I feel as if my story is one that many of us in graduate school (or many of us who have found ourselves in academics) have told. We have that aha! moment where we realize this is probably where we are meant to be – our interests, our experiences were all leading us on the path to realizing, “Oh, this is a thing I can study!” Here is a bit about my aha! moment.
I grew up in a crafting family. By crafting, I mean it is not surprising to find us, from my three-year-old cousin all the way to my eighty-nine-year-old grandma, sitting around a kitchen table creating, decorating, or coloring (there is a lot of coloring). When I was little, I was the child who would cover her family room floor in scrapbooking materials. At the same time, however, I also loved technology. I grew up with technology so seamlessly integrated in my life I can’t remember not having it. With a computer guy dad, my home always had a computer in it. Just as crafting had an element of fun and play, technology also offered me an element of play. I loved computer games because they opened an interactive world to me. I could design architecture for houses, explore the Titanic, and go to space and through the human body in the same day on the Magic School Bus.
As I mentioned, there is a tradition of crafting at the kitchen table. Every Thanksgiving there is a craft. This was one of our more advanced crafts – gingerbread houses.
Recently, my mom and I were on a drive to do some shopping and I was casually catching her up on my research and where I saw it headed. I told her about design, digital rhetoric, collaboration, and multimodality. She nonchalantly informed me, well, yes, that is what I have always been interested in. In that seemingly unimportant drive she had my aha! moment for me.
I share this bit of history about myself to speak to my excitement about serving as a DRC Fellow. I see this as a chance to continue playing with those interests that have always been with me. What interests me at this moment about digital rhetoric is the expanded possibilities, whether it be for what we write, how we write, or where we publish that writing. I am most looking forward to collaborating with the other graduate fellows and to engaging in such conversations that continue to expand the understanding of what is digital scholarship. And please feel free to contact me at lmgarsk@bgsu.edu!
