Wednesday

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading my blog and letting me know about it. It's especially nice to see people post comments here. Please feel free to respond to what I am writing about, especially if you think I'm full of it, or if I am missing something obvious. I'd like this blog to not only help me reflect on my experience and let others follow along, but also to allow others affect and help direct my experience by giving me suggestions and responding to what I am writing about.

Since Monday and my experience divulging about my blog in class, I've had a lot of different thoughts about blogging. It was interesting to ask my other two classroom professors about how they felt about my blogging about class. Neither of the other two had any qualms about it. One professor said it wasn't a problem as long as I wrote about positively about them (with a smile). The other responded with shrugged shoulders and said,"I don't care. It's about freedom of speech."

I've also researched online, and it seems that the idea of a blogger's code of ethics has been swirling about without a clear resolution. I guess that would be a hard thing to resolve right? It's probably hard to imagine a more independent class of citizens than bloggers. Maybe Alaskan handtrollers, I don't know. In any event, a few people seemed to have attempted to put together a code of ethics, and debate has ensued. One that I liked from an organization called Cyberjournalist.net can be found here. Interestingly, some undergraduate students in Singapore even studied the question of ethics in blogging in 2005. A post describing their research can be found here.

Since many of bloggers think of themselves as quasi-journalists, a lot of these ethics codes pertain to journalistic practices. The authors of the above-mentioned study, Andy Koh, Alvin Lim, and Ng Ee Soon divided bloggers into personal and non-personal bloggers. Personal bloggers (like me) were more likely to believe that minimizing harm was important compared to non-personal bloggers. Interestingly, both personal and non-personal bloggers felt that accountability was one of the least important of the four ethical priniciples listed. And both groups were ambivalent about the need for a code of ethics.

So I guess I'll have to figure this out on my own, without a clear standard of ethics to go by. I will do my best to minimize harm to others and respect the privacy of the people I come into contact with. But I am sure I will mess up along the way. And for that I am sorry.

When my maternal grandmother would come visit, she would always say the same thing when she left, "please forgive me if I have offended you in any way." She was a dear, sweet woman, and wouldn't have ever harmed anyone intentionally. But she cared enough about the effect of her actions that she always apologized, whether she caused harm or not.

I would hope that anyone I offended would let me know and let me make amends. But it doesn't always work like that. And I could harm someone in this blog and they might never know about it. But they would still be harmed. It's a tricky business. Like with the rest of life, I guess you just do your best to act justly, thinking critically about your actions, and pray for forgiveness for your shortcomings.

As for my classes, things are going smoothly. I feel myself getting more into the groove. Today was my day at home, and I tackled my first piece of homework for statistics. I actually enjoyed doing the problems. It feels good to use the math side of my brain again, which has probably withered much since I gave up my mathematical passions as a freshman in college. I've also been trying to keep up on my reading. As I get into the workload, I'm impressed at how much work these PhD students can put in. Time will tell if I can keep up.

On Tuesday, I signed up for fencing class for PE. I added an hour of PE to round out my schedule to a full-time load of 12 credits. I thought it would be fun to try something that I might not ever have the chance to do again. I really wanted to sign up for water polo, but the times conflicted with my class schedule. So on Friday, I will get my first introduction to the world of epees. Those who know how much of a klutz I am may be concerned. Here again, I will do my best to do no harm. En garde!