rose marshack : whyamistillawake.com

2 days of work left. I have only quit one other job in my whole life, the job at Frasca, programming flight simulators. The day Rick and I left there, we stayed extra late, burning EPROMs to make sure everything would work perfectly when we were gone. The boss stayed to watch us to make sure we didn’t steal anything, but we were completely driven to make sure we left everything working perfectly. I remember that felt so good. Then afterwards we left and went on tour. For 10 years.

So now I’m quitting another good-paying job for MUSIC! I hope my parents know how proud I am of myself! (although let’s face it, this is a much better job that I’m going to. It’s not like I’m runnin oft on tour again.)

I had lunch with The Famous Author, and he helped me with my syllabus - you kids are so lucky next semester - and I got to find out what the next book is about! But I’m not going to blog about it. I’m just so excited - I can’t wait to read it! I wish I was on the Shorter List, there are some people on that list who actually get the books BEFORE they come out. Could you believe how amazing THAT would be?

My friend Frances Kuo researches the effects of environment on people. She has sent me a paper about what happens to kids who don’t get to exist in nature. It is wonderful. I know so many beautiful, wise, intelligent, generous, caring people. It is hard to go to bed sometimes, just wondering what everyone is up to.

I am reading the cult of the amateur, how today’s internet is killing our culture, by andrew keen. Even the typesetting on the front of the book makes me angry; it’s all lowercase. Is he trying to show that he’s an amateur too?

The book is about how us amateurs, us Time’s Persons Of The Year, yes, us monkeys not typing out Shakespeare, are going to destroy America (I suppose like the Gays are going to destroy the Institution of Marriage) - American culture (??) - by self-publishing using Web 2.0 technologies. Yes, it’s a perfect textbook for my class.

He makes a lot of good points (over and over) but it seems very reactionary, and almost kinda..uh… amateurish? I’m waiting for the punchline at the end where he says, “Aha! Gotcha! I’m an amateur, too!” But it hasn’t happened yet.

He is saying that wikipedia is not written by the Learned. and he’s right, but I think that there is a wonderful use for wikipedia and another use for The Books Of The Learned. Obviously people need to be taught what they can believe, but that’s no different than non-Web2.0 technologies now, is it? Watch television and tell me what you should believe? The commercials? The news?

Anyway in my research I signed onto Facebook and started filling out my profile. I was taught how to “hang out” on mySpace by a friend Erin, at the museum. I definitely need to know these things if I’m going to teach this class.

Rick has cut out a template for the iPhone and has been carrying it around with him, holding it in his hand. We’re looking for reasons to buy this thing. When I got back from teaching Tae Kwon Do tonight, he had discovered that the iPhone that is coming out in a couple of days is smaller than previously specified; we’d thought they’d gotten someone with bigger hands to do the newer commercials, but no, it IS smaller. It looks like they’re going to make it affordable to people like me and Rick. So now all I have to do is deal with the fact that I might end up with a 1.0 first generation something. I still have my Newton. Gag.