Mind you, I realize that I spent a good portion of the class sick as a dog and that has colored my perception, but I doubt it would to this extent. I think I just don’t like it. It feels like sacrilege to say that but it seems that, no matter how much I love to read and how much I want to write, and write well, I have little interest in studying what others have done. This is sad – yet, it’s also good to know. It just means that I need to readjust my planning a bit, I think. All in all, it’s better I found this out now before I committed myself to a course of study that would have made me miserable.

I’ve had other surprises in these courses. For instance, I loved environmental science, when I didn’t think I had any interest in that at all. Nine weeks was just enough to skim along the surface, though, and if I want to have a grounding of any depth in the topic I’ll have to do it on my own. Which is what I am going to have to do for all my classes anyway, as I’ve decided that once this is over and I get my associates degree, I am done with formal education. Mostly because of debt. I am in more debt now than I’ve ever been in my life; before, I was too poor to accrue all that much debt. If I was younger it wouldn’t matter so much, but I am over 50 and people my age with far more qualifications are having trouble getting good paying work. And I don’t want to work, work, work at something I really don’t want to do just to pay off student loans. So, time for Plan B (which really should have been Plan A, and would have been had I more trust in my instincts and capabilities) – Internet U.

I believe MIT started it, with their OpenCourseware project, but many other universities are following in their footsteps and putting full classes, lecture notes (and the lectures themselves) online, open and free to anyone. Getting all the books might be a bit of a problem but I am hoping the library can help out there. If not, one can usually find cheap, used textbooks online, so there is that.

In addition to the more static method of learning, though, for just about every topic and discipline under the sun, there is are bloggers who are passionate about the subject and who expand the horizons, so to speak. So I can get the regular instruction from the courses, and then the addition of various views and perspectives from bloggers and such. Reading the various feminist sites has made me aware of the need for that, considering how many white feminists who have been through apparently some of the best Woman Studies programs, but whose education was very much incomplete.

Anyway, this means I have a need to entirely refocus my life – or, at least a want to – and take myself seriously and stop dithering around.

I had good intentions in those days of the early 90s, and absolutely loved talking to people from all over the world and learning about them, but like many U.S. Americans I was really ignorant of the bubble I was raised in. A number of people helped to pierce that bubble, like my best friends Hashim and Trevor (from India and the UK respectively) but it was Chilean that helped me to see that what I knew to be so, wasn’t necessarily the way things were. Or, at least, wasn’t necessarily the way others saw the matter, anyway.

As far as I can remember, we were having a conversation about… well, I don’t know, but somehow Cuba and Castro came up and I said something to the effect that, “Well, of course we know that he (Castro) is lying,” and Chilean asks… “Why?” And I’m like… what do you mean, why? This is what we have been taught, this is this and that is that, everyone knows this. And he replied that, no, everyone didn’t know this – what everyone really knew is this other thing, this other way of looking at it, that media outside the U.S. reported.

The conversation went on for a while, with me saying one thing and him telling me what the rest of the world (at least, as far as he knew it) saw and thought; sometimes, of course, the points of view dovetailed, but others it was like night and day. I loved that conversation, even though by the end of it I felt I knew nothing at all about anything.

It was not long after that that I started Human Beams, my now kinda sorta defunct web magazine, in the effort to present different sides of issues, and start a world-wide conversation.

Anyway, though, whenever something – good or bad – happens in Chile, I think of Chilean. I don’t know where he is, or even who he is, but I hope he and his family are well.

And all the best and good thoughts to the miners who are apparently just hours from being rescued. What an amazing story that is.

Bottom line: so far, my experience has been fairly positive. Other bottom line: I don’t think distance learning is for everyone.

Some scattered points:

Education at for-profit schools is expensive, far more expensive than at my local community college.  BUT… because the local community college is so cheap, they have huge waiting lists for almost every class and people are just hoping that someone will drop a class so that they can get in. Also, although they offer some courses online, they do not offer full degrees online and, at this point in time, I am unable to commit to offline classes. So… it is more expensive, which means more debt after I finish school. But at least I am in classes now and not somewhere down the road.

Some of the really negative stuff I’ve read about UOP concerns the enrollment advisors. Apparently there are some less than ethical ones who will say anything to make a commission or something. That was not my experience. My enrollment advisor offered no pressure at all, made sure I understood the costs and encouraged me to limit loans as much as possible and has been, in my experience, an all around good guy.

In addition to the enrollment advisor students also have an academic advisor and a financial advisor. I simply love my academic advisor – he is smart, funny, artistic (his passion, which he will be leaving to follow soon, is costume designing. He sews them himself, so each one is tailored and unique.) Oh, and he’s quite helpful if I have any questions about my classes or future courses and such, too.

Some instructors/facilitators are more involved in the classes than others.  Some classes feel more like reading and discussion groups, with the instructor just giving the questions and sometimes other prompts, but not interacting much with the class and basically using a check-off template to give feedback on work. Other instructors are very “hands-on” and do all of the above, plus interacting with everyone and adding personal comments to the feedback thus, to my mind, creating more of a personal connection with the students. My environmental science teacher was one of those and I loved the class, and even now have more of an interest in (and understanding of) the subject than I did before. So, I prefer the latter approach but I learn well enough with either, and that’s the important part. Luckily, in what promises to be my favorite class (World Literature), the instructor is hands-on, involved, thorough and loves the topic, so yay!

I’ve noticed that the further I progress in the year, the better quality of students there are in my classes. In my first classes there were some students who seemed barely literate. Not that they were stupid or anything – many of them owned their own businesses, or were salespersons, or managers of this or that, and all that (some stay at home moms and such, as well, most of whom seemed to be better writers than the average), but in a medium that depends so much on writing, they just were not at all good at it. However, there is help for that with exercises and stuff in the UOP library, as well as writing (and other) labs for students who need more help in one area or another (I plan to do some of the math labs and exercises before I face Algebra 1 and 2 myself) so not writing well is not a death-knell to getting a degree there. They also have an automated paper checker thing that you can run your academic papers through that checks language, grammar, academic usage, passive voice, and so on (it would rip this post all to pieces because it is so ineptly written, but y’all aren’t grading me, so… ) But it does require that one be self-directed and one of those ubiquitous “self-starters” to reach out to the tools to improve.

So, I don’t know. It’s working for me, for now. I am 50-something years old and had been out of any sort of classes for years, so I think it was a good start for me. I mostly wanted to get used to writing on demand, and that I do – I have to write one or two short essays (no more than 2500 words, and most no more than 1500) weekly and that is good practice for me. Once I graduate from here, though, with a degree in communications (a subject that, I have discovered, bores me silly) I am moving on to, probably, the University of Maryland. They have a online division where I can complete my bachelor’s in English. It looks like a slightly more rigorous program than UOP’s, plus they offer many other electives and also minors and I think it will just be a better fit for me. I talked to an admissions advisor from UMUC today and they cheerfully accept University of Phoenix transfer credits (another thing I was worried about after reading this or that online) because it is a regionally accredited school, so there is no problem there.

Anyway, my opinion, for what it’s worth.

So, which have I watched?

Tonight, Kenyan Ory Orkolloh, who gave a talk on The Making of an African Activist. She, like a number of the other African speakers I’ve listened to, cautioned about telling a single story of Africa. Or anyplace else, of course. Oh, and lots more, but it’s late and I obviously have not absorbed. Great talk, though.

And Kavita Ramdas, an Indian feminist, who spoke of women using tradition and familiarity to effect cultural change, not only in India (“We are not flowers, we are sparks of change”), but in Liberia, Afghanistan and Serbia.

In Afghanistan she profiled a woman who teaches the girls, at great danger to herself. She covers her head, always, persuaded an Imam to come to the school to teach the girls from the Quran – which, of course, they needed to learn Arabic to read, so she started a reading class. And after the Iman left the classes, the girls stayed and eventually classes in math and geography and all sorts of things were started up. In a refugee camp, in fact, which is where everyone was. So she, by working within the tradition, was able to do a lot more to change it than by working without it. Basically.

And let’s see… oh, Chris Abani. He’s a Nigerian writer, was thrown into prison by the Nigerian government three times and he is an excellent storyteller. One minute everyone is laughing and the next second he says something that has everyone feeling somber and thoughtful. I have not read any of his books, but his talks are so good that I am anxious to see what his writing is like.  I’ll have to get a copy of one of his books soon.

Next, probably tomorrow, I will watch the one about the young Malawi kid (14), who built a windmill out of what looks like scraps (there’s a bicycle tire up there) to power his family’s home and in so doing changed all their lives. I am not sure how yet, but it promises to be a good story.

Stories can’t change the world (or can they?) but as Chris Abani says, everything is story.  Whatever we do or say or participate in is story (or something like that, in so many words).

And I do think it’s important to change or at least expand the stories – there is a lot of hope and triumph and imagination and innovation out there, some of which just isn’t widely known or seen, for whatever reason.

[updated to add links]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the nineteenth century who protested—often by destroying mechanised looms—against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their entire way of life.

 The Leader of the Luddites, engraving of 1812

This English historical movement should be seen in the context of the era’s harsh economic climate due to the Napoleonic Wars, and the degrading working conditions in the new textile factories. Since then, however, the term Luddite has been used derisively to describe anyone opposed to (or perceived to be opposed to) technological progress and technological change.

The Luddite movement, which began in 1811 and 1812 when mills and pieces of factory machinery were burned by handloom weavers, took its name from the fictive Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the British government included a mass trial at York in 1812 that resulted in many executions and penal transportations.

The principal objection of the Luddites was against the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many skilled textile workers.

Well, that was me – with any number of things (like long, rambly sentences), but this particular thing I knew but didn’t get was the First Commandment of writing – show, don’t tell. And then yesterday I had my “Oh! Well, duh!” moment.

See, I wrote a piece yesterday (and what a slog that was) that casually referenced back to a little thing I wrote last year. I liked it when I wrote it, but when I re-read it yesterday my first thought was – jeeze, this is terrible. No life at all, or very little anyway and when I put my finger on why, that’s when the lightbulb went off (on?) – I was doing an awful lot of telling and not very much showing.

Woohoo, was I happy! Not happy I am such a bad writer, but that I am beginning to recognize why and what to do about it. I set about fixing the story right away (examples below). Even the fixes are still bad writing, but that’s okay – I still like my little (true!) story, so I will revisit it from time to time, as I become more aware of all my bad habits and fix it again and again, until I don’t cringe anymore when reading it. At least I’ve broken through one logjam – it’ll still take a lot of work to break the bad habits but now I can go back to some of the writers I love reading (books and blogs) and look with new eyes and understanding of why their work is so compelling.

Anyway, examples:

Original:

The black cat that lives on my patio doesn’t belong to me. Or to anyone else – although he seems remarkably well cared for, for a stray. With his thick glossy fur, strong hefty build and very clear green eyes, you’d think he was fed and groomed daily.

But, no. While he’s an accepted part of the landscape no one admits to feeding him. I’m not sure I believe that, though, because he was just a kitten when he arrived and who can resist a helpless kitten?

Still bad, but better, revision:

The black cat that lives on my patio doesn’t belong to me.

He doesn’t belong to anyone – although he seems remarkably well cared for, for a stray. The thick, glossy fur on his large, muscled frame alternately reflects and absorbs all light as he wanders, strutting through his half-wild life as a part of the neighborhood he’s foraged in since he was small.

As I said, still bad, but anyway… I can at least see where I need to go. This cat (who is still around and still hangs out on my patio) is big. Not bobcat size or anything, but still pretty hefty, especially compared to my scrawny old cat. What I want, when I’ve revised this paragraph until I am satisfied, is – in a few descriptive sentences – show his bigness and black furriness and healthiness and independence, though he belongs. But not so awkwardly as I have done now.

I’m going to have fun revising, I think!

Okay, and then also there was this:

There is nothing special about my patio; it’s just like all the others in this 8 plex – sort of a pebble stone paving, and open to the courtyard. The elderly woman across the way has all sorts of interesting things on her patio: hanging plants, flowers in pots, wind chimes, a bench and a bbq. Me, I have a small 3 legged table that I shove into the corner so that it will stand up, and a folding chair that has a cushioned seat.

Well, I guess I should say I had a chair, because that is where the cat that lives on my patio sleeps each night, keeping an eye on the neighborhood and occasionally hopping down to torment my old indoors-only cat through the patio door.

Okay, and then the quick revision:

There is nothing special about my patio; like all the others in this 8 plex it’s a small square with pebble stone paving, and open to the courtyard so that we can look out at the bushes and any flowers the neighbors have planted. The elderly woman who lives across the way has the best patio, by far – all sorts of interesting things: hanging plants, flowers in pots, a bunch of different wind chimes, a bench and a bbq.  Me, I have a small 3 legged table that I shove into the corner so that it will stand up, and a black folding chair with a cushioned seat. She is not as fortunate in her view out of her window as I am in mine.

And I guess I should say I share a chair, because it no longer appears to belong just to me.  If I peer through the patio window at night, sometimes I can make out a dark shape on the chair, almost blending in until he lifts his head to give me an unconcerned stare out of brilliant green eyes.

Again, still not good, not compelling or evocative or very descriptive – hmmm, and wordier but not necessarily better. But at least it’s giving me a brief glimpse of where I need to take it in order to be satisfied. And the best I could do in the few minutes I had to spare on it yesterday.

I’ve not touched the rest of the piece yet, but I’m going to go over the entire thing, line by line and word by word and see what I can come up with. And then compare the original to the finished product as an example, for me, of what paying attention can do.

It’s funny, when I look at narrative stuff I wrote years ago, as opposed to in the past couple of years, I was far more descriptive. Still bad, but you can’t have everything right away. I am not sure why I moved away from that – I think because I felt I needed to do more analytical writing or something, for some reason, but it turns out I’m not too good at that either.

Anyway, a fun project for me that I am really looking forward to.