All posts by Jimi Stine

Reflections

A Digital Literacy Narrative Adventure – Jimi Stine

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As I began to wrack my brain, trying to think of all the seminal moments in my digital timeline, I realized that I had a problem.  It was not that I was dealing with a dearth of dates, but rather the opposite.  I had never really given the topic considerable thought, but as my mind wandered back, I began to realize just how important reading and writing, as well as their transition into digital forms, are in my life.  I understand that that last sentence may seem obvious, but such activities have are so common place that I tend to forget how critical they are to experiencing life as we know it.  Without them, I wouldn’t be writing this, nor would you be reading it.  Without reading and writing, I do not even know where we could be, if we could be.

Getting down to it, my affair with reading and writing has been, like most men and women from my background, a life long affair.  This narrative not only made me think about my past, but made me appreciate, deeply and truly, the opportunities that have been afforded to me.  Without good schooling from pre-kindergarten to today, or, just as importantly, a family that understood and valued education, I would be leading a much duller life.  From the fat pencil to receiving my first laptop, elementary short stories to twenty-page research papers, I marvel at how far I’ve come and how quickly technology has been running beside me.

Though we do live in an age of the ever faster, slimmer, and sleeker device, there are a few notable moments on my timeline when that trend had been reversed.  Perhaps it is a unique version of simplicity, or maybe it is just want for diversity, but there are some aspects of my literary journey that counter what one might expect.  Rather than type and print certain works, I derive a special pleasure from hammering them out on  a manual typewriter.  Instead of typing and recording all of my journal entries into a nice folder on my desktop, I scrawl them down with pen and paper.  Unlike a larger and larger percentage of readers, I prefer to imbibe my words from a page of pulp, not pixels.  And I am not alone.  Though the wider trend is towards digital means of consuming media, there is also a rising push to preserve certain platforms, if only for the nostalgia or the novelty.  I doubt we’ll ever dig back to the stone and chisel, but older forms of communicating, the letter for example, have certain personal, even romantic qualities to them that set them apart from the digital era.

Stories as well play an important role in my digital literacy narrative.  From early picture-laden tales like Anansi the Spider, to text based adventure games, the art of story telling has always captivated me.  Along the way, longer series of novels received large amounts of time that I was more than happy to give over.

Before flicking through this timeline it is important to understand one thing: this is but a small sampling of those moments in my life that resonated with me until today.  Left unrecorded here are all the small moments where a single word made my day, or where bitter joke ruined it.  Omitted from this digital timeline are all the late night Skype sessions with friends and those who were quite a bit more than just friends.  Left out are all the times simple comments on youtube videos or news articles opened my mind to a new way of thinking.  To include these moments would be to include the entirety of my life, and that is one thing technology cannot do.  At least not yet. 

Enjoy.

Reflections, Uncategorized

Sci-fi Crossover! Thoughts on the Machine Stops and Jurassic Park

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At the very end of E.M. Forster’s short work “The Machine Stops” he writes, “For a moment they saw nations of the dead, and, before they joined with them, scraps of the untainted sky.”  This line stands out in many ways.  Initially, we notice the contrast between “nations of the dead” and “the untainted sky”.  Death and chaos paired with  serene imagery.  However, the line also provokes  another thought. That is, that life, the world, the universe will go on despite the folly of man.

Jurassic_park     the_machine_stops

In a similar vein, Michael Crichton’s work Jurassic Park tackles similar thoughts.   Throughout the novel, one of the main characters, Dr. Ian Malcolm, muses on the fact that should the human race wipe itself off the earth by way of dinosaurs (or the catastrophic failure of a globe spanning machine as the case may be) the world will keep on spinning.  Though underneath the earth’s surface there is death and destruction, above, the sky still remains.

In addition, once “civilized” life has fallen, life, to quote Malcolm, “finds a way”.   As the single sex dinosaurs in Jurassic park were able to adapt and breed, those homeless refugees on the surface of Forester’s world will grow and repopulate the earth, continuing humanity.

Reflections

INTRODUCTION: SCARLETT CURTIS

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Scarlett Curtis is an exceptional individual.   Her life story is unlike any other I’ve come across.  And I follow Humans of New York.

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Originally from London, the road that led Scarlett here to New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study is longer even than the name of the aforementioned school.  When she was fourteen, Scarlett had a back operation that caused much more harm than good, leading her to spend many of the following weeks and years at home and in pain.  School became difficult and then impossible, and the time spent alone would cause mental anguish that continues to plague her even now, months after the pain has subsided.

When all of her friends were moving off to college, she was stuck,  all she wanted was to get out of London, and even though by age seventeen the pain from the operation had left,  depression kept her from staying in school.  However, Scarlett had a goal, a dream, “a Narnia”, and after months of studying and catching up and testing, she’s finally here.

Taken on a visit to the city and the school in 2013
Taken on a visit to the city and the school in 2013

Thankfully, the road here was not without its bright spots.  In the time following the operation, Scarlett was able to find solace in the little things life offers, in baking, knitting, and the joy that is lego construction.

In a wonderfully written article for the Daily Mail she stated that, “I’ve learnt a lot from baking. I’ve learnt that banana bread is the best thing to make if you’re feeling really angry because you get to punish a lot of bananas.”  Insightful though this may be, her blog takes things far deeper.  

With the subheading of “Cooking – Crafting – Living – Reading – Coping”,  the site is wonderfully charming and filled with personality.  From discussions on baked goods and knitting, to music and depression, Scarlett proves to be both witty and thoughtful.  In addition, the blog has eight-hundred fifteen (now eight-hundred sixteen including yours truly) e-mail subscribers.

Just a sample of her delightful creations
Just a sample of some of her delightful creations

What makes the blog so special is that it’s much more than a place to learn fun recipes and and laugh at witty anecdotes, it’s about learning to cope with and overcome depression, it’s about finding those activities that bring us joy, it’s about learning to make life worth living.

After reading only a few posts on the site I was struck by Scarlett’s clarity and honesty.  Depression is a difficult subject for many to talk about, an especially nasty quality when talking about depression itself is one of the few things that seems to help the most people.  In this respect I cannot extol her posts on the illness enough.  I only wish I had the courage to do so myself.  Again, from the Daily Mail: “If I’m going to be sharing a new recipe, I also want to share what it feels like to have a panic attack. Because, in my opinion, they’re both very important.”

In addition to baking, Scarlett is also an avid reader (and always looking for more book suggestions), her favorites include The Great Gatsby, of which she has eighteen copies, followed by The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Saga (number of copies unknown).

When it comes to music, her favorite song is “Summer Girls” by LFO, though recently “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers and “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley have been staking claim to her headphones, so much so that she wrote a blog post about them.

Scarlett also has two utterly adorable animal companions, Catsby and Posy.

toO cUte
toO cUtE

It should further be noted that Scarlett has a very interesting and illustrious family as well.   Her father is director Richard Curtis, and her mother is renown English broadcaster and cultural commentator Emma Freud.  Yes, that Freud.  Scarlett is the great-great-grand daughter of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis.

Famous family aside, the reason that Scarlett’s story carries such weight is that it shows all those  lucky enough to find her blog that though the hour may be dark, the sun will rise.  Even though she was at times trapped by both mental and physical pain, she was able to find those things that brought joy and peace, and even though at times it must have seemed that the world was slipping past, she made it here, 3,358 miles away from home to study at one of the world’s premiere universities.  Her story matters because she is not alone, we, are not alone, and every post about how cupcakes helped her overcome her inner struggle, every song posted that helps her through rough times contributes to a community that needs all the help it can get.