October summary 01/11/2009
 Doghouse by Jean Claire Dy October marked the launch of this website as it morphed almost daily in terms of look or theme, organization and navigation, and from a free Weebly site to my own domain name. I started off with this theme, placing the cover of my online book on the front page. But when a colleague asked why the photo, I realized that a change was necessary. I experimented with several themes, but nothing really seemed right. Finally, I realized it wasn't the choice of theme but the navigation scheme itself. And after some brainstorming, it was back to my original theme but now with photos to mark the different pages/blogs that make up the site. (Thanks to Claire for the photos.) The rest of the site is still under construction, but expect the "Courses" pages to be filled out next week. Of course, the major change I did was the decision to get my own domain name. When I save up enough money again, I'll get the Pro package so I can put up my favicon for instance. After all, the website is the new resume. Add Comment Walk the talk 27/10/2009
I have to practice what I preach. And because I teach media arts and communication arts courses, aside from Literature and Creative Writing subjects, my website should serve as an example of what I continuously harp on inside the classroom -- that learning is not what you just read because it's assigned, and it is not just writing an essay or accomplishing an exercise for a grade. Learning is really a neverending quest to find out how and why stuff happens, how and why things work, why this and not that. Etcetera. Learning doesn't stop just because now I am a licensed professional and people pay me lots of money to fix things for them. And it doesn't stop just because now I'm a teacher, and here's the syllabus for the class I'll teach. Learning from where I stand is also finding out how best to transmit knowledge (and perhaps wisdom) to students. It is finding out what tools would work to facilitate the exchange of ideas. And I should emphasize the word "exchange" because learning is not just a one-way street (leading from teacher to student, sometimes ending up in cul-de-sacs). Learning is really a conversation among the students and the teacher. The teacher usually sets the tone and facilitates the flow of ideas. And one way for the teacher to do this is to provide examples, sometimes drawing from his/her own experiences and work.  And when a teacher like me draws from my own work, then I had better show something I would also "demand" from my students. I have to walk my talk. And so this "renovation" of my website. Yes, that's what's this post is really about -- a rationale for my most recent redesign. :-) Why do people like watching movies? 25/10/2009
"Editing is why people like watching movies. Because in the end, wouldn't we like to edit our own lives?" That's what director Rob Cohen says in the documentary The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (2004). And it couldn't have come at a more serendipitous time, too. Tim gave me a DVD copy of the docu that I watched in-between editing and marking papers. So there I was, watching the docu and wondering how to edit such tedious chores out of my existence. Sundry 25/10/2009
While marking papers and preparing for next term's classes, I read Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). This passage from her book stuck: "I stumbled into making pictures with a camera. Frame, proportion, perspective, the values of light and shade, all are determined by the distance of the observing eye." What do you do in this time of climate change? Watching what the Carteret islanders are going through might give you some ideas. This short documentary featured in the Media that Matters Film Festival was an eye-opener for me. Thank you, Lina, for alerting me to this site. Are we slaves of machines? 23/10/2009
Do we let machines work for us, or do we work for machines? I asked myself this, sitting there in a meeting to iron out kinks in our computerized registration process. The way everyone was talking, including myself, I began to wonder -- how were we adjusting to the shift from a manual enrollment system to one using computers? As I listened to the others voice their concerns, my first realization was how everybody wanted the machines to ease their workload. So there was talk about how long queues at the cashier could be avoided by ensuring that printing of receipts be made faster. And so on.  But as the conversation progressed, I soon realized that we were doing something wrong. We were transposing an "analog" way of thinking into a "digital" system, or a linear way of doing things using a nonlinear delivery system. And we were congratulating ourselves for the ease by which we were processing registrants. (Image is from George Dillon's Writing in Images). But were we really maximizing the tools we had at hand? Or were we looking at new technology from a "rearview mirror," as Marshall McLuhan would say. This kind of thinking, according to McLuhan, is exemplified in how we gave the name "horseless carriage" for the then new contraption that we now call a car. So were we using our network of computers and our database as state-of-the-art typewriters and electronic filing cabinets? Apparently we are. We'll catch up with the 21st century somehow. How images create meanings 22/10/2009
Corinne and Pearl, my thesis advisees this term, are both working on how images create meanings. Corinne is doing a study of how photographs were used in the Philippine Daily Inquirer to portray the failed MOA signing and the intensification of the conflict between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Pearl, on the other hand, is investigating how the Filipino female is shown through images in the top 10 websites for the keyword "Filipina." Which reminded me of how media really manipulates how we think through the images and texts we consume. Here's a docu on Noam Chomsky and his book, Manufacturing Consent (1988). What next? 21/10/2009
You might wonder, where exactly am I going with this blog? And that's precisely my point (I think). Why does everything have to lead to something? Perhaps blogging doesn't have to have an obvious narrative, or what you'd call an "and-then" structure. Blogs can wander off, meander (but then again, that last word usually implies an ultimate destination), and in some cases (like my other blogs) vanish into an always already virtual void.  SEM micrograph from Wikimedia Because what have I written here so far? I posted entries on:
And readers (virtual or actual) can be certain I'll write more entries on other sundry topics, though they might wish a pattern to emerge -- a pattern (like the previous seven entries on blogging) that would somehow cohere and resemble a narrative however tangential. Because the human brain always looks for some order out of the chaos, right. And that may really be why blogging is our current mode of figuring out what all this means. Consider this 20/10/2009
Consider these statistics the next time you tweet or post something online. Or send an SMS, or watch something on YouTube, and so on. And ask yourself, would you have been able to do the same thing a few years back? And you'll be amazed at how fast media technology has evolved. But perhaps you'll be more amazed at how your way of communicating has also changed with the technology. This video will come in handy when I teach Media Arts 101 next semester. No, I will not give a quiz on the stats shown in the video. By that time, the figures will have grown by leaps and bounds. Or new technology may have changed the landscape again. But is marking students' creative writing pieces just as easy as that? The quote comes from Dr. Maggie Butt's daughter, who she cites in her "Marking: A Healthy Warning" (Appendix A of Siobhan Holland Creative Writing: A Good Practice Guide published by the LTSN English Subject Centre, Feb 2003). After all, the tedious task of marking papers should be an enjoyable task when reading creative pieces. Right? Right? Apparently not.  Photo from WikiMedia I agree with Dr. Butt, marking creative pieces can be a tricky task because:
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