Author: hb

Heather is a writer, teacher, and PhD candidate trying her best. When she’s not procrastinating, she’s starting new stories, watching old science fiction films, and talking to anyone who will listen about the joy of writing. She is a secret K-pop fan and otaku and is worried you’re not getting enough fiber. She battles ADHD, ennui, and capitalism when she’s not playing Minecraft. It’s possible that she’s is actually three juvenile raccoons in a raincoat.

My Unofficial Teaching Philosophy

There was a video get-together for the launch of a fiction anthology that I have a story in. It was a little awkward for me since I didn’t know anyone, but someone asked me about teaching freshman composition and here’s my 3.5 minute response (Starts at 53:34 if the video link doesn’t work properly):

This was also posted on Facebook.

Cory Doctorow: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms

That’s because the Benevolent Dictators can sometimes turn malignant. Some of the policies that Big Tech insists keep its users safe actually endanger those users’ lives.

Source: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms

This is one of the articles that started me on my way to reclaiming a space online just for me.

Welcome

My name is Heather Flyte and I am a writer and PhD student in English. Currently I am a teaching fellow at Lehigh University and I’m currently (finally) reading for my comprehensive exams.

I’m pulling back from posting my thoughts, images, etc. on various social media sites and hope to make this the home to everything digitally me. For a while, I’ll be posting here and there as a way to see how I like working in both formats. This experiment may be short lived or forever. We’ll see.

Social Media Exile

I don’t think social media is really all that healthy.

I’ve been positive in dealing my own rhetoric, especially in class. I’ve tried to discuss its functions conceptually, that there are benefits if you curate well and hypervigilant, but the labor costs outweigh the benefit.

I have been mindful of how I feel when I’m on a platform. Twitter is now where I feel the worst; Facebook is pretty neutral as I’ve culled my friends list down considerably. Instagram and TikTok are still relatively positive, if not actively negative. But I want to re-evaluate how *I* want to use platforms, what *I* want to say.

Right now, dunno, ya know?

This is going to be tricky as I read in Digital Composition and Rhetoric. There are more media out there than just social media channels, but like the sewage systems of most metropolitan areas, everything runs into them. Those channels are drivers of discourse now. We build cites based on how fast our shit flows underneath.

(Perhaps that’s not the best metaphor – but you see what I mean.)
I will be thinking a lot about how we pull back, as a society. How we maintain important connections, but not add to or get inundated by the garbage. Maybe it’s time to just go full in on a personal web-site. Keep all of my postings there and worry less about enGagEmeNT and more about cultivating a space for me.

08.14.22 Things

(sorry, I missed a couple of days, I’m still figuring out where to stack this habit)

  • I’m interested in anti-homeless architecture as intended and systematic cruelty. I want to add some readings to my class so we can have a discussion, but in the meantime I came across this relatively new twitter feed @hostiledesign (Look through the feed and find the might cockatoo).
  • The horrific damage done to Nathan James during his execution is not for the faint of heart. This story in The Atlantic by Elizabeth Bruenig is a difficult, but must read, for anyone who thinks about state-mandated killing – which should be all of us.
  • An article that seemed to break animenewsnetwork.com for a bit this morning was that there’ll be no Season five for my all-time favorite anime, Haikyu!! What there will be are two “final” films and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t think the compilation films ever made it to U.S. theaters, so I may end up purchasing that Blue-Ray player after all. KARASUNO… FIGHT! 🏐

08.11.22 Things

  • This Twitter thread about the mistranslation of Rumi is required reading for today, especially in our age of the vapid/rapid meme-ification of sentiment and the toxic positivity of white wellness culture. Just because you add a quote to a Canva template with the intent to ‘spread joy’, you may also be extending the colonization and appropriation of marginalized cultures. (Thank you to @deray for retweeting this to his followers).
  • This Bloomberg article, “The Work-From-Home Revolution Is Also a Trap for Women,” won’t leave my trending list, so I took a look and it’s as obvious as it seems. It’s not WFH that’s the problem – women have always worked from, and in the home. It’s Capitalism – upheld by Patriarchy, White Supremacy, and Sexism. It’s the reinforced idea as the woman as subservient and the man and domestically incompetent. WFH only sheds light on the predicament of women from a new angle, but the problems are not new. Also, ALSO…woman != mother.
  • Another reason to not read Twitter while I have breakfast… E-U-G-E-N-I-C-S. You know, I’m happy to be a sensitivity reader specifically for this. Do you propose a technological process to selectively reproduce subjectively advantageous human traits that, coincidentally, align with your own biologic position and therefore reinforce your sense of genetic superiority in your philosophical book? Are you sure? Are you really, really, sure?
Apparently I like muted tones.
  • On a lighter note, I still like to collect useful design tools, though I don’t work on web sites professionally anymore. I will be updating this one soon, but I want a blueprint first instead of just poking around. This TikTok from @jollyhonsonart has three really good resources (I’ll use Glyphy a lot, I think), but I really like Khroma and used their engine to pick out an array of combination based on my color preferences. Above is just a sample and while readability isn’t factored in, the color palettes are inspiration for me.

08.10.22 Things

  • Pro tip: You can’t reason with someone who just wants to be mad. You can do your best to remove yourself from the effect. You may fail, but trying is important.
  • While scrolling Instagram, I came across some HR Giger images which took me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I think I’ll pick up a book or two of his work (I’ll take recommendations) but it won’t be the same as traveling back in time to patronize this now-defunct Giger Bar in Tokyo.
Just look at those chairs
  • I just started reading Moriarty the Patriot since I reupped my Viz subscription and wow, that was not what I was expecting in the first chapter. Intrigued, definitely. Also going to start The Promised Neverland because I hear it’s a light-hearted romp…heh.
  • And the rest of social media is very stupid today, so I will recuse myself and watch movies. Thank you.

08.09.22 Things

  • “lika is still waiting (and we are still watching)” is a wonderful short story by b.e. stack and I think you should read it right now.
  • When I quit smoking four years ago, I had to rethink all of my routines. Two in particular – going outside to sit on the deck after having breakfast, and smoking in the car – I knew would be the hardest. What I did was back up a few steps in what I thought was my habit and break the steps leading up to smoking. I stopped going on the patio, for months I never stepped foot on it. And in the car, I always had something to drink and half-straws (just in case) as replacements. While I won’t downplay using a low-dose nicotine patch to help with the physical withdrawal, breaking the routine (actually, more like ritual) was key to permanence. I can only use willpower in small bursts, everything else has to be habitual.
  • [TW: Spiders] I am entranced by the video at the top of this article, “Do Spiders Dream of Eight-Legged Sheep?” It’s an overview of a recently published paper, so take it with a critical grain of salt, but anything that informs us of how non-humans process the world around them is terribly interesting to me. I originally wanted to link this because of the smug satisfaction that copy editor is probably walking around town with right now after writing that headline, but the Dick reference (heh) is actually the least interesting part. Sleep tight little spidey.
  • Spoiler warning if you haven’t watched The Sandman on Netflix… I can square a character accepting that she’s a dream vortex, but I cannot accept the utterly chill way she is going about finding her long-lost brother, especially after his foster home turns out to be a crime scene and a strange adult male says her 12-year-old brother is with him at a hotel three hours away, you can bet your ass I’m on the phone to the FBI, dream vortex or not. I am struggling to get to the end of these ten episodes.