this is a little bit embarrassing

Embarrassing for a couple of reasons:

1. My internet connection stuffed itself up this afternoon. No, really, it did stuff itself up. I came home from work and it was slow as slow as stopped. I confess I may have added to the problem when I started fixing it. And then I forgot how to reset my modem and I flapped around in a state of near panic, because how on earth was I going to NaBloPoMo?!
2. In my state of panic I phoned my computer-nerd brother and got my gracious, kind sister-in-law. I shared my NaBloPoMo fears. She offered soothing, sympathetic noises and (she is so nice and understanding) offered to post for me if it came to that. I cornered my Dad on the phone, but he didn't know how my modem worked. And my brother turned out to be uncontactable.
3. I realised I was skipping a step in the modem resetting process. As soon as I followed the instructions to the letter my connection was restored. I then phoned everyone back to assure them everything would be alright.

My sister-in-law said something very thoughtful though: 'It's a tradition now'. So it's not that I'm crazy or obsessed or anal about NaBloPoMo. Oh no. Not that at all! NaBloPoMo has become a meaningful blogging tradition. No, seriously!

facing up to facebook

I may not be able to vote in the US election but that hasn't stopped me lodging my preference on my facebook status. (The suspense, the suspense. Do you realise how painful it is to be twenty four hours ahead and have to wait, not for the 4th November, but the 5th?)

Ah, facebook. Good old facebook. Where would I be without facebook?!

At first I didn't really get the whole online social networking thing. In order to protect my identity I registered using my maiden name, which is kind of still my name, since I work under it at the hospital. The unexpected spin off is that old school friends have been able to find me very easily - noone who knows me now can find me, but those old school friends? We are right back where we left things, um, twenty years ago.

Which is one of the nicest things about facebook really. While the whole 'please be my friend' thing is irritating (what am I... in primary school, waiting to see if people will like me, approve me, befriend me? Or was that high school? It's all such a blur now!), it has been nice to reconnect with all those people from yesteryear.

But how much of a friend is a facebook friend really? Last count, I had 250 friends. I know this because in an effort to catch up with my brother's hefty friend list I check every few hours to see if anyone new likes me. I interact with maybe twenty or thirty of these friends, but mostly I just enjoy the vague sense of connection and knowing I could easily get in touch if I wanted to. Hardly friendship really.

I have to be careful on facebook because it's easy to take offense with the whole friend thing. A couple of girls refused my online approach. I don't really blame them, since at the time of our real friendship I was little more than a boring prude crushed beneath the repressive regime my father enforced. Another old school friend heartlessly cut me out of her friend list. I was a little miffed, but really... we were never close anyway, especially not after she told me her brother thought I would be beautiful if I bought the Avon she was selling. Since I would have done anything to get his attention I bought the Avon. Sigh. More recently I realised a local nursing colleague had chopped off our online alliance. I got all incensed and thought all kinds of indignant, injured thoughts before I realised I haven't seen her around (in reality or on facebook) for a long time. Chances are she ditched me long ago and I never even noticed. Obviously we weren't such great friends. Which all goes to show just how artificial facebook really is.

The jury is still out - facebook has its benefits (This evening I've swapped messages with a work mate and right now I'm using it to chat to a friend) and I love keeping up with the more intimate details of people's lives. But real friendship on facebook? About as remote as my current status making any real difference in the US election!

Ah well. All things in their place. Use it as a tool, just don't let facebook take over my life I suppose.

Blogging boosts your social life? We knew that!

Here's a toast to you, my friends of the blogosphere!

new year, new computer, new cecily

I did it!

I deleted every last skerrick of information off my hard drive and rebuilt my computer... well I inserted multiple CDs in the CD drive and imported all the information onto my hard drive, which hardly seems like rebuilding it, but there you go, apparently it is.

This job has been on my to-do list for over a year. My little-bit-of-a-computer-geek brother was going to visit last March and I anticipated enlisting his services for the building work. Alas, no visit eventuated and the task remained undone. In the end I got my pound of flesh from him though, with his most excellent instructions passed down the phone line over the course of an hour this afternoon.

And so my computer is transformed. Woohoo. (I still have a few more programs to download, but we're nearly there)

This builds on top of a host of other tasks I put off throughout 2007 but have already achieved in 2008:

• practice the violin most days
• reflect and journal most days (I've journalled more this month than the whole second half of last year!)
• visit a friend and mend a relationship
• write letters to multiple friends in numerous places
• finish a few half read books
  

As I said, new year, new Cecily. Now I just need to keep it up.

I would also like to achieve a number of other things:

• complete a needlework project or two (let's not discuss how many half stitched canvases litter my home)
• sort photos and choose the best from each country I have visited to enlarge and hang along our hall
• start making a few scrap books (Cecily's own version, not the scrap booking type that are really popular at present) of all the gathered tickets, programs, maps and other general paraphernalia I religiously collected in my travels
• finish a few more half read books
  

That should keep me going for the next twelve eleven months!

Thanks Luke for all your help... you are a champion geek. I'm proud to know you!... Hey I'm proud to be your sister!

(Shameless plug because one good turn deserves another) Luke is trying to build a photography business, so if you're on the lookout for a wedding photographer (or any other kind of portrait photographer) and you live near Newcastle, check out his website... he might be able to tell your story!

'fess up you computer geeks

Who writes this stuff?

Roger Federer has no sooner been knocked out of the Australian Open (I know... outrageous) than the result is included on his wikipedia record right down to the scoreboard! Heath Ledger was barely dead and all the sketchy details were written into his wikipedia entry.

I know... I'm googling them, so I have no right to point the finger at such computer geekiness (I only wanted to know who Federer's pretty girlfriend is), but really... have these people no lives but they must take on the responsibility of editing wikipedia pages the moment anything noteworthy (or not) happens?

To rescue myself from computer geek status I must inform you that I spent the last three days (at various times) burning all my files onto CD (twice) in order to ensure a sturdy system of backups. Only after I had completed all this did my truly nerdy brother (seriously, he, like, works with computers all day, every day) start telling me about external hard drives... you mean I could have saved those hours of endless wrangling with a broken burner and dud CDs by just plugging in a hard drive and copying everything over in an instant? You didn't think it was worth telling me about this before all that wasted time? Time is a resource of great value - it would have been worth the investment.

Grrrr

So now I'm ready to delete my entire hard drive and rebuild my computer. Technically ready. Mentally the thought of this scares me silly, so I may well fill my hard drive with another year of useless information before I do the deed. Except my computer is getting slower and slower and slower so something must be done.

Anyway, I've decided to stop moaning about nursing since I've discovered that being an IT consultant would be the most tedious occupation in the world. With my geeky brother's most excellent tutelage I will rebuild my computer myself, but once I've proven I can do it... next time it will be off to the nearest computer shop. Why put myself through this? I'm no computer geek and it just might be worth paying someone else to do this stuff.

But I'll probably keep googling anyone who dies or otherwise piques my interest.