Somewhat incoherent today; brain swarming. I think it will resolve and crystallize sometime over the next week; I can feel myself coming off the tail end of chaos, and it feels good. Great. Fan-freakin'-tastic.
I liked this quote, though it has seemingly no relevance whatsoever to my life at this moment. Aristotle's wrong about one thing, though; being angry isn't easy. It's hard. Or maybe I've developed my reflex so strongly that to overcome it and to let myself be angry is difficult.
“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way - this is not easy." --Aristotle
I should at some point learn more about the pedagogical research around Moodle and how it's been integrated into the technology design, and vice versa. Papers like "Moodle: Using Learning Communities to Create an Open Source Course Management System" make me super-excited. I should also at some point pull a Martin Dougiamas and document a reading sprint on Constructivism (and other learning philosophies, for that matter). I should pull more deliberately documented reading sprints.
Last night, the night before: Chinese food, beer, a giant plate of nachos, and the kinds of conversations that make the world around you swarm, just shine with possibilities. It's great, this stuff-is-going-to-happen richness hanging in the air. I breathe it in 'till I'm exhausted, pass out on the couch, read Snow Crash. Hiro Protagonist. And swords.
This morning: Got a triple stack of new notebooks, pocket-sized ones this time. I'm out of paper, nearly out of pens. Shuffled down the brick divider that splits Main St. into two opposing lanes, past spray-painted arrows on the ground and into the Media Lab; Mitchell dropped a card down from the balcony so I could flash the reader in the up elevator, and here I am. Jackets and luggage line the perimeter; lousy jazz muzak pours out of the speakerphone in the center of the table. Friends around me. We're working on what feels right now like a huge mass of half-corralled potential, and if we find a way to let people just tap it right...
I think that this is where history happens. Not on television screens or press releases; those come afterwards, sometimes, but ceremony only recognizes it after the fact, doesn't create it. Actual changes come in accidentally coordinated spasms; messy conversations, half-incoherent arguments, whiteboard mockups done by a handful of exhausted hackers munching on Tootsie-Roll Pops and improvising things into the world.
Not sure quite how I got here; grateful that I am. And god, but do I have a lot to learn.