Confessions of an Internet Addict I

Twitter. For as long has I had known Twitter existed, I have spoken out against it. Well today, I am retracting that statement. Twitter does have a purpose, not a very good purpose, but a purpose nonetheless. The purpose of Twitter is: It gives hopeless internet addicts like me a way to pass the time.

I just spent the past 2 and 1/2 hours updating Twitter about the status of the Thrashers game. I had fun with it because I was trying to beat out the Official Thrashers Twitterer to update. And for the most part I did. I also prided myself on the fact that not only was I watching the game and updating faithfully to Twitter, but I was also, blow-drying and flat ironing my hair at the same time. I love to multi-task.

I now love the fact that I can tell the world how I feel in real time whether they want to know or not. I still, however, believe that Twitter is legalized stalking. I still, also, believe that Twitter is an utter waste of time. And I still, firmly, believe that Twitter is at least possible for the downfall of human literacy and/or intelligence.

But the pace of Twitter is so addictive that I can't help but spend all day on it thinking of anything I can say in 140 characters or less. It's forcing me to come up with something witty to say in condensed form. And I think that's a good thing. Brevity is always good. But when it comes time for me to speak for much longer than 140 characters, I have Blogger to help me with that.

So Tweet me, dammit, and Tweet me hard @ana_marai.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to determine what I want to do on this blog. I have some ideas. Yo no se.

Confessions of an Internet Addict

This is a new segment I will be doing to justify the ridiculous amount of time I spend on the internet doing nothing useful.

Every week, or whatever, I will bring to the world an interesting and/or amusing, but never educative story about something either internet related or brought to the world because of the internet. If it works out, I'll make it into it's own blog and/or website. If not, I'll do it anyway.

I really am addicted to the internet. Once in November, the internet was out for 2 weeks. I almost died from withdrawal.

Insomnia Can Be Inspirational If You Let It

I can't sleep. So today, I've joined Twitter (already regretting it) and 750words.com. My horoscope says I need to do something. So I'm doing something. I'm writing, mainly because it didn't tell me what it is I should be doing. What kind of anonymous internet horoscope doesn't know what's going on in my life? It's sponsored by Yahoo! and with all of the internet spying and Facebook internet security leaks, they should know a lot more. I've already mentioned in an earlier post how much I hate anonymous internet horoscopes, but still.

Anyway, I'm bored, I'm exhausted, and I can't sleep. So soon, I'm going to start writing articles about the news, vaguely inspired by The Onion, and more inspired by Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! No reason, really. Just because I care. I'm also going to start exercising again, because I'm bored, and cleaning my room obsessively, because it's about time I have a crutch I can count on.

To recap:

I'm an insomniac (not officially diagnosed).
Twitter sucks.
I shall write, damn it.
I shall exercise, too, double damn it!

Random Glory

A few days ago, I got a new idea for a story. It's about this woman who's trying to figure out the history of everything, etc. It oh so vaguely resembles the Lara Croft series, but not really. Anyway, I was so exited about the idea.

And today, I just found a website explain exactly what my unnamed character is trying to do. It's called The Origin of Language. I haven't started reading it yet, but it seems so interesting and right on the head of what I was trying to do. Way to make my job so much easier. I didn't even go out looking for this, it just showed up on the MyYahoo homepage. Interesting. Sometimes, something good does come out of those irritating modules.

I still don't know if it's legitimate or if this guy's a total nutcase. Either way, it's good luck for my new story.

Hurrah for serendipity!

The Library is Your Friend

Especially when you have no money and they've finally started buying movies from this century.

Everything at the library is FREE, all you have to do is return it on time. The only bad news is that sometimes the books smell like disinfected cigarettes and sometimes the DVDs skip, not to mention the CDs which I don't think are ever updating, and when a new book is brought in it takes forever for it to reach my hands.

But all of that fails in comparison to the fact that it's FREE!!!

Editing Temple

I'm going to start editing my NaNoWriMo novel. It's called "The Temple of the Red Velvet Jesus". It's about a boy who discovers something shocking about himself, something that threatens to destroy his entire life. It's a comedy.

I've tried (not very hard) to fix whatever happened to the template. I don't care enough at this point to make sure it's working perfectly. So much for perfectionism.

In an attempt to actually get my NaNo edited. I've given myself a deadline. I will have the second draft done by 31 January. It's really soon, but necessary. I'd been trying to write this novel for years and wasn't able to do so. I signed up for NaNoWriMo and finished it in 30 days. Hmm...

Anyway, to recap:

2nd draft to be done by 31 January 2011

I want to be able to use that Create Space offer and get a free proof copy. I want to hold my book in my hands. And as a quasi-graphic design student, I'm designing my own cover. I'll post it: a) when I figure out how, and b) when I actually get around to doing it.

This second draft isn't going to be perfect, as my 1st draft barely made sense, but it's serving to make it readable to others, although at this stage no one will be reading it.

Return of the Inevitable

I've been reading different blogs as a way to procrastinate from editing my NaNoWriMo novel. I stumbled upon A Dragon Writes and Holly Lisle's website.

I've got a new idea for a series and I've been inspired to write again, because, if I'm going to be a hardcore insomniac, I might as well do something useful.

We'll see how long I can keep this up...

Someone’s Who’s Late This Much Could Be Pregnant! AKA: Life Makes No Sense When You’re Sleep Deprived

Yesterday, I started fall quarter at my Community/Technical/Jr. College. Things did not go so well. First, my alarm clocked lied to me a changed the day it’s supposed to go off. I wanted to wake up at 10am to be ready for class at 11:15. I woke up at 11, realizing my alarm had betrayed me. Funny thing is, I did wake up on my own at 9:30ish, but went back to sleep because, “it’s not time to wake up yet, dumdum!” I guess my body is its own alarm clock. Hmm…

Anyway, I got to school at around 11:30, completely tired, and dirty. I stayed until class ended at 1:20pm then checked out some camera equipment for my internship in downtown Atlanta (TRAFFIC!). That took a little longer. I was trying to see if I could go home, take a shower, brush teeth, etc., and come back in time for my 2:15 class. I wanted to leave at 1:20, right at the end of class, I left at 1:40, got home at 1:58, and didn’t even leave home until 2:15. Late again.

Then…I stayed in my second class until it ended at 4:20, I was to go straight home and then have my mother drive my downtown where I was due for my internship at 6pm, as I am a total wimp and terrified of interstate driving. I wanted to leave at 4:45, no later. I left at 5pm. LATE!!!

All this because I can’t get to sleep. Currently the time is 2:53am, and I still can’t sleep. I don’t know why the sleep gene died on me. Not fair. Until school started yesterday, I was going to sleep at 4 or 5am and waking up at 3pm. Now I go to sleep at 3 or 4am and wake up, hopefully, at 10am? Not possible. I need the sleep. Obviously. My sentence structure is off, and I can’t see straight, and I am also not entirely sure what I’m even writing right now. I’ve got green squiggly lines under my sentences. I need Ambien. Let’s see if I can get to sleep.

Ma question pour vous est: Do you need sleep medication? Or…How do you get to sleep when you can’t?

Leave a comment, I’m not going anywhere…

Maybe I Am Cuckoo Bananas? AKA: When the Internet is Trying to Tell You Something

As I sit here at 2:50 a.m., I can’t stop thinking about my personality disorders as were diagnosed in the previous post, and my recently online diagnosed bipolar disorder, cyclothymia, and SAD. Hmm… I started thinking, to myself of course, maybe I am a total nutso-psycho.

Maybe I’m not crazy, the internet isn’t always trustworthy. Other than my extreme irrational shyness, overt cynicism, hypercritical sentiments, and all-around unauthorized bitchiness, I’m completely normal.

Well, I’m not quite happy being a nutso-psycho, so I’m going to try to fix myself, the way the internet would want me to. I need to do this the most ill-advised way I can think of. Can you say Wikipedia???

I’ll have to look up what these diseases are, however.

This whole random obsessing point started when I was reading Martina Navratilova’s book Shape Your Self. She wrote about how girls who play sports have higher self-esteem and are:

Less likely to smoke, use illicit drugs, be sexually active, or suffer depression. Also, they are much less likely to be in abusive relationships. They excel in school, often being selected for honors courses and going on to college.

Well, I managed live up to most of those standards without sports, except for the high self-esteem, depression, excelling in school, and honors courses (for some classes at least). But I really would like to try being happy, and I always have liked to play tennis, not watch because it’s so ridiculously boring.

So who knows, maybe when I wake up tomorrow, if I’m not too depressed and wallowing in my own self-loathing, I’ll go outside and play tennis.

Here are my questions:
1)What makes you happy?
2)What occupies your mind and 3 a.m.?

Leave a comment, but I warn you my schizotypal personality disorder will only cause me to respond with a nasty, sarcastic comment. See?

My Horoscope Says I Have a Boyfriend!: A Lesson on Trusting Online Databases, etc.

Years ago, on my Yahoo! account, I signed up for this horoscope from whatever website that was that sends out horoscopes to Yahoo!. I did it because there was a stretch of time where those automated responses were spot on to what was going on in my life. “OMG!” I thought, “How does a computer know this? It’s almost stalker-like.” So I set it up as a permanent module on my email page thing.

Now, every single horoscope I’ve gotten for the past month or two continues to bring up some invisible “significant other” or my “peeps” or my “people” or my “friends”. I think to myself, “I don’t have any of that. Where is this coming from?” That’s when I started wondering, as if I wasn’t wondering before, are these things really trustworthy? Not to diss the art of horoscope-ing or anything but, this information is coming from the stars or whatever, and no two people are alike, so how is this supposedly coming up with information just for me? It was fun when the information vaguely described what was actually going on in my life, but now it’s just depressing. I don’t have a boyfriend, but Yahoo! Horoscope keeps insisting that I do. It also keeps insisting that I have a job, and again “people”. Yo no comprende.

Today, shortly after starting this blog post, I got a random email from a schoolmate, whom I still don’t think qualifies as “friend” just yet, telling me that she went online and diagnosed herself as having avoidant personality disorder.

Our conversation goes as follows:

HER: I just realized I have a personality disorder!
ME: What do you mean you have a personality disorder?

HER: I diagnosed myself online after watching sybil [made for TV movie in 1970s starring Sally Field] and I don't have multiple personalities but I have avoidant personality disorder! It sounds just like me. So now I have to force myself to do some cognitive behavioral therapy.

ME: What is avoidant personality disorder? And what website did you diagnose yourself with?

HER: Here's the website.
http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv
And it's hard to explain but you'll see on there.

(I go on the website and take the test.)

ME: That test says I have every disease on the list. We're nuts. Or as they say on Degrassi: Cuckoo Bananas!

HER: I know but I looked into it more and I have pretty much every symptom. Thats what I get for having my parents and family shelter me so much when I was younger. So now that I know what's wrong I need to just go out and be more social and outgoing.

ME: I just read the avoidance one, and I have all the symptoms, too. We should form a support group. I don't want to be a Loony Toon!

HER: yep let's do it!

ME: When?

HER: i don't know. all i know is i'm not seeing a therapist it's pointless.

ME: Agreed.

Conversation ended. I’m not quite sure what was realized in this conversation, and my taking of the “Are You a Psycho?” Test, but the lesson is either, we’re both nuts, or ONLINE TESTS ARE NOT RELIABLE RESOURCES. I mean, that’s why English teachers never allow you to cite Wikipedia as it’s not a valid resource, anybody can edit that information. I could go on there and say that Bono freed the slaves in 1863.

You never know who could be posting this information. It could be a doctor, just as it could easily be some psychotic, sadistic madman whose only joy in life is in making others feel as if they’ve lost their minds. But some could argue that those are doctors as well.

Anyway, there’s a lot of work I have to do if I’m going to overcome my paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders, so I best get started now.

My question por vous is: Have you ever taken an online test and were insulted/devalued/enlightened/made to feel like a Loony Toon by the result? Leave a comment or something. I must go find a therapist.

OMG! I CNT WT 2 TLL MY BFFS!!!: A Lesson on Getting a Life

Sleep does wonders for my psyche. Since the school quarter ended yesterday, I was able to sleep for as long as I wanted. I woke up at 11:30am and felt so refreshed. God, it feels good to sleep.

There are two problems I have today:

I read an article about some random technical school in Pennsylvania that decided in cruelty—I mean, experimentation—to ban Facebook and other internet timewasters for a week. Apparently, there was a MAJOR BACKLASH. I can imagine students protesting, holding up signs with horribly misspelled slogans (FACBOOK KNOW!, U CNT DENY R FREEDMS!). I don’t get it at all. Personally, I think Facebook is for stalkers and people with absolutely no social skills to make friends on their own. What happened to the days when, if you wanted to talk to someone, you would pick up the phone and call them, or even more radical, go to their house and meet them face to face, or at least at Starbucks?

In the past 10 years, the world of technology has changed so much, but has it really been for the better? Sure, with Facebook you could have over 500 friends but how many do you actually have in real life? And who are you actually talking to? Is it some cute 13-year-old who says they like you, or is it some 50-year-old pervert who’s stalking you hoping you’ll come to the park for a visit? Those profiles are so easily faked you have no idea who it is you’re friending.

I don’t get Facebook. I have a Facebook page, but I don’t use it. I don’t get the point. It seems to be some vain attempt for people to try to be more important than they really are. It’s an ego thing; it’s something I would really like to study, but really can’t see myself actually doing. Some people are so desperate to give off the impression of being popular, that they don’t think about the people they’re getting attention from. But I can’t do it. I think it comes from my lack of trusting people. Or the fact that I just don’t give a damn.

Also there was a section of the article featured on Yahoo! that really just made me scoff with a strong sense of “they can’t be serious.”

Though Facebook has been blocked in some workplaces as a time-waster, it is a crucial tool for college students to coordinate social schedules, organize events, plan study sessions and collaborate on assignments.

Facebook, until they banned it at my random technical school in Georgia (which, by the way, got no attention from anybody) was widely used, but I can’t name a single person who used it to “plan study sessions”. I don’t know what type of studying sessions they’re talking about in this article, but if they’re anything like the people at my school, that is the biggest euphemism of the year.

Thing number two thing that was bothering me:

ELLEgirl.com

I went on ELLEgirl through a Google search randomly looking for a beauty routine, which is how I stumbled upon my new favorite person of the day, Kate Fridkis from Eat The Damn Cake. Anyway, I took a quiz where you answer five predetermined questions, and the website randomly generates “What Your Nightly Beauty Routine Says About You”. I, reluctantly, took the quiz, as I truly had nothing better to do, and here was my result:

Low Maintenance Lady
We can definitely respect your laid back attitude towards nightly beauty pampering but sooner or later your laziness is bound to catch up with you. Building a nightly routine is not as tough as you might think: set aside ten minutes each night before you go to bed, or even before you sit down to watch your favorite TV drama, and dedicate to performing some fundamental tasks. We don't expect you to transform into a beauty nut but you might find that brushing your teeth, washing your face, and moisturizing your skin are beneficial to your health and to your self-esteem.

I took a slight bit of offense to this, and not just because the site basically called a lazy, sloppy bitch who’s not capable of taking care of herself, and apparently is so far behind on the evolutionary scale that she must eat with her feet, but because of the message this is sending to teenage girls.

It seems, to me at least, that this is setting young girls up for a lifetime of obsessing about their appearance. “Sooner or later your laziness is bound to catch up with you.” There are 12-year-old girls reading this quiz result, and apparently a 21-year-old with no one else in her life, and that sentence says to me and my conspiracy theory reflex: “Yeah, you might be young and spritely now, but if you don’t get a move on it, you’re going to be a wrinkly old hag by 27. Have some teen brand cold cream we’re pushing!” It’s one thing to encourage people to take care of their bodies, it’s another to send subtle messages saying “you’re too lazy to be pretty.” And I do brush my teeth, by the way, and I moisturize daily with a big bottle o’ lotion, face washing is what rain is for.

“You might find that brushing your teeth…is beneficial to your health and to your self-esteem.” Thanks, ELLEgirl for saying I don’t care about myself. This makes me so mad I’m going to unlike ELLEgirl on Facebook. That’ll show ‘em.

What pisses you off? Leave a comment or something. I’ll be brushing my teeth non-stop for the next 2 days, with my feet.

I Want to Be the Best! On Second Thought, I’ll Settle for Average: A Lesson in Realism

Needless to say, yesterday, I was very upset. And the upset continues today. I’ve been crying off and on since that hard drive died. I was so worried I was going to fail since I didn’t turn in my final project. But I did pass, if only just barely. At the beginning of the quarter I was determined to get straight A’s, but by the end, especially in Photoshop, I was just looking to pass. It’s funny how much my goals changed during the 10-week quarter. Oh, well…

In better news, I did pass, and I may have gotten A’s in my other two classes. Which means my GPA is 2.67, 3.0, or 3.33 for the quarter. I’m hoping for the last one. I don’t know what it is about Photoshop that makes it so difficult. The application in itself isn’t hard to figure out. It must be the work load, coupled with the fact that I get stressed out way too easily. But that has passed; the quarter is over and it is time to move on.

Meanwhile, to distract myself, I watched Top Model tonight and have managed to group the models into traditional network-induced stereotypes.

Kayla: the lesbian who had no mention of it in the previous episode.

Kendal: the loveable hillbilly

Chris and Terra: the package deal

Ann: Tall and naturally skinny, A.K.A. everyone hates her. (She also takes the best photos)

Jane: Ivy Leaguer

Chelsey: No info on her. She just scares me.

Esther: Orthodox Jew with super-huge boobs who’s essentially renounced her religion for the sake of network TV.

Kacey: Blind as a bat and dumb as a doornail (who else would take off their glasses, essentially blinding themselves as they teeter above a shaky catwalk suspended 50-feet in the air?)

Lexie: Party girl. Not to be confused with Rhianna.

Rhianna: Stoner party girl. Not to be confused with Lexie.

Liz: Rocker chick who I would’ve picked as lesbian if I had known before hand that there was a random lesbian in the group.

Sara: She’s a single mom, trying to support her baby by choosing a career that’s one step above stripper. She scares me, too.

And let’s not forget the whole reason I even brought up this whole “realism” topic via Top Model:

Anamaria: the recently eliminated girl who prompted a PSA-type response from judges for being so bony and unnaturally skinny. I hope she gets help. There also was no mention of this in the previous episode, then again, she was always in baggy clothing. To see her in a bathing suit with all her bones showing was super scary. Again, she can’t be healthy, and I hope she gets help, because if she is anorexic, she’s in extreme denial. I saw a picture of a model that was taken shortly before she died of anorexia, and she didn’t look much thinner than how Anamaria looks now. Anamaria said how she wanted to be lean, but I think she’s gone way past lean, she’s emaciated. She just doesn’t get how unhealthy she looks. To paraphrase Tyra, she could be the healthiest girl in the world, but if she doesn’t look healthy, that won’t cut it. She needs a reality check. If she’s happy with the way she looks, that’s fine. But she just doesn’t look like she treats her body as well as she should. And on a random note, I think her lack of eating made her into a bitch.

It’s great to be an idealist and optimistic, but sometimes we’ve got to drop the layer of BS and face reality. Things aren’t going to be as easy as we want them to be. There are going to be times when “troubles melt like lemon drops” and there are going to be times when you’re so pissed off at the world being unfair that you’ll want to take those lemon drops and run them over with your overpriced SUV and then torch those little bastards. The important thing is to find a balance, and I haven’t really found that balance yet, which would explain why I had a 24-hour meltdown. But alas, everything in its own time. It’ll pass eventually. Things aren't always as bad as they seem. The hard part is waiting out the storm.

My question for you: How do you deal with the stresses in your life? Leave a comment.

Burn it Down: AKA Harry Potter and Oprah Make Passionate Love While Bella Swan Watches!

My hard drive crashed. More importantly, my hard drive crashed the day before my demo reel for my Photoshop class was due, meaning I've got to start over. As it’s always been for me, when it rains, it pours. Whenever I get upset, I like to burn things. I’m not a pyromaniac so don’t report me, but it just calms me down to see things ablaze. It has something to do with seeing the flame, seeing the item (usually paper—always paper) disintegrate, I love the smell of burning paper, although I’m sure it can’t be good for my lungs. And today I felt the need to burn something.

Maybe I’m just upset because yesterday I missed the season opener of Oprah. It’s her last season, you know. Of course after the series finale she’ll have her own TV channel and we can renew our spirits 24/7 (because who really does part time channels anymore), and not have to wonder why she’s dedicated an hour to Twilight, the overrated, supernatural teen-drama of the decade. Anyone know last decade’s?: Harry Potter.

Finally it’s over. But I guess J.K. Rowling and/or whatever company films the movies is trying to stretch out the inevitable plummeting income that lack of 8 movies have made/will make and have decided to split the last 600 page book into two 3 hour movies, therefore delaying when they’ll be forced to come up with some other story about outcast teenagers with supernatural powers, political undertones, and random gay characters that don’t come out till after death. “Oh, remember that Dumbledore chap who died? Yes, he’s gay.” Way to punch up the ratings J.K.

Is it bad enough that most of the people where I live think that Harry Potter’s filled with devil-worshipping heathens, you have to add homosexuals? Why don’t you just completely alienate backwoods society by introducing the Red Menace? (Oh, and by the way, Dumbledore didn’t have a red squiggly line under it in Microsoft Word. Now that’s influence.) But since I haven’t read any of the books, despite that Harry’s now old enough to booze it up in my country (and apparently prance around naked in Equus, which does have a squiggly line, hmm).

Insert random nerd chick: OMG! You haven’t read Harry Potter?

Me: I haven’t read Twilight, either.

Random nerd chick: OMG times two!

Me: I don’t have a Twitter account, either.

Random nerd chick faints.

Success!

Though it’s not fully success; I haven’t read any of the books but I have stolen (I mean borrowed, the books are ephemeral, sans barcode, and thus not in the library system so I could, in theory, keep them forever and no one will know) the first 3 Harry Potter books, that would be Harry Goes Camping, Harry Sticks His Nose in Others’ Business, and Harry Goes All Oz on Us; and the first 2 Twilight books, When Bella Met Edward, and Bella Gets All Desperate and OMG! Can’t Figure Out Which Twink She Likes More.

I guess the question is, Since I don’t want to keep these books forever, which misguided-teen fiction will I read first? Bella or Harry? And most important, without any spoilers, people, WHY?

In other words, don’t send me a Tweet on Twitter because I don’t have a Twitter account. Don’t friend me on Facebook, because Facebook is for stalkers. And don’t visit me on MySpace because—hey, wait! I have a MySpace page?!

Leave a comment. I want friends who don’t post creepy Emo photos!