Net Lifer.
I’ve been learning a lot about the cultural anthropology of the internet lately, specifically youtube.com, from Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. I think one of the reasons why I’m so interested in the internet is that I’m totally a ‘net kid.
In 1995, in grade 5, at 10 years old, I was ushered into my mom’s office at the London Public Library, and she put me in front of a computer and showed me http://www.yahoo.com. From there, I spent 3 hours surfing the web, sucking up the information about X-men, Reboot, and various cartoons. Soon afterwards, we got our hook-up and I was surfing the web and sucking as much info as possible on what little time I had on the system.
Fast-forward into Highschool, 2000-2001. I’ve become a master of Napster (before I realized it was wrong), ICQ, and MSN messenger. Geocities is still going fairly strong and I finally make my own website. My website is all about the culture and slang of my highschool. Boom. It’s a hit. It eventually died off, and I’ve tried to find it every since. It’s probably been archived somewhere…
At this point, I’m probably clocking in 3 hours a night on the internet to some capacity.
2004-2008. I’m part of, (and, I believe integral to) an online community that began on a band’s site, and eventually became a whole autonomous internet community. Awesome. But sadly, defunct. At the peak of this time, I’m connected to the internet upwards of 12-13 hours a day.
I say this because the most of my life has been spent connected to the internet. How has this affected my life vs. people even 5 years older than me, and what about the kids 5 years younger than me? What is it like for them?
We live in an increasingly digital society, and we need to understand how this will change communication and culture in (mostly) Western Society. Can people connect at a deep, meaningful level, solely through the internet? How will this affect the learning styles of children as we move from taxonomies (categorizing everything – think old yahoo) to folksonomies (tagging everything, think youtube, amazon, del.icio.us)? What is the effect of no-effort knowledge?
I’ve asked a lot of questions: Questions I hope to answer at some point here. I need to know answers to these, because I think my future may lie within those very questions
I’m going to leave you with this video by Michael Wesch, The Machine is Us/ing Us:
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 17, 2008 at 12:00 am, filed under Internet, Life and tagged Internet, Life, mwesch. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Changing the World.
Have you ever seen that movie, Pay It Forward? Despite what you personally feel about it, the idea that a kid could change the world through a simple concept like ‘paying it foward’ has always stuck with me. I’ve always wanted to change the world, to do something big. I’m told this is because I’m an ideas kind of guy, and ideas people get ideas of grandeur.
The problem is that I know too many other, successful ideas people. Somehow I’ve been blessed (and cursed) to get to know some very active people my age(ish), all of whom have done substantial things in life. I feel as though I have not.
Now, many know I’m the Student Council President of Tyndale University College, and that is a big deal, (and often I’m blown away with the responsibility with which I have to come to grips) but sometimes it feels so temporary and insular. 1 year of making sure students are doing ok academically, socially, and (hopefully) spiritually. When put that way, I sound really ungrateful, don’t I?
Yeesh, I guess that constant talk of ‘going to big someday’ has gotten to my head and granted me pride to think I’m important enough to supercede where I am today. I guess I should get back to work on the here and now and take care of things that matter. Like these students.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on October 16, 2008 at 10:53 am, filed under Life and tagged Life, pride, Will Kinchlea. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
My Lady Friend
Parting from the talk of spiritual discipline, I thought I’d talk about something that is much more pressing to me right now. What is more pressing than my own spiritual discipline? Well, my wedding, of course.
For the long-time readers of the blog, they may remember that for a time, I wrote a weekly column I called The Life of the Single Christian Male. It was centered around being a young man who was discovering the joys (and hardships) of being ok with being single.
Well, that ended a year ago last October(ish). I met a girl who was completely unlike me: mischievous, sly, super goal-oriented, and well-planned. And hot. Way hot. I fell in love. Now we’re getting married.
We’ve been talking a lot about the future (as we should), mostly career/vocation-wise (though twins runs a fair bit in both family streams it seems – yikes), and I’m pretty sure we’ve decided on the ‘taking turns’ style of life-sharing. In the coming two years, we finish our (her) schooling. After that, we’re going to do something cool, like work in an orphanage in Africa, if possible. Then, most likely, I’ll do a Master’s and get to work in a school somewhere so Christine can do what she wants, which at that point may be kids. Not sure yet. Luckily, we’re pretty fluid.
From time to time, I’ll be referring to the Lady Friend/Wife/Girl/Her Royal Hotness in reflective posts about life, and I’m debating maybe even starting the Life of the Married Christian Male, if she lets me talk about that kind of stuff. Point is, I felt that I should introduce this part of my life to the readers who don’t me personally.
This is Christine, and I love her.
WK
This entry was written by , posted on May 14, 2008 at 9:10 pm, filed under Blog, Life and tagged Blog, Life, Love, Marriage, Will Kinchlea. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
The longest day.
For those few who don’t know, I’m going to be Student Council President of my University College for the next scholastic year.Today, the former President and VPs, my VP’s and I interviewed 10 people for various positions on council, from Student Activities Coordinator, to Worship Coordinator to Secretary/Treasurer.
I woke up at 7am.We began at 8:30 and went on through, with minor breaks, until 2:45.
At this point, I worked for an hour, went to class, had another interview, had a quick bite to eat and then off to work on a paper. I’ll probably be done around 2-3am, tonight [EDIT: make that 4am].
Yay for being the new president!
-WK
This entry was written by , posted on April 1, 2008 at 3:15 am, filed under Life and tagged Life, Student Council, Tyndale, Will Kinchlea. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
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