Archive for December, 2004
« Previous EntriesThe State I Am In
I woke up two hours ago and quickly realised that this was about to be another one of those days. In ‘those’ days, I begin to question just about everything. I ve got a slightly sick feeling in my stomach, sad look on the face and an enormous need to be left alone. The level of ontological security goes below zero. No sense of continuity, no sense of order, no nothing. Does what I am doing make any sense at all? It starts off with a question: So what do I do today? I should work on my PhD, of course. But, does it make any sense at all? Is what I try to say, meaningful? Will I be able to make a valuable contribution to my scientific field? I feel a big responsibility. And then the snowball effect: What do I want from my life? Where do I want to live? Do I want a family? I seem to have a few problems to handle my identity project. There on a horizon, I can see different available projects of my own identity. Of course there are parts of my identity that I take as constant – my gender and the place of origin. But all others are subject to change. Well, that’s not so bad since one’s identity formation should be an open ended process. It can’t be just completed at some point. Which can be quite positive, it makes our lives richer and more colourful.
By | December 31, 2004 | Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Blogs Praised By BBC
… for offering snapshots of information from around the region and providing some useful information for those who want to help in the case of South Asia devastation. Read more …
By Nana | December 30, 2004 | Topics: Blogging | No Comments »
Con Brio Will Be
I finally made it. I found a name for my blog. When I first started posting, I wasn’t sure whether I would like it or not. I wasn’t sure whether other people would read it or not. I wasn’t sure whether I would keep on posting at all. I tried to came up with a name, but I couldn’t think of anything that I would have liked. But today - out of blue! It came to my mind as a lightening. Con brio! I’m writing it con brio and I sincerely hope you, the readers, could feel its brio. So, Con Brio will be.
Con Brio - from Italian; con - with, brio - liveliness, fire, joy
I walked to my window, took a look at these beautiful mountains … the name happened:))
By | December 30, 2004 | Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Heart-Breaking Eyewitness Story From Sri Lanka
I tried not to post on very sad earthquake and tsunami disaster, but reading this story urged me to do so. Lisa published incredibly sad story experienced by her friend, who managed to survive the living horror of tsunami.
Taken from On the face:
“This is the first chance I have had to either call or email. As you can imagine, it is/has been quite traumatic and chaotic here right now. It has been for days. We are now in the centre of the island in Kandy - away from the ocean. I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but we only managed to call on someone esle’s cell-phone and I wasn’t sure if you would have heard the news (remember you always say you avoid the news) and I didn’t really know exactly how big this tsunami was.
We are ok physically. I am pretty traumatised though. When the tidal wave hit, we were having our last surf lesson and so were in the water when everything first happened. A lot happened, I’ve just written it all down today as a way of dealing with it because I am still very upset and scared. Basically we rode out the first huge wave on our boards and stayed above the water/wave while everyone else was being swept away and everything was being destroyed. Then the water pulled back out of the bay we were in and we barely managed to avoid being swept out to sea with the current. We landed on the beach after the first surge, but couldn’t go ashore because another wave was coming, our surf instructor told us that it was a matter of life and death that we stay away from the shore so we started heading back towards the water before it surged back in. We really didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately we had to cross some flood waters as they ran back from the inland to the sea - it was filled with mud, sand and debris. We were still attached to our surf boards and I was swept under the mud by my board in the middle of the river. I have to say that I did almost drown - I had the thought in my head that this was such a stupid way to die. Luckily, because I was still attached to my board (even though it had sucked me under in the first place) I was eventually pulled up to the surface with it before I blacked out. I managed to pull my board to me and flopped on top of it until I could breathe again, then started trying to look for Ran. He had jumped in after me and had taken off his surf leash so I was worried that he’d drowned. I couldn’t find him, the second big wave came in and I was pushed on to the shore because I was too exhausted to fight the surge. I was able to catch some branches before hitting very much, then got off of my board and starting screaming for help. Some Sinhalese man ran up to me and led me to a 3-storey building where there were about 20 people on the roof. The waves came in and out for almost 2 hours and every time there were people being caught in it - I can’t really describe the sounds and what it was like. I couldn’t find Ran - though I thought I saw him about 1 km out in the bay being swept by the current out to sea. Then I couldn’t see him (or what I thought was him) anymore. No one could really help me - the other people I was with were gone and all the boats had either been smashed on the shore or pulled out to sea. After some time the surf instructor (Yannick) came up the road during one of the times the water surged out of the bay and he was thrilled to see that I was alive. I was pretty hysterical by that time though and was trying to get back to the beach to find Ran. Yannick went out on his surf board to look for Ran three times - one time bringing in a body that all these Sinhalese assholes were telling me was my lost husband. I spent at least 2 hours pacing the shore with the water coming in and out destroying things every time, looking for Ran or his surf board (but I knew if I just saw his surf board that would mean that he wasn’t attached to it so he would be dead) - I think I know a little bit about what hell must be like. I kept feeling that I was waiting so long and that I couldn’t wait any longer, but then I thought if he was dead I would be waiting forever. I have never been so afraid or for so long in my life. Finally Yannick and this other woman we were surfing with pulled me away from the spot I’d last seen Ran and tried to get me up the road toward higher ground - and after about 5 min. we spotted Ran walking down the road towards us. It was probably one of those really cheesy Hallmark moments where a couple runs crying towards each other. I have never been so happy to see anyone before - I really did think he had died.
Ran, it turns out, had been swept away from his surf board after he jumped in the flood waters when I was sucked under - he had taken off his surf leash so initially he was also in danger of drowning, but as luck would have it, he spotted his board and managed to cling to it long enough to re-strap the leash to his wrist. He couldn’t get out of the current pulling out of the bay, so was sucked at least 2 km. off shore - he managed to angle his board towards one of the fishing boats that had been swept away, and pulled himself on board. No one was on the boat, so he broke a couple doors and managed to drop the anchor, but it didn’t really catch the ground. He stayed on the boat trying to figure out how to start the engine or make the rudder work - neither of which worked. After some time he said he was being pushed by the waves towards an island and was afraid the boat would crash on the rocks around it but he couldn’t do anything to stop this from happening. He was frantically waving at other people also stuck on other boats, but no one could really control their boats. Finally, miraculously, the surge stabilised before his boat hit the rocks and a rescue boat was able to reach him. He was picked up and taken a couple of km along the shore from where I was and we just happened to be walking towards each other.
The entire coast was hit and the south and east coasts the worst. All of the hotels and guesthouses in the area were right on the beach, so many foreigners either were swept into the surge during the first wave or lost everything when their hotels collapsed. There is no electricity or phone (there are no poles or lines left), most of the roads are either completely or partially wiped out and huge portions of the train tracks are destroyed. There is no drinking water and nothing to eat except Coke and biscuits. We eventually walked the 5 km down the ‘road’ through the devastation to where our hotel was. It was 2-storeys tall, and luckily we had a room on the second floor - everything on the first floor was gone, the motorcycle we rode down from Kandy was found up a tree (destroyed), but our money and passports were in a safe untouched. We were able to run upstairs briefly (not long because the building was unstable) to get these things and as many clothes as we could grab in a minute then we just had to leave. We didn’t know what to do and every 5 minutes people would freak out again and say another tidal wave was coming, but the only way to get around is a path/road right by the ocean. We very very nervously ran back down the road with the sea threatening to surge again to where our surf instructor, Yannick, lives - he found us a family with a house about 2 km in the jungle away from the ocean and we all huddled there for the night. I was covered with mud still and couldn’t rinse any of it off because there wasn’t any water to waste for washing. The radio started reporting what happened, how many people had died, that there was a likelihood of another tidal wave if an aftershock hit hard enough - Ran sat up all night anxious over seeing me getting sucked under the mud and I dozed then woke up every few minutes thinking I heard people running and screaming away from the next tidal wave. When morning finally came we went back to the road by the shore - another Sinhalese family tried to help us find a way to get inland but the petrol was running out quickly. We finally decided to walk to the nearest town with a small road leading inland, then once we got there we started asking around there for someone to let us get in their car as everyone continued to try to get as far from the water as possible. It was very harrowing because the police kept broadcasting that another tidal wave could be coming and we couldn’t seem to get very far from the water. Finally some people in a Tata truck felt sorry enough for us that they let us sit in the back of their truck as they drove inland. This couple was EXTREMELY nice to us - they drove us first to their mother’s house inland and fed us (we’d been living on Coke and crackers for about a day and a half), then drove us inland further to where we could find a hotel for the night.
All of the tourists and locals who can are now desperately going inland so it’s difficult to find anywhere to stay. We had to look around for a few hours yesterday when we arrived in Kandy before we found a place. We’ll be staying at this dumpy hotel until tomorrow then we can transfer to the nice hotel we booked before we arrived. We’ll stay here until Jan.2 then take a train into Negombo, stay the night there and leave the morning of the 3rd.
I am having a hard time with the fact that I am ok and Ran is ok and how it happened. I don’t feel like I made all the right decisions, I keep replaying when I got sucked under the water and want to find a way to make it through that without me almost drowning. I also am having a difficult time with the fact that so many people are dead and I saw so much of it. I saw babies and women and men, house after house completely demolished, tiny kittens and puppies are wandering around and I want to save them. There is also a big gulf between the Sinhalese people and us, it seems like they feel like we couldn’t possibily have been affected by this and often scoff at us when we tell them what happened. I know that the only reason we are both still alive is due to luck - but I also know I more lucky because I can afford to leave the coast before all the diseases hit and can fly back to my comfortable life. This morning was the first time I was able to see the news - it happened to be horrible CNN - they showed video after video of the first wave surging in with people dying and things being destroyed - I was not able to watch more than a few minutes before running back to my hotel room crying. I think this is not something I’ll get over quickly. I don’t know what to do now on my ‘vacation’ -”
By | December 29, 2004 | Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Cues Filtered Out, Cues Filtered In
Last week I came across Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, edited by Mark L Knapp and John A. Daly. First I was attracted to it cos I like handbooks per se and also because it appears intriguing for someone from communication studies. But when I took a closer look, I immediately realised I need to read at least half of it. It starts with some methodological perspectives on how to research the interaction processes, contexts, meanings, social cognition within interpersonal communication. It provides a detailed description on hypothesis testing and structural equation modelling. But … in the conclusion of methodology section they emphasise the importance of overcoming the “greatly overestimated gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches” (Poole at al in Knapp and Daly 2002, 62). I must admit I felt relieved after reading this as I was expecting it to be just another QUAN praising. But authors recognise the benefits of interpretative research – going below surface phenomena to uncover the underlying meanings and focusing on the meanings of the phenomena rather then objectifying them. So the next section delivers comprehensive overview of narrative inquiry as a paradigm for the study of interpersonal communication. And I really love how the author of this section, Arthur P. Boncher, describe the paradigm war:
“To quarrel over method is to have a goal in common but to disagree about how best to achieve the goal. But empiricists and interpertivists do not agree on the goal. Empiricists usually want to predict and control human behaviour whereas interpretivists want to understand human beings and help them decide what to do.”
It is important to acknowledge that there is more than one legitimate goal to which inquiry (on interpersonal communication) can be addressed and with doing so, we free ourselves from the chains of monolithic model of research practices. I think this could be considered one of the best arguments to undermine the incompatibility thesis.
But to move on from methodology, (which btw includes also a section on discourse analysis – quite impressing) the next few sections draw on conceptual perspectives and themes for interpersonal communication (e.g. culture and meaning). Then, slightly towards the end of a handbook, I discovered the “Cues Filtered Out, Cues Filtered In”, a contribution on computer mediated communication and relationships. An amazing piece of writing, written by Walther and Parks. I did read some stuff on Walther’s work before and I was astonished at his Social Information Processing theory (SIP), which greatly departs from all other theories (social presence theory, media richness theory, theory of electronic propinquity, SIDE theory), dealing with CMC and CMR. SIP theory explicitly rejects the view that the absence of nonverbal cues restricts communicator’s capability to exchange individuating information. Walther suggests that uncertainty reduction and social penetration can ultimately be as effective in CMC as in FtF interaction. An interesting point, with which I couldn’t agree more.
Oh yeah,this Walther and Parks section definitely worth reading, if you are even slightly interested in CMC.
By Nana | December 29, 2004 | Topics: Academic books, PhD, Research | No Comments »
Eggnog Puzzle
So, four girls got together, after a hard working day.They wanted to have some fun, make some eggnog. Well, they met up at one girl’s apartment, with all the ingredients necessary for a big challenge. And so they chatted a bit about this, that and the other … and then one of them put the recipe on the table: “That’s what we need: 8 eggs, some sugar, some milk and some brandy”. “Cool”, others said, and while reading the recipe thru one of them realised that ….. hmmmm .. the eggnog is best when tasted a few days later after it’s made. “Well, who cares, we are gonna try it anyway” they concluded. They managed to produce it in less than 15 minutes (the recipe said 50!!). They even agreed it was quite tasteful. Tho bit too strong, if u know what I mean. Anyway, soon they forgot all about eggnog and fell into hilarious discussion that should remain private. After that one of them took her guitar and started to play. The other three were trying to sing along. Quite amusing for the neighbors:))). Poor people! Finally they left, each with her half litter of eggnog. And the puzzle: Which girl played the guitar, which one’s flat was it, which one mixed eggnog up and which one told the best stories?
By | December 28, 2004 | Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
“Mirror Mirror On the Wall …
… what is the world’s, largest, most varied, most participatory, most controversial encyclopedia of them all?”, Britannica asking its mirror, grinning while waiting for an answer. The mirror: Erm …… hmmmm ….hmh … WIKIPEDIA. Little piece of statistics: as of November 2004 there were about 28.000 Wikipedians, 109 languages and 380.000 articles in it’s archives.
And a piece of gossip: its co-creator, Larry Sanger, is a professional epistemologist, a devout doubter, believing only the things that he could directly perceived or that could be logically derived from what he perceived. But eventually he began to realize that some truths can not be observed, and this pragmatic view even became the focus of his dissertation. Anyway, he left Wikipedia in 2002, party because the funding for his position ran out and partly because the fractiousness and nasty revert wars among Wikipedians themselves. Now he’s a lecturer at Ohio State University.
By Nana | December 25, 2004 | Topics: General, Tech | No Comments »
What a Fancy Cake!
Looks delicious, huh! 
By Nana | December 24, 2004 | Topics: Tech | No Comments »
Send Or Not To Send?
Another day passed by, sitting at the desk and fiddling with research report. And another day closer to X-mas and NY. And here comes my problem: I get X-cards from all around, and I haven’s sent out a single one yet. Don’t know whether I am going to at all. As I am not a particularly X-mas and NY’s person, I find little relevance in sending out cards at this occasion but as I do receive them, I meet a huge problem. What to do? Of course I am happy for every single one and I am grateful to my friends for sending them but at the same time I feel soooo bad for not sending out any. If I was sending some that would just simply not be me. I don’t find this time of a year any more special than the rest of the year. I don’t have a tree or any other decoration. And it’s gonna be about the 8th year in a row that I will spend the NY’s eve at home and probably fall asleep before midnight. In fact, I find loads more special times during the rest of the year. And those are the days that I want to share with all the world around … but there are not cards made for those occasions. Actually then there are no cards needed:).
By | December 22, 2004 | Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wiki With Social Computing Resources
was recently created by Lab for Social Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology. This wiki’s intention is to be kind of starting point to learn about social computing and social software as well as gathering point for researchers interested in topics like weblogs, internet relay chats, social networking and content sharing sites. They also created a database of researchers, interested in these topics and you can add yourself in. Everything is still pretty much under construction so …. you might have to look in.
Otherwise my day was quite monotonous … sitting at the desk, finishing the first RIS report and again - crying from laughing so hard. Ian sent me a link to a song, the so called Hokey Cokey song. Well, Ian just wanted to say OK and he used Hokey Cokey instead and I immediately began to interrogate him. I was told it was a silly children’s song/dance. Then I got that link into my mailbox, I listened to it and …. tears were running down my cheek … from laughing sooo haaard.
By Nana | December 21, 2004 | Topics: General, Tech | No Comments »
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