practing free writing

Boyce does make a lot of sense for his claims that free writing is good for you and your writing. I just got done writing a long, tedious paper for another class, and realized that since it had to be 7 pages and I only had 6 and a half, I needed to add on another pointless paragraph that was unnecessary and wouldn’t improve the paper at all, in fact in would probably due the opposite. I had no clue what else I could possibly say about this subject, so being stuck I decided to open up a new document and just free write whatever the heck I could think of. I stuck to free writing about my paper subject and just wrote a bunch of stuff I thought was funny and other stuff that relates to the paper that I was feeling. Then it hit me that I could revise my conclusion paragraph and include some of my thoughts I developed while free writing that I was thinking. I was actually thinking more about my subject and analyzing it more openly when I was free writing to myself than when I was trying to do it for the paper. So I used some of these ideas and I think it makes the paper better. I think free writing opens your mind and reduces stress which is exactly what you need to write essays sometimes.

4/22

I dont know that it matters neccessarily if you write when you're happy compared to being sad. I think both bring out qualites that make for good writing. It isn't always fun to read about happy stuff, and its not always fun to read sad. But if you think about it, alot of what people think is great writing whether it be poetry, music or art is based around sadness. So I think that writing during a specific feeling isn't better than the other.
I think that we should be graded on our projects over fluency, and by that I mean how well the stuff is connected. I think that this class might be somewhat worried about it because students always worry about final stuff, but I think once we are through people (myself included) will think that it was easier than we made it out to be. I think we are all still thinking of Web 2.0 as some incredible thing and forgetting that we already use Web 2.0 years before this class and it doesn't have to be fantastically complicated.

4/18

I think it is good to see what the other people in this class are doing for their projects. It helps give us ideas and helps us see that everyone else has questions and concerns and it seems like everyone is kind of moving at the same pace which is good to know. I think that Boyce’s idea of writing everyday is a good way to free your mind and to gather your thoughts. People used to do this in diarys or journals, but now I guess people can do the same thing on a blog like this one. I remember when people were using Xanga and most of the time were writing personal stuff about how they were feeling, usually meant to get a reaction out of someone particular or get everyone to feel good or bad for you. I always thought that was lame, so there is no way I would keep a public blog about my feelings or intimate thoughts. I saw a great example of communication distortion on South Park, where this girl was all obsessed with her “internet boyfriend” and he was obsessed with her although they never met in real life. One day they accidentally ran into each other and it was all awkward for them both, and instead of talking they said they would email each other later on. This just shows how some people use stuff like Web 2.0 as a communication crutch because they don’t know how to communicate as a person. Putting all your feelings in something inanimate isn’t going to necessarily translate into something good in the real world.

class april 17

My project thing is going to be about exercise, and I am really interested in this subject so I am happy to do the research and find out more about it. This has proved to be useful even to me because I have found out new information about all sorts of stuff from stretching to doing sit ups that I didn’t know before and that I need to know because I have been doing some of the things they say not to do because it isn’t good for certain muscles or joints. I am somewhat mad I didn’t read this stuff before because they say the traditional exercises that a lot of people think are normal and good are really detrimental to you and ineffective. I am going to put the proper ways to stretch and do common exercises on my wiki so that other people can read this stuff that they probably aren’t aware of either. Many of these sites have good information and I am happy to be doing the research.

tigerboard

Tonight I added an entry to a page on my PBwiki. This is the first time I did anything like that and it feels good to have done it. I feel like this is good and I can get stuff done. I realized that I actually have been checking a popular Web 2.0 site quite frequently, and it relates to Mizzou. I like to read http://www.tigerboard.com/, a wiki style site that some MU alum made some years ago and became popular with tiger sports fans. The site is a forum where people can go and post stuff about MU sports. There are thousands of users and this site is so popular on the sports scene that it is often referenced and used as a source by sportscasters in Kansas City. People can rant, post pictures, talk smack or praise anyone and anything about MU. Its pretty amusing to read, and many of the people claim they are “insiders” who must keep their identities secret for the sake of their positions within MU. Ha, I don’t know about that but I do know some MU players and sometimes coaches check to see what is being said about them because I have heard them mention it in interviews before.

4/15 entry

I am wondering about the requirements for the project in terms of length, pictures, words or something like that. It is kind of like writing a paper but putting all of the different parts on a web page and making it more creative. For the PBwiki that I am doing, I wondering if I can just make some pages and edit them with stuff I want and that would be ok? Of course I would link the pages by adding links to the pages. This sounds more confusing than it probably actually is. I would like to see some amateur wiki examples that are what ours should be close to looking like. Unfortunately, either I’m not allowed or can’t figure out how to look at other wiki’s that have been created on PBwiki. This would be helpful since it is similar to what I’m doing, but they don’t let you look unless you have an invite key (at least that’s what it looks like). I am going to spend some good time on PBwiki over the next couple days and really try to hammer this thing out.

Saved by the blog

Yesterday I posted on here one of my assignments for my biology class. I was in one of the computer labs using a Mac, and the stupid thing wouldn’t save my work, so I couldn’t post the assignment on blackboard and couldn’t save it to email it to myself. I thought to myself “there is nothing I can do”. I was just going to have to delete this assignment I spent the last hour working on and go home to my own computer and do it all over again so I can save it and load it up. I was felt defeated and angry thinking everything had gone to waist. Then I started thinking and remembered my wonderful Web 2.0 blog, and thought “hey I can post it on there, and then copy and paste it when I get back so I don’t have to do it all over again!” I was saved by my blog. I couldn’t be happier with Web 2.0 right now and have figured out yet another great use for it. Web 2.0 truly is great and really makes working on a computer a lot easier, especially when you start thinking of unconventional ways to use it to your advantage.