Time Machine

Reflection

I want to briefly outline some of the choices I made on this project as a short reflection. I feel that most of it stands on its own and its relation to the course is obvious. The entire project is a time machine in its own right, as well as examining our collective pandemic lives and the more personal life I have had during the pandemic. But it also deals with the plague that America is facing, division, and how that has impacted my time at the UW. I'll dive a little deeper into a couple of sections that might need a bit more explanation.

The first thing I'll explain a little more is the Nanoseconds label under each of the headings. This references the “Numbers Every Computer Scientist Should Know,” that I linked in the October 18th section. I was very intrigued by the idea that a computer could reason through billions of decisions and operations every second, and that you needed to measure things in nanoseconds, a unfathomably small measurement of time. In a class so connected to time, I thought that this was something that I could uniquely relate to — being in a computing major — and that it almost felt like a computer was a time machine of sorts. For example, Rainbird used his time machine to buy himself more time, by going back and delivering information to a younger version of himself. The idea of not being limited by time like a computer is a very intriguing fantasy. I attached Nanoseconds labels to each of my life events because, in a computers eyes, each of these moments would be a flash, simply a nanosecond. Yet, for me, they are what has come to define me. At the same time, I explore the depths that technology has taken hold over us, through both my major and through the pandemic. One of my favorite sections was a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek take on my final presentation at my internship, where I describe staring in my glowing screen, explaining what I had made my glowing screen do, while a couple dozen people watch on their glowing screen. It kind of pokes fun at the issue, but screens truly are something that feels inescapable nowadays. During the pandemic I have worked at my computer for hours and hours every day, and then to decompress I’ll play my phone or a video game. It’s something I may never fully come to terms with, but I am acutely aware of how attached I am to tech.

The blog posts are not in chronological order, and this was an intentional choice. Randomness provides one of the most interesting forms to me, building up a sprawling story where you gather context on other sections without ever knowing where the story is moving in time. “Station Eleven,” was also easily my favorite novel we read this quarter, so I thought I would emulate it a little bit too. One of the themes I deal with was the fragility and randomness of life, and I think haphazardly jumping forward and backwards is a good way to have the form connect with that theme. Just like the last year, you shouldn’t have any idea what is coming next when reading it for the first time. Randomness is something that is very common in my computer science course work too, and also present in some of the other sections like the random trips and even when my family got our first vaccine shot.

Another theme I dealt with was the isolation that popped up across extinction and time travel narratives throughout the quarter. COVID is the obvious example here, but I also brought in my first quarter at the UW where I felt a little lonely, and I contrasted it with moments where I felt very connected to others, just to show how much harder COVID hit. The most impactful section relating to isolation for me was my friend Jackson’s fathers passing. All of my isolation is somewhat limited with an end in sight, but his is something he will have to deal with for the rest of his life. So I guess the overarching theme of extinction comes with the caveat to enjoy what you have, while you have it.

Finally, I want to mention my form and why I chose the website as a container for the text. There are several reasons. First, the obvious connection of my major -- with maybe a bit of irony given that some of the sections question technology, and the only way to engage with it is through a screen of some sort. I also liked the blog post format, where it almost looked like I had been recapping this over time rather than putting everything up all at once. It reminds me a little of the photo blog Candace had in “Severance,” and how she kept it updated during a pandemic. There are obviously personal anecdotes everywhere, and having those private moments on a public page is also something that I considered, and I really liked the idea that someone could stumble upon it someday and be transported back in time to learn about my life at a handful of impactful moments. It also allowed me to make some of the sections a little more dynamic, with links to other resources. Altogether, it felt like a much better and more interesting fit than the traditional paper form.

I also wanted to say that I really enjoyed the class, and this introspective has been deeply valuable for me as I finish college. Looking at it through the genre of time travel and extinction isn’t something that I thought I would ever do, but it really fits and, along with all that we have learned this quarter, really illuminates stories in interesting ways. So thank you for a great quarter!