And it begins here...

About Bliu...
My name is Sophia Liu but I like to call myself Bliu, as its homophone is blue…BlueVelvet…the color of my hair…the color I have fallen in love with for the last decade. I was born in 1982, year of the Dog (which is this year :-) and grew up in the west suburbs of Chicago (Oak Park, Oak Brook, and River Forest). I then went to University of California, Irvine as an undergraduate for three years and then spent my last year abroad at University of Sussex in England near Brighton. I majored in Social Science specializing in Research and Analytical Methods (with a Sociology and Cultural Studies emphasis) and minored in Information and Computer Science as well as minored in Digital Arts. I am currently one of the two new PhD students affiliated with the ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society) Institute. I am also a graduate research assistant at the Natural Hazards Center at CU. My current research interest is exploring the peer-to-peer messaging phenomenon particularly in the aftermath of a crisis event. I have been particularly interested in the no/low-tech messages (graffiti, fliers, signage, etc.) and the high-tech messages (txt messages, MMS, blogs, wikis, etc.) that are image-based and geographically-based, and ways in which these various types of messages can be integrated. Outside of the academia world, I spend most of my time at the Asylum, my home in south Boulder. It has been called the Asylum for the last 5 years in reference to the social network of all the asylumates as artists (anarchists, capoeristas, gypsies, rastafarians, climbers, buddhists, yogis, sufis, musicians, philosophers, activists), not just your average citizen. The asylum – a place of shelter and protection from danger. The Asylum Project is one creation in progress that may coalesce with my future work. Outside of the Asylum, I blade.float.fly into the wind and dance.

I have to admit that this is the first textual blog that I have written thus far. I have been avoiding this potential tether to regularly be in the virtual world. Though I was tempted to log my accounts when I studied abroad in England a couple of years ago, but got distracted by the cows in my backyard and the endless hills to wander about. But obviously blogging has and will become an important activity for my research. So I see this as a serendipitous opportunity for me to actively blog as well as be reflective of this phenomenon for my future research endeavors. I view my creations for this class as the venue in which I can creatively push the boundaries of expression and the notions of interacting, and be a Muse.