Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Vitality

Or vitae-lity?

When the call  I was 'specting about a bit of web futzing didn't jingle my cellular phone this morning, I figured may just as well go to work on my site.  My site.  The one concerned with all things grand-boxy and professional. 

That's what I did.  It's not quite ready for mass consumption--the high traffic of folks who'd have any business digging around in the proper record of my professional life. But it is ready for a glance.  I anticipate a few conversations in the coming months with my influential mentors, but any thoughts you have--first reactions--let 'em fly, eh?

I know things will shift over the next few years, so I'm content--for the most part--that this is an early version of a project that will likely enjoy an overhaul about two years from now, just before I spruce it for the job search.  I've started with twelve (hehe...eight too many!) front-page links: CCR, bio, vita, teaching, coursework, dissertation, weblog, flickr, links/del.icio.us, collections, media projects, and graphs.  The bio, I think, can be a space where I represent, less formally, stances, stuff I've done, questions entangled with my academic work.  Overkill? 

I was also uncertain about representing the diss already because it's not conceived yet.  So that's a placeholder for the prospectus, chapter synopses.  Yeah...that's all.  Collections, media projects and graphs are all loose and mysterious, even to me.  At the collections link, I think I'll begin developing a small bundle of bibliographic clusters, starting with provisional exam reading lists for the end of next year. I don't intend for it to grow to the scope of Becky's collections, but I admire the model and find it exceedingly useful to jog my memory by looking over lists of things. Collections will also include sets of assignment-related links.  Media projects--there I'm thinking video, audio, and screencasts, especially if I get on the ball with spoken word essays or documentary stuff with my students in the next two years.  And graphs, graphs will house some of my messing around with data visualizations, infographics and other stuff I draw or design (rhetorical models, or lexical equivalency chains--been intending to flesh that out). 

You might be disappointed to find that many of the links are as of yet inactive.  But I just wanted to share what I worked on for a few hours today.  Seriously, I'd be grateful for feedback.  It's just a draft, really.  For example, the more I look at it, the less I like the splotch of spray-can brush stroke underlining on the image swap-out. Hell, by morning, I might have the whole thing replaced with something new (although I am fond of the box-fitting motif).

Ah, I've also been checking around at the various taxonomies put to use in the vitae of folks whose work I admire.  No intention of going too wild too soon with the whole project; rather, just trying to survey the possibilities, locate a few adaptable models.  Gaps: invited talks, for one.  Heh.  Maybe I should include a sub-heading for uninvited talks.  Judging by a couple of my students' course evaluations, that one could double for teaching.

Posted by Derek Mueller at May 17, 2005 7:25 PM to Dry Ogre Chalking