Homunculus- The "little man"...

In Chapter 9 of Writing Space, Jay David Bolter, writes about the homunculus:

"The memory becomes a writing space, and the writer a homunculus who looks out at the world through our eyes and records what he sees. The homunculus translates perceptions into words and images and records them; he also puts down his inner thoughts and conclusions" (193-194).

This post will be talking about the homunculus from another perspective. When reading this chapter, I suddenly remembered learning about the homunculus in my Anatomy and Physiology class, so I wanted to do some research and recall the homunculus definition from the science perspective. 


What I do recall prior to any research is the funny picture representation of the sensitivity of different sensory spots of the human body. The image to the right is a large scale version of the somatosensory cortex, which controls most of sense (primarily touch) reactions of the body. 

In his article, "The Senses and Survuval: Using a Sensory Homunculus to Stimulate an Exploration of Adaptation," Paul Elliot notes, "A sensory homunculus is a two-or-three-dimensional reinterpretation of the human body designed to represent the area of the brain's sensory cortex receiving neurological input from different parts of the body's surface." The enlarged portions show more sensitivity to touch because they are "being served by a relatively large area of sensory cortex." (view the full article here)


I remember thinking the homunculus was an interesting concept and a good model for people who are visual learners, like I am. I also remember wondering how in the world we could have so much feeling in our lips and tongue, aside from taste. The homunculus can be startling to look at, but it is a "anatomy for dummies" way of understand the sensory layout of our bodies. 


Works Cited:
Elliot, Paul. "The Senses and Survuval: Using a Sensory Homunculus to Stimulate an Exploration of    Adaptation." Journal of Biological Education 30.1 (1996). Web.

Borgmann and Hayles...

An interesting idea is brought up in "An interview/dialogue with Albert Borgmann and N. Katherine Hayles on humans and machines:" sometimes, people lose their normal moral ground when interacting on cyberspace. When I say normal, I mean the moral set they live their lives by when not on a computer or other technological device, and more specifically not in cyberspace. I believe the inevitable sense of anonymity when communicating with other people via chat rooms, social networking sites, instant messaging, or other media for communication causes the willingness to step out of one's morals. 

Furthermore, according to Borgmann, "...people, when entering cyberspace, sometimes reduce themselves to the shallow, disjointed cliche-ridden persona that can be mimicked by information technology and so become co-conspiritors of their confusion about who is who" (1). People alone at computers can create whatever persona they want, true or false, and present themselves as such to the world. The people receiving their "message" will never truly know the identity of those they are communicating with; thus, anonymity, despite however flamboyant or charismatic the characters are, gives confidence to communicate in ways that people wouldn't do in everyday face-to-face interaction. The problem is, as stated in the quote above, people usually do not become more intelligent, stand out, or appear phenomenal in any way; they conform to be what the audience of cyberspace wants them to be. 

On a side note, I noticed an interesting connection between Hayles comments and the hypotheses of Marshall McLuhan. Hayles mentions, "...part of the intelligence resides in the human, part in a variety of intelligent machines, and part in the interfaces through which they interact" (2). The last part of that construction is what resembles the idea that McLuhan presented in his article, "The Medium is the Message." He writes, "...it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action" (203). Both theorists agree, at least in part, that media play a major role in human communication. 

 

Confidence...

This year I decided to choose one word that I would allow to inspire my life. For 2011, I chose the word confidence.

How I came to decide on one little word:
At the end of last year, I had recently made the decision to change schools-and cities- and move to Lamar University here in Beaumont. I am from a suburb of Houston, and at the time, I had never lived anywhere else but home. In December of 2010, I stumbled across my friend Angela Moore's blog, and read about how she had been chooing a word each year for a couple years.


In a time of change, I thought out what word would inspire me to be a better person, to accomplish more than I thought I could, and to be brave in my new adventure of moving away from home. After surprisingly not much consideration, I picked the word confidence.

How the word I chose has impacted my life:
As I look back on this past year, I am in awe of how often confidence played a part in my life. It truly did inspire me.


January 2011- In January, I moved into my dorm and began a new season of my life. I knew not a single person on campus and knew that I would have to step out of my comfort zone and make friends. This would absolutely require confidence. I quickly joined a soroity and became involved in the Baptist Student Ministry, in which I made more friends than I thought I needed!


February 2011- I prayed about going on a mission trip. I felt God leading me to Ethiopia. I had never been to Africa, I had never had to fundraise for a mission trip, and I had never been in an evangalistic situation before. All three were very new, and I needed confidence. I needed confidence from the Lord if I was going to step up and travel to Africa. 


March 2011- I humbly asked friends and family to support my mission trip. It was uncomfortable, but the Lord was giving me peace and continued to make me confident in my decision to be a missionary in Africa.


May 2011- My mother and I left for Africa on May 15 and returned home on May 26. To this day, I can not believe I was given the opportunity to go and make a difference in the lives of the people I met. 


June 2011- I accepted the position of Fundrasing Chair for Zeta Tau Alpha. I was newly initated, had never had a leadership role in the soroity before, and I knew very little of the position requirements; however, my chapter trusted me, and I once again found the confidence necessary to fulfill the position.


August 2011- In addition to being Fundraising Chair for Zeta Tau Alpha, I also started the fall semester as the Student Mission Leader for the Baptist Student Ministry.


October 2011- On October 15, Zeta Tau Alpha's 1st Annual Ultimate Frisbee Tournament took place. I spent time and energy and exhibited confidence as I planned and organized the entire event.

I know there is still a month left of this year, and I expect that I will be surprised at least one more time at the success of choosing confidence this year.

New Member Retreat...

BEFORE:


This coming weekend is New Member Retreat for my sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha. Each semester, we all go to one location; last semester's location was a beach house on Crystal Beach, and this semester we are going to one of my sister's house in Baytown.


While there, we will participate in different rituals special to our sorority. In addition, we will go to dinner together- and let me just say that going to dinner with forty people can be interesting! On the second day, we will help with a service project, and hopefully all of the new members will have the opportunity to find out who their big sister is! This week, the new members receive one basket of ZTA themed gifts each day. By Saturday, they are dying to know who has given them all of the gifts. I am a big sister this semester, and I cannot wait for my "little" to find out who I am!


New Member Retreat is my favorite event during the semester. It is a weekend full of bonding, laughter, fun, and ritual. At this time in the semester, things can be stressful. This retreat is an escape from the stress.


AFTER:


After three days straight with my sorority sisters, I can honestly day I am relieved to be home. I had so much fun! I just need a break from all of the estrogen! 


On Friday, we ate at Rooster's in Baytown, then had a bonding exercise followed by a ritual. Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early, 7:30am, to get my little's crate ready for her. The crate is the final gift that contains the biggest essentials for any ZTA. It includes the lavallière, the letter shirt, matching PJ's, a piggy bank, and a family item. 

Later that day, we started tournament games. My team ended up losing, but we had a good time nonetheless. Finally, at around 5pm, it was time for the littles to find out who their bigs were. I was nervous from anticipation, but my little was so happy that it was me! 

We ended the day by eating dinner at El Toro's in Baytown and then getting into our matching PJ's. It was a great weekend, and a perfect escape from the stresses of school. 

Technoliteracy Memoir in Retrospect...

Last month, we had the opportunity to present our technoliteracy projects in class. I was excited to show the class what I had been working on for so long. The whole project started with a simple idea, and I somehow pulled it off.

The ability to start with an idea and have the opportunity to develop it, I feel, is the biggest blessing in college. Of course, the creation of the idea is prompted by some assignment or class requirement. However, if all else fails, college does just that. It forces students to think, to create, to come up with ideas, and to determine how to make ideas become reality.


In this class, Multimedia Writing, I was given the assignment of making a technoliteracy memoir. For this assignment, I was to reflect on my life and see what different technologies have influenced my literacy. I thought about the medium I wanted to use to present the project. At that point, we had just started learning about Wikis and Blogs. I have, and always have had, a desire to go above and beyond. Maybe it is my competitive nature, maybe it is my self-criticism in everything I do. I am not sure. The point is, I did not want to just stick to basic options for presentation.


I thought back to earlier in the semester when we saw a YouTube video using screencasting. This was the birth of my idea. I was going to figure out how to use a software I had never even heard of before seeing that video, and I was going to figure out how to include all different media in my project. Had I never signed up for this class, I could have never been prompted to learn this software and work toward making a screencast video. I would have never had the opportunity to see my idea become reality.


After about a month of near daily work on the project, I created a screencast video including Microsoft Word, Wikispaces, Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, Photoshop Elements, Blogger, and YouTube. I worked hard to learn all of the different workings within the program.

I am grateful for college, and for the opportunity to be a creator, to take an idea and see it become realilty.

Off the Shelf of my Personal Library...

During the semester, I am not able to read as many books on my own time as I would like. My time is spent working on papers, reading textbooks or supplemental reading, working at The Writing Center, or spending my free time as far from the written language as possible. Don't get me wrong, I am studying what I love, but it unfortunately does not leave much motivation or time for novels. When I feel I have enough time to truly dedicate myself to a book, and won't feel torn between studying and reading, I will pick up a good book. 

This semster got off to a pretty easy start, so I decided to sneak in a good read while I had the chance. After asking around for which book would be most worth my time, I decided upon Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers. It was an undertaking. I asked myself, Is a 450 page book really a possibility right now? I just knew, though, that it could be the last opportunity until Christmas break! So I delved right in, back to the comfortable haven of imagination and endless possibility that is fiction.

Redeeming Love is a retelling of sorts of the Book of Hosea in the Old Testement. In Hosea, God demontrates his love and commitment of covanency with Isreal. God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute, named Gomer, who keeps running away from him. Each time, Hosea goes back to save her, just as God will never forsake Isreal.

Rivers turned this Book of the Bible into a novel with Michael Hosea as Hosea, and Sarah/Angel as Gomer. Rivers fully developed the characters and added- an obviously large amount- of dialogue in contrast with the book of Hosea. Character development and dialogue are both foundational aspects of fiction, which Rivers hit out of the park.

On another note, she beautifully captured other themes in this story. Aside from Michael's absolute commitment to Angel rooted in his likewise absolute devotion to the Lord, Rivers hints about the effects of (even the contemplation of) abortion, demonstrates the difference between being controlled and respectfully submitting to your husband, and how easy it is to idolize another person or object more than God. This novel was uplifting, though sometimes sad; insightful, though sometimes convicting; and an overall great read.

I am glad that I chose to read Redeeming Love, despite the seemingly endless other titles left gathering dust on the shelves of my personal library. I am hoping to surprise myself and share my review of other novels I am able to sneak off the shelf and enjoy this semester.

For further review of this novel, look HERE.