Wednesday, April 18, 2012

the internet

So I haven't had an Internet connection at home for a while (cause I moved in with my boyfriend and away from the wonderful almost endless campus Internet connection) and my blog posts have therefore been non-existent.  I invested in a blackberry to be able to at least read my e-mails and get onto facebook (but only theoretically-jeez blackberry facebook is Horrible) but the blogger app, wait, there isn't one.  So I have been out of contact.

To be completely honest, I am getting more and more twitchy about being online.  I don't like seeing carefully chosen advertisements from words in my e-mails and in what I have "liked" on facebook.  A case in point is The Little Prince.  I love this book: it moves me almost to tears every time I read it.  So I said I liked it on Facebook and now I have a feed full of items with "Little Prince" on them that I will presumably want to buy.  There is a music box, a duvet cover with matching pillow slip, a watch and endless other things that clearly (?) have equal importance to me as my friends' news as it all streams over the same page.

Facebook even looks different: now I have a timeline with a cute little cube with pictures of my friends and a list of places I have studied or lived in the past.  I can practically feel the marketers and other creepy people who follow your every move closing in...(I have just caught up on my friend Zoe's blog: she (rightly) complains that white people love to panic.  This is me, panicking.  But I suppose if I (kind of) know I'm panicking? Then...)

But I have missed seeing everyone's faces: Amy wandering around London in all her fabulousness; Indra and Thomas smiling out at me from Belgium; all the music department people in their graduation gowns and smiles; and Beatrice with her husband-to-be (nine more days today!) celebrating Easter in typically wacky fashion (picture the chocolate rabbits peering over the rocks towards a waterfall).

I could go off facebook, but then I would expect everyone to...send me letters?  Call me from overseas?  E-mailing is difficult enough.  I do savour an old-fashioned e-mail myself, but not everyone has the gift (or curse) of the endless words that flow from my fingers once I get writing.  I would miss you all too much.

So despite my paranoia about people being able to follow my every move (catch me "tagging in" somewhere I go!) I will stay here, in this online space.

Hello everyone!  It's great to see you all again.