The Periphery

Now I'm slightly confused. This week's chapter is the chapter I read last week, and last week's chapter is what I wrote about the week before, so now I seem to be somewhere in the twilight zone.

Oh well.

I want to tell you all that I'm in love with David Hockney's art. At least, most of it. Just look at this amazing self-portrait (-insert clip of Beyoncé singing "to the left"-).

What college student couldn't relate to that? I know I've had the following conversation with myself (yes, I talk to myself - a lot):
"Damn... I have a huge paper due tomorrow, but instead I think I'm gonna just write about how much I hate having to write this essay."
Other self: "Write your essay!"
Self: "Nah... now I think I'll draw a picture about how miserable I am writing about not wanting to have to write this essay. "
Other self: "WRITE YOUR ESSAY!"
Self: "I'm going to bed."
Other self: "@%#(&* WRITE YOur.....oh, well..okay. Bed sounds good."

And then if I'm really out of it, I'll draw a picture of me huddled in a panic on the floor beneath my looming computer and keyboard, clutching a notebook with unwonted writings and drawings on it, with schizophrenic thoughts (such as the above conversation) scrawled out across the page, leading ultimately to...... bed. Of course.

What on earth does this have to do with anything, eh?

Well, I am of the opinion that spending too much time in front of the computer will drive us all to insanity. We have to write essays on the computer, we watch lectures on the computer, we work on powerpoint presentations for class on the computer, and then for fun we check our e-mail and network socially - all from the computer. Computers are amazing! We can do almost anything with them. But um... now what?

It would seem that we're forgetting the periphery of multimedia. To hark back to this week's chapter's post from last week (that makes sense, I swear), perhaps what is driving us all into a narcotic stupor isn't the fact that we all think we're doing something by knowing something, it's that we think we're literate in multimedia when we only know how to work a computer.

So, with a few more kinks in my back and slightly squinting eyes from my bad posture and bright monitor, I vote (and I'm sure it counts for a lot) that next time we meet for class, we all bring a guitar and learn how to communicate through dance. Who's with me?