Knobs & Hangers

New semester, new challenges. But contrary to the smaller kitchen issues (knobs and such) I told you about in last post, the challenges at the university are of another caliber. Although, on the other hand I could use the knobs and hangers as a metaphor, especially in the class I'm following now. Yesterday we had just a simple introduction, by both lecturers. Silje told a little of her part of the course, which is the one about games. First though, before we dig into games and violence in March, we're supposed to acquire a more general knowledge of the field, and this part of the course we'll be lead by Daniel Apollon. Much can be said about him, but I kinda like his approach to science, knowledge and research. Extremely vivid thinking, and open to alternatives. He certainly has plenty of knobs and hangers in his mind, and apparently they all seem to be connected somehow.

The challenge now is, as Apollon also pointed out, to not only write about a topic of interest, but also take some sort of stand. At master level they expect us to be far more autonomous, expressing our thoughts more clearly. My "problem" is that I so easily can see things from different angles, and sometimes I even tend to agree with almost anyone as long as they can argue for it. Or at least make me believe they can. My work now is to see beyond that, trying to oppose whatever is being said, and test out hypothesizes. That's probably one of the reasons the course is planned the way it is, and by planning Apollon means no plan at all. Or hardly. But don't misunderstand - this is a good thing. He's starting us off by giving words, expressions and questions, and we're encouraged to take part in discussions. Like today, we spent an hour playing with a definition of technology. An hour isn't much; I guess even a lifetime wouldn't be enough. And this little word is then only one third of the whole expression we're dealing with. So complex, so challenging. ICT - Information and Communication Technology... Can you define it?

PS. Just a funny observation: I'm not sure if everyone that's supposed to was there today, but we counted 9 students, consisting of two Swedes, two Frenchmen (and there was another Frenchman as well, namely the lecturer himself), two Italians, one German, one Japanese and one Hong Kong-Chinese! But actually, I think this only will make it more interesting, with such different backgrounds as well.