Gil meets Vic

Gil loves being on television. Wherever he can, he watches himself on a screen. He's found one screen in particular that reflects his every movement for a short period of time. His favorite part of watching himself on this television is that when he looks at himself on the screen he is able to convince himself that he isn't really looking at himself. The broadcast is in real time. He stares at this screen for a prescribed three hours a week gradually, slowly, incrementally giving himself over to the delusion that who he sees is someone else. He describes it as his "I" watching his other "i". He even made a little typographic piece of art commemorating this disassociation. In this way, Gil is his own brother's keeper. He is watching over himself--audience and actor. It's actually an elegantly economical solution. When Gil really gets in the zone, he claims to be able to strike a pose that looks like he is looking straight ahead even though he isn't. But as far as I can tell, he is just bragging as usual. Gil needs to ask someone else if it looks like he is looking straight ahead when he really isn't to verify this "in the zone pose" hypothesis of his because the mediating screen is, as always, straight ahead. Surely this a reasonable burden of proof. Though Gil's "in the zone" hypothesis remains untested and unproven, it has come to define the entirety of his intra-action with himself. In fact, during his second three hour session while "in the zone" Gil realized that he could only see himself clearly in his television when he squinted and that when he squinted to see himself clearly he could only see himself squinting.

I think he's trying to make a point about clarity on some level.
i think he needs a new prescription.

Question #2: What strengths do you think will be useful in this type of project?

Gil wants me to say that any project could benefit from any number of individual strengths. I don't disagree. I just think that there's something more going on here. Gil's knee jerk reaction is to focus on the word “strength.” That's typical of him. I'll focus on the phrase “this type of project” instead. I find myself falling into the assumption that this type of project—meaning, I presume, a service-learning project—will be like all other projects. If learning will occur through this project because of this service element, which is naturally the distinguishing characteristic of service-learning, it behooves me to think about service a little bit. Like I said in my response to Question #1, the genius of service-learning is that it as the audience is broadened so does the accountability for completing the project well. The underlying assumption here is that people care about other people. Back to Gil's point about strength. I think that the most useful type of strength in a service-learning type of project is not much of a strength at all in traditional terms. Compassion is strength when the goal is service. Since Question #2 actually uses the plural of strength, to stay true to the question I'll conclude that strengths similar to compassion are going to be the most useful. That is this compassionate type of strength can overcome weaknesses . A compassionate group will, I think, do the most good. Gil disagrees with part of this argument. He thinks that I'm putting the cart before the horse. He says that a compassionate group has already learned from service. It is untenable to hold the position that the useful type of strength in service-learning is a desired outcome of the service-learning process itself. He insists that I return to his safe and secure comment that any project could benefit from any number of individual strengths.

meta-protocol analysis, or Gil mumbles something that the narrator cannot hear

A wise man once said, “blah, blah, blah so long as blah.” Truth is there are probably many pithy maxims to effect that you can’t always get what you want , but if you try sometimes… (Where is he going with this?) I have a technology story to tell, brave readers. One cold winter morning Gil set out to retrieve all of the assigned reading for S554. (belatedly invoke the muse) He logged in to his computer at work, logged in to his Google browser sync, and logged in to his course management software system. He then logged in to his Pandora radio account, email account, and his online banking account. It was payday. After those inevitable distractions, he sought out the course calendar on the syllabus to check the assigned reading. Two journal articles and one chapter from a required book were listed. Gil looks in his SLIS pile for the book, but remembers that it hasn’t arrived yet. To order this book he logged in to his account at half.com, entered the ISBN for the book he needed, selected a moderately priced copy in very good condition, entered his credit card number, 3 digit whatever number on the back of his credit card, verified his address, and clicked a button. To compensate for not having the book in hand, he resolved to read both journal articles thoroughly and critically so as to be prepared to provide noticeable insight and thus proof of completing said reading to the professor and classmates. Gil checks all the links on the left-hand side of the homepage for S554 and moves on empty-handed but unaffected. The first article does not show up after an article search by title in the citation linker. Gil’s used to such tricks, so he locates the link to Ebsco’s LISA database and proceeds with confidence. “Surely the article is here,” Gil mumbles in a voice only the narrator can hear. The article is there but not in full text. He pessimistically clicks the “find it” button with the expected result. He tries the WilsonWeb version of LISA with the identical result. In desperation and perturbance he enters the article title in the Google search box in the top, right-hand corner of his browser. He follows a link to sciencedirect.com that shows him an abstract of the article and offers to sell it to him for thirty bucks. Gil mumbles something that the narrator cannot hear. Gil begins to search by title. He’s not sure how, but somehow he ends up on the periodical title search of IUCAT. Apparently “Research Strategies” is available online through Wells library in Bloomington and the Schurz library at IUSB. He tries to access both with his log in but to no avail. Foolishly believing that surely there is a way to access this article online, Gil locates the number to the Schurz library reference desk and makes the call. The voice on the other end which Gil assumes is a competent employee informs him that this journal is not available online. “It’s available in print though,” she not so much says as musically intones.

My "first" post

Hello anyone and everyone. For the sake of providing context to this blog among other things, I'm a Writing Center Director who teaches writing and reading courses at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. This semester we are rolling out a new online database and scheduler, so soon I will be up to my elbows in technology.

These things come to mind when I think about the word “technology”: techne, radiohead, that song that kip sings at the end of napoleon dynamite, texting, IM, and helping my co-workers attach files to their email. Also, cell phones, flat-screen televisions, and automated voices at the other end of 1-800 number phone calls.

A friend of mine likes to theorize. He postulates that paradoxically as technology brings people from far distances together, it can come between people already close in proximity. For example, on the bus why talk to the person next to if you can call your friend on the cell phone. Why talk to someone in the waiting room at the doctor's office when you can text your bff? (mp3 player at the airport, dvd player in the car, etc. etc.) Not a ground-shattering idea this theory, but it comes to mind when thinking about technology. Techne lite.

Rambling on, for some reason in the workplace, young people seem to be responsible for explaining technology to everyone else. Q: Why did my computer do this? A: Because you told it to.

In Don Quixote when something seemingly inexplicable occurs, inevitably The Knight of the Sorrowful Face explains it as magic. Technology is the new magic. James Bond uses gadgets from Q where in King Arthur, Lancelot might find something enchanted by Merlin useful. Q: But that's not what I wanted it to do. A: Must have been magic. Call IT.