20131031
Ouran High School Host Club: Episode 4 “Attack of the Lady Manager!” ... this show still confuses me. Very emotionally extravagant. Whole lot of structured around deliberate sexualisation of men, which is unusual. This episode structured around stereotypes of violently romantically aggressive women. Show seems to revel in the presentation and play of stereotypes so maybe I shouldn't hold this against it. Does seem rather silly overall.
Doctor Who S06E01 “The Impossible Astronaut”. I will say one thing for Moffat as showrunner: he really likes to work in and with the time travel elements.
"We're his friends. We do what the Doctor's friends always do: as we're told." That doesn't sound like friendship.
Been thinking past couple of days, seems like the latest stretch of episodes are infantilising the character of the Doctor. Lot of focus on things like fizzy drinking straws and repeated conspicuous confusion at other people romantically kissing.
Doctor Who S06E01 “Day of the Moon”. Continuation of previous episode.
Weird seeing a British program associate triumphalism with US gun culture.
Spooks S09E07. Season coming to a head. Blackmailing and threatening a person who is blackmailing and threatening a regular character. Lots of Women In Peril this week. Also, mysterious backstory! Various musings on the dreadful things that spy-work does to the soul.
Taggart S11, episode 107 “Silent Truth”. Rarely do I see Scottish folk so heavily represented. On the other hand, lead investigator resenting having someone with various languages on hand for community liaison on this case. Also Iranian family whose son was murdered, being deported. This sort of topicality seems common for British crime shows of the period. Not that it's a bad idea for shows to address structural racism and asylum or migration.
The guy playing the role of sleazy community property-holder does it very, very well. Unpleasantly smiling and cheerful in a skin-crawling sort of way.
Doctor Who S06E03 “The Curse of the Black Spot”. Filler episode, does not especially make sense within itself.
Dear subtitler, I don't think the Doctor said 'protein circuitry'. I suspect you will find he said 'protean circuitry'.
Also apparently spousal consent / authority over medical treatment is a rule of the multiverse.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars S4E19 “Massacre”. Hey, back to this Ventress plot that's been lying fallow for about a month.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars S4E20 “Bounty”. Are we in one word title land now? Bad sign. Also, now that Dooku has destroyed her homeworld, Ventress turns to bounty hunting. This episode is surprisingly touching.
Reading over subject outline for the unit I will be taking over the summer, which begins in a few days. Since it is a social networking unit one of the requirements is to maintain an online study journal. This should not be tricky in itself, as despite my laxness over the past few years I do have a history of blogging and approximating some form of self-reflective learning.
However, I would like to keep that relatively disconnected from my existing online presence. That seems like it would be prudent. So I need to find somewhere to host m'self that is not my existing things. Maybe use that account I have at PBWorks and make a little wiki specialised for purpose. Couldn't make public pages of the one I already use because the URL would be indicative.
On the other hand I will probably mirror my posts for that 'OLJ' (Online Learning Journal) to my regular haunts, which is hardly a judicious application of secrecy. Will have to think of a professional sort of Twitter handle to use also.
While I had the course site open - actually originally trying to retrieve a citation for a reading I'd been trying to go over - figured I may as well check my grades, which I am very frightened to do. Looks like my overall mark for the information literacy unit is 50.0, which I am hoping means a pass. No grade back on my second assignment for the other, introductory unit, which worries me as the return date was a few days ago. I know I don't deserve to pass these units but I am desperately hoping I do anyway, as so much of my plans and hopes is bound with this course and trying to graduate.
I wonder if I could still move and do this course slower. If I do fail, if I do find two units per most semesters is too much for me.
Bawden, D. (2001). Information and digital literacies: A review of concepts. Journal of Documentation, 57(2), 218-259.
First attempt at catching up on readings post-assignments, but terribly undisciplined I am have still not finished this. Got to press harder.
Musings from original reading pass:
"The first and simplest meaning implies only the ability to read and write. The second certainly implies this ability, but also requires something beyond it. ‘The concept of literacy goes beyond simply being able to read; it has always meant the ability to read with meaning, and to understand. It is the fundamental act of cognition’ [23]." Can one be said to be able to read without meaning?
"‘Literacy can be defined as having the skills one needs to make the connection to the information necessary to survive in society’" In an inequitable society literacy itself may be insufficient; may also require luck. Further question: how does this relate to a society where the information needed to survive does not exist? Particularly, even if we are regarding information as not a 'thing', if you do not yourself possess the skillset to create that information.
Literacy as a term for fluency or competence in a field of study or practical endeavour.
Sword & Sorcery story. Bit silly of me to think of writing one, when I have not experience reading them. How does one target a genre one is not familiar with? Maybe the cultural idea of sword and sorcery will do. Plus, not like genres of fiction are immutably bestowed upon humanity from some higher authority. What I want to capture is a feel, a style, and maybe that will turn out to mesh with the sword & sorcery that is an accepted genre, and maybe it will not.
Meant to be a 'quick writing' story, something I could make up stories for easily and at length, unlike all the mulling and musing and prevaricating I tend to do when writing. So in that regard it would seem the perfect tale to make a NaNoWriMo run with. Especially since the plot is as vague and alike as any story I ever do - “Here are some characters, they travel and have adventures together”.
The idea quickly attached itself to a setting I had been vaguely mulling for several years previous and enabled them both to develop detail more confidently. Main idea behind the setting was to try and be a bit more fantasy in my fantasy, something I have a history of being bad at. Main signature idea (of setting) for me personally is the realisation of “this is fantasy, it is not actually required that, for example, living beings function according to biology as she is normally told”. Like, there could be vitalism. Some sort of magical life force. And then you don't need internal organs, right? So there we go.
Characters I don't remember so much how those came up except that I probably wanted a change from defaulting to human as I tend to do. Which is silly in some sense because what is there to write about but humans and their manity?
