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Highlights of Wednesday's orientation
Overheard:
Student 1: So how did you spend your summer?
Student 2: Two words: Tae-bo and crosswords.
I was happy because the dean of the School of Information actually got up and said he didn't know how to describe "Information" to people who ask, either. It brings together all of the groups of people in information professions and acquaints them with the issues related to information while training them for those careers. I am actually quite excited for my mandatory Foundations courses, which everyone in SI has to take. I'm interested in learning more about all of the other specializations (Library and Information Services/Archives and Records Management/Information Economics, Management and Policy) and the way they overlap. The dean says that one of the advantages of SI is that overlapping responsibilities and issues prepare you for ambiguity.
Alrightythen.
So I'm pretty excited about SI in general, even though I can't get into any of the classes I want at this point, but I shall triumph!
srah - Thursday, 28 August 2003 - 8:22 AM
Tags: school of information
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Comments (12)
Mr. Hibbity Gibbity - August 28, 2003 - 9:32 AM - ℓ
"I am actually quite excited for my mandatory Foundations courses, which everyone in SI has to take"
Um . . . doesn't 'mandatory' already denote that . . . everyone has to take it?
Hehe.
srah - August 28, 2003 - 10:16 AM - ℓ
The goal of U-M's program is to familiarize people in one specialization with the other specializations and make them realize the commonalities. That way someone who comes in wanting to do ARM could, potentially, discover they really are more interested in IEMP or that they want to tailor an ARM+HCI degree.
Jez - August 28, 2003 - 10:28 AM - ℓ
Yes, it's Monty Python.
John Cleese plays a theatre critic, Gavin Millarrrrrrrrrr. The sketch is just a brief monologue:
Neville Shunt's latest West End Success, "It all Happened on the 11.20 from Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and Reigate, calling at Carshalton Beeches, Malmesbury, Tooting Bec and Croydon West," is currently appearing at the Limp Theatre, Piccadilly. What Shunt is doing in this, as in his earlier nine plays, is to express the human condition in terms of British Rail.
Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me who talk loudly in restaurants see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanised mansion. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guards van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? Over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same, only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew its sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No, there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.
Cheryl - August 28, 2003 - 8:35 PM - ℓ
I don't really have anything to say but since I haven't commented in a while I thought I would. The Kent Daily Stater, our school "newspaper", sucks like a vaccuum. Seriously, it's written like the Mitchell Talks News, worse than the Ann Arbor News even. The first day I tried to read it, it was awful. So now I just go straight to the crossword, which, by the way, is also written for elementary schoolers, as I could even do quite a bit today. And while I'm not an elementery schooler, I do do crosswords as if I were. UM's puzzle always got harder as the week went on. I was lucky if I got one answer on Wednesday. Also, the answer's are right there. But anyway, there was a whole section on "the arts", which consisted of three articles on movie reviews, all of which started thusly, "The movie (insert title here) is about....". One article went on to describe all the movies that WERE out this summer. Seriously, who cares? Gigli is old news.
Oh yeah, I'll have to start my guest appearence soon. I have to babysit the computer all Monday afternoons, so maybe next week or the week after would be a good time to start, although the computers, despite the non-dial-up network, run slower than my 1998 dial-up model.
Later, gators!
Cheryl
me - August 29, 2003 - 1:29 PM - ℓ
Well, as a former SI student (specialized in HCI) it'll be interesting to read your blog as you move through the system... I've been out for 4 years now and when I was there it was little short of anarchy. I recall one meeting where us HCI students pointed out that it was impossible to fulfill our requirements as SI didn't offer the classes yet... Hope it's better now! Don't worry about meeting people, you'll meet plenty in your group projects. And unless things have really changed, you'll have _lots_ of group projects!!
Mr. B--------- - November 4, 2003 - 8:12 AM - ℓ
The person who spent his summer on tae-bo and crossswords was Scott Martin, of the pumpkin carving party! :)
Ah, messed up chronology is fun.
Sounds fun. You're making me think about the fact that I'll be doing the exact same thing in a year. Only I know that I want Archives and Records Management specifically. :)