tectonics

I can't help but think of January when I visited my perception of paradise: Raylay beach and Phra Nang. Relaxing, enjoying the sun and the sea, climbing, snorkling. And now, it's swept away with large parts of the South-East Asian coastline. So many lives. It feels so close.

home

I've been in Tønsberg since 23rd of December. Home with the parents, sisters, nieses and nephew. I can't remember last time I've been here for so long. I might even stay till next year. I go to the library every day to mark student-papers. Besides reading, I do a lot of nothing.

smoke

I have 79 bachelor-papers to mark. Their assignment was to analyse a campaign-movie presented by the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs, targeting the un-ethical tobacco industry (Third World). As the students wrote their assignments last week, I was cruising the Nile, watching loads of ancient stone, but also seeing evidence of the claims made in the campaign: there were a lot of children smoking cigarettes. It looked really... wrong.

not quite there yet...

What a wonderful day. Plain from Copenhagen that was supposed to take us to Cairo was not able to land on Gardermoen because of fog. Which meant we first were asked to wait till 8 am for further information. I suspected worse. Wait till 11 am for further information. Wait til 1 pm for further information. Wait till 3 pm, till 5 pm, new time for departure 7.45 pm (origianlly 7.45 am). Now: Radisson SAS Gardermoen, Norway, departure tomorrow 10 am.

walk like an Egyptian

Tomorrow evening I'll be in Aswan, Egypt. We'll be travelling on the Nile to Luxor, and then to Cairo. I am, of course, very excited. There will probably be more than enough to learn, but I'll still bring John Durham Peters' Speaking into the air. A history of the idea of communication with me. It must be the perfect choice when visiting what may very well have been home of the first written language, some 5000 years ago.

social software seminar 2

I enjoyed the Interface and Design: Social software- seminar today. Video-recordings of all presentations will be online in a few days, check it out. Or take a look at the seminar that was arranged on Tuesday: Electronic arts: dance and technology where presenters are already online.

I planned to go shopping for christmas gifts before I'm meeting the other presenters for dinner at eight. Gave up. Buying christmas gifts is a love/hate activity. I never want to buy a present unless I believe it's perfect, and it's thus hard work. So here I am, at the Mabou cafe drinking tea and preparing for the role as external examinator in Bergen tomorrow. My plane to Bergen sets off at 8 am. Way to early...

social software seminar

I'm presenting some thoughts on the seminar Interface and interaction: Social software on InterMedia on Thursday. I've had the impression that social software really is just about CMC or mediated social interaction, but according to Clay Shirky "pairwise communications, such as SMS, falls out of the pattern". Doesn't fit my plan for what I'll talk about on Thursday though. I'll have the same focus as I had on the Friday seminar 3. of December: about the social significance of mediated interactions. Which includes any kind of texting, chatting, blog/journal/diary. My informants just say the most wonderful things. For instance:

"I’m a bit worried about meeting people who have read my diary but who doesn’t know me. Like for instance, this summer on several of the festivals: “You’re Linnea, aren’t you?” and “Yes, well, that’s me”. Then I get scared, because I feel that, it is me, but I’m very different, I’m more like, I have a bad sense of humour. And I feel that I talk a lot more rougher than I write. So I worry that they’ll believe I’ll be this tiny, sweet elf-like girl who doesn’t say much but just smiles sweetly. But that isn’t me at all. They are surpried of how loud I am. My way of talking and cursing. But it’s still me. I have a way to write, which is nicer than the way I talk. But I wouldn’t write like I talk, because it wouldn’t be as nice. It wouldn’t be me. Because when I talk I’m not on the same level. I’m not as personal as when I sit down to write a diary.

(…) it’s all me, but it’s small parts of me. Maybe it’s the parts I’m more satisfied with that I write more about" (Linnea, 18 years old).

animal

Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet has visited an animal market in the southern parts of China, and documentes what they saw with photos. Various readers are very upset. As a vegetarian, I am not particularly fond of such treatment of animals, obviously, but, can people really not see that these pictures are not much worse than what goes on within the meat-production industry in Europe or even Norway? Norwegians tend to believe slaughter houses in Norway are much more human. I get rather fed-up with this kind of hypocrisy.

interviews

I am a fortunate PhD-student: my interviews will be transcribed by one of the assistants on Internett i endring (the umbrella-project to which my project belongs). Unfortunately, the interviews have not been transcribed yet. I have listened through some parts and taken some notes. My informants are wonderful: they say so interesting things, they illustrate the complexities of mediated and F2F relationships very well. I have major problems choosing what to pick out and present tomorrow. So far I've only done four interviews face-to-face (one of them as a group interview) and three interviews via MSN. Thus, I still have a lot more to learn from future interviews :-D