As I first started reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, (H2G2), I wondered why this was the text book for the class. I wondered why science fiction was a necessary component of the class. After the first few chapters, I still didn’t get it. I mentioned it to a friend who is an engineering professor and to my surprise he was well acquainted with the book and advised me it was a classic. He said he enjoyed the British humor. That intrigued me and I became more interested in it.
By then, we had been assigned to watch Hyperland. Watching Hyperland is when I began to realize the genius of Douglas Adams. I really began to enjoy H2G2 by then, and enjoyed all of the inside jokes including the towel, 42 and babel fish. I also became aware that many of the students who were interested in multimedia communications were also interested in gaming. I have found that gamers tend to be big science fiction fans. Perhaps because they like the imagination of space in the same way they like the imagination of video games? Video game story lines are influenced by science fiction? I’m not sure. But I’m very happy that this class has introduced me to science fiction in a positive way. I enjoyed the story line of Arthur Dent escaping the end of the world to travel into space on an adventure. It was entertaining.
I was able to relate to the theme of H2G2 and Arthur Dent throughout this class, mostly having to remind myself, “Don’t panic!.” The “Don’t Panic” theme came in handy to me throughout this quarter since falling behind did become stressful. The light hearted humor, the fish in the ear, the earth blowing up, and all the while the happy go lucky continuing on and moving ahead is a good analogy to how I felt throughout the quarter. The stress from falling behind is only a small fraction of the analogy of the book though. I would describe it more of an adventure with many new concepts and things I never knew but that were always here (designing websites, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, the art of color, animation, how a font can change everything). Arthur Dent went through the same thing even though his house was demolished and the earth blew up, he was still learning new things and moving forward and surviving somehow.