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Introduction

Amophrast's picture

I hope I am posting this in the right place...

My name is Maria Aghazarian. I'm a sophomore English major hoping to minor in gensex studies and concentrate in creative writing. I'm looking to working in the publishing industry after graduation. I like crafty things, costuming, and the Legend of Zelda. I'm not really sure what's supposed to be in this introduction so I'm going to keep talking! I'm co-head of Rainbow Alliance, dying to have some hellees, and have pretty high expectations for this class. I'm looking forward to reading some other introductions for our very large class.

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Comments

Anne Dalke's picture

prompt

Maria--thanks for being brave enough to go first!
Would you introduce yourself, please,
by describing your relationship to a particular technology that has been important to your development  (the clock, the bicycle, the piano, the personal computer, the cell phone...?). How have your interactions with this tool enabled you to do things you otherwise could not have done (possibly as easily, efficiently, or at all)? What are the limitations/constraints/drawbacks of this technology in your life? What new technologies have you not tried? Why not? Would you be interested in experimenting w/ them during this course?

Amophrast's picture

Thanks for the reminder

Haha, thank you for that... I feel slightly lost on this site...

I feel almost like I'm copping out for picking something you already listed, but I feel like I have an interesting connection with the cell phone. I think these days it's common to see even middle schoolers texting in class. I recall ads at one point for the "firefly" cell phone for kids. However, I did not get a cBell phone until the summer after I graduated high school. Previous to this time, I prided myself on carrying around a pocket watch after my wrist watches kept dying prematurely. I remember my teacher for my lit/philosophy class in high school kind of teased me for it--"let's see who can tell time faster." Now, like most of the people I know, I almost always use my cell phone when I want to know the time. But I can use my phone to set reminders for events! And as an alarm clock! I also text too much, but I consider these all wonderful things.

Drawbacks... no service? Then no texting/calling. My house seems to be a black hole that eats everyone's phone signals except mine. Also my phone can only store 50 messages in the inbox and since I discovered how to "lock" happy/cute texts I constantly have to erase messages to make room for new ones.

Technologies I have not tried... The ipad. I don't understand macbooks. I don't really like Apple... their format seems too strange, too foreign to me though supposedly they're supposed to be very "user friendly." I haven't tried using a kindle and that seems pretty cool, for portability, if nothing else. Netbooks seem awesome--like phones with a very large keyboard, or a more portable dvd player. In general, I don't know exactly what opportunities I would have to use these technologies in the course. I also realize that I am considering the word "technology" in a very... contemporary? colloquial? manner. I guess ideally I could play video games, or at least video game roms on the computer. Though I'm familiar at least a little bit with most systems, I'm not very familiar with any version of the Playstation. And that would somehow be relevant. (Though I guess when you consider gender and video games, it's extremely relevant...)

I'm kind of rambling at this point and I'm really bad with closings.

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