Hi guys!

How exciting, my first blog! My name is Jacquie and I am in my final semester of Arts (Communications) majoring in English. I too stumbled across this unit unexpectedly as I had no idea womens studies units counted for an english major, however when I realised some did I was quick to jump into this one. Being a comms student a lot of the units we do revolve around technology as it y has become so predominant in our communication culture. Long gone are the days where the fastest way to reach someone was via an express-posted letter . Society, I believe, has adapted to our fast-paced lives and has provided cost-efficient ways to reach other people faster than we could have foreseen. Therefore this unit so far has been of great interest to me as I feel like I am expanding, on an alternate avenue, my knowledge in this area.

As I mentioned, I have never taken part in a blog, simply because I thought it would be much harder to do than it is, as well as to be honest, my insecurity that people might find what I have to say boring! However being exposed to all of these sites you have listed and reading about them each week, I realise there is no need to hold back. In the past, I have joined a forum (vogue fashion forum) but never contributed as well as regularly visiting a few fashion blogs such as The Sartorialist and Jak and Jil, both of which seek out fashionistas from around the globe and take some really cool photos of both the people and their gear. It may seem very trivial to a lot of you experienced bloggers, but hey, it's a way to pass the time that should be spent doing uni work! aha

Finally I just wanted to mention one of Wan Jun's questions she raised on this week's readings about male and female blogging. I think it would be an interesting experiment to have a completely genderless blog, where usernames must be gender neutral and no hints at gender can be implied by the bloggers. To me, it would be highly interesting to see what topics were raised and then to only later reveal which genders raised which topics. Would the political discussion be predominantly run by males? Or would a sneaky male drop in that he started knitting last week and wants to know what wool is best? This weeks readings surprised me as I really didn't imagine that the tech savvy women who could use a blog, would then go and use it to discuss knitting, but apparently this is so. It just shows how big a part of our culture technology is. In short, I would love to see whether individuals who knew they weren't being scrutinised as one specific gender, would discuss the same topics as they would in a less anonymous space?

Anyway, that's enough blabbing for now! Look forward to chatting to you all next week!

Jac