I found an old notebook when I was tidying my desk today.

Its from 1997 and 1998, when I was working on my MA in comparative literature and writing about creative, non-fiction hypertext.

I read all the 1990s hypertext theory and took careful notes.

Thinking about what David Kolb wrote about scholarly hypertext and whether you can actually do philosophy in a non-linear format.

I worried about reading too much and not writing enough.

And noted that while Walter Ong was interesting, he didn’t mention the internet.

Then I got to go to my first conference! ACM Hypertext 1998 – it was amazing. My MA advisor, Espen Aarseth, paid for my flight and hotel out of a grant he had and gave me two tasks: hand out flyers for a conference he was organising, and go and introduce myself to Stuart Moulthrop and tell him hi from Espen.

I have very thorough notes from the conference. Very thorough.

I even took thorough notes from discussions in the panel on hypertext and time. I love that Markku Eskelinen asked “Where is Genette?” Of course he did.

I was so touched to see these traces of my younger self. So earnest. So diligent.

So honest.