Time for A Cool, Cool Change

Originally posted on my Friendster blog 16 November 2006 in lieu of my blog revamp. I don't have the old blog, but
here's what replaced it. :-)

indeed. so here's a new style and layout to my blog and a new title, too. the first time i posted here, it was really just on a whim and i didn't really think i'd be able to post again, so what i did was i skimmed through the blog-building process, chose the design with the color that was closest to purple (my default color, because, i think, of lavenders, which i love), and used the first title that came to mind. when i found myself posting again, and then again, i had thought of revamping the whole thing. i realized the purple color wasn't exactly the kind of purple i wanted, and the title was just, well, like the title of so many other blogs and articles and whathaveyous circulating online. (don't get me wrong; i still like the whole 'aimless wanderings' idea, because, really, that's what i do, but i also thought maybe i should try a little harder in coming up with a title.) never got a chance to do any revamping though, because i'd been totally swamped with work and school stuff.

now that i'm done with my comprehensive exams (yay!) and the writing of my thesis proposal (double yay!), i told myself i better start changing a few things here and there, before i start drowning again. i mean, it's a bit quiet now, but i still have an oral defense to prepare for--and dread and agonize over--and final papers to check. i also have exam duties and some paperwork to do before i can take off, and, of course, christmas shopping, which can take a huge amount of time and energy. (i like pretending i don't like christmas shopping--you know, i try to make it seem like it's a chore or a duty, or when i say 'christmas shopping,' i sort of roll my eyes--but it's hard, because i really do--in the i-smile-and-get-really-excited-when-i-think-about-it kind of way.) so, anyway, now that i still have some time to spare: this blog is gonna get totally made over! :)

my choice of this new layout and design is based primarily on the name of this style: sunburned. no, not because i'm in a very hot country where i get sunburned every time i leave the house (over the last few weeks, about five people commented that my skin was getting darker, to which i didn't really know how to reply, so i just said, yeah, i guess so). it's also not because i like getting all tanned up, because, yikes, no (for some reason, this reminds me of people with really bad fake tan they look orange). i guess it's really just because i thought the name was cute, and it matched very well with the dashes of red and the various shades of (coffee with milk) brown on the page. also, and i think this is important, my horoscope today said i should add more reds and browns to my wardrobe. yes, seriously. i immediately thought, why not to my blog as well?! hehe.

as for the new title, 'uptakes' is taken from one of the books i was required to read for my second comprehensive exam. i know i complained a lot about a lot of stuff on my reading list, but not about this one. i guess it's one of those books i'm just happy i got to read whatever the circumstances may be of why i came to read it. i suppose i've to thank the members of my panel for that. anyway, the term just really points to how language is all a matter of uptake--that is, person a puts forth something, and person b takes it up. the logical conclusion is that, after this exchange, person a and person b arrive at an understanding. but it's not really all that simple. first off, there is no guarantee that person b will take up whatever person a said; it's also not guaranteed that person b will take up what person a said in the manner that person a intended. or it's possible that person b, even if s/he understood what person a said in the intended manner, would refuse to take it up, simply because s/he could.

underlying all these then is the fact that the discursive field in which people engage and interact is often already stratified. when people enter discourse, they don't enter a blank space; rather, they enter a place already filled with all kinds of inscriptions and attributions that privilege some participants and limit others. moreover, people themselves are rarely in equal or symmetrical relations; they know this, and they act accordingly. so person b, for instance, refuses to accept what person a is saying, because s/he deems it unacceptable, and s/he can make that judgment, because s/he has the authority to decide on what's acceptable or not. put this way then, 'uptake' becomes a site of contention, of power struggle.

i know these aren't exactly new ideas. i think most everybody knows that the world we live in is unfair, and there are rich people and poor ones, and all sorts of classifications that put people in place. but my joy in all these, my excitement, lies in how a certain term, something actually quite common, becomes something else entirely, because someone chose it and used it to make sense of a phenomenon that is so obvious and yet so difficult to grasp. what i love about all these is how something is explained to me in such a way that it becomes more illuminating of what i already know--such that the knowledge i have actually becomes (and feels) brand new.

so 'uptakes' it is. i have to make it clear though: i didn't choose the term to turn this blog into a site of power struggle and/or whatever else i said above. i decided to use it, because i just really like the term, and it sort of applies, i think, in the sense that, 'here's my uptake, will you take it up?' bwahahaha. the author of the book would probably kill me if he found out i ever used his term/concept this way. it's a good thing he never would. :)

in closing, i was just thinking if i really needed to think so much about this whole revamp thing, and if i really had to subject you to the process. then, i realized, for some time now, all i've been doing is trying to explain and justify every piece of data, every theoretical framework, every methodology, every little thing that i intend to include in my research project. so maybe it's carried itself over to other aspects of my life as well. you may just want to indulge me a little bit then.


p.s. okay, i just had to do it. the old title of this blog would just have to have its place somewhere in here. i guess i'm lucky there's such a thing as subtitles. hehe. then i had to add some synonymous phrases for balance, because having just one phrase up there kind of looked sad.