Francesca

 I keep track of what music I listen to by making playlists based on what I'm frequently listenting to at the moment. By making these "current hits" playlist, I am able to preserve a period of time and the emotions that I associate with those certain songs. I also try to make monthly playlists as well to capture the aesthetic of the season. This is a huge part of the "keeping track" aspect of Quantified Self.

My identity as a learner has always been above average. In elementary school, I was always in "advanced" or "group A" classes - meaning, in colloquial terms, the "smart" class/group. I was also on the honor roll every year and took Latin in 7th and 8th grade. In high school, I was always placed in honors and AP classes, took Chinese all four years, was a part of the National Chinese Honor Society and was the section leader for my Soprano 2 section in Women's choir. By being placed in these higher level classes and by continuing my education, my learning identity has been enriched. 

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1SYEZDaUcis7ifB8MCbVmtNrPpxf...

- Interesting use of the title "Big Mother," as the author reveals she is a childless journalist

- First thing she does every morning is take her phone and checks her sleep stats

- She relies on her SleepCycle app and takes screenshots of her stats, hovering so self-righteously over eight hours a night, and sends them to friends; earlier this fall, she Instagrammed a "particularly impressive" 10 hours

- Her stats are "gospel" to her, even if she says she "cheats" sometimes by not tracking her non-sleep days

- She goes on to describe her time at a "Quantified-Self" convention

- Overall, the author seemed too reliant on her sleep tech and came off as arrogant

- Claims we are "cyborgs" because we spend a lot of time looking at our computers/phones

- Compares the concept of traditional anthropology to "cyborg" anthropology

- We've found a "new species": new form of Homo Sapiens in which our "cultures and curios rituals" include "clicking on things and staring at screens"

- Tool use: physical modification of self for thousands of years which has a limit, now there's an extension of the mental self 

- We have a "second self" (an online persona) that we now have to maintain 

- We have to present ourselves in digital life the same way we present ourselves in our "analog" life

- Now, young adults have to go through two adolescences - one in real life, and one that's even more awkward online

- Technology doesnt get adopted because it works, it gets adopted because people use it 

- When she was writing her thesis on cell phones, she found that everyone is carrying around wormholes in their pockets: someone could whisper something on one side of the world and it can be heard on the other side because of this technology, thus forming a wormhole

In my Shape of Stories diagram, I chose to follow key plot points of the pilot episode of the CW show Supergirl. I plotted a clear beginning and an end, with good fortune and ill fortune in Vonnegut's style. At the very beginning of the episode, we see Kara Zor-El's home planet, Krypton, about to be destroyed - obviously placing the first plot point at the very bottom. However, she is able to escape in a pod and leave, bringing her status towards good fortune - before plummeting back down to ill fortune when her pod gets knocked off course. Her journey soars back up to good as Kara eventually ends up on Earth with the Danvers family, who take her in as their own. We dip back down for a beat into ill fortune, when we are introduced to present-day Kara and her job: personal assistant to the very demanding and obnoxious Cat Grant at her media firm, CatCo - Kara had applied to write, not be someone's servant. Her ill fortunes plummets even further, when it is revealed that her sister Alex's plane is about to go down. Kara's fortune skyrockets towards good, as she develops her powers as Supergirl further and is able to save the plane and explore her true identity at the culmination of this episode.