Restart. Enter the blog that will help me to work on my Research Master degree
Few thoughts cross my mind. Among them questions like where have I been before and in what plateaus have I been treading previously. What have I been doing with the time given to me and what has time produced out of me.
Despite the fact that I only spent a few months in my new Alma Mater yet, I have already discovered myself swamped by the flood of information and the fact that the field I have chosen to study - new media - is so terrifyingly dynamic that it is quite possible I will not necessarily stumble across anything new with my research. Once again I find myself on the first step of the ladder of competence - unconscious of my incompetence and stunned at how much has already been done.
By Lithuanian standards of blogging I am no newbie - I've blogged for over two years and quite successfully some might say: with quite a few 'thank you' letters from across the globe, constant comments, a bit of media coverage, a part time job proposal in the Irish media once I started to blog in English and even my grandma's keenness to purchase online newspapers she heard of writing about her granddaughter - only later on I explained to her that they were online. Oh the vanity of self-ordained fame!
For the past couple of days I have been brainstorming myself for a paper proposal I have to come up with for the course Spatiality/Temporality that would touch upon the aspect of mapping. The ideas are still in the metaphysical stage, but while thinking I realised how much is out there to be discovered and deciphered through the matrix of the hypertext. Moreover, how much has been done already... Last night I came across Danah Boyd's blog , which she started ehem 11 years ago. Christ, where was I then? :)
I was 15 and I didn't have a computer yet. My first encounter with surfing was in a parsonage. :) I remember desperately trying to log on to this new space and after successfully dialling-up with the information abyss I didn't know where to go... One of the first things I did was to set up an email. I chose the domain europe.com. I identified myself with belonging to wider terrains than my minuscule and relatively new country had. In other words, it was the sense of belonging and simultaneously a certain degree of escapism that drew me into the whirlpool of the world wide web. Driven by the same motivation I started my blogs which mainly focused on emigration/immigration issues as I found myself asking why and whether had I become an (im)migrant. As with many endeavours women launch, it was a self-exploration and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Those who might want to know more about the whys can go to my previous English blog emigration-etc where I have spend lots of time and energy on discussing the matter publicly and ultimately identifying myself as a voluntary nomad.
I started this blog with a determination to continue to post my observations about life (a)broad, yet I can't keep up to date those more or less creative cultural rants and ponderings as I find myself immersing into the research subjects of my studies deeper and deeper. On the other hand, they are not that far from exploring certain neverlands and positioning myself within them. I'm particularly interested in networking, social networks, locative media, identity representation, power relations.
I humbly bid a warm farewell to those who discovered the Neverlands as another blog with random tirades on cultural differences and I am grateful for being found and for your kind comments. Cultural differences will always remain there - it took me a few years of living abroad to realise they would never disappear, yet the beauty lies in the diversity of shades. However, from now on I would like to designate this blog for tracing my research and findings within the infinite field of media and us in it, because 'we live in media, as fish live in water'1 . Recently I have discovered too much exciting new material in order to leave it within the footnotes of my previous musings and I need more logic in organising my folksonomies. I decided to keep the title, because I am still treading the Neverlands - the discourses that are still fresh to me, perhaps vaguely touched upon by my empirical approach yet without definitive conclusions. I'll see where this takes me. You are very welcome aboard. Please comment, suggest, argue and immerse yourselves in other forms of participation. We are all in this together, as Ben Lee sings (a rather cheesy melody, but the message is correct).
PS As for creative content, one day you might encounter it assembled in a book, yet it has to be written first. I might have the first page.
1 Nelson T. (1974) Dream Machines. In N. Wardrip-Fruin and N. Montfort , eds. The new media reader. 2003. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.
Despite the fact that I only spent a few months in my new Alma Mater yet, I have already discovered myself swamped by the flood of information and the fact that the field I have chosen to study - new media - is so terrifyingly dynamic that it is quite possible I will not necessarily stumble across anything new with my research. Once again I find myself on the first step of the ladder of competence - unconscious of my incompetence and stunned at how much has already been done.
By Lithuanian standards of blogging I am no newbie - I've blogged for over two years and quite successfully some might say: with quite a few 'thank you' letters from across the globe, constant comments, a bit of media coverage, a part time job proposal in the Irish media once I started to blog in English and even my grandma's keenness to purchase online newspapers she heard of writing about her granddaughter - only later on I explained to her that they were online. Oh the vanity of self-ordained fame!
For the past couple of days I have been brainstorming myself for a paper proposal I have to come up with for the course Spatiality/Temporality that would touch upon the aspect of mapping. The ideas are still in the metaphysical stage, but while thinking I realised how much is out there to be discovered and deciphered through the matrix of the hypertext. Moreover, how much has been done already... Last night I came across Danah Boyd's blog , which she started ehem 11 years ago. Christ, where was I then? :)
I was 15 and I didn't have a computer yet. My first encounter with surfing was in a parsonage. :) I remember desperately trying to log on to this new space and after successfully dialling-up with the information abyss I didn't know where to go... One of the first things I did was to set up an email. I chose the domain europe.com. I identified myself with belonging to wider terrains than my minuscule and relatively new country had. In other words, it was the sense of belonging and simultaneously a certain degree of escapism that drew me into the whirlpool of the world wide web. Driven by the same motivation I started my blogs which mainly focused on emigration/immigration issues as I found myself asking why and whether had I become an (im)migrant. As with many endeavours women launch, it was a self-exploration and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Those who might want to know more about the whys can go to my previous English blog emigration-etc where I have spend lots of time and energy on discussing the matter publicly and ultimately identifying myself as a voluntary nomad.
I started this blog with a determination to continue to post my observations about life (a)broad, yet I can't keep up to date those more or less creative cultural rants and ponderings as I find myself immersing into the research subjects of my studies deeper and deeper. On the other hand, they are not that far from exploring certain neverlands and positioning myself within them. I'm particularly interested in networking, social networks, locative media, identity representation, power relations.
I humbly bid a warm farewell to those who discovered the Neverlands as another blog with random tirades on cultural differences and I am grateful for being found and for your kind comments. Cultural differences will always remain there - it took me a few years of living abroad to realise they would never disappear, yet the beauty lies in the diversity of shades. However, from now on I would like to designate this blog for tracing my research and findings within the infinite field of media and us in it, because 'we live in media, as fish live in water'1 . Recently I have discovered too much exciting new material in order to leave it within the footnotes of my previous musings and I need more logic in organising my folksonomies. I decided to keep the title, because I am still treading the Neverlands - the discourses that are still fresh to me, perhaps vaguely touched upon by my empirical approach yet without definitive conclusions. I'll see where this takes me. You are very welcome aboard. Please comment, suggest, argue and immerse yourselves in other forms of participation. We are all in this together, as Ben Lee sings (a rather cheesy melody, but the message is correct).
PS As for creative content, one day you might encounter it assembled in a book, yet it has to be written first. I might have the first page.
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