Shot of the dashboard in the TREEE-OH!
Note two things: MPH and fuel remaining. For the record, the dash was broken, but what a fun, irresponsible shot!
7 It all varied. Mine was entitled Musings and Ramblings: Live from Mars, and my handle was El_ Directore. I just decided that if I was in the village at the school, then I had every right to join the Xanga community. Teachers now blog regularly with their students, but at the time it was a pretty daring move for a teacher.
8 The students opened up instantly, as though I was actually a human being and was no more excluded from the wonderful world of Xanga than I would have been excluded from their daily lives at school. In many ways, it kept Xanga from becoming "us against them". And I knew that this was a different form of teaching and mentoring.
9 I remember oftentimes finding myself writing into the deepest hours of the evening, listening to the rain pelt the roof of my sunroom, and the wet trees scratching to get in. I chose my words and thoughts carefully, knowing that words can be powerful sometimes.
10 ...as opposed to the DN!
11 But really, Xanga demanded thought and creativity, and each entry was different for each person. We all became bards and minstrels, and quite often the other entries were also thought-provoking, and sometimes downright riveting.
12 And all of it was from the heart.
13 There were as many variations on Xangas as there were people contributing.
14 One of my faves was always Sparky's Anal Retreat, a goofy place that Sparky invented and that kept us all in stitches.
15 But everyone would write, and the YB community jumped deep into it.
16 And people would leave comments, which was always fun. Sometimes you'd get a million, other times none, but they were always welcome and appreciated.
17 All that got swept away with the Rupert Murdoch idiocy of My Space, a much cheaper and more idiotic version, which somehow almost eliminated Xanga overnight.
18 Pictures of people "lookin' gooood" became the rage, and anything resembling intelligence or creativity seemed to vanish.
19 Oh, people dressed these My Spaces up and added slide shows and pretty backgrounds and music, but really, the Golden Era of Xanga evanesced almost overnight, and in its wake was left a whole bunch of shallow entries and four-sentence hellos.
20 The end of an era.
21 The other day, Trami suddenly sent me a comment on the DN that said, "Let's Xanga again!"
22 I smiled and wrote back.
23 I went back, blew off the dust from my El_Directore site, and began a new entry.
24 I had forgotten how.
25 Really.
26 I have been doing the DN for so long now that I almost began numbering.
27 The DN is a Xanga, by the way, but pre-dated Xanga by almost seven years.
28 I tried earlier this evening, but it was tough. I still feel I'm El_Directore, but life has changed.
29 The other night I worked the board for the VSU up at the Chill. In the middle of the usual hoop-la, this young filmmaker from SJSU came into the booth and asked, "Are you a professor?"
30 I immediately flashed to how Hassan, the head waiter at Original Joe's, used to greet me with "Good evening, Professor!"
31 So I'm going to create a new Xanga called El_Professore, since it feels that I've now earned a Masters. Plus I like the robes. Social promotion.
32 Besides which he now refers to me as "Doctor", but I think it's been a while since I've been to the new Joe's.
33 Anyway, I'll retain El_Directore, because it's classic. The beauty of Xanga is that you could have as many as you want.
34 El_Professore will be sort of to Xanga what Facebook is to My Space.
35 And when THOSE sorts of analogies begin creeping into the mix, AND they make sense, it's clear I have WAY too much time on my hands despite my statements that dispute this.
36 So I agree with Trami.
37 Let's Xanga again!
38 Peace.
~H~
Mars.
Remembering
Xanga!
1 A few years back it seems that every young person who had a computer in San Jose got into this thing I affectionately deemed Xangaland.
Comments (3)
yay!
haha, hiya trami!!! already!! yay right back! i'll call ya, gotcher message but as i stated, i'm WAY bizzy!
~H~
Took me a while to figure out my password again, but as soon as i read the DN i was on it. Peace.
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