liminality

Back in the days of my wild 20s, as an undergrad at Berkeley, Halloween was always a time for liminality. This word refers to the threshold of a physiological or psychological response -- i.e., the point at which things in the subconscious emerge to the conscious plane. You've most likely heard of the term "subliminal" and know what it means; but less likely you've met "liminal" before. [Political anti-plug insert: btw, George W. Bush pronounces it "subliminable." my confidence in America will definitely plunge if the electorate chooses to put this dim bulb in office. lol] Anyway, my college roomie Phil Chang, a neurobiology major, was a master of liminality... of making the less explored parts of the human psyche, of making the aspects of the human mind and brain that are typically unrevealed, be out and clear in the open. Read into this what you will, but be careful to not extrapolate so wildly into my own actual experience. ::chuckle:: But basically, what this all really means is that the Halloween 'events' Phil organized were occasions for intriguing forays into certain less explored byways of individual and social intercourse. So. What sort of parties are you attending tonight, anyway? Or is trick-or-treatin' still the staple? ;-)

As for me, no parties... I'm stuck in Tolman Hall, laboring mightily in the ATDP salt mines, finishing what I can of the brochure for Summer 2001, before I leave this Saturday. And writing last-minute early-admit college recs for certain individuals (that is, if they get their acts together and contact me about it! lol). For those of you juniors who will be in the same boat at this time next year, a friendly word of advice: please don't wait until the very end to send me the necessary info regarding college recommendation letters. It's to your advantage to do so in a timely manner; and of course, the more time I have to do these letters with, the more thorough and convincing they'll be.

Bigi asks an excellent question on his weblog... and boy, do I have a LOT of answers for you, dude. I'll just list them for now as, in a way, this entire weblogging exercise -- from when I started mine (May 26) -- is one long extended narrative answering your question. Eventually, each of these items can (and will, or has been) be a weblog entry of its own...

i love to write
i want to encourage young people to write
i love reading the stories young people write; and sometimes, what they write is a result of something someone talks about in this weblogging community
i want young people to read more, and wish to share my love of literature with them; writing about reading and books, and sharing it via this medium, is a good a way of reaching a broader audience as there is
i want to keep in touch with my students and mentees, and our weblogging is a reciprocal way of doing so
relatedly, i weblog because this has been the first successful way that the TIC/AIC community has really been able to persist, beyond the 6 weeks of summer; even better, the ripples it has generated is mighty encouraging
i like taking digital pictures, and sharing the good ones, and constructing text scaffoldings around the images
i like seeing the pictures kids take. a good example: my subtle knife weblog, in which all the pictures were taken by Trev... yes, that was a very subtle knife in and of itself, which no one probably got. ^_^

Other responses to Bigi's question, so far:

Sep Nov

{ net.casting }
^