aisyalam

The lecture this morning was my first less-than-positive experience on campus thus far. Without going into all the details, when I arrived the auditorium was full, and professors (whose classes were the audience) were passing around (and collecting) attendance sheets. By the time the (un-introduced) lecture started, most of the professors were nowhere to be seen, and a bunch of students were making their exit out the side doors. Of those that remained it seemed like half were not remotely interested in listening to a lecture at 10 a.m. on a Monday morning, as their conversations continued even after I began to speak. Gradually, most of these folks also left, so that by halfway through the session half of the original group remained. I give a lot of credit to them, because they were very attentive, and actually seemed to enjoy and value the work that I was showing. It is a good thing they stayed, too, or I’d’ve felt even more lame than I already did. Thankfully a couple of students approached me afterwards, and some of the conversation continued for awhile—I heard some interesting ideas for digital projects & so on...

I finished my roadshow lecture and website (a condensation of Friday’s lecture, sans Mac programs), which I hope to be taking to Bangkok, Singapore, Penang and other points asian during the next 4 months. I also started to work on the cd-rom project(s) again, hopefully done before long.

Although I have at least three more lectures to write for MMU, I’m now determined to occupy a more creative place on a day-to-day basis. Writing lectures is creative on some levels, but when I think of what I want to fill my databases with, it isn’t prose. Since this is the next task at hand, I’m trying to figure out how to shift from producing so much “horizontal” thought and language (prose) (over the past decade, really) to concentrate on forms of vertical expression. I don’t mind saying that the matter is causing (especially compounded with some other things that are going on) a bit of a crisis. So, I may be altering the way (& frequency) with which I use this space and how I spend my time in general. While things seem alright on the scholarly side, feeling a bit weak and unsatisfied in other ways. It may be that I’m getting sick of writing about myself and things that seem mundane in comparison to the rich cultural surroundings we’re immersed in. We’ll see what happens, OK.