HYPERTEXT!!!

Call me ignorant, but despite the fact that I have learned many interesting things during this class, I am having trouble finding the implication behind it all. I see the function of cyberspace and the internet as a heterotopia. I know many people who escape to the internet for freedom from an uneventful reality. I've encountered many who use e-mails and instant messenger to hide behind a curtain yet still express their opinions towards people they cannot confront. Also, it is apparent to me from the articles we have read this week that predictions about future media have often pioneered the very media it speaks of (e.g. Bush's memex being a beginning to hypertext). This is all very apparent to me. What I'm having trouble understanding is what we can gain from this information. How does theory and an understanding of media help us? Does it improve our ability to use and create new media? This is something I would like to learn soon so that I can truly appreciate what we are learning in class.

The Patchwork Girl experience was very interesting to me as well. I instantly recognized the metaphor of Patchwork Girl representing the patchwork of information being intertwined in the story. I also decided that the actual story is irrelevant to the entertainment. For anyone who had read both Patchwork Girl and Frankenstein, the content would have been unremarkable. On the other hand, the reader has a much more interesting time navigating through the text and piecing together the mystery that is Patchwork Girl.

On a final note, I would also like to point out something interesting. Upon further research of Shelley Jackson (The author of Patchwork Girl), I discovered that she got her MFA in Creative Writing at Brown University. Coincidence? Probably not, but peculiar nonetheless.