Dear Future DS106er,

Hi,

I know you are probably wondering what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, and rightly so. Just think of it like you are on a train, a train with no doors, just windows, well more like screens, that look upon your previous, present and future lives. You can’t really get off the train, it gets going really fast and besides, it may not actually ever stop. All you know is that you are indefinitely on a digital train, with crazy people.

In order to survive among the train people, you must create content that other train riders will comment on with their train keyboards. Your content must be seemingly cohesive towards the “end?” of the train ride, but you can do the weekly assignments so that they fit in this general theme. Make sure you stand out, so that your conductor knows your name. Just keep creating meaningful content, because now the conductor definitely knows your name, and will use it and comment on your train life, for better or worse, asking you why you haven’t done something, when the obvious answer is because you haven’t done it.

Now, I know train trips get kind of weird after the first few days. You start to think of the train as your entire world. Just remember that you should keep showering, keep talking to your significant others and mothers, and try to do work for the rest of the classes you are pretending to take this semester, because lets face it, failing out of college because you spent too much time “digital storytelling,” a one hundred level computer science class, doesn’t sound very impressive. Failing out of college because you destroyed the social fabric of the world wide web with an animated gif, now that sounds impressive. So do that. Create with your heart. Follow your dreams. Do the things that you want to do. Make DS106 work for you.

and last, but definitely not least, buy twice as much coffee as you think you might need to finish a project. Trust me, you’ll need it.

Sincerely sincere,

Andrew Allingham

3 Comments

  1. cali4beach

    dear andrew,

    please tell me you are keeping your website. you are hilarious! I wish for you to write more funny things I can be distracted by instead of doing real work.

    kthanks 🙂

    1. andrew

      I switched over to the webhost Site5, so I’ll at least keep the site for the next year. Where else would I promote my vanity press Olive Garden Trilogy coming to Kindle this Fall?

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