The world is a vampire, sent to drain!
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames.
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game.Even though I know, I suppose I'll show,
All my cool and cold, like old job ...Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage!
Then someone will say what is lost can never be free.
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.Smashing Pumpkins,
"Bullet With Butterfly Wings"
I don't know why I shared that with you either.
So ... English 381 was one of the classes I had today for the first time. Turns out the girl next to me lit up with a glow of recognition when I introduced myself and mentioned that on the Internet I was known as Dannyman.
One of the things with this class is to do journal entries.
Journal entries, huh?
Yeah, you know me.
So, today I'll share with you fuzzy people my homework.
Two birds, one stone.
Why teach freshman composition/writing in general?
What should the goal be?
What is good writing?
People need to know how to express deyselves with eloquence man.
Actually, it needn't even be eloquence, it needs to be competence, addressing the right audience with the appropriate language, tone, whatever.
Take a techy person. Okay have him sit down with a human and try to explain something complex. Two different paradigms, unless the tech person is prepared to take the idea of addressing the question in a new and suitable way, things aren't going to work.
Take the tech sending written instructions to same said individual. In an interactive environment, the human has at least half a chance of squeezing something useful out of the tech, but if the tech is sending a static message that is not taking it's audience in mind ... oh dear, bad things.
Take said tech writing a report to his boss. The project needs to be evaluated by the money people for it's funding. If the tech doesn't think first, he may address things the wrong way, addressing uninteresting issues and generally frustrating the overlords. Or perhaps he hits the right buttons, but without quite the pinache of a well-written, comprehensive report he is left at a competetive disadvantage relative to another employee or workgroup that may have taken time and skill to deploy something better and more impressive.
this is babbling. The fact of the matter is that no matter how smart you are, it don't count for shit if you can't express it to your audience in a suitable or attractive manner. To be fair, for a tech the primary expression might be solidly-functioning code or an excellent microprocessor design, who knows. However, that tech will often need somewhat to abstract these expressions into a more commonly communicable manner - a good resume, a good brief or report, a good presentation to the customers or money people.
Unless that tech is coupled with someone to engage in this expression for him, he is at a disadvantage unless he can show his stuff himself.
And frequently we need to show our stuff in the written word. We're a literate society you know. Not as literate as we need to be, but literate enough that it's important.
This seems kind of obvious.
What should the goal be? Good writing. What is good writing?
Well ... good writing, or perhaps a satisfactory writing strategy would be an ability to anticipate the needs of the audience, and be suitably skilled at writing for that audience in such a manner as to effectively communicate whatever it is that needs to be effectively communicated.
Boring.
I know, it's all semantics. Unfortunately, I know a few very intelligent tech folk who can not express well their message to their recipients. I've seen this happening, there seems to be a communicative ability deficit among our smart technical people. Not all of them, but I know these wonderful people can get the job of talking and writing to others done better.
So, my answer is, we need to teach folks, at least technical folks, to write in such a manner as that they communicate what they have to say effectively to their target audience. In other words, they should be made more aware of the issues involved in communicative events, and better skilled in taking advantage of that knowledge.
The above section indicates a clear lack of a good communication initiative. It was unfocused, and restated it's main points several times over. D.
Daniel wrote me a message accounting for last night's fiasco.
I've gotten responses back from yesterday's message with regards to Escort Policy ... they range from the idea of it being inpracticable to being quite supportive. It seems no one is satisfied wholly with escort policy in it's current form. It also seems that most people don't see it as feasible to go about changing it, and often they don't see such an endeavor as worthwhile. After all, it kinda works as it is. Daniel sent me a copy of a flier detailing what exactly the Escort Policy is. I'll look it over ...
Signed up for hours at CSIL today. Monday, Wednesday, Friday 0900h-1000h, Wednesday 1900h-0000h. I'll post a schedule soon. I think I'll have a whole "schedule" section, featuring my regular schedule, upcoming events/meetings I have to attend, homework, general to-do stuff ... I want to take a break from the computers first though.
It rained today. Monsoon season in Illinois.
I got wet walking from our NetDev Beckman upgrade to the CSIL meeting. Between the wet clothes and the extreme Air Conditioning I was freezing myself cold - silly cold!
So I walked home with a cold can of Coke in my hands. I was drinkin' it. I went to recycle the can at a receptacle. I had to walk through mud. After gettin' rid of my aluminum, I noticed a bee, stuck by his wings on his back, well her back, to the garbage can by water.
I don't like bees, you probably don't either. Gandhi said though that one should be kind to all living creatures, and I suppose I should try to respect that once in awhile. A Puff of breath righted the bee. I dunno if she could fly so well, but she was upright, and didn't seem quite so distressed about being stuck in a very vulnerable position.
Good deed done.
1 September
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