I've been curious, waiting literally for months now, to see what Laura would write about us... about our weblogging community. Ever since she told me, back when I was still in Berkeley last fall, that she wanted to do a paper on what we're doing here, I've been intrigued, waiting patiently for the end of the semester. Well, that finally came last week, Laura finished her essay/paper in a frenzied few days of work as you can tell from her weblog (::chuckle::), and she posted it there yesterday, to which I've also linked, above.

Laura's essay is a beautiful example of what someone with a keen sense of observation, a genuinely caring attitude, and highly polished writing and thinking skills, can do. More pithily said: it rocks! And it rocks for the simple reason that Laura has accurately characterized what it is we have been doing here, and put it in writing that is sensitive, witty, and easy to understand (unlike many a graduate level paper, which puts obscurity at a high premium *snort*). Laura's essay is a valuable document of what we have done here over the last half year, and I can't thank her enough for having had the initiative, the vision, and for simply taking the time to observe... and to articulate what she saw.

Last semester (after I had already left Berkeley for Maui), Laura had her professor and classmates come over to my office from their classroom one afternoon, which I guess was when she shared with her class what her term paper was going to be about. As Laura described the scene to me later on, via AIM, they clustered around my G4 Mac workstation, looking at weblogs, and one of her classmates asked: "Uhm, how does he get to do this? Does he have a grant?" Which broke me up completely... I couldn't stop laughing! If I were there and had been asked the question myself, I'd probably have said... "Well, yeah dude... I granted myself the permission to do this." or something stupid and simple like that. ;-) Which, actually, does get to the heart of the matter.

Because it all flows, in the end, from my avocation as a mentor. I make a choice to mentor someone, and they in turn choose to be mentored. And it's not like either mentor or mentee has to do this; if it feels like the right thing to do, then it's done. If it feels like trust is there, the relationship proceeds. Somehow, it's always just worked out for me like that; and I think it has because of my simple belief that it's the right thing for me to do. As far as what all that has to do with this weblogging community of ours, well, Laura says it best:

The trusting relationships that Lloyd has built with students offer a challenge to the widespread belief that teachers and students cannot be friends. In this particular situation that de-emphasizes the power relationship between adults and teens, a personal connection encourages rather than interferes with learning. Where students trust, they can reveal more of themselves, and engage publicly with the issues that matter to them most.

And so it is. You have indeed revealed and shared a lot of yourselves via this very public medium, over this relatively short period of time, and perhaps you should now ask yourself exactly why that has happened, and find an answer that fits you. Laura's 'answers,' her analysis, fit me just fine. But that's me, and my view of the world. And I'm sure you have your own reasons, perhaps not articulated at all in either Laura's essay or in various weblogs I've written about this weblogging 'project' of ours. I welcome you, as always, to speak your own mind and express your thoughts about this topic in your own weblog. In our collective space, no one has the last word: the heart of it is, after all, your own weblog, your thoughts, your writing... your choice to share the important things that illuminate your life from one linked day, to the next.

[ photo note:
one afternoon last fall, my colleagues Carrie and Laura asked to borrow my digital camera. a short while later, i heard giggling down the hallway, at the storage room. when my friends had come back from 'inspecting' the clothes and stuff that ATDP kids always leave behind every summer (mostly Elementary Division kids), they had this picture of Laura in a borrowed, teensy pink tutu, to show me. i haven't had the chance to post it and embarrass Laura, until now. LOL. note her shoes, blithely discarded on the floor nearby. (you'll have to click on the pick above to see the whole scene.) she and Carrie were really into the girly dressing-up stuff, eh? *chuckle* ]

11 a.m. update

I wrote the above last night, shortly after midnight (i.e., as soon as the FLIP button appeared, haha), as I was eager to write about Laura's tres cool paper. Anyway, prior to that, I was just badgering the usual suspects online via AIM to go read it.

Now, it's late morning, and I've been doing something rather unusual: talking online to students (Trev, Ozzie) whose school term ended last week; mostly San Francisco kids... East Bay kids like Kass and Quad and Spark and Bigi are still stuck in school, the poor things. ;-) Anyway, here are some very recent weblogs (actually all written yesterday, the 17th) that make for wonderful reading, as well as the usual enlightening bulb-flickering-on-inside-head moment:

• Boy, Trev, you sure make up for the spaces in between your occasional weblog entries! Read up here, you guys, for Trev's Friday rock concert review (Green Day, Papa Roach and others), Saturday knife fight and maniac, homicidal peacocks at the zoo, and Sunday witnessing of the last game of a living legend, JR Flash 80 of the 49ers. (Wonder how Anna felt about that. Jerry Rice looks so old on that picture on Trev'slog, man!)

• Bigi is making a habit (a poignant, even haunting one), of sharp, scathingly honest observations about his life and his family, particularly how things are with him and his parents. Keep up the writing, kid, it is definitely making an impact.

• Find out from Alejo how to deal with ritual public humiliation and embarrassment. Not a very easy thing to handle, I'm sure, but which this young person seems to do with great aplomb and the necessary sense of humour.

• Check out this rarity: images on Kass' weblog! If anyone's weblog hews more closely to my own weblog motto ("text rules") it is definitely Kass' heheh. So, when pictures appear on hers, it's a phenomenon. Anyway, the ones she posts are Xmas presents to her from her wonderful friends. You hafta click on them to see the enlarged versions. Definitely worth it.

• I was peppering Ozzie with random questions the other night on AIM, and for some reason it jump-started his own weblogging juices. So he wrote about his new iMac, and talks some more (naturally) about his astonishing toy collection (and apparently limitless penchant for them), and also about being a boy soprano. That last part I liked best. Tee-hee.

• Give me Candace as a movie reviewer any time, particularly since it was so memorable that time when she sided with me against our dear friend and colleague Edan in bashing the truly execrable Eyes Wide Shut, the great Stanley Kubrick's last film. In her weblog, she zings What Women Want, which I found loathsome just from the previews, but more importantly, she puts her finger on the real reason Charlie Brown is a genuine icon for the ages. (Yes, CP, I sho ain't wasting my shillings on that trifling bauble of a flick.)

• Finally, last but certainly not least, Chris' wonderfully evocative Bay Area pastorale. It made me want to be there at the Frontage Road by the Marina, dude. Such images as you painted in text are fixed in my mind's eye... lovingly burned there by 15 years of having lived in Berkeley, eternally looking across the Bay at that jewel of a city. Chris' conclusion is worth pondering deeply, you young ones. I reprise it here for convenience and underlining, but you should go to his weblog to read the whole thing:

  Dear reader, I hope it's not presumptuous of me to say that I wish nothing more for you than this same kind of simple, not quite namable essence. This is a feeling I can only call happiness, which is not a label, but a lucky fleeting recognition. Find your own, take it, and hold it as a brief glimpse of a moment in which you feel a rightness and complete certainty. Reserve this short yet powerful happiness to recall during those other much longer moments of trial and uncertainty. I will try to, knowing it's not always easy.

{ net.casting }
^