Monday, March 30, 2009

Facebook and Attempts at Normalcy

Wow, it's already Monday again. It feels like I was just here, blogging away about looking forward to the weekend. It's amazing how time flies by when you're actually doing things you want to be doing...like on weekends.

It's not that I don't enjoy my job and that coming to work is a torture. In truth, I quite enjoy my job. I have a lot of different projects, I'm usually busy and the days go by quickly. Also, I like my coworkers which is a huge part of any job. It's a very good thing to like your coworkers, I mean, spending 40+ hours a week with them is quite a percentage of one's life and if you hate them, well, it just makes work difficult.

Yet there's something about weekends that makes you feel like you wish you could hold onto them and not let them go. I tend to be a little different at work than I am in my personal life; I mean, I never break out into a private dance party at my office the way I do at home. Well, not yet, anyway. Though I will say at my old job in California, there were nights when I was the last one in the building and my iPod and I would have a good old dance/flail around the top balcony of my office building. Very therapeutic. Also, tons of fun although occasionally I would boogie on down to the bathroom on the first floor and realize that though the windows to the building were tinted, there was a chance that people could see me and, well, it probably wouldn't do to have the Systems Analyst dancing around the building after hours.

I haven't started doing that at this job. I'm never the last one here. Also, I'm still trying to maintain some attempt at professionalism and normalcy. I don't want these people realizing exactly how strange I am. Although since the URL to this blog is posted on my Facebook page and I am friends with some of them on Facebook. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they realize that I am a wee bit quirky at times.

Yes, I am on Facebook. I used to be on Myspace but everyone slowly migrated over to Facebook and I decided that I, too, would give it a whirl. Wow, has that become a strange 'place' to be. I have a lot of friends. This is not to brag that I am popular because, I'm not. It's mostly to illustrate how much of a global monster Facebook has become. Through the wonder of facebook, I am now back in touch with my old friends from England, the ones I grew up with. My aunts and cousins are on Facebook and so I can keep tabs on what's going on with the British side of my family. The oddest thing is that a lot of people I went to high school with are on Facebook and they are my friends. They weren't really my friends in high school. Now I look back, I realize that when I was an insecure, shy little creature with low self-esteem in my high school days, I wasn't the only one. Back then, I truly thought that all the other kids in my class had their act together, that they really were as cocky and confident as they acted. Now, thanks to the wonders of television shows like "One Tree Hill" and "The O.C.", I see that all teenagers are neurotic messes and that most likely most of my high school peers were struggling as much as I was.

I'm just kidding about "One Tree Hill" and "The O.C." by the way. Any show that has twenty-something actors playing seventeen year olds can't be taken too seriously.

I'm not kidding about Facebook though. I actually do in enjoy it. It's a way of keeping in touch with friends, even when you don't have too much time. You can comment on their 'wall', a casual way of interacting, you can 'message' them which is to send them a real email message or you can 'poke' them which means you're letting them know you're still around and haven't forgotten them. There are a billion other things you can do via applications but most of the time I ignore these. There's only so many times you can have a stapler thrown at your head or be sent a virtual drink before you realize that you don't really want to install all the applications that you're invited to join. Still, I do enjoy reading the notes people put up there. Recently the "25 Randoms Things About Me" note was popular. Everyone posted 25 odd facts about themselves. I actually enjoy reading those; you get to know people that way and it's fun to realize that everyone's a weirdo.

I hear a lot about Twitter now, not quite so much about Facebook. I'm still not 100% sure what Twittering is or what it entails but I'm trying to resist it. I already have enough distractions with Facebook.

I'm rambling, yet again. However, being that it is a Monday morning, I hope you'll forgive me. My brain is always a little slow on Monday mornings. Actually...most mornings...but I'll try to do better tomorrow. As always, thanks for reading...

Happy Monday.

1 comment:

Kate said...

I agree about what a strange monster facebook has become. I recently suffered a self-image blow after discovering that some of my "friends" have over 400 other "friends" which seems ridiculous to me unless you are Oprah. And then, one old real friend whom I just friended said that they were looking forward to "exchanging status updates" which I, in my low-self esteem, found to be a way of putting me in my place as an unimportant acquaintance. Now, instead of ignoring friend requests from people whose faces I can't remember (this was my previous criteria), I just friend anyone who asks, or who I think I probably knew at one point in my life. I also am resisting Twitter and can't handle any more technological interference in my life, especially since I am now addicted to your blog!

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