I spend a lot of time online and have done for years and over that time many happy, sad, odd, nasty, fantastic things have happened to me online and off. This blog is about all of that and more.
Hey thanks for checking out my little blog. A bit about me: I'm a web designer for a Catholic Hospital
in Nebraska. I love my job and it's allowed me to learn so much about design and code etc etc. all at their expense, not mine, hehehe.
I have a daughter, she's nearly 12 and the pride of my life. You can check out her website at Sweetiepete.com.
She loves it when people sign her guestbook :) That's enough for this space. If you want to know more, read the blogs! :)
Name my blog. Really, I need help renaming this thing because I've decided 'Life Online' is duller than dull. I want something clever and amusing for a blog that mainly talks about what it's like to be be online a lot. Unfortunately, I'm not very clever when it comes to that sort of thing. SO, if anyone reading this has any suggestions either leave them in the comments or drop me an email.
I need a break at the moment. Today's been pretty hectic with meetings and *cough* installing a font on a certain doctor's computer *cough* and tweaking presentations and fixing my forums and phew! I'm out of breath. My little office-mate's out of town today so I've had the tunes up while I work - I love it - *hugs her very own office*.
What else.. Oh hot topic of debate at the moment on TCZ is apparently the merits and faults of Lord of the Rings versus Harry Potter. Personally I think it's dumb to even bother comparing the two as one is specifically aimed at children (even though of course adults love it too) and the other is a masterpiece of such scope and detail that it set the standard for the future of the fantasy novel genre. Harry Potter is brilliant. I love it and I admire the hell out of J.K. Rowling for a) being the driving force for getting so many children (and even grown-ups) to read and b) for making a hell of a lot of money in the process :) I also deeply love the LotR trilogy. I read the Hobbit as a kid and then I went on into the trilogy and lost myself in Tolkien's beautiful world. It remains to this day one of about five books/series I re-read three or four times a year. And I'm so chuffed with the films so far. Peter Jackson's done a marvelous job.
But to compare the two is like comparing R.L. Stine to Stephen King. Just plain silly.
Stress = Having to wait for an email you're anxious about. Especially when you're not sure of the recipient's reaction. You jump when you hear your email noise and there's this split second when you almost don't want to look, in case it's a bad reaction. Of course this only happens when you're sitting on your computer for ages waiting for a response. It's worse when you have to go to work and get through a day and you can't concentrate on anything because you're so worried about that blasted email. Then you come home to find no reply at all and your heart just bottoms out. That's when you begin to second guess everything you wrote in that email. Did you say too much? Should you have made that certain comment? Even though you have edited the hell out it before sending, when you're waiting for a reply you begin to over-analyse every single detail. You try to imagine the recipient's reaction to what you've written. You worry and wonder whether they're going to reply at all. And if they don't reply, is it because they couldn't think of anything to say back?
This has happened to me many many times. Usually it's a personal situation and I'm a natural born worrier. But sometimes I'll worry about what I've written to one of my bosses. There's a fine line there about how much you can joke around with them and I've been known to say a bit much. Today was kind of amusing though as I was emailing back and forth with a physician I used to work for in my old department. This doctor has a bit of a twisted sense of humour that I quite like (one year he "kidnapped" my santa claus decoration and sent me a bunch of ransom notes with pictures of my little guy blindfolded and tied to a filing cabinet :)). So I had emailed him some stuff from my home address, which begins with UKMelia. He emails me back asking wtf UKMelia is ("some sort of hawaiian ukelele?"). So I decided to get cute and tell him that it's a defense mechanism against sleazy guys online:
In a chatroom: Sleazyguy> So UKMelia baby, You in the UK? UKMelia> Well Sleazy where are you from? Sleazyguy> I live in Nebraska sweet thang. UKMelia> Then yes Sleazy, I live in the UK.
Now I sort of held my breath on that one because, well frankly this doctor is also one of the hospital vice-presidents, so you never know what you can or can't joke about. He was a good sport though and replied as 'Sleazyguy' which I thought was a riot :)
Anyway, please, if you ever get a semi-important/very important message from someone you care about, or someone you work with, don't make 'em wait forever for a reply.
I don't know what to write about today. I was kicking around the idea of writing 'the evolution of a SPOD' but as I was writing it, it was so boring even *I* fell asleep. There was a time when I spent every waking minute online. I'd wake up in the morning and rush to get online so I could see who'd replied to posts I'd made or meet friends or whatever. I guess I use the Internet from more of a social angle than say, a research one. Some people spend their time online surfing websites, digging a little deeper for information. Some people are just looking at porn. Me, I chat. I check out websites others recommend to me.
Is it the safety of the Internet that allows me to be less shy than I am irl? Of course it is. It's easier to edit responses via text than it is in person. Especially via email. I bought a webcam recently but when I turn it on for my friends, I'm uncomfortable. I guess the reason I'm on so much is because it's been difficult 'breaking in' anywhere in this town. It's very cliquey. If you didn't grow up here, if you don't confom to 'small town ideals', then you're not going to fit in no matter how hard you try. I have a lot of acquaintances at work, but I don't get invited to go to lunch with any of them. The girl in the office behind me is friends with one of the other girls in my department, and they're forever in and out and whining about their jobs, and occasionally they let me in on some joke. And then they go to lunch and tell me to have a nice afternoon. So I'm at the point where I don't even make the effort anymore. I miss my friends in California. And I'm eternally grateful for my friends I have online. Some of them I've had the pleasure to meet, especially Kat, some I haven't. So I spod. I spend inordinate amounts of time online with them because they make me laugh. They cheer me up when I need it. It's just nicer than eating lunch alone in my office.
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