Behold the wonders of the internet

[casimiera]

I admit, I am not an avid commenter. There are times when I am commenting on everything, and there are times when I don't comment at all. I think on a journal, removing someone for not commenting on your entries is not a big deal, actually, and I can understand why people do that. I don't do that. Even if you never comment, even if you hardly ever post, I most likely won't delete you, mostly because I find people fascinating (as a person who isn't the biggest fan of others, that could be considered hypocritical I suppose), but I like the fact that with an online journal, we allow people a small look into our lives and let them see that we are actually quite similar to many different people.

The one thing I find distasteful is removing friends from Facebook, especially if they are people you know/knew and were/are close to. I had a friend who randomly deleted me from myspace. I no longer have myspace, nor did I really check it, so I didn't care that much. Then he deleted me from Facebook. We were really close and while I admit we hadn't talked for a while, you'd think he'd like to use me for networking, since I had told him that if I ever found out about any graphic design jobs that I couldn't do, I'd send them to him. So it was a bit of a shock when he did that. I sent him a short, very nice message about it, and he told me he randomly cleans up his facebook every once in a while and I shouldn't take it personally. Well, I suppose I shouldn't. That is his choice if he doesn't want to list me as a friend on facebook. It's also my choice not to give him any references when graphic design jobs come my way (which they do from time to time).

I think it's completely different when you are friends with someone from high school you haven't talked to since high school, or maybe even earlier, and they remove you from their list. But when my friend from graphic design removed me, stating it was nothing personal and that he just liked to clean up his list from time to time, that just annoyed me. Then again, I do hope he doesn't remove his girlfriend from his list. I would hate to see the wrath of the girlfriend scorned by facebook. It would be quite entertaining, but still scary.

So in conclusion, if you like lots of comments from your online journal friends, I am probably not the best person for that. I do try, but I admit, there are times when I have nothing to say. Doesn't mean I'm not reading.

There's my little rant/just some information for you to know. :) I do love to read about what goes on in other people's lives. Makes my life seem so...well, I don't know. Just makes it seem like my life is pretty normal, since I see people struggling with stuff that either I have struggled with, or am struggling with. Or may struggle with in the future. :]

Comments

[burning_bright]

I like receiving comments, but I don't remove people if they don't comment. I don't comment much either! I would remove someone if I found them boring, but as long as there is something about the person that I find interesting, I like keeping them. Like you say, it's interesting to read about people's lives in an unobtrusive way- after all, we all write as much as we want others to know, so it's not like you're peeping through their key hole. :-)

[casimiera]

exactly! if someone was boring to me, or if i bored someone, i'd be fine with them deleting me. and if i do, they don't have to tell me. but i just find the people who do post random posts (this is mostly with my LJ, not much on here), and say they will delete people if you don't comment, well, that's just silly.

[deathgaze]

I try to comment as much as I can, but I understand when people don't do the same. A good chunk of my friends list is on hiatus or just too busy with life to even post, but I'm not removing them.

I agree with your last paragraph :) It's always nice to know you're not alone.

[casimiera]

Yeah, it's tough to comment a lot.

It is nice to know you're not alone. I always thought I was alone, especially in high school. Then I grew older and realized that a lot of people have problems, some worse than mine, and those people are surviving quite well.

Please don't hate me for anything I say!

[claire_chan]

Every once in a while [i.e. when I have time], I try to clean up FB, LJ, and DW, by asking myself these four questions:
1. "Why do I associate with person ψ?"
2. "Do I actually like ψ?"
3. "Is it useful to remain in contact with ψ?"
4. "How does my relationship to ψ seem to others; must I remain in contact with ψ to remain in, say, ΑΜΓ?"

(Psi is my favourite Greek letter. ♥ Alpha Mu Gamma does not haze - it is an academic fraternity.)

As a (daresay I?) popular person, I just can't stay in contact with absolutely everyone I meet. The world is too large. @_@

I understand people are busy too, so not commenting is NOT a criterion in my friendship algorithm.

I don't know about you, but I'm interested in examining the relationship between you and me!
1. I associate with casimiera for the value of associating with another intelligent DW friend!
2. I do actually like you ^_^ but not in a creepy way!
3. It is useful for me to remain in contact with you, for the sake of having someone from DW to read about!
4. I don't think anyone outside DW even knows you and I write.

I hope it's okay I can't be nice to everyone ;_;

Re: Please don't hate me for anything I say!

[casimiera]

I like your response to this entry. :]

Trust me, I don't expect everyone to agree with me on this, nor do I want them to!

Truthfully, I SHOULD clean up my LJ, DW (don't have many people to clean up though...so maybe I'll refrain) and FB. And I think it's okay when other people do it and remove me. (I also think I'm taking out some of my frustrations of my RL on the internet, which isn't a good thing, but eh.)

I think you're adorable, and love reading your entries. And I'm not trying to be creepy either. ^_^

Now, there ARE the people who I find odd who have like 2000 FB friends. There's no possible way to know that many people. At least, not really. Most of the people on my list on FB, sometimes I have to go, "who the heck are you," go look at their page, and then go, oh, okay, I remember now. There was a girl I went to high school with who deleted me recently. At first, I was like, "why'd she do that?" and then I realized that we don't communicate at all, nor will we probably any time soon.

I like that number 4. It's true. Why should anyone outside DW know we write unless we tell them? That's why I do like online journals. I can share a part of me with certain people (or everyone, if I am inclined), but I don't have to share my real name, or where I live, or even what I look like if I don't want to. Which is what I don't always like about FB.

If you were nice to everyone, well...trust me, it isn't possible to be nice to everyone. I've tried, and failed quite miserably. Hence my very weird post above. ^^''

Also, I am the type of person who remembers EVERYONE. I mean, seriously. I remember faces and names very well. So sometimes I do forget that not everyone has that type of memory, and not everyone can stay friends with people forever. Friends come and go. :]

[claire_chan]

Oh, I'm glad!! ♥ Honesty, at least in my case, tends to pay off! With a healthy dose of thoughtfulness.

I expect most people to differ from my viewpoint, therefore I'm on my own to explain and support my opinion.
DW seems to be a "safe haven" from the wilderness of the Internet writ large.
I'm eternally grateful to my friend aim_of_destiny for inviting me here. Aim's one of those people who doesn't reveal her name - which is okay, especially since she did tell me.

It's a matter of whether I actually have the time to deal with others - maintaining a 4.0 is practically impossible in the face of keeping everything else in life up to par.
(Right now, it's the beginning of Fall Break for me, so I can explain this better than if I were faced with a Theory melody accompanied the knowledge I have to accompany it with ii, V and vii chords on a piano in front of class next time BESIDES a sheet of Russian parts of speech, both due in class tomorrow morning! Although, honestly, Russian's in the mid-afternoon... Theory is "fun" in the way only Theory can be. u_u)

Do you have time to ask yourself those questions? Most of the time, I don't. Now is special - fall break.

I hope your RL is geting better! ;_; Mine did this semester - I got a paid executive governmental position, and I got permission to mostly study Latin and Greek, my personal expertises! (Along with computer science and pure maths! Not the monotony of constant Calculus, but the particularly interesting stuff like set theory and the beginnings of topology!! ♥ Of course, volandum knows that kind of stuff much better than I do, as he majors in it.)

Thank you ♥ My entries... um... come from my head xD I keep telling myself I should make a biography sheet of all my characters so I can keep them all straight, but I only have one piece of fiction right now which isn't too complex, and it's intended as motivation to keep my journal regularly updated. For some reason, people REALLY like it! Maybe because it's a break from checking how people are doing? Maybe because I write it when I technically don't have time?

The people who have 2000 FB friends make me very suspicious.
Do they legitimately need to keep in touch with so many others? Like throughout grade school, I tend to maintain maybe three genuine friends. I can't keep track of anyone else - I just lost my cup of tea! I know it's in the kitchen somewhere but I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you... it's okay, maybe I'll find it by the end of my comment!
I like some of the people with whom I went to class - but not very many. So my FB list is mostly hand-picked as of the last time I reviewed it.

*nod* I find it easier to be forthright and reveal: okay, I'm this University student from near Philadelphia often stuck in Schuylkill traffic. (That's pronounced skookle) I visit northeast Philly every year or so with the Russian Club for the cultural immersion experience.
(And also because my parents love Russian bacon. It's like European-style bacon in that the butcher slices the amount you want upon order! The pieces are much bigger than American-style bacon.)

I've SEEN some people not give FB their actual names - like my friends "Atheists Uniteddotorg" or "Cañas Gonzales Oboe". I consider my name unique and just don't do stuff I'm ashamed of revealing to employers, so I'm all right with revealing it - I'm Claire Binkley. You can google me - apparently I'm the only one in the US according to whitepages dot com, and the other ones died or were from Scotland or something. I am an oboist with a bit of bassoonery, and an Atheist. University student.
Don't worry about my manner of revealing so much about myself - I don't expect you to do the same. In fact, if it freaks you out, just don't bother. DW is a safe place.

Also, without some sort of Internet pseudonym, I can't forget it - my memory is extremely limited.

You can only be nice to a certain KIND of person...

I'm somewhat envious of your mad memory skillz. If I can attach a specific memory to a person, then I can remember that one. Like Carolyn B. played the flute solos when I played Scheherazade so many years ago. I can't forget her, or my rooming with her, or how floozy I found her.
I embarrassed myself a week or two ago by confusing the OCCA president's name with the treasurer's, but then apologised to both. It was okay.

Off to put my empty cup in the sink!

[casimiera]

This comment just makes me like you more.

I admit, I did add you because I liked the way you commented on someone else's entry at the addme group and it made me smile. That's a big plus. I like smiling. But just the fact that you wrote all this, and well, wow.

Anyway. We've got a whole conversation going here. Maintaining a 4.0 is hard in general. I tried for a bit, but was unsuccessful. I think in my class (there were 30 of us who graduated -- 2 year degree), there were 2 who had a 4.0. It was a very difficult program. But I am impressed that you are maintaining a 4.0! That's awesome. Kudos! :) And with music theory and Russian...double and triple kudos! Now, if you tell me you're also taking Japanese, I might fall over. ^_^

Truthfully I have been asking myself those questions for the past few days every time I sign on facebook. Not so much on here, or even on LJ, since most of the people on here and LJ I do not know IRL. But FB...I might be doing a clean up.

I'm working on getting my real life to a better place. I think I hit rock bottom again (it's been a while since that happened, probably high school), but I'm slowly climbing back up. I'm trying to stay creative with painting and have thrown myself back into RPGs, although all my old RPing friends are no more. :( And looking for a new job. But since half the women at my job are pregnant and one should be popping out a kid anytime now, I'm hoping for more hours soon. I am glad your life got better! It's funny how it kind of seems to come all at once, making life get better much faster. :)

Haha, a lot of my entries used to come from my head. My inspiration area of my brain is dried up at the moment, I'm watering it constantly, hoping it may grow again. ;) And trust me, you SHOULD make a sheet for all your characters! Recently (as in last night), I was looking at old character profiles from RPGs I have been in (okay, more like characters that I have had in maybe one or two RPGs), and had to laugh at some of the characters I created! I truly don't know where some of them came from, nor do I even remember the stories they were in, which kind of makes me sad. :(

One of the girls I know from high school now has...3938 friends now (I just checked). To her credit, she is something of a local celebrity here. She's on one of the morning news shows, and also is quite a pretty lady. Looks older than she is, but still pretty. ^^'' So I think she has something of a good reason, but she could always make up a page for herself where people could like her instead of having so many friends on FB.

Yeah, I admit, I did look you up. Pretty interesting that you are the only Claire Binkley. I have a friend who has that last name. Well, it's her married name, but still. As for me, there is actually someone else who has my name. Which is somewhat disturbing, since my last name is not that common. Before my cousins and I grew up and all of them started having kids, there were 38 of us who had the same last name in the US. Now with marriages and stuff, who knows? Oh, and apparently I made the President's List last semester at school, which I did not know (I knew I made the Honor's List, I gotz a letter in the mail!). Thanks Google! :]
I don't mind sharing my last name, but...not today. It's not like it's really that exciting anyway. It's Polish, it's 11 letters long, it's mispronounced a lot, and my dad went to high school with Coach K. Just a random fact. Oh, and my user name is my grandmother's first name, actually. Love the name.

I think a lot of my friends on FB would be very confused if my name wasn't my name. So I just stick with that. Although I could just do Karen K. Or Karen the K. Hmmm.

Ah, well, kindness for me...that's me. I am far too kind. But it isn't the good kindness. It's more the type where I have trouble saying no. I am totally working on that. I have this tendency to think that if I say no, people will not like me, and I have this fear of being disliked. All stems back to high school and four girls who were not nice. They did not ruin high school for me, just made me more cautious of people and opening myself up to people. And I know if I say no that the person probably won't hate me, but try telling the fear that lives inside of me. Sigh.

Yeah, I gotz the skillz. ;] I don't know, I just remember people. I remember people's faces and names, I remember people's dogs and their names and the people's faces and their names and their cars (this is from where I used to work), I remember people's faces and their kids and their kids' names and yeah I just remember people and names. Usually when I'm in a new class, after the first month I know everyone's name. I was going to say week, but then I realized that is totally not true. And also, this totally freaks some people out. I remembered one lady after not seeing her for a while and she was like, "what are you, an elephant?" I looked at myself and said, "No, while I'm tall, I don't think I'm that tall." She laughed. :]
and hey, at least you realized you confused the two names. Some people just keep going.

Oh dear, sorry, I went on a super long tangent in just about every paragraph there. Oh well. I do that a lot. yay for random tangents then! :] And yay for this comment that you made because it makes you even more awesome! :D

[claire_chan]

Good good ♥

Smiling makes everyone feel better - except when it's artificial, and sometimes the artificial smiles encourage cheer where it may not have existed previously.
I have time because I'm on holiday - but that is coming to an end. I plan to respond in as much depth when I don't have as much time because it's DW and I particularly want to, just please understand it'd be at odd hours or a couple days later.

We do have a nice conversation here! Why not? :D Keep in mind these messages are likely going to get relegated to hazily "the weekends" maybe.
Unbelievably hard, if p o s s i b l e.
Thank you!! It does mean I don't have as much time as optimal to "goof off", but it's very helpful when trying to make an impression.

Not Japanese this semester, but Greek. xDD I studied a little bit of Japanese at the end of high school. ちょっとだけ。

When I have time and am not writing up something amazing like what Gaius Stuartus got himself into this time...! Maybe I'll draw a profile picture for each of 'em and write a little blurb. Whenever this mysterious "time" pops up.

The physics guy who evidently "likes me" enough for kissing and buying me dinner and a mathematics calendar does not have an FB account, telling me none of his family did. He told me, furthermore, that it always makes people go "WTF?" which I'm sad to report is not verbatim but close enough.

Yeah, it's only Facebook really where I have random people I don't actually know, but I added the other two places just in case I get into an argument with an LJ'er or something. It happens.

My sympathies for having hit rock bottom ;_; even once is bad enough - it does depend on what you consider "rock bottom" though. One of the roughest times of my life was a couple months after a car accident. I write "a couple months" because immediately after the occasion, I had been in a coma. At least the people around me put me into one of the best hospitals in the mid-Atlantic region. It's frustrating thinking I have to fight through accident haze to get all my numbers right again. I manage when I don't think about it, interestingly enough.

Wow, even one of my more popular friends has 900some. I don't think she's necessarily "popular" though - I think most of her friends are pets.

Age and beauty don't go hand in hand :O the most beautiful equations were imagined in the 1800s, and of course just the best music from the 1700s remains.

Maybe uncle John's wife? xDD *fail* Besides my mother that's the only married Binkley lady I can immediately think of. I was disturbed when I found out there are two other Claires in my classes this semester! (One in Computer Science and the other in Greek) Throughout grade school, I was the only one except for a Chinese girl and my grandmother's neighbour.

I'm often on the Dean's List except when I do less than optimally in Music Theory or what have you.

Okay! I think I'm Polish and German and Hungarian and... something else. My surname is often misspelled, if not mispronounced.

Karen the K is awesome xD I know my oboe professor's wife is named Karen! She retained her given name because they both profess at the same college a door apart.

That's interesting! :D My username - my given name with a Japanese cute ending.

If you water the inspiration area too much, it might drown!! Be careful xD

I'm trying to not be as kind myself because people take advantage of that, but it's hard to abstain from civility!

I say I have a bad memory. It depends on what I'm trying to remember IRL, though.

Don't worry about the tangential talk, otherwise our correspondence wouldn't be as interesting! You are awesome too. xD

Time to eat! I've discovered eating a lot = life quality better. Let's preview and submit!!

[casimiera]

I don't think I know how to artificially smile. I probably do, just don't realize it yet.

Ah yes, I remember not ever having time! I miss it actually. I'm the type of person who needs something in her life to occupy most of her time so that she doesn't just sit around. School was doing that for me, but now I'm done with that schooling for now, and need full-time job. And then school will call to me again. I love school.

:] Keeping up conversations even when you have the time is difficult. There are always other things to do. You can always find some reason to put something off.

Yeah, I fell over. I love Japan, and the Japanese culture. I don't think I have the patience to sit down and learn the language. But I think that's just that my mind doesn't work that way. It sounds like yours does, which I envy. Don't get me wrong, I like how my mind works. But it'd be nice to be more into languages. Might've helped if I had been in a language immersion program/school while growing up. Oh wait, we didn't have that here in Charlotte when I was growing up. /end sarcasm. They DID implement one the year after I finished middle school. So now I envy all those little kids.

Hopefully the mysterious time pops up soon! :) I look forward to these bios and drawings.

I don't find it odd that he does not have a FB account, actually. I don't know, I've been on the internet for so long that the fact that people are actually now ALWAYS on the internet still kind of shocks me. Had a computer all my life, and have had the internet since it came out, so...it gets old at times. Not all the time, but there are times. So it's actually cool that he doesn't have a FB account.

Yeah, major gamer here, so met a lot of people online. Actually, I'd say I am a recovered video game addict to an extent, meaning, I still like video games, I just know now when to turn them off. So yeah, lots of people randomly added on all different sites that I don't know. I think there are two people on my LJ that are friends that I know IRL. One doesn't post anymore, and the other I have known since high school but have no interaction with anymore. Otherwise, I don't add people I know IRL to journals, except for my poetry ones. I'd rather have people who I won't happen to meet in the supermarket reading my journals than ones I will. ^_^

Yeah, rock bottom sucks. But being in a car accident sucks as well. I am glad you are okay!! Since age 17 I have suffered from major depression. I was partially hospitalized due to some very hurtful things some so-called friends said to me and I mentioned suicide in a email and my mom read it (I printed the email out). I realize now that I was probably actually depressed before the incident with those girls, and that incident just pushed the depression over the edge. I did not threaten suicide. I believe I mentioned it, in some really dumb way, trying to win sympathy. It didn't work, and just made me have to go to the mental behavioral health ward where I had a good look at my life and that there were people who were a LOT worse off than I was, and that my life may not be awesome, but wasn't bad. Most people would say being in a mental hospital was horrible. It was a great eye opener for me, and truthfully, afterwards, while I didn't thank those girls in person, I did thank them in writings I made in my LJ. This was the summer before senior year. I am also pretty sure I never really shared that info with any of my friends that year. It was like it was this horrible thing, being hospitalized. Now, looking back, probably something that helped me get on with my life. Also helped me find my current psychiatrist. He's awesome.
I refused to allow my parents to switch me to a boarding school. Sometimes I think I might've been happier going away somewhere else, but the reason I stayed where I was was because of my high school photo teacher. I wanted to take Photo 2 so badly. I'm not sure how I managed to get my way. I can be pretty stubborn to a certain extent, and I think my brother also stood up for me as well. Funny thing is, I don't speak to any of the friends I had in high school except one, and we really don't have much in common except for our job field. I think it's time to let those people go off of FB as well. Except that one friend. She also had a rough time in high school. Probably worse than I did. A teacher turned against her and literally kicked her out of a class for doing nothing wrong.

So yeah, that was the first rock bottom, and I'm pretty sure the real rock bottom. But I also think I've been dealing with this depression on and off for the past 10 years, so...while it hasn't been as bad as it was that first time, I've had periods of tough times. Not lately though, even with job issues.

Her friends are pets?? ...I don't think I want to know, do I? I admit, I am curious.

I agree with that. I think a lot of women get more beautiful as they age. Of course, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't agree, but hey, can't please everyone.

Nope, her husband's name is Jason. I checked. :]

I don't think I was on the Dean's List. I think that's reserved for those folk like you with 4.0s, and I did not get that last semester. Sadly, I was not able to conquer Diseases II. I did manage a high B in it though. But that class was majorly hard for me!

I'm Polish and Irish. Half and Half, straight down the middle. My mom probably would not have been able to marry my dad had it not been for my great aunt who married a German. Yay for Dewey! She was definitely a rebel. So yeah. Mom is Irish (O'Connell, very Irish), Dad is Polish (Krasniewski -- I figure if someone is going to stalk me, they must be insane because I am so not stalkworthy).

Thanks! I like Karen the K as well. My Photo teacher from high school wrote that on a box of photo paper I forgot in the classroom once and I have remembered it ever since. He was the best. There were three other Karens in my high school graduating class. There WERE two other Karens in the Vet Tech class -- they dropped out. So I got to be the only one who stayed. Even better. :]

I like cute Japanese endings! I just like Japanese stuff! It's all so cute!!

Yeah, I'll try not too water too much! I try to keep away from the creative writing for a while right now since I can't think of anything.

It is hard to not be kind. But we must both try to not be as kind!

Haha, I have a good memory for certain things. For certain school subjects, like Pharmacology, my mind draws a complete blank. Yeah. Total blank right now in that department.

Yay for tangents! :D And thanks!

And food is good. I love food. Food and I are friends. It just apparently doesn't want to stick with me anymore. It was sticking, finally, and then it decided to stop. :[ Oh well.

[claire_chan]

Just make yourself smile when not feeling up to it, and that’s artificial smiling.

I tend to get caught up in stuff and forget core essentials. School is good!

Very true. However, we’re making the time happen whether it naturally exists or not.

I’ve found Japanese easy, easier than Russian, but languages all tend to come easily to me somehow.
Immersion programs are the most effective, but do we ever have time to completely immerse ourselves in… Japanese this time?
Philly is nice as far as immersion goes, but I think most cities are hot spots for radically DIFFERENT cultures.

@_@ Just a matter of getting the time to find my sketchbook…

I don't know, I've been on the internet for so long that the fact that people are actually now ALWAYS on the internet still kind of shocks me.
Me too, and now I occasionally have to alert people that (gasp) sometimes I’m not accessible on the Interwebs.

I’ll have to share that some of my friends find it cool he doesn’t have a Facebook account. xD Next time we're both on teh bus! One of my friends demanded if I had another date planned and I told her "I just came out of one!! NO Dx" *not intrinsically social*

Minor gamer here. I can’t say I’m a major gamer because I also have so many other things I need to do @_@

It doesn’t matter too much to me who reads what I might have to say, honestly. ^^;;

I read about people who’ve been to psychiatric wards and I don’t want to if I can help it, because it sounds bad.
Glad your current psychiatrist is full of awesome, though ♥
My parents wouldn’t put me into a boarding school because they’re big public school people – both are teachers. The potential boyfriend and his family are from a big Catholic school in the area. He tells me it was harder than our current uni stuff @_@
My sister also loved her art/photo teachers too! Enough she applied to an art school.
That reminds me, I should make another sweep of random FB friends who are there for no reason…

Sympathy for the depression D:

Okay, I don’t know a Jason.

Yes, her friends are pets and stuffed animals. I don’t understand either. Maybe it makes her feel better about how few people actually like her?

It depends on the person.

Some classes are just impossible, don’t worry about it!

I don’t trust my parents very much: they say they’re Irish, German, Swiss, and native American. Definitely Catholic.

There are two other Claires in my current classes – one in Comp Sci and the other in Greek, and one was with me when graduating high school.

Japanese stuff is pretty nice ^^ not as crazy about it as I once was.

I can’t think of anything creative when told to be creative. D: Are you like that, too?

I’m trying to get rid of random FB friends I don’t know, but it is hard. I did cut down from over 400 to less than 200 quickly!

I hate when my memory draws blanks, like for Greek quizzes. u_u;;;;

Hurrah, tangents :D

Food and I are on shaky terms. @_@ But at last I have finally responded sufficiently enough xD;;; I hope!!

[casimiera]

OMG, I am going to respond to this, I promise! Life has be SOO busy lately, and I just haven't had a chance to sit down and read everything you wrote again and respond! I have some free time tomorrow before and after work, so I'll take that time to respond. I hope you're doing well!! :)

[claire_chan]

Life's been so busy for me too!!!

Don't worry, this is low priority.