Sunday, October 18, 2009

blog off

I know i have been the world's worst blogger of late...there are many reasons for this.

1. I have been swirling around in a whirlwind of work/travel entanglement. It has been exciting & exhausting, fun & furious, frivillous & deeply philosophical. I have been through seattle, vancouver, klemtu, the great bear rainforest, amsterdam, paris and home again. I have hung out with grizzly bears, run 2 international workshops on 'imag(in)ing the nanoscale', and added some touches to J's tattoo with my own hand. In short, i have felt like I have had little time/energy to blog.
2. Facebook. I have shared news and photos (with captions) of most these adventures using this alternative online medium. Somehow I found time/energy for that! I deem this to be because of its more interactive and networked nature. I started blogging to share photos and stories of my travels with friends back home, and I have to say that facebook is allowing me to do that more easily of late.

I have actually been asked to review a few academic articles about facebook lately, and the more I learn, the more I am (quite frightened, but mostly) amazed at the dynamic of how society adapts to and is altered by new technologies. It is truly fascinating. Think of life without the internet now. Life without the mobile phone. Without the home computer. Without the TV. Without the refrigerator.

What is life as we know it? Things will always be different tomorrow.

The constant change of not just society but nature in general has been stunningly brought home to me lately living here in Tromso. The leaves were bright orange when I returned from Vancouver. When I returned from Paris the mountains were covered in snow.
Light is visibly fading by the day. I get up at the same time and take the same bus to work in the morning but the colour in the sky and the reflections in the fjord differ everyday.
It is a truly beautifully magical place to stay.
I guess the joy of the blog is that you can ramble a bit more! In fact, you can actually write, i.e. you can explore ways of expressing yourself that do not have to be short and punchy and end with a :) or a :D or a :( or a :/ or a :*

But then this creativity in the use of written language is also fascinating...

blog. don't blog. just don't let it become institutionalised.

Institutionalisation inhibits adaption to the inevitable change of life on earth?
thought for today... xxx

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I, for one, still enjoy your blog, since I have not put myself onto Facebook. I think there is (and SHOULD be) a place for a RANGE of technologies and that the newest one does not necessarily need to make a previous one obsolete. I enjoy the tactile pleasure of holding and reading a book, and also the more thoughtful (though more time-consuming) creativity of blogging with photos and text. It would be good to hear some of you thoughts on the Facebook technology, after your reading about, thinking about and reviewing it. Love Annette