i made it

So now, here I share the things I make. 

This bit of the web is changing shape…

My friends helped me start this blog a long time ago so I could share my struggles as I wrote my MA thesis. 

Somehow it never appealed to me to share much of that. But now, having finished and moved and with lots of my friends living far away, I want to show people the things I’ve been making. 

This is the kind of thing I feel like sharing. So, pictures and descriptions and even how-to’s will follow. Find ‘em here.

To start, I didn’t really make this, but I did make it bloom. 

 About 3 weeks ago I put paper white plant bulbs on rocks and added water and voila! for the past three days pretty flowers and a lovely fragrance have kept me company while I worked on papers.  I love it. 

You just have to remember to buy bulbs early enough in the fall because eventually hardware shops stop selling them.  If you have a little mixed bag of bulbs stored somewhere dark & cool, you can pull them out and have blossoms through the whole winter.

Notes: I saw my green-thumbed friends Rob & Reiko growing paper whites years ago in their old apartment. And thanks to my cool landlord, Troy, who suggested keeping bulbs hidden away like a little bag of precious gems.

I’m packing and moving to a new place this weekend, and in doing so I came across a lot of rubber bands to add to my little rubber band ball. 

I used to have a bigger one that I left behind at my last apartment.  The last time I visited I thought that the ball’s new owners weren’t adding to it very regularly, or maybe they just don’t come into contact with a lot of rubber bands…

Anyway, mine is growing, and seeing it yesterday reminds me of how fun it is to have a rubber band ball.  It bounces lopsidedly and it rolls in directions you never anticipate and it grows or shrinks depending on your rubber band needs. 

It is my thinking that a rubber band ball’s rubber bands shouldn’t be purchased, but should capriciously come your way.  I started my first one when I moved to Montreal and got the daily paper there to keep up on the news and get to know the place.  The rubber band ball’s growth reflected my time spent there.  Each lovely day added to the girth and awkward bounce of the rubber band ball.

The hardest part is starting the ball because you are just making a little ball out of the bands. Adding them is easy. 

Because I’m moving I can’t take a picture of my litte ball today, but there was a guiness book record set recently http://www.recordball.com/ that is more impressive anyway.

p.s.  In the excitement of giving my family and friends their christmas gifts, few pictures of the hand made gifts were taken. 

i wanted to post some more pics of things i’ve actually made, but most of them are christmas gifts so I am holding off til after the things are shared with their recipients.  secrets…

This is my first blogging confession. You can only hope that there will be more. My confession is that I didn’t know how to blog when I asked my pals to set up this blog for me.

I still don’t *KNOW HOW*, but thank you, thank you to my friend Steven who told me that a blog is not like a regular site becasue it is organic and meant to progress and shift. It is not a storage vault for the complete, but rather a place for expressing honestly where you are at in the moment…

I get it now…

And so, I will do my best to tell use it this way.

Watch me, read me.

This site is the current, virtual home of my research project “Narratives of Digital and Social Inclusion”. I invite interaction and comment on this work in progress. Creating a blog allows me to communicate in an ongoing way with people who are or have taken part in the project so far. In particular, I am very grateful to the people who have allowed me to interview them, and I am pleased to offer a way for them to see where the insights and experiences they shared with me are being considered. The two presentations below describe the research project in brief and more postings will add more details, ideas and requests for comment. Read the rest of this entry »

This presentation was given during a CRACIN Research Workshop on February 27, 2005

Rearch Strategies: Narratives of Digital and Social Inclusion
by Diane Dechief

This brief document describes the research project ‘Narratives of Digital and Social Inclusion’ in four sections. First, the project is introduced and briefly contextualized. Next, the intended format for fieldwork is laid out. Third, some of the theories and goals at play in the research are presented. And finally, the project’s expected relevance is described.

This presentation was given on March 20 at Concordia University, Montreal

My DigitalDivide: Narratives of Access Inequalities and their Significance
by Diane Dechief

Even though the term “digital divide” is a bit worn and has come to mean many different things, it does stand as recognizable shorthand for a situation worthy of study. A situation, that in this paper I will describe and expose and conceptualize and then re-conceptualize for you. In the final section, I will explain how my research approach works to challenge the status quo, and seeks to alter the dynamic but current ‘Narratives of Digital and Social Inclusion’ by adding more individualized perspectives to the mix.