Why I love/hate our New Media class.

We interrupt my regularly scheduled blog to bring you this news flash. The opinions of the author expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the class instructor, the McKay School of Education, BYU, or any other student in the class.

heh. First let me make one thing perfectly clear: the title of this post has nothing to do with the individual members that make up the class, but rather with its content. No. It's not really the content but rather the format/presentation. No. It's not that either. No, no, no! What I really love/hate is not the content or the presentation or the method or the media (grin) -- it's how my involvement with the class is affecting me and my life.

You see I LOVE it when my perspectives are widened, when things I had never considered or experienced before illuminate new discoveries or things that at one time seemed "all figured out" in my mind. It's kind of like when you move a particular piece of furniture either because you realized that it had been bugging you where it was, or because you had a brilliant idea so you just had to try moving it somewhere else, but that lead you to move something else somewhere else and so on and so on, so that before you know it, the whole room is rearranged, and you wonder why you hadn't used that arrangement at first.

And then your family walks in and says: "Whoa! You must have had extra time on your hands today." And your response is: "Extra time? The concept is completely foreign to me and NO! now that I've rearranged this room I have even LESS time, so I wish I had never started!" Except you know that's not really true and you're glad you did it, but you are wondering how you are ever going to explain why that was more important than say, fixing dinner? .... for a week.

The point is: I love all the new thoughts and perspectives I'm having, considering, rearranging, pondering, debating, trying out, etc. I love all the interesting things that I read, research, connect to something else, which connects to another great resource, which gels two previously disparate things together, which generates other ideas to research, ...etc. I love it when I feel like "UH-OH! The thought tsunami is upon me, and I'm just going to let go and enjoy the ride!"

But I hate how I know that I'll never be able to document the experience adequately, so I just take a big breath, hope I come up often enough to gulp for air, and then wish I could remember all of what I REALLY experienced after the ride is over and I am sitting in a puddle of a few remaining thoughts that are quickly evaporating! I especially hate it when there was something REALLY big that I noticed in the flotsam, but can't now quite recall what it was. But I guess it doesn't REALLY matter if I can get it all down -- or have TIME to get it all down in words because the experience changed me, and that's the important part. It moved me to a different "line" (to understand what that means, I need to SHARE one of my favorite devotional addresses.)

The biggest problem is that there's another task-oriented side of me that complains: "Hey!! Yeah--YOU! Are you ever going to get anything DONE! This turbulence is fun I know -- but progress is the name of the game, and instead of posting more entries of all your great new ideas you're posting fewer! Now get on the stick! Check it off your list! Move on to something else, you DO have other classes you know! (And I'm NOT talking about web-analytics - you're spending too much time on that as well!)" And I hate it, but that task-oriented side has a very valid point!

So for all of you 'out there' whose preparations, comments, opinions and questions help generate those inner tsunamis all I can say is: "Thanks. I really appreciate that. It's just what I needed." And you can take that however you'd like!

P.S. Just in case you were wondering, the main living area of my house has not been re-arranged since we moved in nine years ago. And I have fixed dinner this week!