Place in Space...

I have been reading blogs this evening and thinking about how these offer a whole new sense of place... out in cyber space.

What is striking to me is how technology allows us to connect without a place. It is real and yet it is virtual. So, how do we create ourselves in these spaces? How do we "author" ourselves in order to give those with whom we speak a sense of a real person here.

I am rather mesmerized by Facebook for this reason. In brief blips and blurps, writers create a voice, a self for their facebook friends -- all dependent on language. Who will I be today? Tomorrow? Hmmmm....

The Sofa

I have been thinking a lot about a post by Searching for answers called "Opportunity Costs."

What is the cost of our opportunites? I ask this as a person who loves her job, but who has too much job. It is ironic that I am asking my students to think about place and I never go anyplace. Except to and from work of course.

Today, for instance -- apart from a couple trips to the backyard with the dogs, I sat on the sofa with a laptop for the whole day. And when I say the whole day -- I genuinely mean since 7:30 am till now, 11:44 p.m. I even ate dinner while working today. And I made someone else make it for me!

Don't get me wrong. I love what I do. And I love reading student work. But, the way the budget has been working in the CSU in the last few years, there is more and more work and fewer and fewer bodies to do it. It's reaching frightening proportions.

I want to be a person who invests in her community. I want to notice the trees outside my windows. I want to spend time with my family. And I want to work with my students. Why must balance among good things be so hard to come by?

Opportunity costs, indeed.

Thoughts on NC Notebook's Poem

Today we heard 4 people read their "Where I'm From" poems in class. They were awesome.

What struck me was the level of metaphor, the concrete details that anchored me and allowed me a felt sense of the authors and how they are created by where they are from...

I was also struck by one writer's mention of technology as a place where she is from -- it made me think of MCLars's I-Generation on Youtube. Check it out!

And check out our poems: you can link to them from the blog list to your right.

Thanks for reading and thinking with us!

Where I'm From

I am from kitchen clatter,
from clutter and chatter, and coffee after dinner.
I am from corningware dishes
And flatware that came free with a toaster and a bank account.
I’m from the yard, not the garden,
from the transistor radio and books read in the deep “v”’ of the maple tree.
I’m from pussy willows and parking lots,
and lilacs! whose heady, heavy scent I can still smell through the window of memory.

I’m from lemon ices in summer and corduroys in winter,
from 'mybetts' and 'seamus,'
from debaters and teasers, the outraged and outrageous
I’m from do good, avoid evil,
and if you can’t be good, be careful.
I’m from reading is fundamental with a library card
and a collection of condensed classics
on the shelf beside my bed.

I’m from Billy Joel songs and bike paths,
backyard barbeques and Jones beach,
from my father’s sun-reddened back and my mother’s muscled arms
When I peer in the mirror, my inheritance stares back --
I smooth my mother’s brows, brush my father’s teeth,
wipe the paste from my grandma’s chin…
a legacy of hearts and hopes in my own bits and pieces.