Category: conversations


THATCamp Feminisms West, a new con

Filed under: community, conversations, technology — 2 Comments
February 26, 2013

Yeah, I didn’t know what THATCamp Feminisms West was either. Honestly, I’m still not sure.

It’s part of THATCamp, which is a collection of academic unconferences. From what I gleaned from their site, it’s the conversation part of an academic conference without the paper-reading part. I have a feeling it’ll feel more like the nerd cons I’ve been to, which will be great.

I’m not sure yet if I’m going, as they have an application registration process. And they keep their cons small, so I may have submitted the registration form too late.

But I hope I get to go. It would be nice to meet other people who are as interested in technology and the ways social media is shaping us and our understanding of ourselves. I’d like to learn more about what I should know and what ideas are being turned over. And it be nice to have a conversation with people about what I find fascinating without their eyes immediately glazing over (ever an optimist).

Just another possible adventure in the near future!

Update: I just heard back from THATCamp Feminisms West, and I’m definitely going! I’m quite excited about this fact! I can’t wait to meet everyone and chat!

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Why I dislike the Lord of the Rings movies

Filed under: conversations, debates, films, rant — Leave a comment
September 15, 2011

Remember (years) back when everyone was talking about the Lord of the Rings movies and how amazing they were? I wasn’t one of those people. I absolutely love and adore the series by J.R.R. Tolkien. And  though I do not like the movies, I was content to merely let my dislike stand amongst the shadows unless pressed.

While visiting friends in Arizona recently, I ended up meeting new people (it does happen from time to time). We were discussing various topics in the midst of which I stated my dislike for the movies clearly. One of the guys seemed shocked and ready to question, but I was using the statement as an example for a different discussion. The conversation never got back around to my outlandish claim, so this is my explanation.

I have the über-nerd complaints about the missing and mis-represented characters and secondary storylines, but those would not be enough for me to dislike a movie. I completely understand that not everyone will see the story the same way I do and that there is only so much time one can sit in a theater.

The movies fail in one major way – they miss the point of the story by not ending the movies with the scouring of the Shire. View full article »

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On reading tough books

Filed under: conversations, reading — Leave a comment
September 6, 2011

My new project at work concerns drafting a mini-curriculum set for The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman as an independent reading project with either 1 or several upperclassmen because one of the 11th grade English teachers at a local high school is spending a significant portion of the class teaching cursive writing. This limits the amount of time the class reads which presents some difficulty in keeping the kids reading who dislike the activity. So I decided, along with one of the students, to create an extra program to keep him reading.

The project presents many challenges, not the least of which have to do with not overwhelming the students in the work load. So I went to the most helpful, general resource available for all daunting projects – Google. And what I discovered is that no one really uses Neil Gaiman’s series in a classroom setting.

But one post in particular caught my attention and spurred me to write some thoughts on reading. The post comes from The Graphic Classroom and is written by Kevin Hodgson, who does not recommend the series for K-12 and is hesitant about using it at the college level. I guessed at his recommendation from his introduction.

There are a handful of books that I purposely tuck away from the eyes of my children when I am done reading, for fear that the allure of a comic book will expose them to some unsettling things. View full article »

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Discussing Special Topics in Calamity Physics with teenagers 3

Filed under: books, conversations — Leave a comment
April 13, 2011

It’s been a couple of weeks because the students had mid-terms, scholarship applications, and then there was Spring Break. So this is a recap for around 3 weeks worth of discussion, which works out to be about an hour’s worth of actual conversation.

The students, for the most part, really enjoy the novel. The action has picked up (I mean there was a dead body in a swimming pool at the party they crashed), and the students are in.

What I’ve noticed most through the discussions are the numerous elements that need explaining. Not because the story is necessarily complicated, but because the story takes place predominantly on the East Coast and most of the students haven’t even made it to Northern California. The element that stood out this time around was the father/daughter relationship. Most of the students find Blue’s relationship with her dad a little creepy, but they understand why Blue would be so connected. It’s interesting seeing the father/daughter relationship through the eyes of students who either don’t know their father or don’t have a good relationship with him. It’s yet another aspect of the novel that they tend to react to as though the concept comes from Mars.

This week, hopefully, we’ll get to have more of a conversation. I’m trying to come up with more interesting questions that can be answered regardless of the number of chapters the students have read. We’ll see what the week holds.

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