Week 12: Reflective Post of WOMN 2205 in General

I had heard of “Blogs” before and I had even seen an entertaining film (The Julie and Julia Project) about a weblog but the first time I had ever set up and signed into a weblog was here in WOMN 2205. Most of all, I think it is a unique and interesting method for teaching and learning purposes. I find that it takes the pressure off of having to sit down in front of yet another book or journal article to gather information. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty old-school so I prefer printed text but the blog environment served as something different to me. Like a breath of fresh air.

What I think is most interesting about the blog is the opportunity to write back to the author of the posts. You can’t really do this with written texts. Sure, you can write your thoughts down in response to what you read but it is very unlikely that the author of those texts (printed) will read your response, never mind respond to your response. So in this light, I find that the blog is very useful for learning because even though a particular post may be on some general topic, the comments and posts in response create little, more specific, debates or discussions. It is like an on-going tutorial class. It is interesting because as you encounter the various thoughts and opinions of people, you are stimulated into thought yourself and you can then direct those thoughts back to its source.

I liked that you could come across any kinds of information like videos, comics, pictures and links which would send you to all sorts of interesting webpages; the kinds of information and web spaces I probably would never have encountered before. It made this space of information interesting, interactive and entertaining. Then again, this is also where I found myself frustrated. For example; “click here….I explore….more links on that page…… click…..oooh, interesting….. More links….. Click….. Nice….. Explore……Click….. Click….. Click… and suddenly, two hours have gone by and I’m watching a Miley Cyrus video… wait, what!? I don’t even like Miley Cyrus… How did I land up here? And this is what haunts me about the internet; you start off at one purpose driven place and then, without knowing quite how, you find yourself wandering like Alice through Wonderland. By clicking on one link, you trip and fall into a tunnel, only to end up spiraling through cyberspace finally thinking… How did I land up here? Perhaps it’s just me but I find this happens to me a lot when I enter the web.

Nevertheless, I guess now that I am thinking about it in this way, this is part of what made our Tuesday tutorials so great. The presenter asked a question and our discussions took off in the way surfing the internet takes off by clicking on one link. After 40 or so minutes into our discussion, we land up asking; how did we get talking about this? All in all, I found the Weblog, as a learning tool, interesting. Some people learn through visuals others through auditions and so on. I can’t say that the weblog is an effective way for me to learn, as I prefer old -school printed text but I definitely found the weblog an efficient way to share information.

Do I consider myself a Cyborg? If I consider that real cyborgs are people who make use of cybernetic or mechanical technology to enhance and overcome constraints of the body then I suppose in that way I am cyborg. I cannot survive without my glasses; I rely and depend heavily on them to overcome my constrained eyesight when it comes to reading. I also had braces to fix the alignment of my teeth when I was younger so considering this, by how I use and have used technology to enhance my life then I am Cyborg-ish. As an identity, no. I don’t consider myself a cyborg as I don’t identify myself merged with machine. I identify myself as a modern-day human being who uses tools called technology to assist myself in learning, navigating and developing in this world. Because I can separate myself from the technology, no matter how much I need it, I don’t identify myself as a cyborg. I also don’t think “cyborg” is a category much in the same way that I agree that gender is not categorical. I think “cyborgism” is continuum-like. You may either be more or less. I think I am less. I enjoy my identity as human, in what it means to me. I enjoy my human body and embodiment and I also know that there are others who enjoy their identities as cyborgs. We are all different and not everything is for everyone. I still maintain that the increasing advances in cybernetic technology can enhance life for so many, I just wouldn’t want it to take over and override the raw, fleshy, flawed, volatile, and natural human humanness that I believe defines our species. I don’t believe humans were ever meant to be perfect, hence we are mortal and I think that cybernetic technology is an attempt to perfect our species. It is not for me but I do respect that it is for others.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved the course WOMN2205. It totally out-did my expectations. Not having done a woman studies unit before, I expected to encounter more feminism and feminist theory. I did not expect to encounter weblogs, cybernetics, gaming theories, cyborgs and the exciting yet frightening world of the internet. I sort of expected that we would learn about technology in relation to gender identities a little bit but the ideas I have grappled with in this course were unexpected, especially the ideas about cybernetics and cyborgs. I didn’t know it existed until this course. TRUE STORY. These ideas in particular are the ideas that challenged me the most. They confronted me and forced me to face myself and my identity and to understand myself in relation to these ideas of the post/trans-human. I learnt a lot about myself and in some ways, developed a fresher sense of identity in this unit. To have experienced something like that, learning about myself, being so challenged and so confronted has been the best unexpected experience. I expected this when I enrolled in psychology, and while I learn a lot about human body and behavior in psychology, I’ve never had an experience of embodiment learning like here in WOMN2205. I talk about Self.Net: Identity in the Digital Age often, even to Mum back home in South AfricaJ. Although the issues and ideas presented in this unit were serious, exploring them was more a fun than serious kind of learning and our tute has been my favorite yet. Two thumbs up to this course. Thank –You!

Peacockchic.