Category: life

Categories
life meta technology

WordPress(MU)

I have been hoping to move to WordPress as a show of my support for Open Source Software, and to keep myself free of the constraints of the free license for Movable Type. So far those constraints have not been a problem for my needs, but I would hate to move to another platform in a crunch so I am looking while it is anything but urgent.

Unfortunately my needs include having multiblog support because I am unwilling to run multiple sets of tables to manage my multiple blogs and I want some central control for all my blogging. This meant that I had to find and attempt to use WordPress MU. I finally got it installed, but for some reason it does not produce blogs, just entries in my tables. Well, actually it produced a blog at wp.php rather than index.php but for the non-admin blogs it produced table entries only.

I considered some other OSS platforms for my site blogs, but I decided that – at least for now – they are not what I want. I have finally concluded that I have spent too much time on this project and I would rather devote myself to another, more altruistic, project on another site where I will be combining the wordpress software with phpGedView for a platform which will support online genealogy collaboration

While I will be focusing on that project, I would welcome any suggestions as to how to implement an OSS platform for multiple blogs that I can easily customize to look just like my current site and be fully valid XHTML.

Categories
Education life

Biography

This is slightly related to the reflection that I talked about in Back on Track but it also comes out of thinking from my Social Computing Class. Our readings have talked about the trajectory that is reflected in systems of interaction. One of the sub-concepts of trajectory is “biography” or personal trajectories.

As I thought about this concept I began to recognize the trajectories in my life. As a student in high school I could easily have imagined myself getting a PhD, but when I started college it soon became much harder to imagine that scenario, yet here I am. Although there were forces that would discourage my pursuit of this advanced degree, the trajectory and the impetus to continue with my education were stronger than the discouragement.

Professionally, I thought that I would be studying design of instruction, but due to changes in my life I took courses in assessment and I discovered an interest in that area of study that I would have not expected to have any interest. I now have a trajectory that appears likely to last a lifetime which I would not have predicted even one year ago.

Categories
life

Mortality

I have been riding an interesting emotional roller-coaster in the last few days. My grandmother – who has had her share of health problems in the last few years but is really very healthy considering her age – was diagnosed with a type of pneumonia. She has been in the hospital, and while she will probably recover, it was looking questionable for a time.

For the first time, I had to seriously consider the imminent death of someone close to me. I have had people die that I was related to, but none that I knew really well. The emotional reaction was strong. Laura tried to comfort me, expressing her sorrow for my pain, but that only forced me to consider what I was feeling. As a pragmatist, I accept death as a natural part of live. It is not truly a tragedy for a good person to die after a long and full life – especially if the death also brings a cessation of pain to that person. I was not feeling fear, despite the fact that I have never experienced the death of someone so close to me before. I discovered how natural and unstoppable the sorrow and pain of loss is when death approaches (even before it arrives in cases like this). The thing that I realized is that the pain is healthy, and spurs the healing process, so long as we let the pain pass through us, rather than holding on to it as if it was all that was left of our loved one.

Part of my sorrow was that I have just moved far from my grandmother, so I feel a little more helpless and out of touch that I had previously. I guess that’s okay too. I am living my life just as she would wish me to do. She certainly would not want me to be paralyzed by her health.

Categories
Education life

Social Computing Class

I get to take a doc seminar on Social Computing this semester to give me fodder for this blog. I am excited to share my insights on the readings and class discussions here. I hope to see a good number of my classmates commenting on these postings.

Categories
Education life

Back to Work

I have completed the degree/move that took me away from blogging back in November. I am excited to come back to sharing my ideas as I tackle a new degree at a new institution with a new perspective.

I will be hoping to get a few regular readers who will keep me on my toes as I post my thoughts, ideas and insights about instructional design, assessment and education.

Categories
life

The Power of Direction

I have often floundered in my life when I did not feel that I had a direction in my mind for where I was heading with my current situation. I found myself in one of those doldrums last year – in about March.

I was in the middle of a very difficult second semester of my masters program and I was feeling very separated from my department and fellow students as a result of living over 100 miles from campus. I began to look forward to where I was headed and I realized that I was unsure. I wanted to get a PhD, but I did not know where and I was not even fully committed to that course of action. I had considered the programs at Brigham Young University and Utah State University, but I was leaning towards the program at the University of Georgia.

I made the question a matter of prayer and late in the month of March while I was deep in contemplation I felt the impression that I should have a look at the University of Missouri. I had applied and been accepted there among the many universities that I had considered for my Masters degree, but had never thought of it after I had chosen to do my Masters degree at Utah State University. I got very excited once I began looking at their program because many of the faculty were working in areas that I was interested in and they accepted new PhD students in the Winter semester which would allow me to continue directly after finishing my Masters degree in December.

From the time I decided to aim for the University of Missouri I did better in my classes and was more focused on my program and my long-term goals. I got in contact with faculty at MU and I knew what I needed in the way of grades etc. for applying to their program. I had deadlines to meet and all my uncertainty was gone. I guess I live for the future.

Categories
life meta

Back on Track

I have been busy in my offline life and have not posted for a while, but I am back. I have been wanting to talk about the path, or series of events that have lead me to my current situation. It has been an interesting ride and worthy of reflection (as proven by the fact that I have so often reflected on what has brought me here already.)

Categories
life meta

I’m Back

I have finally moved to Columbia Missouri to start my PhD and I am ready to get back to blogging. During this break I have had decided to change the focus of my blog just a little bit. Previously it was almost exclusively for political commentary, but now I would like to spend a little bit more of the space discussing other things like open source software etc.

I still expect to have plenty of political and social commentary, but not quite as exclusively as before.

Categories
life meta

Update

David Anderson noted the fact that I have not been posting for a couple of weeks. In deference to the two people that read my blog I thought I should explain my current absence from the blogosphere.

I finally got my official acceptance to a PhD program at the University of Missouri to start in January so I had to quickly get into high gear to be ready to move and start the program in the next 6 weeks. I will hope to post occasionally during that time, but I appreciate the patience of those who actually care about what I have to say here.

Categories
life

Making Tracks

I finally have an official acceptance to the PhD program at Mizzou. It has been a month since they last contacted me and I have been anxious for most of that month.

Less than 30 minutes after I got the letter, I got a phone call offering an assistantship starting in January. It has been well worth the wait.

I can’t wait to get working out in Missouri.