CSI and arterial spray

I am trying to think of a graceful link between the interview with Vogole of the CSI and the pressing concerns of my work day, which included an 81 degree classroom, Beowulf, and 17 restive upperclassmen.  Thinking about copyright law makes my head swim; on the other hand, they completed a short research paper today on topics related to Beowulf and the Norsemen, which will probably reveal a fair number of misuses of sources despite my best efforts. 

I enjoyed Vogole’s interview and looked at her blog and the CSI afterwards—pretty amazing stuff.  (I have to go back after I’ve had some sleep and figure out why robots are such a hot topic on the site.)  One of my relatives is an “intellectual property” lawyer, and I have always been intrigued by the snippets he shares ,narrow in scope as they are, given confidentiality concerns—what a far cry from my day-to-day reality, in which I am trying to jumpstart the intellectual process.  The “protection “ is at the far end of the spectrum within which I operate.

I will be mulling over her statement that copyright is a vehicle for creativity.  Again, after I get some sleep.

Autobiography of a Face

My advanced writing seminar is reading Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face, partially in preparation for writing a paper about their own beauty.  I should mention that this class is made up of 13 young women--what were the odds of that?  But it has meant that we have been able to explore subjects that would have been much more awkward, as the kids would say, had there been any young men in the class.

Their assignment for Wednesday (Step 1 of the beauty paper) is to write a letter to their future selves.  As I look out on the class--one student, with her particular tangle of brilliance and stubbornness,  headed for a prestigious women's college; another for UVM, where her dogged insistence on integrity and self-reliance will ensure that she won't get lost in the masses; and the 11 others--and wonder what their letters will bring.  And how will reading Grealy's memoir, especially given the new afterword by Ann Patchett, inform what they might say, if at all?

I plan on writing the letter, too.  My goal earlier this semester was to write more of the papers I assigned to them, but the realities of 3 preps this term and two writing-intensive classes (this seminar and Accelerated English I) have whittled down my ambitions.  This one, though, I will try to tackle--once I get my grades in (due tomorrow).

Back to blecch

As you might anticipate, I am a blogging neophyte.  My earliest exposure to blogs was the distasteful surprise of finding an anecdote about my daughter on someone’s blog—blecch.  I am sure many of my reservation about internet-disclosures originated in that moment of total…blecchness.  All I could think about, then and now, is people I have never met having access to personal details about my child.  

The blogs I have looked at since didn’t do a whole lot to dispel this uneasiness.  As a would-be writer, I think of journaling, e.g., as a way to record thoughts which might inform future stories or pieces, but I would never share these jottings as they are usually so much dross with a few gems mixed in—if I am lucky.  Who wants to see my dross?  And do I want to see others’?

In the list of the 15 most popular blogs, #6 (gizmodo) celebrates the invention of the vibrator—a special feature for Mother’s Day, perhaps?  Let’s not even talk about the fact that the #1 blog is Arianna Huffington’s.  There is a huge and hugely seamy underside of the internet of which I have been apparently blissfully unaware.

This aside, I can see how I might apply this in my classroom and avoid the blecch-factor.  I am currently teaching an advanced writing seminar and so have spent a lot of time this semester thinking about the writing issues faced by my students (and me).  Keeping a running (b)log of my ruminations to which my students would have access would obviate the need for beating those dead horses in class—they could be introduced via the blog and the kids could review them when needed.  That would retain class-time, already at a premium, for workshopping and laughter.

As I close, I should mention that I googled the anecdote that I mentioned earlier; it’s still there.  It’s an alarming reality that this shred of my personal life remains available, adrift in that seamy underside, even after eight years—and there’s nothing I can do about it.