Facebook

Today's A to Z blog challenge blog post is short and sweet as will be tomorrows. I've had a busy week and keeping up with the challenge has been more difficult than I imagined. Even with some pre-planned and written posts. Just getting on the computer and sitting down and doing it has, at times felt too time consuming or exhausting.

I haven't had time to check out other blogs on the list through the week but plan on hopping through plenty at the weekend.

Today's post is Facebook. If you're a Facebook user, please feel free to add me. I get on intermittently but do use it. It's a great sharing platform. Don't be shy. Add me! (Just click on the image)

New Connections

This blog post is part of a blog fest created by Patti Larson over at her blog here Details are also posted on the Facebook group "Fellow Writers". I thought I would take part and see what happens. Its my first blog fest so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but I'm sure someone will let me know pretty promptly if I'm screwing it up.

The theme for the fest is connections. It can be connections of any description including but not restricted to real life connections, virtual connections and connections between fictual characters you have been writing about. I thought about this and decided to write a post on the very real connections I have been making on the social networking sites, twitter, here the blogging network, and more recently on facebook.

Surprisingly to some, who just don't get "twitter", that is actually the place I've made the most connections and we're not talking random meaningless follows. I'm talking about connecting with people you have things in common with, whatever that may be and actually having conversations about those things with real people with real and valid opinions on things.

On twitter I have connected with people and exchanged email addresses. We've talked serious issues such as health relative to my children and I and also those I talk to. Ive connected with fellow slimming worlders, people who struggle to maintain an ideal weight as I do and the support around this group of people is amazing. I've virtually met people who have an interest in learning as I do, having registered with the Open University and ive also come across and connected with those who have a passion for writing. A craft you sit at your desk, in a coffee shop, on your bed, but invariably on your own and you write. For me connecting with people is important and important for every single reason I've identified.

People need people and in such a technologically advanced age as ours, making those important connections online is a simple and obvious step and one not to be sniffed at by those who haven't yet quite embraced the world out there through the technology available.

I love my connections and I hope to nurture them so they grow.

What are your new connections?

I'm looking forward to reading other blogs in the blog fest to see others take on the theme of connections.

School Reunion

Recently, on Facebook, I appear to have been located by several people whom I used to attend school with, many many moons ago. I've been located and sent the obligatory friend requests. Now, although I am not sure if stepping back to a time I wore fixed braces, my family couldn't afford all the current trends and I was socially inept, is a good idea, but I accepted the requests, regardless. The thought processes behind these acceptances? I'm unsure.

Why do people feel the need to put on rose tinted glasses when remembering yesteryear and even in the remembering, why take that step and start adding and collecting old friends and acquaintances like a pack of cards? Why go on an friend requesting rampage, adding everyone you can possibly find, that links you back to a time of hormonal teenage angst. People you most probably lost touch with for a reason.

For me, I can't even remember half of the people that have sent me friend requests, yet I have surmised they are old school pupils from the ever growing lists of mutual friends, when clicking on their profiles.

To take this social networking nightmare to the next level, several old school “friends” have decided next summer would be a great year to hold a school reunion. We all turn forty next year. Need I say more?

Will it be fun to catch up? I think I will only remember half a dozen people and if the rest aren't wearing name tags, then I'm doomed. I acknowledge that there are a few people who it would be genuinely lovely to catch up with, but I know I'm definitely not the timid little girl I was back then and interactions are likely to be comparatively different.

Saying that though, a school reunion brings with it, self doubt and self image anxiety. How do I look? Does my bum look big in this? What have I achieved and what does this say about me?

All questions that I will torture myself with regardless of whether the questions have life breathed into them by another.

I will be forty. I work full time in the public sector, I have a modest house, a stable marriage and two wonderful children (OK, that bit can be debatable depending on when I'm asked!) I may also have had, at least one short story published by next summer, but will I feel I have achieved enough?

What is enough? What am I measuring myself against? And what do we expect from each other at these events?

As well as personal self doubt, I will also worry about being the cause of those similar feelings I have described, in some I meet again. Whilst their life decisions and changes will have no bearing for me, could I, without trying, cause some others personal anxieties and self doubt to rise to the surface? I'm not the person to compare and contrast our current lives, but, there's no getting away from the fact that if I'm worrying what they will be thinking of me, you can be sure, that someone else in the little gathering will be having the exact same concerns.

School reunions and stirring the pot of the past, is a hot bed of problems and issues, all silent and unspoken, yet an event, that seems ever popular.

Do we judge ourselves by others standards and achievements? Are these gathering merely a selfish tool to up our own invisible status by scorning others or is there a genuine wish to see old friends?

Disconnection from your online life?

I read an article today on the BBC News website, about people disconnecting from their online lives. I found it extremely interesting as I am currently building my online life, having recently starting blogging for myself and also following others blogs with interest. I'm an avid tweeter, loving the quick interactions and the speedy flow of information. I love people and people watching and being able to connect in some small way, with people I would otherwise never have "met" is amazing.

Yet my thrill at these world wide interactions is at odds with others who are actually paying a company to completely wipe out their internet life, deleting friends, images, all connections. The article states;

"People just want to get rid [of online profiles] because they noticed they spend way too much time in front of the computer," says Mr Savicic. "They are basically getting their analogue life back."

I study with the Open University, which is an isolating way of studying so being able to connect through the provided online forums, Facebook and twitter has been an immense help and at times has provided me with much needed motivation. That and the impending deadline I'm usually rushing to meet!

I have a dream I have carried with me from childhood, of writing and that has led me to blogs and all that the internet can open up. Do I think I spend too much time on the computer to the detriment of my face to face relationships? The short answer is, no. My real relationships come first, I have a family I adore, but they also have their own interests, particularly the children, so that leaves me some time to do my thing and here I find myself. It's not taking over my life, it's just another aspect of my life. An open world for me to explore and connect with and lets me do many things and provides me with so much information, and learning and knowledge can never be seen as a bad thing, it's just maybe a different way of going about it, but that's what the Open University has latched onto, accessibility and the power of the internet.

Maybe one day I will find myself tiring of some of the things I find interesting now, I can be a little bit fickle, but for now I won't be using the services of a company willing to wipe out my very existence, if only the online version of it.