Overloaded, stressed-out, unintelligent, and SUPER FRUSTRATED are four adjectives that describe me this week. I am overloaded and stressed because, after starting the week off with a fever of 102.6, I found myself working 30+ hours at the "Panty Palace", dog-sitting, and working on the assignments for my two summer classes. Somehow I managed to complete all tasks and still get a little bit of sleep. So why do I feel unintelligent? Two reasons really, one started at 8am on Monday in Math 123, which is basically Algebra and I have not had that since at least 11th grade. Needless to say, I have forgotten the majority of that material. The second reason is that I felt like a complete idiot on the MOO because I was had no clue what I was doing. Now, why am I SUPER FRUSTRATED, well because this is the second time that I have written this Blog. About 20 minutes ago I had just completed my Blog and was attempting to email it to myself before I pressed save, when AOL informed me that my email was temporarily down and then decided that it did not want me on the computer and kicked me off. So, pretty much I have wasted at least an hour of my day and now I can not go out to dinner like I had planned. Now, after I have run through the house yelling, crying, complaining about AOL, I am typing in Word and trying to remember what I had previously typed.

At the beginning of this week, I set a few goals. They were to become acquainted with MOO, be able to access and use the class mailing list and archives, figure out what this course is about, and then to tackle my Blog.

The MOO is really neat. At first I was intimidated by it. I felt really uncomfortable and dumb when I signed on. I was really unsure of what I was doing. I also felt like everyone else was one step ahead of me. I had trouble remembering when to use the commands and I thought that everyone probably knew it; I was really paranoid. Then I realized that everyone else was probably feeling the same way. The MOO is totally different than any place I have experienced on the web or anywhere else for that matter. Before this class I never really thought about what existed outside of instant messenger and the search engines I used for research. The MOO is unique. I tried to explain what the MOO was to my boyfriend this week and I had trouble describing it. It is way more than a chat room, it is an “interactive learning room”. It is a classroom, really. It is just not the conventional SH108 that we think of. It is amazing to me to think about what it really is. Whenever I think about it I can not help but say to myself, “Isn’t technology something”, which makes me feel like my grandparents, who are in total awe of the computer. One minute I can be in the 315 Station talking and learning with all of my classmates and then after a few pecks on the keyboard I can be in the Bookcases room, or the Recliners with just two or three classmates doing the exact same thing. It is also cool that you can page each other in the room and no one else can see, and that you can send nonverbal messages too. I like the MOO now, and I feel pretty comfortable in it. I know that the more I use it the better I will feel about myself using it.

Using the class list is not a new thing to me. Email is something that I have used for a long time now. Yahoo is new to me, though. I also have not used the archives yet, simply because I have not needed to. I do plan to try to access them soon, that is on my “To-do” list.

I have not quite figured out what this class is really about, yet. I really doubt that I will know that for sure until I have completed to course. Someone asked me this week if this class was just a bunch of busy work. I could honestly say no. With any other teacher I would have my doubts, but I know from previous experience that there is a reason for every assignment. Somehow, I am sure, everything I do will all end up linking together in the end, it always does. I have a few thoughts, though, about what I think this class is going to be about. First, it is about communication, communicating effectively and confidently with one another and with those whom we do not know. It is also about learning and discovery. These two terms seem alike at the surface, but I view them as different. Learning is something that does not happen the first time. Sometimes you do something over and over again before you learn the lesson, or other times you have the knowledge but you have not learned how to apply it yet, or sometimes there are new ways to apply what we have learned, which is learning yet again. Discovery is different. Discovering is when you see something for the first time, and I definitely think that I will discover things in this course. I have already discovered things, like the MOO. I also expect to discover things about my field, too, while I am researching. So, at this point I would say this class is about communicating, learning, and discovering. But, I know that as the weeks go on, I will find that this class is about much more than I imagine right now.

The last goal I set was tacking this Blog. I had some trouble getting started. I must have stared at the screen forever yesterday, but I just could not get my brain in the writing mode. I felt some pressure because my name is the first one on the website under Student Blogs. I thought that if a stranger came to our website my Blog would be the first one he would read. I am over that now. Strangers read away! I think I am really going to enjoy my Blog, even though my first experience has not been a good one. I have seen lots of possible uses for it. I read what Mary said in her Blog about NSSLHA and I think that using antville would be a good idea for NSSLHA. Since I was elected president for next year, I have been wanting to do something with NSSLHA on the web. I am excited now that I am using this Blog because I am getting all kinds of ideas. I think it would be a great place to post information about what NSSLHA is and what members missed at the meetings. I also think upcoming activities could be posted and maybe even some pictures of members at work at the activities. There are lots and lots possibilities and I am really looking forward to playing around on here and seeing what I can create.

I just have few questions this week and both relate to the Blog. I was wondering if the format I have is okay. When I usually do reflections I have everything broken down into content, process, premise. I do not for this Blog. It is kind of all jumbled in here. I also want to know how I can get my BLOG to not look so BLAH. It is kind of plain and I know there are ways to change colors and add pictures. That question you really do not have to answer right yet. I am going to try to experiment first and see what I can come up with.

I am really looking forward to this class. I have never considered myself to be a computer whiz. I have always thought that I was pretty average in the computer knowledge department. I know, though, that what I already know is going to really be enhanced, and I am going to learn so much more.