30 Minute Vacation

The perfect weather is the only thing that can make the courtyard of the international center even better than it already is.  I was so glad that I chose this place to relax and take a much needed break.  As I sat there it was like being transported somewhere else.  I love the way the breeze flows through that area just a little stronger than anywhere else.  When I closed my eyes I could pretend that the streams of water falling through the fountain were waves coming to shore.  The voices of students sitting around enjoying an outdoor dinner on this beautiful evening turned into the sounds of people laughing on the beach.  Perhaps I'm just a little too ready for summer.

Nevertheless, it was nice to take a chance to appreciate the beauty of this campus.  Before I was student here, I used to come visit campus and just gaze in wonder at how perfect everything looked.  Now that I'm nearing the end of my first year here, I don't often look at campus in this light anymore.  I've gotten used to it.  Maybe I'm just too distracted by all of the other things I have to do.  I'm glad I got to stop and enjoy it again the way I would have a year ago.  It's good to be here.

I think that is what makes this world far more real than any online space ever could be.  I could never get the feeling of peace or the overall sense of contentment that I get from relaxing outside on a beautiful day from an online space.  Staring into a screen will never free my mind the way that the natural world does.  This world is what is natural to us.  Online space is a construct.  What we call the "real world" is real because it's the first thing that any human knows.  For all of its faults, it is the most pure.  It's the most true.  It will always be the place that we return to.  It is real simply because we know it to be real.  We accept its reality as a basic part of our lives.  I don't think an online space could ever offer us the same authenticity.  No matter how complex or immersive online spaces become, they can, at best, only mimic the natural world.  We will always know in our minds, I least I hope we will always know, that online spaces are a human created construct.  An imperfect alternative to the natural world.

In terms of the class, I enjoyed the first sections of the course the most.  Learning about the history of communications industries, talking about the ways in which we interact with technology and how it shapes our lives was very interesting.  I think those are the types of concepts and discussions that are helpful to understanding the technological world in which we live.  I found the later material on artificial intelligence and virtual worlds less interesting.  While it was good to include in the course, I felt that we focused on it too much.  Sometimes I felt like the later parts of the course became very abstract and speculative.  As someone who came into the class with little knowledge of technology other than the what I use in my everyday experience, these later concepts became difficult to grasp.  While they definitely challenged a lot of what the class accepts about the world and our use of technology (and for this purpose I thought they were useful), I just wish we had spent more time talking about concrete uses and effects of technology.  I'm really glad we had to blog for this course.  I'd never done it before and I think it's one of the best skills that I'll take away from the course.