fishers, surfers and casters

I’ve read that overcoming the temptation to procrastinate is like learning to brush your teeth. At 3 or 4 years we have so much trouble squeezing the paste on to the brush, balancing it there while we slowly take the brush to our mouths, only to fumble teeth strokes so that foam falls down our clothes and over our hands to the point we’ve hardly brushed our teeth at all. Watching a kid attempt the task is amusing, and shows us how easy it is to us now, and how we have forgotten how we learned to do it.

At the age of 36, after more than fifteen years in university study, I can brush my teeth in the dark, but I can’t sit in front of a computer and begin typing without thinking I’d rather be doing something else. So I grab a smoke, make a coffee, play Internet Checkers, check my email again, change the desktop image, open a new Word document, play with styles, yada yada yada.

This paper was a particularly painful one to write. Methodologies are boring. I wrote this paper with so many bad self-talk statements in my head, like “Who on earth would want to sit for ten minutes listening to me present this crap?” and “This entire conference paper could be summed up in the words “Like d’uh” … there’s nothing new here” and “How many pages of this do I have to write” and “Is it time for another coffee yet?”

Anyway, the only true remedy I’ve found to procrastination is cramming – waiting to the very very last minute before it’s due to furiously type without thinking and producing a piece of complete nonsense and think, well, I’ve submitted it now, no need to worry over things I can’t change, like quality.

It’s here, but don’t bother reading it, unless you like literary versions of stale deli meat.

Way back in 2005 I had the pleasure of heading to Auckland to sit with Australian and NZ teachers and postgrad students for two days, exploring the concept of virtual theology. It was an informal setting, where we offered research ideas and did our best to support each other seek new endeavours in researching religion online. The outcome was a special edition in the Oz/Kiwi theological journal Colloquium. That was special for me, my first published article.

Though I couldn’t physically join the group again today, my supervisor and I linked up with the Auckland gang via telephone to explore ideas in research religious authority online. A “special guest” was Heidi Campbell, who has already produced work on the theme, published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and is now seeking how religious authority is understood in blogging.

I offered something similar yet different, suggesting to the group that I could do some more thinking on how the emerging church bloggers in my sample understand and respond to Technorati and Google authority ranking systems according to their religous ethics, and some considerations about what types of posts, or pieces of information, receive high Technorati/Google ranking in an emerging church blog.

To see who else was at the colloquium, go here.

We left the telephone link-up to our devices with a view to connect again with a paper each. While I feel really supported by many faculty members at RMIT, religion online is not your everyday research field in Melbourne. So meeting up with these guys is a very special privilege.

Thank you guys, especially Tim for organising both 2005’s and today’s event with such little time at your disposal.

Got a new laptop this week after being way to annoyed at what my old computer decided it was too tird to do, most notably connecting to wireless networks and keeping its battery running for more than twenty minutes.

This new computer has Vista. All reports have told me that Vista is a bad idea. But I couldn’t help myself…

Having Vista on your computer is like dating a supermodel. So pretty to look at, great conversation starter, but you can’t help but wonder how much it’s going to ruin your life. Loading old programs onto the new computer was a great source of frustration, spending hours searching the Net for upgrades or freeware alternatives. Getting NVivo to work was a particular stress. I did spend a good afternoon on hold waiting for a support guy at the tech office who then took me deep into the system drives of the computer to fix certain installation bugs. And some programs I had to let go, including the drivers that used to connect my mp3 player to the computer.

But all-in-all I think I’m happy with the new fang-dang-thang. I can still produce what I need to produce on it. And I have new friends – the ghosts in my head that remind me of my increasing student debt. Being a PhD student is a great life – playing around with new technologies, travelling the world meeting great minds and contributing to exciting conversations. Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford it.

I’m really looking forward to this…

From Katharine Moody, the official Press Release is as follows:

Voices of the Virtual World:
Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution

PRESS RELEASE (Download PDF HERE)
Publication Date: 23 July 2007
Distributed by: Lulu.com
Wikiklesia Press, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9796856-0-6

Voices of the Virtual World explores the growing influence of technology on the global Christian church. In this premier volume, we hear from more than forty voices, including technologists and theologians, entrepreneurs and pastors… from a progressive Episcopalian techno-monk to a leading Mennonite professor… from a tech-savvy mobile missionary to a corporate anthropologist whom Worth Magazine calls “one of Wall Street’s 25 Smartest Players.” Voices is a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey contextualized within a culture of increasingly immersive technology.

ABOUT WIKIKLESIA: Conceived and established in May 2007, the Wikiklesia Project is an experiment in on-line collaborative publishing. The format is virtual, self-organizing, participatory – from purpose to publication in just a few weeks. All proceeds from the Wikiklesia Project will be contributed to the Not For Sale campaign.

Wikiklesia values sustainability with minimal structure. We long to see a church saturated with decentralized cooperation. The improbable notion of books that effectively publish themselves is one of many ways that can help move us closer to this global-ecclesial connectedness. Can a publishing organization thrive without centralized leadership? Is perpetual, self-organizing book publishing possible? Can literary quality be maintained in a distributed publishing paradigm? Wikiklesia was created to answer these kinds of questions.

Wikiklesia may be the world’s first self-perpetuating nomadic business model – raising money for charities – giving voice to emerging writers and artists – generating a continuous stream of new books covering all manner of relevant topics. Nobody remains in control. There is no board of directors. The franchise changes hands as quickly as new projects are created.

Media Enquiries: Len Hjalmarson, lenhjal@telus.net. John La Grou, jl@jps.net