Category: technology
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The Lingering Feeling of Virtual Worlds
A Brave New World of Images Recently, I did a virtual reality experience about the Titanic. It included: Perhaps you know me by now, but I approach these things the way I would an art exhibit. I am fascinated by the way technology affects us- emotionally, physically, and psychologically. And this Titanic experience reminded me of the all-too-real… Read more
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Book #50- Reflections on “A Christmas Carol”
Book #50 A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens Pop Culture Has Infiltrated My Mind I had never read A Christmas Carol before, so my knowledge of this story came entirely from secondhand references- mostly pop culture parodies. This is unusual for me. I am the type who prefers to read the book before engaging in any of… Read more
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The Awkward Ethics of Creating Online
Am I a Contradiction? I was quite critical toward influencer culture in my latest post regarding the fictional novel People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd. The book follows an influencer mother who shapes her life, and the lives of those around her, for the sake of content. It is a timely and unsettling read. I discussed the… Read more
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Book #47- Reflections on “People Like Her”
Book #47 People Like Her: A Novel By Ellery Lloyd A Modern Thriller I usually don’t like thrillers, I figure life is scary enough. But this fictional novel caught my attention as a conversation starter for the ethics and dangers of our modern online world. And I couldn’t put it down. It is definitely twisted,… Read more
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Book #44- Reflections on “Algospeak”
Book #44 Algospeak By Adam Aleksic Comparing Old & New Language The latest three books in my Book Reading Challenge have been: Despite their age, I was struck by how relevant each of these books are. They aren’t just outdated classics, but rather timeless mirrors of the human condition- something that remains very much alive… Read more
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Book #43- Reflections on “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”
Book #43 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde By Robert Louis Stevenson Last week I read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and was surprised by how relevant its themes are to our modern world. This week, for Halloween, I picked up The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and it feels jarringly applicable… Read more
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What Shakespeare Understood About the Power & Peril of Imagination
What a Lunatic, Lover, and Poet Have in Common “The lunatic, the lover, and the poetAre of imagination all compact.”1 -Theseus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream This famous line from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream means that lunatics, lovers, and poets are each entirely full of imagination. They don’t see the world as it objectively is, but rather… Read more
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Book #42- Reflections on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
Book #42 A Midsummer Night’s Dream By William Shakespeare The Enduring Value of Words This year, I have devoted countless hours to exploring other people’s written words during my 52-Book Reading Challenge, while also giving space to my own through my blogging journey. This experience has renewed my appreciation for the power of language. There… Read more
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Book #39- Reflections on “How to Give Up Plastic”
Book #39 How to Give Up Plastic By Will McCallum A Fortuitous Find I had never heard of How to Give Up Plastic by Will McCallum until I came upon it 40% off in a bookshop. The arresting title and cover caught my attention, so I decided to give it a read. I am really happy that… Read more
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An Anecdote About Social Trends
Changing Relationship Dynamics in Graduate Housing When I did my master’s degree in 2015, I lived in an international residence with 175 other graduate students. In theory, it should have been a wonderful experience. But it wasn’t. There were many strange and dark moments during my time there. A decade later, I was talking to… Read more
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The Role of Technology in Education
What is the Role of Technology in Education? In the future, will technology act as a supplement or a replacement to the way we teach? The needs of modern students are shifting and so are my views about what education should look like. Fiction, AI-driven apps, and my own experiences with formal schooling and self-directed… Read more
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The Inner Logic of Video Games
I have mused lately about the importance of the inner logic of fictional stories. By inner logic, I mean the rules a fictional world sets for itself- both the way its characters behave and the way its world functions. This inner logic grounds fantasy with a sense of realism. It is what makes fictional worlds “make… Read more
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Book #33- Reflections on “Ready Player One”
Book #33 Ready Player One By Ernest Cline This book takes place in a dystopian future where personal and collective problems can be ignored by plugging into the OASIS: a virtual reality universe where you can interact with users from all over the world. It has its own timezone, its own currency- which is more… Read more
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Feeling Helpless Toward Technology & Human Behavior
Feeling Helpless In the book The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh, the protagonist laments about standing alone while having to “hold back the tide”. By saying this, she is referring to a few different things. In this mythological retelling, she sacrifices herself to the Sea God who has been ravishing her village. So… Read more
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Book #30- Reflections on “The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea”
Book #30 The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea By Axie Oh Fictional Stories Across Cultures & Time I really enjoy books on fiction and myth from different cultures. It tells you a lot about that culture: its values, symbols, history, tradition, and worldview. I have been thinking a lot lately about the stories that… Read more
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The Beauty Around Me: What I Noticed When I Finally Looked Up
Noticing the Beauty Around Me I am trying to be a happier person these days- more appreciative and less pessimistic. So I am intentionally putting effort into noticing the beauty of the world around me. A few days ago, I was at the park. I was by myself and laid down a blanket under the… Read more
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Learning to Rest: Slowing Down in a Productivity-Obsessed World
Relearning Rest How many hours of the day are you at ease? Not just not working– but at peace. Calm. Present. Happy to stay in that moment, without a sense of frenzy or urgency. I am never like that. Well, when I am, it is so shocking that I notice it right away. Being at ease… Read more
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What I Gained When I Gave Up News, Social Media, and Sugar Before Bed
The Rules That Helped Me Heal After a painful trip to the emergency room for gastritis and reading Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, I have been looking to reshape my life. I gave myself a few new rules, each designed to manage stress: The Impact of These Practical & Emotional Rules The worst part is these… Read more
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Believing the Fantasy: Why Realism Still Matters in a CGI World
The Use of Practical & Digital Effects in Film The Lord of the Rings movies are some of the greatest movie masterpieces of all time. The movies were shot at the turn of the 21st century, and relied heavily on practical effects such as using location miniatures, meticulous attention to detail on costumes, body doubles, and forced… Read more
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A Prescription of Chirping Birds
An Unexpected ER Visit A few nights ago, I had to take a little trip to the emergency room. I was vomiting profusely and in a lot of pain. The good news is that it wasn’t anything life threatening; only gastritis (an irritation of the stomach lining). While I was back home recovering, I fell… Read more
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How Images Shape Us: From Paintings to Deepfakes
Our Emotional Relationship to Technology I am constantly trying to assess and reassess my emotional relationship to technology. Looking at our emotional relationship to technology, I believe, will be a lot like us assessing our emotional relationship to art. This is just the next manifestation of it. I think “our emotional relation to images” will… Read more
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A New Appreciation For Language
Analytical Writing My degrees are in STEM so my language tends to be rather artificial and scientific. It is succinct; not flowery in any way. It is descriptive only when necessary, never just for the sake of it. It is calculated; a science, rather than an art. And in my personal life, my language (especially… Read more
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I Know You Better Than You Know Yourself
Do Others Know Me Best? During my year of self-improvement, I am reassessing the relationships in my life. In doing so, I have noticed a certain kind of person who says statements along the lines of: “I know you better than you know yourself”. I never really thought about how violating this phrase is. I… Read more
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Who Has the Right to Tell a Story?
The Ethics of Telling Your Story Online I recently told my sister about my blog. She had been mildly curious over what I was doing each day when I went to the library to read or write blog posts; so I told her about it. It was a bit awkward since some of the things… Read more
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Leaving Busyness Behind to Find Peace in Nature
I Am Playing a Dangerous But Lovely Game As I write this, I am in the middle of the woods. I am only about a mile or two from the nearest building but that seems perilously far because it has been raining on and off and I am out here with all of my devices… Read more
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Book #20- Reflections on “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”
Book #20 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck By Mark Manson Good Recommendation, Ms. Funnily enough, this book was recommended to me by a very spiritual, church-loving senior citizen. That intrigued me. If the language wasn’t enough to scare her off, then maybe there is something to it. Even after getting just a… Read more
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Excessive Test-Taking Creates Academic People Pleasers
How Schools Train, not Teach Students My theory is that the current method of test-taking and applying for universities trains students to be educational and workplace people pleasers. They try to do what the teacher, university, or their boss wants, in order to be “successful”. To be fair, from all my years of education I… Read more
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The Pressure on Modern Students
A High Achiever’s Burnout Story In my latest post, I discussed I Was Told It Would Get Easier by Abbi Waxman and the limitations of the metrics used when measuring student potential and success. This for me is a very personal issue and is connected to something much larger: the pressure we put on modern… Read more
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Book #19- Reflections on “I Was Told It Would Get Easier”
Book #19 I Was Told It Would Get Easier By Abbi Waxman The Problem With Measuring People With Metrics Books with cartoon covers always throw me off. I expect them to be simple and childish and they will sometimes be deeply thoughtful. This book follows a fictional mother and daughter as they tour college campuses… Read more
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Competing With a Ghost
The Picture of Others in Our Mind In the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, he talks about how he often felt compared to the idea of his older brother Richieu, who died as a child during World War 2. Richieu was later idealized in his parent’s mind. What would he have become? Surely not… Read more