365 #206: My Cat Loves Me

365 #206: My Cat Loves Me
Originally uploaded by AurélienS

Divide in Voicemail Culture

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/fashion/02voicemail.html?pagewanted=1

This article reminded me to check the messages that I've been putting off since the beginning of April.

While I do agree that voicemail is annoying and I would rather not have to listen to it, there is a specific reason most of the time when I put off listening to my messages. There is one specific person who always leaves voicemails that make me cry. Once there's a message from this person, I will put off listening until another one that could have content comes in. In April, this person left a message, and the next two messages were left by my grandparents. I called my family back and told them that I hadn't listened to the messages yet, but what did they need?

Just now, I finally checked the messages. It turns out the message I had been avoiding listening to was just a couple seconds of silence, and then a click. How was I to know?

After listening to the messages from my family, I went back and listened to all the messages I had saved. There was a comical one from a friend, many cute ones from my significant other, and birthday wishes from both friends and family. There was even an adorable message from my two-year-old sister, where I could hear my mom in the background saying things for her to repear. These saved messages remind me why I used to love getting voicemails.

In the article listed above, mention is made of products designed to transform voice messages into text. For messages that are simply about the transferral of information, this would be a lovely innovation. My emails go to my phone already, so I would be able to easily address the problems at hand. However, reading a message from my mother's cell phone that says "Hi Re, Love you Re, Bye Re" would not have nearly the same effect as hearing my baby sister's voice. There's a reason I have these messages saved, and that's to listen to the voices of people I care about when I'm feeling down. For the past two months I've been unable to do this because I was afraid of that one message. I actually forgot about all the wonderful messages I had saved.

So, while voice-to-text services would be great in some situations, the majority of the voicemails I receive are these fun ones. I like the idea, but am unsure of practicality. 

High School

I know I just graduated. I know I'm only nineteen. I know. But a lot can happen in a year. Looking back, I'm a totally different person now, in a number of ways of course. The one that struck me just now is the way I portray myself.

I used to be a mall-rat, I wore bright clothes, I was bubbly and at the same time vaguely emo. Sometimes I was described as a raver, not because I did drugs (I didn't) but because of the bright colors and outlandish styles I would sport. I wore cute floofy skirts and way too much plastic jewelry. I remember a specific day where I chose to wear a striped polo shirt and jeans my senior year. I had none of my normal bright makeup on, no plastic stars around my neck. About halfway through the day one of my 'good friends' (because everyone was a good friend in high school) asked me what was wrong with me and what I was wearing. It wasn't in a mean way, and it turns out a lot of people were confused by my choice out attire. Now, I'm reminded of a certain video by Ze Frank that I will link to later when I'm at a computer instead of on my blackberry. I had build up a personal brand, and now I was deviating from this. I had created a theme that people expected me to stick to and I was breaking free of it. The people around me kept me stuck in that niche of who I was, as I returned to my previous style the following day.

When I went off to college, I had a new place to start. I was able to create a more sophisticated portrayal of myself, and seem more presentable to the world. My style no longer screamed "stupid bubbly teenage girl" and instead begged for respect, or at least I would like to think so. About halfway through my second semester, I began to miss my old style. I didn't expect to go back into it, but I wanted to inforporate pieces of it into the brand I've created for myself. Now I'm trying to figure out how to do this without being overwhelming.

A friend who knew me in high school and has actually watched the progression commented on it the other day. He said that I've gotten more sophisticated and I can't pull off huge sparkly pink star earrings anymore. I'm kind of sad, partially because I'm afraid he's right, and partially because I feel like it's another example of being kept in a theme by outside forces. Besides, a lesbian who's name I can't remember and who I met once - at the mall whilst mallratting no less - gave me those earrings. I at least want to be able to wear them so that I can tell that story.

There are no words.

It's always interesting when someone you don't expect to hear from contacts you. Especially when it happens twice in one day, and especially when it's a family friend.

I've recently added a lot of my family and family friends to my social networks. It's confusing because it's not like there are things that I'm actively hiding from them, my profiles have always been open, but they just never happened to be priveledged to the information previously. So I get concerned emails, IMs, texts. I guess I never really noticed how much of an angsty bitch I can be on the internet. When I get frustrated, the first thing I do is send out angry tweets on my personal account. Now that there are people following me aside from my "peers," or maybe now that my "peer group" is evolving into a more sophisticated group of people, I have to be more concious of how I portray myself via the intertubes. I even feel weird typing "via the intertubes," I feel like I should be classy and say something like "through the virtual network of communication manifested on the world wide web." 

I think I'll put my personal twitter on private. In addition to things like this (which I don't have a problem with!), more people are following this account whom I do not know personally (which I do have a problem with).

So I moved out of college.

I live with my family now. I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time cleaning up my room and helping out around the house. I made a list of summer goals for myself. I want to get rid of a lot of my belongings, because I just don't have the space to hold it all. Much of the stuff currenly in my room doesn't even belong to me, because I've been at college and the room was just a convenient holding space for my family to stash things. I thought about getting a third job out here. I applied to a couple placed but haven't heard back from anyone. As it is, I plan on being back in Fairfax about three days a week. The reasoning for this is that I already have two jobs there that I need to keep up on, as well as the fact that many of my friends live there and I don't know anyone out here.

I got a package in the mail here. I had ordered some books before I moved out of college, and had them sent to this address. I also recieved a credit card and a ton of junk mail. I'm looking forward to my summer reading list, though I'm not really sure what to expect, or how the books will seem when read one right after the other.

I also started a couple new blogs. One of them was the product of an all-nighter with Brian Picone, and the crazy thoughts we began to have at around 7 in the morning. We haven't posted anything yet, but it's going to be a collection of information and stories that we write about our people-watching endeavors. The second is going to be a conglomoration of photos of myself with short stories accompanying the photos. Both of these blogs, along with one that hasn't been updated in ages, can be found as links in the right-hand sidebar.

Musicians on Twitter

I have two twitter accounts. With one of them, I follow upward of 700 people and use the account to share information and learn about the internet world. I don't check it everyday, and I certainly don't read evry tweet.

On my other account, I follow my friends and other people who I actually want to keep in touch with and talk to on a regular basis, as well as organzations I care about or want to get constant updates from. I only have about 70 people that I follow from this account, and I read every single tweet as it comes to my phone.

One of my friends (@bigsamthompson) recommended a few people to follow because they have interesting updates, including @iamsh4wn and the musician @johncmayer. I followed these from my more personal account, since I wanted to actually get and enjoy their tweets.

While I do enjoy John Mayer's music, it's not my favorite. His music is not why I follow him. I follow him because his tweets are fun to read, and they make my day a little brighter/thoughtful/something. However, since he is a "famous musician," smaller bands piggyback off of his fame. I've had a few bands/singers/songwriters that I've never heard of start following me, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I've followed them back for now, and a couple of them have interesting things to say. However, they also mention their music a bit more than I'd like. Also, since I've followed a couple of them, even more have decided to add me. I'm not really sure how I feel about musicians on twitter trying to get more people interested in their work. I feel as though twitter should be a place to connect with your existing fanbase, or even people who don't really care about your music but think you're an interesting person.

Does anyone else have opinions on this matter?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Stigma

I am intrigued by the girl that is watching us. She has been watching us all evening.
We've been writing papers and mingling, meeting, learning.
I wonder about her thought processes.
Does she want to talk to us? Is she watching because she wants to be a part of our community?
Maybe she's judging us.
She's giving us values and putting us into groups in her mind. She's organizing her social atmosphere and placing us at the lowest layer, the least important strata.
I find this hard to believe. If she wanted to disassociate herself from us, why would she stay so close for so long?