Spending spring break in quiet dissipation at home, much as I had expected to - though not always to my delight. I had had visions of coming home and catching up on all the work I had fallen behind on, but that never happened. There is still time, of course. The weather here in Seattle is so much better than what I left behind in Atlanta that there are no words. There are many things about Atlanta that leave much to be desired, and the weather is just one of them.
Registering for Online Communities has been the biggest mistake I've made in recent memory. For one thing, social computing is just not my field. I am so far removed from social computing that I can't begin to imagine how someone who does social computing research for a living could possibly put food on the table, much less amass degrees that are normally reserved for more serious academic endeavors. ASB's temperament does nothing to make OC more palatable. She has none of the kindliness or warmth of manner that you would expect from someone of her advanced years. She's cold, awkward, and frankly a bit sadistic. I'm not going to tempt fate or allow my mind to become clouded with less than happy thoughts, so I will only say that in just a few short weeks, this nightmare of a course will be behind me for good.
Actually, allow me to elaborate. A couple of weeks ago I was turning in my daily writing assignment before the start of class, and looking to make a hasty escape before ASB showed up, as is my wont. Unfortunately, I ran into her in the corridor as I was leaving, and sort of blurted out, "Mind if I slip out?" She fixed me with a look that only someone to whom it had never occurred how dull and useless online communities was could come up with, and said, "No," rather loudly - loudly enough for the rest of the class to hear. I heard a few snickers behind me, but sallied forth undaunted. "I have a research paper due tonight," I said, dangerously close to saying something about online communities being nothing but a waste of time. This seemed to irritate ASB even more. An electric current coursed through her scalp, causing her frizzy hair to stand on end. Passive-aggressive frothing at the mouth followed. Did I think the material was not important? Blah blah blah blah blah. I wanted to say, No, it wasn't important. As far as the eye could see, I didn't think I would ever find myself in a position where I would be thankful for having taken Online Communities in the spring of 2016. It just wasn't conceivable. But I held my tongue and took my seat ignominiously, fully aware that I would never again be able to slip out of class.
On the bright side, I did get to look at FFn analytically for - well - the first time ever, really. Make no mistake, this isn't a "silver lining" to my being mired in online communities. A blacker cloud has not been seen in this or in any other world with clouds. But I did get to interview Nicky and Sai (to carry her pseudonym of choice for the interview over to my blog) and Kouri (I actually don't know if she still goes by Kouri! I should say vanerz), which was fun.
I finally have time to read! I've picked up James Huneker's Old Fogy: His Musical Opinions and Grotesques, which is a collection of critiques about music. He writes from the point of view of an alter ego, namely Old Fogy, and goes so far as to make fun of another of his own works, Chopin: The Man and His Music, which I read several years ago. The present work is highly entertaining, if a bit neurotic at times. He expresses views in his later pieces that stand in total contradiction of views that he expressed in his earlier pieces, which reminds me of some of the tendencies I've betrayed on my own music criticism blog in far less an entertaining fashion. Wit and passion alike ooze out of the pages like honey. If that sentence made you cringe, rest assured that it made me cringe twice as hard - not least because I'm reading an eBook edition. Why didn't I choose to study musicology instead, I wonder? Oh yeah. Because I wanted to be relevant. Still would have been a more useful endeavor than Online Communities.
I finally have time to read! I've picked up James Huneker's Old Fogy: His Musical Opinions and Grotesques, which is a collection of critiques about music. He writes from the point of view of an alter ego, namely Old Fogy, and goes so far as to make fun of another of his own works, Chopin: The Man and His Music, which I read several years ago. The present work is highly entertaining, if a bit neurotic at times. He expresses views in his later pieces that stand in total contradiction of views that he expressed in his earlier pieces, which reminds me of some of the tendencies I've betrayed on my own music criticism blog in far less an entertaining fashion. Wit and passion alike ooze out of the pages like honey. If that sentence made you cringe, rest assured that it made me cringe twice as hard - not least because I'm reading an eBook edition. Why didn't I choose to study musicology instead, I wonder? Oh yeah. Because I wanted to be relevant. Still would have been a more useful endeavor than Online Communities.
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