Potential References

Just dropping off stuff to go through here for later. May be potential sources and information for my paper or whatever.

Some may not be actually usable but I did find an interesting and / or fun read personally.

• Hatsune Miku Is a Piece of Software. She May Also Be the Future of Music

  • More of an interesting read personally. ’cause I’m a big Vocaloid fan.

• “Tech-savviness” meets multiliteracies: Exploring adolescent girls’ technology-mediated literacy practices

  • A hella long read. Boring so far but I’ll power through somehow or keep skimming for info.

• Online Fan Fiction, Global Identities, and Imagination

  • Haven’t read yet. But the title sounds interesting to me and right up my alley.

• THE VICTORIAN CHILDHOOD OF MANGA: TOWARD A QUEER THEORY OF THE CHILD IN TOBOSO YANA’S KUROSHITSUJI

  • More of a personal read. ’cause I love Kuroshitsuji

Still Three Questions Short

“A pupil points a finger. A teacher is fired, his life rerouted. Now can they be buddies?”

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The long winded title of an article we had to read for class on Friday (February 13^th). I was asked to leave because I didn’t have any questions, thus was unprepared for class. Here’s the kicker: I still don’t have any “well thought out” questions for such an article after two days of stewing over it. I felt the article covered everything I could think of outside of personal questions for Mr. Kaplowitz and his former student, Raynard. Pretty sure we weren’t supposed to delve into the personal business and keep it strictly professional. If we were able to delve into personal things, then it should’ve been stated so. Because I could ask a ton of those based on this article (that I found, personally, ridiculous).

Why’d I find it ridiculous? Because it is. A student accuses an instructor of something he didn’t do; i.e. pushing the student to the floor and making him hit his head when ushering him out of a classroom. Instructor gets fired and sued for it. Years later, former student sends friend request on Facebook and wants to get in touch with his former teacher.

All ended in forgiveness and what-not but I still…don’t have questions to ask. Except for maybe a few things.

1.) Why would you forgive someone that cost you your job?

Maybe it’s just me and I’m not such a forgiving person. I may say I forgive you but I won’t ever forget how you wronged me and I will be less likely to trust you in the future, but seriously. If you cost me my job because of false accusations, I ended up in a depressive funk for multiple years, and was avoided by other people because they knew what I supposedly “did”, then like hell I’d actually forgive you. And I doubt I’d want anything to do with you years later after I finally got my life back together. Time doesn’t heal all wounds and just because water is flowing under the bridge again doesn’t mean I’m inclined to ‘forgive and forget’. Perhaps I’m just spiteful like that.

2.) Why would you falsely accuse someone like that?

Okay, so your teacher ushered you out and gave you a gentle shove out of the classroom and slammed the door behind you. So what? He never pushed anyone to the ground and caused them to hit their head. The teacher was at the end of his rope—children misbehaving left and right and one child constantly irritating him with the well-known excuse to go to the bathroom just to get out of class. It’s obvious that it’s all been done before and when the teacher lets you go so they can try to regain control of the class, then just fucking go. Get out of the classroom and shut the hell up. Don’t get upset because he slammed the door behind you. He’s just as frustrated as you if not more-so. Then again, as a second grader (I believe was the grade?), then okay. Getting emotional about someone being mad at you is understandable, but to lie about what your instructor did is not. That man lost his job because of that lie.

But I guess that’s just the world we live in now.
“Oh no, you put your hand on my child! I’m going to sue you for sexual harassment / abuse!”
“Uh, ma’am, I pat your child on the head, that’s not—”
“SEXUAL HARASSMENT!”

“I only gave them a gentle nudge to step forward. That’s—”
“ABUSE! I’LL HAVE YOUR JOB!”

Man pours milk on kid. It’s childishly beautiful.

Parents hover over their children day-in and day-out. Any form of contact with another person could lead to charges of abuse, sexual harassment, or just plain harassment. Words towards another person’s child could end up as the aforementioned thing. Everyone is just too paranoid about, well, everything. And parents are willing to hang on every word their child says, even if their child has a history of causing trouble or acting out in school or whatever. Didn’t they say that there were no signs of injury to the kid? Yeah. Red flag, wouldn’t you think? Wouldn’t it cross your mind that maybe the kid is lying? Of course not, he was such a good boy and no one’s child could possibly ever do any wrong.

And…okay, y’know what? I’m done talking about this; before I go onto a tangent about people and their bratty ass children and how parents need to discipline them once in a while.

Anyway, water under the bridge and those two are friends now. Good for them! I’m glad they could all sort it out and it worked out A-OK in the end for both of them. Fantastic. Even if I don’t agree with the whole ordeal and how it all went down from the accusations, to the trial, to even their friendship later down the road. But, really, that’s just me and how I can and will hold grudges. Especially if you fucked me over.

Oh. Would you look at that. I still don’t have three questions. Two is better than none at least. Even if they are personal and not well thought out.

Can We Auto-Correct Humanity?

Can We Auto-Correct Humanity? — Video

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This was part of our assignment of the day that we were supposed to discuss. While I didn’t feel like I was able to say much on it, I’ll do so here.

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A lot of people are saying that those who go against this video are “slaves to technology”. Even people in class were talking about how it rules our lives and so forth, and perhaps they’re right. Maybe I’m letting technology rule my life and I’m letting it be an excuse so I don’t have to connect to others—I’ve got a nice sized barrier between myself and everyone else on the net.

I don’t have many friends, I never have. So the internet is an outlet for me. I grew up in a small town with a small school. If you stood out in any form, you were considered weird and pretty much an outcast. For the first three years of high school I kept my head down and I didn’t talk to anyone except those who were deemed as “friends”.  In high school I was often picked on and teased for sticking up for other people who were bullied and I was even more-so picked on for liking anime. Any anime expressive outlet I used in school was trashed one way or another—art I put on my locker being ripped up and left in shreds at the foot of my locker, my notebooks being stolen, nasty rumors being spread about me, and people putting hentai (anime pornography) on school computers so I’d get called into the principal’s office to get chewed out by the principal.

It was difficult for me to connect to people when I felt like I couldn’t connect. I was always the oddman out when I wasn’t with my tiny circle of friends. So when I began to browse the internet and found little hub-ub forums that I could post on, it became a regular routine for me. I was able to talk to other people that liked anime and didn’t flat out tell me that “All anime is porn” and look down their nose at me. It was a nice step up from the people I was around every day.

Feeling like I belonged, even on an online site, felt nice.

It introduced me to many things—new anime series, video games, anime conventions, and new friends. And no, not just “online friends”. I’ve made plenty of friends that I stay in touch with and I do visit them every few summers. I attend anime conventions regularly and it’s there I’m able to spend three whole days with thousands of people and just be an anime nerd and have fun with people in person. Hell, my best friend is someone I met online thirteen years ago and she’s like family to me now.  We get together every handful of summers and spend over two months together during these times. We talk on the phone weekly, text each other every day as well (now that I have texting—I got on the texting / cellphone boat late, okay?).

But I won’t lie; I’d much rather spend my time online than I would go out to some party. At least online I can leave and go read a book or do something constructive. At a party I look like a bitch because I’m overwhelmed by the atmosphere and am uncomfortable around all the people and thus have to leave early.

While there is a barrier between one user and the next online, that doesn’t mean you can’t connect to them. Sure it isn’t in a physical face-to-face way that people seem to be missing, but sometimes you don’t need that face-to-face bonding. There’s more to online than it all just being “pixels”. There are people behind those pixels and those words. Sometimes we all forget that, especially when someone’s extremely rude to you online—there’s no face, no reminder to tell us that “Hey, they’re a person too! That might hurt their feelings”. But we’re living in a culture that gets butthurt about anything and everything.

So I think it’s all dependent on how you look at it because the factors are endless and it boils down to each individual.

In the end, I don’t feel like technology is controlling us. If anything, we’re letting it control us and many of us have our own reasons as to why we let it control us. It’s not technology’s fault. That’s the culture we’re building and living in now, but that’s just coming from someone who has social anxiety. So don’t take it (too) seriously.