aisyalam

Some days are amazingly full and gratifying, and today was one of those days. After the usual routine I set to work on making sound files (at the apartment, not the office, because the better multimedia computer stays at home), and ended up finding nine samples—including sighs, pre-recorded phone operators, frogs, lizards, oceans, and bugs—that I thought contained something worthwhile and could be worked with effectively. Before lunch, up at the office, posted them to the site where I posted files last week. Sau Bin and Siew Wai joined Amy, Alea, and I for lunch (Indian, as usual), where we enjoyed another rambling conversation about Malaysian art and culture; SB was also interested in knowing more about Rochelle Owen, whose anti-Chomsky poem, mentioned on Pierre Joris’ Nomadics blog (see sidebar for link) I had directed him to (which led to a discussion about the plight of public intellectuals). After lunch I proceeded to write a brief Preface to the section of my eBook that contains the eight MMU lectures, then met with John Hii, who is doing the graphic design and some of the interface programming for the project. He has come up with a wonderful dynamic interface for both the media files section and overall interface, using pictures I took in Brazil and São Paulo. In the near future—probably within a couple of weeks—we’ll have completed the technical and content aspects of the project and will only be lacking the (forthcoming) ISBN and bar code. We’ll thoroughly test it, of course, take it up to KL to be produced, then send it out into the world. I also enjoyed a brief meeting with the Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Ahmad Rafi, which I made just to check in, keep him posted about what’s going on, and be sure that all is going well from his p.o.v. (it is). One of the many things we spoke involved conceiving a framework of education based on the AirAsia model (AirAsia is a local no-frills, economy airline that is revolutionizing transport in the region); is there some sort of parallel that a educational institution could develop? We agreed that it would be difficult, if not impossible, but revolutionary if it could be done, leaving us with something to envision, anyway. The other upshot of the meeting is that Rafi is going to help me get access to the audio recording facility on campus, which I plan to make good use of in the near future.

With the time left in the afternoon, I set my attention back on the javascript project I started a couple of days ago, and have now come up with the roughest, most rudimentary working sketch of *part* of what I desire to ultimately accomplish. What I’ve put together so far is an uncontrolled, random juxtaposition of more or less haphazard texts that loosely share a common (contemplative) theme. Though it still has imperfections, I figured good enough to post (http://web.njit.edu/~funkhous/2006/js/test1b.htm) and start getting feedback. Tomorrow I have a meeting with some IT Java specialists here, java experts, and at least have a draft of the notion of what I want to do, which will give us a place to start. Supposedly a tutor, who will be able to help me for the rest of my time here (a little over three months), will be there, and I’m excited at the prospect of really learning how to build an integrated database composed of various types of media. I seem to be getting closer and closer to this objective every day, and now that it has begun to happen feeling more determination (if not excitement) than ever. Reading about it—learning the basic concepts—is one thing, but actually doing it, and overcoming the many different hurdles is another (and much more rewarding).

A lot going on, as usual: positively so!

P.S.: a little plug from NJIT’s “Newsroom” (thanks Christina Crovetto!) about the gigs in Thailand next week (containing a link that will bring the reader directly back to this page).