Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

Rehearsing with Patrick Burns
Sunday, 2 May 2004 :-:

Fun! Challenging. Inspiring.

Patrick Burns cares. He cares about what he does, he cares about others. He cares about his music. Before we rehearsed Hometown (mp3), he reminded us of the poem at the top of the music:

That yard, the tree--you climbed it once with me
And we talked of cities we'd live in someday.
I left old friend, and now I'm back again,
Please say you missed me since I went away.

--Garrison Keillor

"Play and think about the poem. Play the poem, and you'll get it," he said. For Mr. Burns gets it. He knows what makes music great. Sure, it's good to be clever, good to be creative. It's even nice (from time to time) to create something that makes academics smile or kick themselves in chagrin. But when it comes down to it, music has to mean something to us. Patrick just happens to be able to do that while also being clever and creative.

As I have only played with a few conductors in my life, I took some time to get used to his conducting style, which is swifter, slightly more crisp, and less flowing than Mr. Sharnetzka's. Mr. Burns focuses on the beat in his conducting, and his motion focuses on that point. Mr. Sharnetkza can keep more things going at the same time, his arms flowing at a steadier pace. Unlike Mr. Burns, Mr. Sharnetzka will often switch conducting patterns to match the music. He conducts with his whole body. This latter skill is very helpful for me, since I'm very short and often lose the baton behind someone's head. When this happens I can tell what he's doing just from his body language.

After the rehearsal, another student and I talked with the two of them for quite a while. They both spoke insightfully about the field of music and gave me much food for thought. I asked them to pose for a picture.

Patrick Burns and Scott Sharnetzka at Elizabethtown College, Zug Memorial Hall after rehearsal, May 1, 2004
Patrick Burns       Scott Sharnetzka

Today's concert will be out of the ordinary for personal reasons as well.

Normally, I focus the entire weekend on a performance. I have a single-tracked mind which can focus intensely, but I have difficulty switching. After our practice ended, I kept rehearsing in my head for the next few hours, even though I sat in front of the screen trying to write one of the three ten-page writing projects due on Monday. However, for the first time in my life, when I was incapable of focusing, I was able to make it happen. Around 7pm, I was able to read thoughtfully, not fizzling until 10pm.

I woke at 6AM, and instead of mentally preparing for the concert as usual, I'm still working on my paper comparing Foucault's Discipline and Punish and Madness & Civilization with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. My paper makes a rather obvious connection, but oh well. Working on papers beforehand, breaking my train of thought might mess me up this afternoon, but I hope not.

I wish I could warm up this morning, but there's no time. Instead, I will leave chearch immediately and arrive two hours early at school to relax for a while over some basic exercises. It's annoying not to know how well I'll do today. I won't know that until I put the horn to my lips. For it will be a long, challenging performance comprised of the most difficult music I have ever performed.

Nearing the end of the tunnel on the most difficult two weeks of my life. And things are starting to bottleneck.

On the bright side, whenever there's a bottleneck, you can whistle over the top.