cable channels and potato chips. Stay out of sight and don't touch the remote.
You may not always see the creatures themselves, particularly if you sleep at night. Some people have gone days without seeing the examples of homo studentus that have taken up residence in their homes. Be patient, and look for signs: A profusion of hair-care products in your bathroom, perhaps, or tire tracks in the snow on your front lawn. Eventually, even the most elusive of the creatures will show themselves, if only to ask you to buy more Honey Nut Cheerios.
The rewards of the species' visit are substantial -- a window into a complex society, happy noise in a quiet house, an impressive library of funny animal videos and the way your credit card feels so vibrantly alive. Indeed, many wildlife watchers are reluctant to see the creatures depart, and abandon their roles as observers to hug and kiss the creatures.
But the homo studentus season is brief. No matter how much the creatures have enjoyed the family nest and the use of their own bathrooms, they will soon return to college. Nature lovers must put away their binoculars, turn down the thermostat and bide their time until spring migration.
Tribune Voices
Kids home on college break: Homo studentus universitatus season is winding to a close
Barbara Brotman
January 11, 2010
For nature lovers, this season has brought the appearance of a special species, homo studentus universitatus, a.k.a. the college student on break.
This highly social creature, which travels in packs and leaves a trail of unwashed dishes, is apparently drawn to return every winter to its parental nest. Researchers speculate that it is attracted to large-screen TVs, down comforters and a ready supply of food.
The initial arrival of homo studentus in late December is heralded by the appearance of a large pile of dirty laundry. This is followed by other piles of shoes and clothes, as the denim-rumped primate marks its territory by covering all flat surfaces with its possessions. Within days, the floor of its den is nearly impassable, though interestingly, the creature itself seems not to notice.
It generally remains in its winter habitat through mid-January, displaying the characteristics that make it a particularly intriguing form of wildlife.
A nocturnal animal, homo studentus is rarely glimpsed before mid-afternoon. Observers are warned: Do not attempt to disturb it before it awakens, as it can become hostile.
Once it begins to stir, it generally moves slowly to the vicinity of a television and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Again, do not approach it; at this point the creature appears to be unable to engage in conversation or even to hear sounds such as requests to walk the dog.
By late afternoon, however, homo studentus becomes fully conscious and begins to interact with other members of its species.
Homo studentus communicates largely by using its opposable thumbs for texting. The species' social structure is complex and communal. Individuals gather in collectives, similar to hives, with different individuals fulfilling specific roles. One may buy the beer; another may surf YouTube for funny videos of animals.
They will often congregate on sofas in family rooms, burrowing underneath fleece throws and blankets. The pack can grow so large and dense that it may be difficult to discern which feet belong to which body. Observers trying to track the populations are advised to count heads.
Homo studentus is an extremely intelligent species, judging by the creatures' GPAs, their verbal interactions and their speed with answers to "Jeopardy!" However, scientists are puzzled by their inability to fold blankets or put dishes into a dishwasher. It may be that their brains have evolved to specialize in such tasks as remembering lines from movies and applying to graduate school, to the detriment of those parts of the brain that are involved in such tasks as hanging clothes in a closet.
They appear to be cold-blooded, judging by the levels at which they set the thermostat. On the other hand, their preference for indoor heat may be a function of not paying for utilities.
Those who hope to observe this species closely can attract them by providing the right environment. Set out feeders, e.g. pizzas. Scatter indoor areas with pillows. Provide premium cable channels and potato chips. Stay out of sight and don't touch the remote.
You may not always see the creatures themselves, particularly if you sleep at night. Some people have gone days without seeing the examples of homo studentus that have taken up residence in their homes. Be patient, and look for signs: A profusion of hair-care products in your bathroom, perhaps, or tire tracks in the snow on your front lawn. Eventually, even the most elusive of the creatures will show themselves, if only to ask you to buy more Honey Nut Cheerios.
The rewards of the species' visit are substantial -- a window into a complex society, happy noise in a quiet house, an impressive library of funny animal videos and the way your credit card feels so vibrantly alive. Indeed, many wildlife watchers are reluctant to see the creatures depart, and abandon their roles as observers to hug and kiss the creatures.
But the homo studentus season is brief. No matter how much the creatures have enjoyed the family nest and the use of their own bathrooms, they will soon return to college. Nature lovers must put away their binoculars, turn down the thermostat and bide their time until spring migration.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Use of New Media Helps Save A Life!
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Monday, January 18, 2010
My First Post
As I enter the fray of "blogging," I am hoping to successfully negotiate the "Digital Divide" that has been my nemesis for the past eighteen months. Since embarking upon the decision to pursue my doctorate in Media Psychology, learning, negotiating and keeping up with the new technology, which appears state-of-the-art in the morning, but is obsolete by lunch has been the most arduous component of the learning curve. But in truth, the conscription of forced learning vis a vis millennial mediated communication is quite cool...
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