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self reflection

Moving again!

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Well, this year has been a busy year! I completed my qualification exams (you can read all about that here) in April after preparing for them all semester and since then I have been preparing to move to Hawaii!

I officially cleared out of El Paso Friday and will be hanging out in Dallas for a couple of weeks before I head off to Oahu. I am looking forward to going from the desert to a tropical island. It should be quite a culture shock, one of the things I love as an anthropologist.

All of this is going on as I start work on my dissertation research, which I will talk more about in a future post (let’s just say it has to do with gaming). On that note, my hope is to be able to keep this blog a bit more current once I get settled on the island. I’ll probably post a bit about that process over on Tumblr if you’re interested.

On top of quals and moving, I’m also finally taking the time to work on my web portfolio. I’ll post about that as soon as there is something worth showing there. I’m hoping to pick up some UX/IXD/IA side work as a result. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a private preview.

So yeah, it’s been a busy year and now you know why this blog has been neglected!

Anthropologists are always N00bs

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Yesterday I found myself introduced to a brand new online community of people. As common as this community is, it’s completely foreign to me from the topics they talk about to the language abbreviations they use. Then I realize here I am again, the n00b.

Though most look down on the rank of n00b, it’s perhaps the most valuable position in a new group. Why? Well, everything is new! You have no preconceptions of how it should be, you question everything, and you are able to provide insights on things that those who’ve been around a while just take for granted. Being a n00b means there are no expectations of you, and really when you’re learning all you can this is exactly where you want to be. People are more willing to forgive mistakes, to answer questions, and to be just overall helpful.

So the next time you’re new, appreciate the fact you’re a n00b. It’s the best place for an anthropologist to be!

Brain snacks…

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I just spent the last 24 hours intentionally without access to Facebook. What struck me was not that I missed it as in fact I did not and to be honest there was a bit of relief that washed over me as I walked away from my computer after disabling my account in protest to SOPA. No, what struck me was how many times I, as a matter of habit, considered opening a Facebook tab during the course of my day. Please don’t confuse this as missing it. Understand it instead as how habitual my use has become that it was just second nature to want to act on this subconscious thought of “I have a moment to spare, so I should fill it with something.” The happy thing was that I easily filled those moments with something else without too much effort or thought.

Overall I was just surprised at how often the thought of visiting Facebook occurred to me. I remember just 5 years ago when it was Livejournal that filled up my pauses in work or school. Over 10 years ago it was a local message board for a club that kept me refreshing Netscape every five minutes as drama exploded online. What about 15 years ago? Well then it would have been my first college issued email account (yes, I’ve been in school a long time!) or my first Hotmail account. Two decades ago I was in high school and I filled all of my spare moments with a book. There was even a joke made about this at my senior assembly where a picture was taken of a woman at a mall reading a book and that was supposed to have been me 10 years later. (Instead it ended up being me on my Palm Treo 300. I like to think I invented mobile Googling to solve arguments almost 10 years ago. But, I digress….)

I suppose the point I am trying to make here is that no, it wasn’t that I missed Facebook itself. Rather, I realized that as of late I have been using Facebook as an escape that 20 years ago was reserved for mystery novels and fantasy books. I believe the reason for this is not that I value Facebook over my books of times past. Instead, it’s that I have so little in between time these days that I fill it with a brain snacks instead of a healthy meal. That said, with work and my PhD classwork I get plenty of high quality brain food. I guess what this all boils down to is that I just miss the brain snacks that were both filling and tasted good.

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