Haven’t blogged for a while. Things have been moving incredibly fast since graduation. On top of moving all my stuff from my apartment in Manhattan to my Dad’s house in Overland Park, I had to say my last goodbyes (one of which was my g/f who I won’t see for possibly 2 years – wasn’t easy), work on a project for one of my professors (we are creating a video tribute to the late anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis which will be screened at Oxford in June and hopefully the AAA meeting in San Francisco in November), and juggle multiple internship/job offers. I won’t go into too much detail about every offer I received, but I will say I ultimately landed an internship with Sun Microsystems. I’m not completely sure what I will be doing aside from researching how to leverage internet media for educational purposes as well as working with Second Life, so look forward to me blogging a lot about such things. I’m very excited to get started, as I can work remotely and set my own hours (could be dangerous, I work all the time). Since I can work from home I decided not to stay in Kansas City but to get out of pocket and head to San Diego with my brother. He just got a place in Oceanside a few blocks from the beach (he got a new job as well). This Thursday I fly to Denver, where he lives now, then Friday through Sunday we are going to drive to Moab, Vegas, and finally San Diego. Should be a nice little road trip. If anyone knows of some cool places to see along the way, I’d be delighted to hear about them. I will make sure to take some pictures and post them later. Anyways, that’s it for now. Life is a little up in the air at the moment. Will get back to blogging regularly when everything settles down and my feet are on the ground again.
Archive for May, 2008
Post-graduation excitement, ambiguity
Today was the big day. This morning me and many of my friends graduated from K-state. If I had to sum up how I feel right now I’d have to say light. I’ve felt so heavy with obligations and deadlines for the longest time that now that all that is gone (sorta) I actually feel lighter. What the hell am I going to do with myself!? I had a hell of a time modifying my website… I couldn’t decide how I wanted to describe myself. What am I now that I’m not formally a student? It’s interesting in and of itself that when asked to describe or introduce ourselves we always begin with our name followed by “and I am” (usually a noun). This is sort of misleading since we are multiple things at once, and these things are never constant. At that moment when we are saying “I am a student,” we are saying what we think is appropriate and important for that context, leaving out all the other roles we play that aren’t necessarily relevant. Obviously, I’m not making an argument here. I know it is more efficient from a cognitive standpoint to summarize yourself into an easy-to-comprehend package so others can frame you in a particular way in order to understand “you.” But which role do I hold to be the most important? That was the tough question. The environment around me no longer defines who I am (campus, K-State, class, my professors, etc). As you can see, I decided to stick with “student.” I think I’ll always stick with that. At the moment it works since I’m planning to continue my education in the near future, but besides being a formal student, I think I am a Student (as we all are) in that I enjoy studying pretty much anything as well as learning from others and the world around me.
So, here’s to always being a Student. 
Whoa, I’m on Google Maps
I know a little while ago I blogged about how cool I thought Google Maps street view was, but I think it just got a little too close to home. Check out this image my brother pointed out to me. That’s my truck sitting in my Dad’s driveway back home. It must have been taken very recently because prior to a few weeks ago I hadn’t been back home with my truck in a while. I don’t remember seeing the Google mobile anywhere on my street, but evidently it was lurking! Creepy!
Praise for ‘The Wire’
After reading a post on Savage Minds about how HBO’s The Wire might be ‘our best ethnographic text on the U.S. today’ I decided to check it out. I don’t typically watch TV let alone TV series, with the exception of a few choice shows, but I must say: The Wire is a masterpiece. It’s ability to weave such an intricate plot, be entertaining, and still accurately represent the reality of urban life and structural power is simply amazing. It’s refreshing to find a show crafted with such awareness and attention to detail (for example, the writers use a lot of contemporary slang, much of which is unique to the city of Baltimore, to enhance the shows realism).
I just started season 2 yesterday. Season 1 mostly focused on the Baltimore drug trade and black urban life (additionally, it seems that institutional bureaucracy, from the various police precincts to the catholic church is a common theme running throughout the entire show). Season 2 so far is focusing more on white urban life, in specific the lives of dock workers struggling to keep their jobs at one of the city’s deteriorating ports. To be honest, I found it hard to get into The Wire when I initially started watching it. The show is at times slow and methodical, building characters and situations in such a way as to heighten its realism. If you come from a habit of watching other more sensational shows like Nip/Tuck or CSI, it may take a few episodes to settle in – but it’s worth it. I wish I would have known about the show sooner. Coming from an anthropological perspective, it employs many of the themes common in Anthropology, such as Bourdieu’s various notions of capital and symbolic violence. The representation of structural power portrayed in many of the characters’ struggles with the various institutions within which they find themselves embedded is genuinely educational. I agree with many of the comments over @ Savage Minds that The Wire would be a nice addition to a course related to these themes (i.e. Anthropology, Sociology, etc).
It’s easy to see why many critics have claimed The Wire is the best TV series of all time. It’s a shame such a great show went under my radar for so long!
Are we entering the “Cognitive Age”?
David Brooks over at The New York Times just wrote a thought-provoking opinion piece about our perceptions on globalization. He claims we are entering a “Cognitive Age,” an age where people must become more adept at processing and combining information. I like how he attempts to shift the focus from the xenophic-esque sentiments perpetuated by many politicians that attribute the economic woes of the US to actions of foreigners to a more holistic perspective that takes into account socio-cultural, psychological, and economic variables. Of course his piece is entirely too short to begin scratching the surface of such a multifaceted and complex problem, but it did get me thinking about something I read recently about fluid intelligence.
Briefly, fluid intelligence is thought to be the intelligence one employs when combining novel information and solving new problems. Compared to crystallized intelligence, which engages the formal concepts you learn and try to retain, fluid intelligence is, well, fluid. I must say here that I have qualms about compartmentalizing intelligence in this way, but for the sake of the example I will entertain the idea. My senior research partly touched on the idea of the “networked information environment” that Yochai Benkler mentions in his compelling book The Wealth of Networks. In my thesis, I hypothesized that the networked information environment would call for increased cognitive flexibility as we negotiate processing diverse assortments of information. Not only does this imply raw content, but also relational information as our webs of significance expand and change as we enter and leave various online networks. It makes sense that if indeed there is such thing as crystallized intelligence that it would prove less important than fluid intelligence in helping us adapt to this new environment. I’d argue that humans are always in a “Cognitive Age” but I think what Brooks implies when he uses that title is valuable to consider. The old boundaries on information are collapsing leaving us with the duty of organizing it ourselves. Could this mean we are employing fluid over crystallized intelligence?
*My friend Greg pointed me in the direction of an awesome post by Clay Shirky relevant to this topic. Thought I’d add it if anyone is interested.
My lady-friend is headed to Hawaii!
She was accepted to Teach For America after an arduous interviewing process and today she accepted her position in a rural area outside of Honolulu. She will be gone for two years teaching special ed. Congrats to her! She’s very excited and I’m confident she will do an amazing job. It will be sad to see her go. I’m staying mainland to look for a job here in Kansas. I can’t wait to hear about her experiences. Maybe I can convince her to start a blog 
