How's it going?

So we have been in this class for quite a while, and each week seems to be sliping by out of control and at rapid speed. I know I have been slow at getting posts up and maintaining my active presence online--It surely is a problem.  Putting aside the extreme amount of work on my shoulders, I am hoping to improve and grab reigns of my blogging capabilities and responsibilities...NOW.

I seem to be having problems because I overwhelm myself with the concept of writing for the web. Writing essays, letters, short stories, poems--Nothing scares me half as much as writing and publishing for the web.

I think the concept of this class is great. I think it's extremely useful for the day and age we're living in. My personal experience with this class has to do with my personal problem of transitioning to an online presence for writing.

I'm working on it.

Lets talk about me for a minute...

I remember the first time I ever created an online presence on Myspace, it seemed like a horrifying task. I didn't want to say too much, too little--I needed my profile to be friendly to all who should see it. It was the first time I had ever been put in a position where I actually needed to write a bio or needed to explain who I was. It required a lot of self reflection and it seemed impossible to explain who I was within the limitations of language. 

The idea of putting yourself into words truly is NOT possible so what does it matter how you decide to describe yourself?

I soon came to find as I acquired different profiles and personal websites that I could really manipulate who I portrayed myself to be in any way I wanted. I could be clarissa215, hannabananerrrr, or cookiedougheater (all handles or screennames I have actually had), it really didn't matter.

In more recent years, I have tried to establish a more professional online presence. I have given up on trying to to explain who I am on public profiles and have stuck to things like, "Hello world!" in my about me sections and on professional sites, I attach my resume. For the majority of profiles I have created in the past two years, my handle has remained hannaand or hand, which are just different portions of my full name. Clean, simple and easy to find. I feel good using these in both social and professional occasions.

The image I use on online profiles are always changing. I want them to be current along with a good representation of who I am on a daily basis. Sometimes I go for a more neutral photo and sometimes I just use one of my photography shots. It also heavily depends on who the audience is for the profile I have created. All the images I have included in this post are different images I have used to represent myself.

Materiality In Text

When comparing new media digital text to hand written notes or formally published books, I can only speak for myself in saying that I crave the physical. This could be due to a number of intimate characteristics about myself, but I find the evolution of text to digital format to be damaging to my personal experience with reading.

I'm the reader that you'll see huddled in a quiet corner--no distractions, pen in hand making marginal notes while trying to make sense of what I'm reading. I like having the opportunity to underline, highlight, run my finger along the letters as I read the sentences that they form. Something about physically having an experience with a text allows me to interact with it in a different, more in depth way versus just seeing the text on a screen.

Maybe my love for tangible text comes with my habitual infatuation with collecting things. Sort of marking my experience of the things I read and enjoy with a collection of books on shelves or articles in a box. It could also be my nature of being an obsessive list maker/note taker. There's something completely more intimate with the fluidity of thoughts represented by pen and paper than keys and Microsoft Word.

Maybe I'm just finicky and haven't adjusted to where we're headed but I think I'll always prefer what I was initially introduced to--printed books and hand written script.

Remodeling my PWP...

http://arcanepigeonhole.blogspot.com/
Feedback, ideas, anything?...


Thanks guys!