Introducing Gobbledygook

(this post was written by Kyle on January 21, 2006, and it concerns )

My (hopefully) final semester as an undergrad began this week. As usual, I’m taking a couple of independent studies, plus one regular class. As unusual though, I’m also conducting a Senior Study, which can manifest itself in many a form. Some people do paintings, some write and direct plays, others write 50-page thesis papers. Mine (most likely) is going to take the form of a thesis paper, but I hope to include a heavy dose of creative writing. That is, it’ll have a thesis, but the way in which that thesis is proposed and defended will be more artistic than your traditional thesis paper.

What’s got me most concerned is not the form and content, however. What’s got me most concerned is my work habits. While the Senior Study is accompanied by a seminar class to help us keep on track, there is no formal process for the paper. There’s no deadlines other than the final one. That can be deadly to a dude like me, who tends to wait until the last minute for everything and use the impending deadline as a catalyst for inspiration.

So, to that end, my goal this weekend is to establish a schedule for the paper. I already have my reading list for the paper, so I want to set deadlines for each finishing each book, and then deadlines for a draft of the paper that encompasses what I took from each book.

But at the same time, I want part of the “content” of the paper to come from the things I learn day to day, whether it comes from playing videogames, watching a movie, reading a magazine, or surfing the Internet.

To that end, I’m introducing a new feature on Fluid Imagination. It’s called Gobbledygook. I hope to use it as a catch-all, a kind of running collection of my week. Some of the posts in Gobbledygook may be cross-posted into other categories, but that’s fine.

One question that I have for myself is how is Gobbledygook different from Fluid Imagination in general? I mean, isn’t this whole blog a basic compendium of my thoughts during the course of a week or day?

The answer, I think, is that I tend to restrict my blog posts to things that I hope have some value to someone else, whatever that value may be. More like a journal than anything else, Gobbledygook, however, will be more for me.

To which one might ask, Why post it online, then, Mr. Callahan?

And the answer, my friend, comes in three-fold:

  1. To retain the ability to access these posts from anywhere
  2. To retain the multi-dimensionality of hyperspace, which everyday is becoming more and more valuable to my thinking
  3. To retain a realistic sense of an audience, which is not expected, but believed to exist regardless

So, without further adieu, let me introduce to you, Goobbledygook.