Final Blog for Class

Here are the ten blog posts I have chosen for my course blog grade:

1. - Networking Personal Webs
I wrote this one in order to be fair with personal webs. On the previous web, I only added the negative about personal web pages, but never how they enhance me.

2. - Online/Hybrid Class 11: Social Networking
I'm giving examples of how social networking affects us, but how it can also help us to think critically through text messages which is similar to what personal web owners do when they write.

3. - The Meaning of Jesus and the Cross
This blog is my advice for people to live without pain. People will suffer with pains – physical and emotional – as long as they are living, but if Jesus already took all of our pains, then, why do we have to carry them all over again? I understand that there are people who wish to not suffer anymore, but want to look for another way to alleviate their pains, and I also have some advice here that do not have to do with religion.

4. - Love to Patiently Wait
This is my advice – from personal experience – for all those who want to wait for the right person, but do not know how.

5. - Online Hybrid Class #9: Are we More Stupid with the Internet?
This one gives my view of how the internet helps us. It gives an example about a friend who gets extra income through the internet, and another one about the different ways that the internet helps me.

6. - Looking for a Job and Trying to Feel Good
This one is about how we can feel good about looking for a job after several unsuccessful days of trying.

7. - Online/Hybrid Class 5: Bloggers and Citizens
This blog talks about the advantages of citizen journalism. Some of them are that they are fast, quick, and anyone with knowledge can write. Also, it gives advice on how to know if the person is a citizen journalist or not.

8. - Blogs that I read
These are particularly blogs that I read during that week – when I posted the blog – and it gives advice for how to love your partner in a healthy way without having by talking to your partner and suppressing your bad character, jealousy, anger, etc.

9. - Online/Hybrid Class 3: Changes and Transformations
This one talks about how people expect too much from the internet, such as, fast service. The post card is supposed to arrive on Valentine’s Day and not a day later. It also talks about the conveniences of the internet and who will have time to veg out all the extra information that people do not need.

10. - Online Class Activity #1
This one questions the following: What if the machine (computer) can control us? Also, it talks about the freedom of the internet: Can we enter without a subscription? Can we hack this web page? And the fears that people in the past think about the future.

Networking Personal Webs

Just so I can be fair with My Space and Facebook, this blog will show how these two have helped me not only in my personal life, but others, which makes our lives easier - less complications - and avoid people to work harder,

For example, “awareness tools [ambient updates] aren’t as cognitively demanding as an e-mail message” (I'm So Totally, Digitally ..., 2). Awareness tools gives us the freedom to pick what we want to read from a title of someone’s blogs such as pictures, news on their web updates, new comments, etc. These tools are better than newspapers because people’s updates appear on one page only where people can click on the tab “More” to look at someone else’s older updates of the day or of the week. "Awareness tools" are also called "Ambient updates" which are better than e-mails because they are indirectly posted for me, and are not asking me for my full attention to them like an e-mail does. Their advantage is that it saves me from the complications of constantly looking at everyone’s space for any updates, and saves me time. Lately, e-mails have become a more personal way to communicate, such as, banking transactions, shopping receipts, new membership information, etc.

Also, another way of how I see online blogs beneficial to me is that I found out that “[t]he act of stopping several times a day to observe what [I’m] feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act” (6). This happens after rereading my personal posts and my peers’ comments where I become more aware of myself, and I start to realize how I can improve my lifestyle, personal life, thoughts, etc. Through my philosophical thoughts I give constructive critiques to myself, as well as, to the person I am having a problem with. Even when I usually do not post the juicy details about my letdowns through My Space, Facebook or in this blog, it has indirectly taught me to post more positive outcomes that avoids the sad thoughts.

Online/Hybrid Class 11: Social Networking

I actually do not need to know “the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information —” (I’m So Totally, Digitally Close to You, 2) that my friends post on My Space. It actually annoys me because when I meet them, we might not have anything to talk about; for example, when they post their pictures about a trip to France and they add a description on each of their pictures to let me know why, where, how, who/what they were doing, plus I add some comments on their pictures. By the time they come back to Arizona the excitement is lost because I know everything already. Another example could be if they feel so happy or so depressed that they write about how they lost their jobs, husbands, a family member, etc. There is nothing intimate to share because everyone (online people) and I already know it. I’m supposed to put the same effort that my other friends put on their blogs to keep updated with them, but I prefer not to do it because I’m afraid I might forget how to speak clearly in front of people.

In fact, I think I already lost my ability in how to speak to people because for some reason, through the last time occasions I was shy to fight for what I believed in front of my friends, but instead, I used text “messages [because they] felt even more intimate than a phone call” (3), and even more intimate than talking face to face because through silent communication I wanted them to remember the words I wanted to convey, plus I was afraid I might offend them when talking because my words – and not only mine, but all humans – are said without too much thought than what we actually want to mean, but our true meanings change after we write them down.

This is what I learned in a past occasion when I tried to respectfully disagree with what one of my friends thought about doing such, ife is and how everything is precious because it has only then she became outrageous, and I think that she is also affected with the inability to say what she wanted to say at that moment, but instead she reacts with a frown and with a winning fussy pitched voice, as that of a little girl, when she is actually 25 years old. In some part, I blame her My Space account where she only adds comments about how wonderful life is how everything is precious to her. My conclusion is that her My Space account has only helped her to wisely react to the good stuff and not to the bad ones. After surfing so much online for fun and gossip about someone else’s MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and other personal webs, I think humans are affected with the inability to not put too much reason in their words through their personal web spaces leading them to only post the positive: How happy life should always be and forget how to react to the disgusting and unwanted situations of everyday life.

The Meaning of Jesus and the Cross

It is of sad that many people take the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection so shallow because all people still live in pain. The Bible says that Jesus carried all of our pains and illnesses on the cross. But the meaning of the word pain is not always a physical one and it can be problems in marriage, children, family, work, unable to pay the bills, which is a shame, and all other life's problems. If Jesus already carried the cross that nails down our pains and illnesses for us, why do we humans have to carry it again? Regardless if you go to a church or not, you are rich or poor, smart or not too smart, we all have the same problems and they are going to keep coming as long as we are living. But why do we have to deal with these pains for a long period of time, or why do we think it’s impossible for us to overcome our pains? Most people say that it is normal to suffer, but I bet that the Father does not want to see his children to suffer, just like our parents do not want to see us that way either. It’s a matter of decision: you continue to suffer or seek some help through your church, psychologist or through other program in order to help you overcome your pain. Personally, I got some help by reading the Bible at my Spanish Speaking church, but I understand that other people prefer to look some other ways to alleviate their pains. So I recommend that you run, walk, exercise, seek help through a friend, or do something to better yourself, and feel good about truly enjoying life without pain.

Online/Hybrid Class #10: Writing for the Web

In How to Write for the Web by Jakob Nielsen and Writing for the Web by John Morkes are way different from each other. The first one is all chunky and the second one is more organized. They both teach you how to write for the web in order to attract readers to READ instead of scanning.

Nielsen gives readers an additional link in the chunky text in order to avoid reading the print text that he shows in his web; he probably does this to make sure that we readers know the difference of reading text from a book and reading on the web; also, Morkes shows and tells (in web text) readers some advise where web readers like me enjoy reading because it has bullets and it is easier for the eyes to read and friendlier because Morkes is having web surfers to read his website.

In Nielsen’s link and Morke’s web both show that they are short in length giving readers the advantage of not scrolling down or up too much. But the best one I’ll use as basis for my Multimedia Project will be Morke’s because it caught my attention into reading more for it was shorter. But thanks to Nielsen’s link, I know what to avoid in my multimedia project, such as, having a table for math differences and percentages instead of having math problems in huge paragraphs and get web surfers o figure out. However, I think that Jakob Nielsen did a good job from having the printable text web to the readable one.

As for my Home page, I will have a brief introduction and a “Table of Contents”, just like Morkes has on his web, because it is easier to surf on the page site, plus readers are able to choose which ones they want to see first. But the usable feature that he does not show is that it lacks a table of contents on the top of each of the themes. And this is one of the things that my Multimedia Project will not lack.

Love to Patiently Wait

Since I broke up with my boyfriend two weeks ago and was in a sad mood where I thought about the end of the world, I went into True, an expensive online dating – where out of curiosity I signed up only for the free trial, of course – to look for any matches in order to end my idle life for good, and to imagine what I had missed in the previous two years. Well, guess what. It did not help me at all because I found 0 matches for me. I was amazed, but then I thought, why not enjoying of having a real life? And besides, I did not want to make the mistake that I was desperate which I kind of did, but I did it because none of my friends were available to give me some sentimental support at the time, and I was hoping that True would give it to me. At the end, I got sick and tired of the shallow e-mail messages that True members sent me because I realized that my heart was not open for any of them. This should be obvious after a two year relationship, but today I want to have fun with friends only. The lame excuses of my friends of why they were unable to meet me were because they were all busy with their boyfriends, husbands, exams at college, travels, etc., so I had no other option until I went into the famous and overused craigslist. I found out that there is a platonic section (only friends) and posted an ad to hang out with any women who were available on Saturday night in order to meet at a nightclub or bar in order to celebrate my freedom. But guess what. Not a single girl contacted me except for a creepy man who did not read the ad “only for women”. But now, I feel much better because I know that someday that man will find me and will love me unconditionally. I don’t need to look for men anymore like I found my ex at a coffee shop, now the man needs to find me and I can patiently wait for him. I believe he will meet me someday, but for now, I need to enjoy being single again.

Online/Hybrid Class #9 - Are we More Stupid with the Internet?

First of all, according to Perez, people between thirteen to thirty one years old are into the era where “[w]ork isn’t [our] Whole World: Sure, [we’re] going to go to work, but it had better be fun. For Gen Y [the age gap], work isn't [our] identity. It's just a place. [We’re] also not going to blindly follow orders just because you're the boss” (Perez). Even if today is not the right way to say this because there is a world wide crisis, I have two friends who are hopeful on finding another job because they are sick and tired of their current one. This is what one of them would repeat to me over and over again: “I have so many ideas for the company to advance, but they would not compensate me for this.” He is currently an engineer, but makes extra money with his small construction company. He uses the internet to advertise his construction company because he is unsatisfied with the current job he has because it is not fun for him anymore and does not let him advance through his career goals. From his point of view, the quote above confirms that this is a reality and that it is happening.
Second, I agree and disagree with the following quote: They (websites) supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. (Carr) I agree because I am aware that they’re changing how we process all of our thoughts because they (internet’s websites) give us the answer right away, but I also disagree because I think that they are helping us to develop our minds with knowledge and understanding which helps us to fix the puzzles that no one else can solve.

Just like Zimmer discusses on his article that the Internet seems to be crashing the gate of the mind, taking over its natural work and leaving it to wither away to a mental stump. Through my personal view, I am not perplexed anymore since I have been using the internet since 2000, but today, I constantly use dictionary.com, google.com for images and English/Spanish translators. It makes me to get rid of any doubts and any useless thoughts too. It also makes me save time because I do not have to flip several dictionaries’ pages anymore. It is an advantage because it let us focus on other important things that we all have to do: such as work, school, localization of addresses, etc