One of the Many Roads to Nowhere

I don’t know why, but I have felt like writing less and less here lately.  When I first transferred my blog to wordpress, I was writing at least a couple of times a week.  But as I got busier and busier I wrote less and less and now, I think I’m in the habit of not writing.  I’m glad I’m not writing as much, mind you, but I do like keeping up with my thoughts via blog.  Heh, this is the closest thing I actually have to a diary or journal, so I want to keep going.  Unfortunately, I’m kind of at a loss on how to do it.  I can’t just sit down and write, I have to feel inspired, otherwise it’s a flaming pile of crap.

My only idea is to maybe start out by writing something short, but more creative.  Maybe a story or something about once a week.  They may not all be good (not that many of mine are anyway), but at least it might get me back into the habit of writing.  What I will post will be the rough draft of my stories, and I would love feedback.  I think that later on I might put the edited versions up, but for right now, I’m just thinking of this as a minor writing exercise to get me back into my creative mood.  So I guess I’ll start doing that sometime this week and see how it goes.

I haven’t really been up to much lately, mostly just relaxing, working, or watching movies.  But my week away from facebook is up and so I’m slowly going back.  Although I still don’t really do anything except check for messages and such, I am going to post status updates again, at least every once in awhile.  I know this is going to sound snobbish of me, and please don’t take it that way, but I have found that I haven’t really missed much being gone from facebook.  Most of you I have other ways of talking to and I’m filled in on important things based on those interactions.  The thing I missed the most from facebook is the photos from close friends.  Facebook is an easy way to share photos, and twitter doesn’t quite do that, which is fine.  Which brings me to my recent usage of twitter.  I know that I used to be against the website because of microblogging, but facebook is essentially the same deal.  No one writes full out blog posts anymore with the exception of a couple of my friends and myself.  However, I think twitter offers a better approach than facebook mostly because I am not overloaded with all the liking and who becomes friends with whom.  Right now I will still use both, but if you have a twitter, look me up.

As far as movies I have recently seen I have watched Robin Hood and The Back-up Plan.  My initial reaction to Robin Hood is, it’s okay, just long.  Maybe not really worth a rewatch.  It’s a bit misleading because I thought it was a traditional Robin Hood story, but it’s more about how he becomes Robin Hood, which isn’t really bad, just not what I was expecting.  It also took a bit too long to introduce the characters and I was a bit confused at first because I didn’t know who the people in the scene were, and it frequently jumped from scene to scene.  The action was good though, and kind of an interesting story so I would say a 3.  As for The Back-up Plan, this is a total chick flick, which I don’t normally watch but I went with some friends to see it.  It was surprisingly better than I thought.  It had some moments I actually thought were funny and it was a pretty good story.  I respect the ending because that’s not where I thought it was going to end up.  But there were some problems with the plot as well.  So a high 3, but those of you who are into chick flicks would probably like it better.

The last thing I’m going to relate to you is I was doing some research on the English language and the American accent from a non native speaker’s stand point last night.  There are some interesting videos on youtube that you can easily find on your own.  But there is a lot to our language that we don’t even think about.  For example, countable and uncountable nouns.  Nouns that can be counted are obviously called countable, but I never really paid attention to this.  If you said a milk (uncountable) it just simply wasn’t good grammar to me.  I would have explained it away to someone asking as, “Well, it just doesn’t sound right.”   I never sat down and said milk was an uncountable noun, therefore you can not use ‘a’ in front of it.  I know, I’m being weird.  But it also got me to thinking on accents.  I know several non native speakers of English and (even though there are plenty of people I know who are American citizens) what does our accent sound like in other languages?  I’m not asking you to actually describe the accent (because that would be impossible) so much as do you think it is a pretty accent to have, or just kind of ugly like I imagine it to be heh heh?  This also leads me to another question, what is your favorite and least favorite accents when spoken to in English (not English accents necessarily, but other language’s accents when speaking English.)

What does that boil down to?  Not much actually, mostly sleep.  Lots and lots of wonderful sleep.  I think I slept for something like 11 hours, and it was awesome, even with the weird dreams that I don’t quite remember anymore.  For those of you who may or may not know, I can be a bit of a recluse, especially if I have been stressed.  So today I decided to take a day off from people.  With the exception of a couple of texts and a short chat via messenger, there has been nothing but solitude.  I’ve watched some tv, re-watched The Brothers Bloom, and did some reading (for pleasure, not school related! yay!)  There were a few other odd and end things that I did as well, but they aren’t worth mentioning really.

I know a lot of people think I’m weird for needing my completely anti-social days, but they are really important for me, especially now that I work with customers most of the week, which is the WORST kind of human interaction I can possibly think of.  I get mentally and sometimes physically exhausted when I deal with people too much.  sometimes I just need to shut the door, and have some alone time.  Just time where I can do whatever I want in peace and quiet.

I’m not saying I desire a life without any social interactions either.  I also need friend time, because I have gone several days in my solitude and I end up craving some hang out time as well.  But as college and work goes one, I get busier and busier and I feel so thinly stretched.  I always feel like there are certain social obligations that come first, well I haven’t seen this person in awhile, I should hang out.  And dang, now I have to go to work!  And I do still feel like some of my friends are neglected, but I think from now on sometimes I need to take a step back and just have some solitude.

Gah, I know that’s over 300 words on why I like being a recluse.  On other, equally not interesting news, I got my grades back for this semester today.  They were all good, I’m very satisfied.  I managed to bs my way through another world literature unscathed.  Tomorrow I have to work, and unfortunately I will be there until maybe 2 and have to get up to do it all over again at 10.  Oh well, I need the money.  So I think I might venture out of the house for a little bit and do something with P-chan… or not heh heh.

So I have finally finished my sophomore year of college!  Yay, I’m halfway done!  Anyway, on less exciting news, I’ve been receiving a lot of feedback via facebook on the possibility of me shutting down my account.  I haven’t yet because there are a couple of people I don’t want to lose (because facebook is sadly, the only contact I have with them).  But to explain some of the reasons why I will link to my brother in law’s post about it (he and my sister both shut down their accounts yesterday).  It’s really not that big of a deal (in my opinion) but I think people have come to rely so heavily on facebook that they can’t see going without it.

Heck, I even kind of fall into that category because there is the sense of not knowing what’s going on with my friends anymore if I do decide to delete it.  But I know that’s just the facebook addiction talking.  I still have ways to see my friends and talk.  I have text, telephone, e-mail, skype, messenger, and *gasp* meeting them in person.  (that wasn’t meant to make fun of anyone by the way).  It just brings up a question to my mind, why do we feel so dependent on cell phones and facebook to be “connected” with people.  I know I’m beginning to sound like an old fart, but I miss the days (which wasn’t actually so long ago) when people could go to a party and not constantly text instead of enjoying the party or the days when people could go through a 2 hour movie without having to check facebook to make sure Sally and John are still together.

And I agree with what my brother in law says in the post linked above, facebook did use to be more fun.  I miss the days when I could just look at status updates and photos and not have to worry about who became a friend of whom.  I miss the days before farmville and mafia wars when my page wasn’t filled with “look who bought a pig!” and whatnot.  I miss the days when it was a place for friends, not a place where if I make one comment that someone doesn’t agree with and get hammered by comments meant to criticize me for my differing views.  I’m sorry, I love you guys to death, but I really don’t care what you are fans of.  I would hide it if I could, but unfortunately I can’t hide fan things, or I guess like now.  I have to hide the people themselves, which honestly, I have done just for that reason.

That along with all the privacy issues and ownership issues, it’s just made me sick and tired of facebook.  I know a lot of people stay connected through facebook and that it is a pretty big site, but I just don’t know how much more I can take.  I’m giving myself a small break from it to see how it goes (I probably won’t get on it for about a week, or if I do it will only be to see if I have messages).  I will again say, that I’m not deleting it yet, but I am considering it because it keeps pissing me off, and social networking is supposed to be fun.  So we will see how this week goes and if I even want to get back on it after this.

By the way, this isn’t meant to criticize anyone that does have a facebook, that is your own personal choice just like it is my own personal choice to get rid of mine.  I’ve had a couple of people take my posts as spiting them for having an account and being okay with the changes, but that’s not the case.