how i live now

i am reading books like my life depends on it, and by proxy not doing work, or indeed talking to many people at all. there is time indeed (no, And indeed there will be time…) for banalities – the “let’s-get-this-sorted”s or “well-hello-how-are-you” or even the “so-where-are-you-going-to-study”s, but none for the whys and hows, none for [...]

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the new liberal arts [warning long post]

“What does the class of the 21st century need to know?” – rAchel

as someone who cannot decide what on earth i’m going to study at university but wants to learn many things (tags: non-science-related, liberal arts) which sadly don’t always coincide either, even at American universities (where no. of interesting courses > no. of courses that can actually be taken), the snarkmarket project on what the new liberal arts of the 21st century could be is brilliant, highly relevant to the 21st-century-er and would be such a pain for people like me who can’t make decisions and indeed can’t even give straight answers to questions. there is no yes or no. there is an IDK. (as evidenced by those who know me. “i don’t knooooooow.” -shrug- to the frustration of many, no doubt.)

http://snarkmarket.com/blog/snarkives/books_writing_such/a_snarkmarket_book_project_the_new_liberal_arts/

there are over a hundred comments on that post, mostly admirable and interesting – imagine a course on “identity management” (the finer points of filling out profiles, to put it bluntly) or writing a thesis on blogging. except that it could be a looooong post on blogging. and multitasking! to make that course really useful, it could be taken in tandem with 2 other courses so that what you learn might be implemented in the course of learning. (the call for “a moratorium on the liberal arts” amused me very much.)

a couple of thoughts on these new liberal arts:

1. these new liberal arts, i observed, are highly dynamic in nature – things like programming, (micro)blogging and the like – the changes in technology render last week’s discoveries obsolete, and to draw up a course would be time-consuming, difficult, etc. how to have a course, except as an introduction to the topic at hand? i suppose it would involve a lot of your own research, and i suppose that’s where internet curating (another suggestion) would come in very handy as resources for these potential new subjects…

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like fragile ice anger passes away in time

it’s been a while, and rAchel suggested i cook, or bake. and so i might in the days to come. the week has been unpleasant, and more or less ran me ragged. two days away from the computer for the most part, and avoiding any form of text-communication in response to said terrible thas [...]

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