I was definitely taken in by The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges. The story was captivating, and I really liked that the story itself was interesting while at the same time it stated something about hypertext and media in an indirect way. As I do more of these readings, I am realizing that the more I can connect the readings to the internet the more I enjoy them. I guess I am just a lot more interested in the internet than other forms of media (new or old).

At the end of The Garden of Forking Paths, Borges makes some comments about Ts'ui Pen's "labyrinth" that I found very similar to the concepts achieved by the internet today. For example, Borges writes "He believed in an infinite series of times in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time" (page 34). The network Borges describes is just like many facets of the internet. There could be an article online that people respond to in different places andin different ways and styles, and it is highly probable that many of the responses would never come into contact with one another. The responses exist throughout the internet, but many of those responses exist alone. However, the internet encompasses all of these and allows for anything to exist. Borges also writes that "In the present [time], which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost" (page 34). This reminds me of the choose your own adventure stories we talked about in class. I remember that as a kid I read a Goosebumps choose your own adventure story, and that depending on what choices you made, you could end up dying (or surviving if you were really lucky) in a number of different ways. The internet is one giant choose your own adventure story. You have the freedom to go wherever you choose and pave your own pathway. Each time you set out in a different direction, your story will change. You might learn something new, discover a helpful tool, or just end up wasting time. No matter what happens, it is your own adventure and it will affect your life. For me, this is part of the true beauty of the internet: it is different for every person and no two people will have exactly the same experience online.