2010 is off, 2011 is coming!

Another year is slowly going by, and that means late parties, fireworks and more booze than what you would normally push down your throat - whatever that measure is for you. A new set of dues and debts - damned credit cards - and new purposes, not like the ones you've made the previous year actually got done. Here and there some people do manage to complete them, so swear they do, but honestly the only person in the planet I believe that from is Dragonfly. Damned, that girl keeps to the program like nobody I've ever seen.

Some people who hasn't taken the time to greet you all year, come and hug you and toast with you and swear up and down how you are their most beloved friends, how much they think of you, and to prove so they pull up all kinds of outdated facts about you. As you about your family, your significant other - whose name they seem to remember better than you do, and even add their profession or favorite hobbie - and ask you about your job - remember your boss' name or your department or company, while smiling wide and making big promises and making you return them about getting together more often because blah, blah, blah. You smile wide enough to shrink your eyes, rise your glass and think "why on the fucking Earth would I want to see you more often when suffering you on New Year's Eve is punishment enough?".

There's of course, the people you only see in these occasions and you can't even understand why on Earth you don't see them any often. Well, usually that's my case with my best friend Alix, whom I see usually only on New Year, and only when I'm in Costa Rica... which is nearly never. Lately, thanks Hyne, we started meeting more and more often, which is good. =D I totally love her and her family, and I celebrated with them Halloween this year and we carved together our first pumpkin. It was freaking awesome!

These year brought a few unpleasant things to my plate, like the hassle with the coat, the trobles with the trip, the ripping of the luggage, losing of things due to airport looting. It may have brought some other unpleasant things - yeah, like the freaking building we are working in now - but those fade in importance. This year has certainly brought me a lot of good. I managed to lower my debts (thought there might be a surge in the debts due to the incidents of this trip), still, it's far more undercontrol than it has been in a while. I traveled again, got to Hungary quite on schedule, saw my boyfriend and family, had an EXCELENT Christmas, saw my adorable, perfect Father-in-Law, who blew me off my feet by giving me a book of Cicero, which simply got me FLYING! I totally, totally love this man. Really, like obsessed.

Also got to Vienna, where I met with my dear and beloved friend, a penpal of mine whom I love, and went for a coffee, had a great chat with her, then went to a pub, an amazing Irish Pub, secretly tucked away in a corner of Vienna, and revealed a side of me she never thought it was there: I ordered lager, and downed the whole mug. Hell, it was so delicious!!!! She also introduced me to my new Precious Posession: erasable pens. I think by now I've cleared three stores. The cashier ladies always widen their eyes when I dump the pens before them. I guess they are trying to come up with a plausible explanation, and the only thing they can come up with is "some people is crazy". Well, those pens are the end of my scratched out letters, so yes, I'm clearing all inventories!

This year I also ditched my mother-in-law's - also known as The Hag - Christmas get-together. So, let me get you on the line with this. This is Christmas-in-three-acts.

Act Two: The Father-in-Law

As planned, we went over to his place for lunch the 25th. To say that he was adorable, perfect and beautiful would be a crass understatement. His cooking was wonderful, and he offered me even some sort of sweet liquer for starting. He smiled at me, talked to me, showed interest and even called my judgement in a small dispute with my boyfriend over a yellow umbrella, clearly expecting me to take his side. I did. =D. He gave me as present a book by Cicero, as I mentioned earlier "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum". We left him before his other son and his family arrived. I was told it was so that I didn't have to suffer through their yearly Brady Bunch presentation. I was sorry I couldn't see the orphans, but my brother-in-law and his unfortunate-looking wife are not really the type you can suffer calmly, mainly due to their overwhelming fake attitude.

Act Three: The Mother-in-Law

As I declared ever since the middle of the year, I ditched the the appointment. My boyfriend was less-than-happy with this but I had sacrificed too many hours of my life for his sake at this mother's annoying get-togethers and I wasn't certainly going to sit through yet another utterly obnoxious lunch, peppered with all kinds of "niceties" pointed at me, specially since my alotted patience had been all used up, and I was going to Federer back every single ball launched on my general direction, and trust me, I have ammo, all the way from "just because I don't have people of my generation burried at Luxor or the Pyramides, it doesn't mean I don't know what should I see in Egypt" to "it's nice you consider my father a materialistic man who didn't taught his children well, when you have to underachieving sons, one of whom doesn't even know what he wants and is totally pussywhipped by you and his wife". The warrior in me really wanted to go and smack her with a few remarks like "well, I know you find pleasure only in food, as your life is so empty, but I don't need to stuff myself with the shit you cook to feel achieved", but the Wiser in me decided that it was better if I didn't let my temper flare, that nothing truly profitable would come of it, so we took the "Coward Way". I had an amazing time, having lunch with my family, and then having the appartment all for myself, taking care of all the things I just love to do.

Kari came back sullen, silent, visibly upset. He hid the presents he got, and I noticed there were none for me. Good. That meant that I didn't have to sneak out and walk a few miles looking for a trash can far away enough to dispose of the stuff... like I had to do with last year's shit.

He said nothing, but this morning I submitted him to questioning, and he opened up. The truth was revealed. Visibly upset, he told me how she and miy brother-in-law had read my blog (the Hungarian one, so they don't know the whole extent of it), and found out what I wrote about them (which is mild compared with what I think of them and what I've written in my journal). Upset they decided I hated her, and thus she doesn't want to see me or speak to me ever again. My moronic, brain dead brother-in-law (whose knowledge in economics reduces to say "I studied economics, got a diploma, therefore I am an economist") decided to side with his mother in is dislike of me (I'm totally thorn and have no idea how will I go on after such a sensible blow to my social life) specially after Christmas, where I failed to come to the get-together. Thus, since they think I hate her - this believe fortified by my ditching their lunch-thing - , they decided that none of them want to ever talk to me (which puts in a new light the whole thing about the Christmas at my father-in-law's), don't ever want to see me and therefore will never again invite me over. When telling me this, Kari was looking at me like "it's all your fault! You shouldn't have written those things nor express your hatred towards them".

Well, 1. I wouldn't have anything to write if they would have been nice to me, so they are responsible for what they read in it, 2. I didn't make them read it, and 3. I'll speak my mind whenever and wherever I want. I was born free and my hability to express myself and my feelings makes me who I am. If someone doesn't like it, they can fuck it.

However, as Kari told me, I had to make hard efforts to remain expressionless. A huge smile was tugging at my mouth. I was free! No more excuses, no more fears from Kari that the Hag would realize that I hate her guts. It's all out and I'm FREE!!!

Blogs are a blessing.

Social Networks

Things such as the social networks, in whatever form, shape, name, exercise an impact over the life of people, the way they see life, the way they meet other and the way their interact. The norms for meeting others, the particulars that make two individuals qualify as "friends" - or whatever name they are given in the different circles - morph within the boundaries and rules proper of each of these cyber human-interconnections.

The social networks I'm part of at this moment are basically iwiw (the Hungarian profile social network. Invite only), Facebook, Interpals (a network to make friends for correspondence, or penpalling), and naturally, Twitter. Of all these Twitter has to itself a distinctive feature that haven't been able to find in any other: the actual chance for people to meet. A space created for "mini-blogging", though I keep seeing it like more of a "messageboard"-meets-"fortune cookie"- meets-"yes-it-could-be-mini-blogging", it proves to have the muscle to bring people to meet, sit down on a group date - no romance involved - to provide for the lack of proper photo albums and costly apps that aim for your data while throwing in exchange some time consuming game or a quizz designed to make you believe you could actually be Hitler, a vampire or Wilson from House MD.

Through breakfasts - or more like brunchs - and sushi or pizza dates, a group of people armed with internet-abled phones or handsets of any other sort, sit together and break the bread, exchanging their usernames, engross their follow and follower lists, making their timelines speed up faster, unroll at a higher speed with more and more tweets from more and more people. I'm getting more and more used to the interaction among them, unlike in the begining, where my old school head couldn't wrap around the concept of having a table of 20 people, with all of them talking through their phones, tweeting instead of talking.

The communications flows, truth to be told, both recorded in the cyberspace, 140 characters at the time, but also life, in the flesh, where the smile, the tone of voice, the eye contact gives meat to the follow. Meetings like these uncover for the cybernaut the person behind the picture, the human behind the characters, the mind behind the message. Here I must stop for a moment and pay my respects for my friend - in here now and shortly referred to by his user, @dankenzon - who was the one to pull me into this social network, and then further introduce me to the rewarding life of #breakfasttouring.

Today's rendez-vous brought together over 28 twitters, gathered around a long table - well, more like 4 or 6 of them pushed together - sharing the moment and the nourishment like a big family. Several local celebrities sat with us, not in the least pushing themselves over the others, claiming their cyber-status to extend also to their real life presence. Known bloggers, who's opinion has been widely shared, sat and commented with those of us less published - if not down right silent about our writing. 

Two of the many topics mentioned caught my attention, bringing me to write this post: The influence of Twitter over expression skills, and infidelity over twitter.

In the first topic, it was mentioned how Twitter pushed people into developping certain skills, such as creativity due to the need to express oneself in 140 characters - thus being able to better phrase one's thoughts, but also the capability of being more tolerant, since the level of peer-pressure on this medium is much higher than in any other network of social sphere. Though these reasonings were quite eloquently exposed, I found myself wondering about them, finding it was not my case, nor I saw it that way. As a longtime journal-writer, and penpaller neither blogging nor tweeting has further developped my expression-skills. If anything, I've found my skills diminished, when compared with those I used to have when more deeply involved in the former practices. There is a certain self-censuring going on in the cyberspace, that does not appear in the intimate paper plane. In here you can write all you want, say all you want, but you never say really all that's in your head. The instant quality of words typed into the big cyberness, does rob them time and again of their better considered, matured condition.

Type and publish. It is out there to be read in the moment you finish typing it, and though you can save it in your draft box for a while, mull over it, how often do you do so? It's different with a date counter to tell you how long has it passed since you last wrote, in a medium so expedit, so instant that up-to-date-ness is expected, in contrast with the paper way, where the past is the seal, the mark, the brand, and the eternity of the things written, scratched, carved upon paper is the expectation.

So, does it improve? Is tweeting better? Does twitter hones expression skills? That's not an affirmation I'm willing to make. It changes the mind, the expressing structures, and it imprints the current trend: fast, concrete, social-centered, and up-to-date. Is this good? It depends on what are you aiming for. In my book the paused, eternal thinking, the one that searched still at the roots, that dwells in the past and goes back to the classics is still the best way to go. Not that I would oppose younger styles and forms, but I do weep for the lost of the paused, dedicated wording that set the written style appart, with verb forms and tenses only used for the written language, the descriptive, rounding palates that could not be freely, spontaneously spoken, but that flows from the pensive soul that has munched on the tip of the pen for long moments before.

Perhaps today's social networks, in the wake of a style that does not make distinction between the spoken and the written language, that makes no distinction between opinion and philosophy, and prefers openly the latest trend instead of the abstract, timeless, rhetoric flow, pulls new speakers, new voices and new forefronts of thought. An era of speech is solidifying around us, that make writers such as Sartre, Nin, Lorca curious memories from a past close in time, distant in concept where the weaving of terms rounded in an diseconomy of words and characters a concept of beauty that fades in the eyes of those easily bored if not excited constantly.

This new expression trend would be like fast and furious fucking, while the former style might have danced and skirted sex, prizing the flirting, the long courting of the message, climaxing, satisfied with the touch of the ungloved hand.

From here I flow to the second topic, that lack of skirting and flirting, it has come to my attention how it happens that people act rather unashamed on the social networks, typing down messages that should be meant for one person, to be read by many. As if in absolute disregard of the 500+ people in whose timeline or wall their words will pop up, pleads and jokes are exchanged in a way that makes it blatant who is talking to whom. Two friends share their private jokes on the net, pretending to be alone - yet not using more private means to communicate - rubbing their intimacy on other people's face, pushing impressions - wrong or not -  and then expecting others not to meddle in their business.

Open channels are exactly that: open channels, and there the conversation of two becomes the headlines of hundreds.

It is already shamefull to witness people going intimate, personal before others, but then, when it happens with people otherwise engaged in a romantic relationship with someone else, it's scandalous.

I have knowledge of a particular case, where someone, having a relationship with someone else, mistreats the official partner and openly favours an alleged friend, with whom trades messages in the open channel, that go way beyond decency. Ads playing with the concept - telecommunication operators pushing the danger of being discovered while away from the computer and not being able to control the damage - do not go as far as these cases do. The case I was witnessing seemed to me abhorrent and beyond any paramether of decency I could come up with. The Ms, was not as much courted by a Mr that couldn't come close in class or education to her significant other, but she in a true Messalina fashion, threw herself to the Mr in question, shamelessly whoring herself out, pleading publicly for his attention, declaring her affection both freely as well as upon the call of the Mr.

At one point things had gone as far as to arise the public cry and rejection over their low, dirty behavior, to which it was the Ms who dared to reply wishing third parties out of their business, while the shady, sleezy Mr obscured his presence by retiring into mere observation. Such disgraceful scenes are never to be seen - not often anyways - outside the social circuits created by the cyber space, where the narrowness of the screen deludes the mind from the wideness of this kbps impulsed universe.

The unabashed Ms and her coward player, continued their games after less than 12 hours of resented silence towards the open channel, soon falling into much shameless messages, earning this time the unspoken, yet blatant scorn of their peers.

It happens, as I found out today, that their case isn't the only one recorded in hundreds of timelines and walls and updates. Infidelity, cheating is even more shameless now, happening often before the very eyes of the offended partner, who witnesses astonished how the person that has promised to share love and life turns to someone else, with the same promises. Whore and solicitors pululate, rubbing their dirty business in the noses of everyone unlucky enough to happen there and watch. Is it our business? Well, it is my screen, my timeline, therefore my right to react, but - here curling back to the topic of expression skills and perfected tolerance - where's the extent of our alotted expression?

In the light of these happenings, the trend of today's expression becomes a little bit more outlined. You can say anything you want, but you are expected to self-censor when others do not, otherwise mayhem falls upon you. The careless, shameless cheaters and flirters polute your updates with their unrequested, offending messages, opening their intimacies in the same way cheap whore spread their fuckholes at any passerby at the streets, and those of us who are slapped with the unrequested, unwanted goods, shall look away, mask out gaging reflexed, and mutter under our breaths "how disgusting". We, declining, uninterested patrons, shall choose silence and self-restrain.

Tolerance of the prostituting of expression, where the whore can rule the demure? Yes, public scorn rises, the user will soon find it's account cut from others fed up with their unclean display, their disrespectful ways, but the offended shall choose the self-restrain, wrap in the mask of tolerance when there is no tolerance for silently, in very private notes and thoughts the message is bold, loud and clear: "I'm disgusted by the whore".

Elections Day

Finally, after months and months of continuous political advertisements, after headaches for the way the officialist party shamelessly skim money and start the campaing way before it should (instead of 7 months before the elections, they started AGAIN two years before the elections), we've reached the final day, the final stage: E-Day. Probably this will be my last Costa Rican election, and I'm kind of sad I didn't took it a step further and signed in to work at the voting places as a member of the PAC (Partido Acción Ciudadana - Citizen Action Party) or Frente Amplio (Wide Front).

Since it has been a couple of hideously hot days, these last ones, I decided to go vote early. As so I talked to Kari, so that we would talk afterwards, sometime around noon for me, 19h for him. My parents... well, Hyne knows when will they go, specially now that my Dad got sick. Great day to get sick, if you ask me. Knowing them, I knew they would take around forever to get ready and go, and most likely go when the Sun is as high as it can be, and as burning as Israeli illegal weapons. So, I woke up around 7 am, washed my hair (though skipped the Keraflex step this week, or I would be stuck in the bathroom forever, and heat would caught up with me), dried it and took my Breakfast of Champions: Béres, Fresca and a bowl of ChocoZucaritas.

After that, armed with one of my tiny backpacks (I only have two, actually), packed with glasses, my journal, wallet with ID, pen, book, agenda and keys, I left to the bus station to go to our old neighbourhood. I never changed my address after we moved here, and that was like seven years ago. Now it would have been a bit late for that.  On my way to the bus station I walked by my old high school, a place I hate like barely anything else in my life, an the school where my cousins studied, and where one of the works. These were all set up for the votations, with people from the different parties here and there, and kids dressed up in t-shirts of the different parties, working (for free) as guides to take people to the respective voting boxes.

 

Bus from Frente Amplio

 

Streets closed for the elections.

 

Frente Amplio (Yellow) and PAC (Red and Yellow) side to side

There was no lack of assholes, like some guy in a 4WD that slowed nex to me and "offered me a ride". is he stupid or what? No! When he insisted, I stopped, took my sunglasses off and told him to get lost or I'll be calling the police. As the car speed up and got lost, I couldn't stop wondering about what this country has become and how is it possible that some people will actually vote for things to continue down this road (those who vote for Laura Chinchilla, the current president's chosen one). Well, when I've got to the bus station, I realized that there was no bus station. Hell! They moved it! So I went looking for it. As many things in this little town of Heredia, the Major decided to move things to a "better place" which basically means, moving them to an area with higher criminality rates. Why is that good, I'd never understand. Anyway, I didn't need to get to the bus station, as the bus was coming my way in a traffic jam, which came out handy, as I simply signaled it to stop and got on.

Bus to Los Lagos

The bus rolled around slowly towards the old neighbourhood. It reminded me the time when I used to live there, and went to the University or to school. It felt fun. I wouldn't live there again, but it did reminded me a lot of good things from back then. It had kind of a "back home" feeling wrapped all around. I called my brother to ask him if he was going to be there (as there was a plan of him voting early and then leaving to Parrita so that his wife can vote too). He was there, at the school where both of us used to go, and so he waited for me.

 

On the way to our old school to vote.

 

The tent of PAC outside our old School

 

The note I've got with the Voting Box number I've got.

At our old school, once we knew at which box should we go (we alway go to the same one, since the assignation of boxes go by last name alphabetical order), we talked over how shall we vote. We were both determinated to chose the presidential cadidate of PAC for president, and then decided whom shall we pick for lawmakers and majors. Then we went in and voted. For the first time ever, we voted with crayons. This year the Election Supreme Tribune decided to provice all voting boxes with orange coloured crayons, some special ones that don't stain and have many other special qualities. Truth to be told, I felt a bit like back in the kinder garden. It was so think and so cool, it made me want to have my own crayons! Last time I used some was in the University, when I used crayons to highlight texts (they last longer, have more colors, do not stain, don't leak to the other side of the page, have always the same strenght in color and are much cheaper).

At the PAC tent I've got some bumber stickers, and that made me quite happy! ^_^ I know, silly me, but what can I say? Neither my brother nor my Dad put bumber stickers on their cars, yet I've got a few to stick on notebooks, dossiers and so on.

After that I accompanied my brother to buy bread and walked home with him.I spend some time in his place, our old house, and then he brought me home, where I sat down to write this entry and talk with my boyfriend on Skype.

I'm not sure if my candidate will win, I hope he does and Costa Rica gets a change, but we will know only tomorrow... maybe today around 20 h.

Facebook Battle

Today I decided to take my discontent with the popular social site, Facebook, a step further: I contacted Electronic Frontier Foundation and brought my complain to them. I ain't American, I ain't living in the U.S., but my rights to safekeep my personal information, to cancel any account of mine I've willingly and voluntarily opened have been violated by this enterprise, just like those of lots and lots of people across the globe. After all, Facebook won't go through the trouble of setting this traps and tacky blackmail antics just for me.

I mailed and told them what you all know. Now gara wait and see what will happen.

I don't want money, or Zuckerman's head in a pike, I just want my profile to be forever erased. I want them to relinquish my data, erase everything they have about me and forget I even exist.

Let's keep our fingers crossed, and our fist tight around the hammer.

Facebook's Emotional Blackmail

Some days ago an acquintance from Twitter sent me an invite for an activity (being held as I write this post), which was anounced at a Facebook page. I closed my Facebook page several months ago because I came to deeply dislike their "all that's yours is no longer yours but mine" policy. It took me some time to close it since I kept in touch with a lot of people through it, plus I loved some of the apps, but it pissed me a lot to have my info sold for the profit of others, something unfair, specially wheh I'm bound to give truthful information (so that they can sell good data).

When I closed my account it upset me that I didn't really managed to erease my profile, as Facebook decided to keep everything "in case I change my mind". What a nerv!! So I can't take my data back? I can't actually erase my profile, no matter that that's what I want? No. Facebook will not let go of marketable assets. It also upset me then that I was requested to say why I was leaving, when I believe that's personal and they shouldn't be meddling in it. Then, if that wasn't enough, they added insult to injury by popping a prepared answer, an excuse from where I saw it, to whatever reason you pointed at.

Well, I walked out of it and this time, when I clicked on this invite, the page instantly opened up and showed me my profile, as if I have never left. I never got to the invite I was looking for, but got tangled in the Facebook, and so there I was cancelling the page all over again. Well, this time something changed, and that pissed me off for real. Facebook had the NERVE to show me the pictures of some of my friends who have Facebook and over each of them place a legend that said "Won't you miss...?" That was full blown cyber emotional blackmail. I couldn't believe they would use my friends to get me to stay so they can sell my info.

Again I was made to answer why I wanted to close my page, and I went rude, told them I dislike what they do and I simply want them to erase my profile. Not like they care, though, so I thought about telling people what goes on: Facebook doesn't really let your protect your info. You can filter visitors, but you can't prevent Facebook from selling your info. Once you put in your info, you can't erase it. I tried to punch out the info about my location, leave it blank, but that wasn't a chance. I had to put something. I tried to invent a place, write "Hell", but Facebook took the closest name from a town in Netherlands. Each app you agree into, each quizz, each of those things and games you are invited into are designed to syphon info from your profile, and now with the new app they've acquired, also from your computer and all your other accounts, and Hyne knows what else. So, my advise to everybody out there is: think twice before making a Facebook profile, and think about the info you put in there. Think that the info your place there is not only for other Facebook users to use, but also to be sold to companies, to make someone else rich at your expense.

Then, remember, Facebook is like Hotel California: "you can check in any time you want, but you can never leave".

Another Way to Pull Profit From You

The more I read about the Facebook, the more I dislike it. I can't believe that there's someone who actually believes to be entitled to the information of everybody. It's not one of those "blog-through"/"forward-through" info you get, maybe in youtube from a Michael Moore wannabe putting up some documentary, with all kinds of conspiratory data. No, this is sipped through the Washington Post. This time our trusty lil' paper tells us that Facebook, that cyberservice that started as a way to get to get in touch with your old friends, has bought an application (from what I understand) called "FriendFee". What this does is basically get into all your accounts in the net and tell everybody what you are doing. The "selling line" is that you won't have to do it manually, but what if I don't want everybody to know? What if what I write in the Twitter I want it to stay in the Twitter, and what I write here I want it to stay here? What if I don't want everybody to know what I do? Well, that's not a choice anymore. It seems that the profile sites decide for you what do you want to do with your data, and that's making them richer, selling your data to advertizing enterprises for their own profit and your annoyment.

But the FriendFee does more than tell everybody what you are doing on all your networks. This basically spies on you. Hooks up on you, follows you from account to account, to the web all the places you visit on the internet make, jumpling from the FB profile to your Twitter, your LJ, your blogs, e-mail accounts, MySpace, LiveSpace, your search engines (you know that you can tie up your Google and iGoogle to your gmail, and so your Yahoo! with your Yahoo account), keep track of everything you look for, from "cats" to "witchcraft", "genocide", "money laundry", "S&MB porn" or whatever strange thing you have looked up for for whatever reason. Then again there are worse things than all your dirty little secrets being displayed, because if they can get into your e-mail accounts, read and broadcast your blogs, post in your profiles and Twitter account, what wouldn't they be able to do with your banking accounts? What couldn't they do with your work accounts?

Not every data should be available to everybody. I think people should have the right to decide what to share with a few, what to keep for themselves and what to share with the world, and I don't believe that others should have the right to decide that whatever thing that goes cyber is fairplay for broadcast.

So, after much bitching I decided to close my profile forever and for good. Well, guess what? I just did and I received an e-mail telling me that my account has been deactivated, but that "I can reactivate it anymoment I want". Excuse me? Yes, they don't kill your account, they keep it "in case you want it back". That probably means that they keep the account alive, sucking in the information forever. Well, that's only natural, after all, they need the "clients" in order to sell data to their other clients. This is too intrusive and unrequested... FB, LEAVE ME ALONE!!

They don't believe I, or anyone for that matter, have those rights. Our rights in the cyber world stops where the corporations find it suitable. There are no "Human Rights" for the cybernaute.

Breaking Up With The FB

This is a busy-busy weekend for me. Tomorrow I'll have an interview with a boss from our Tehcnical Direction, and I'm preparing for it as if I were back in the University and studying for finals. (Only I don't have my notes and all my books previously highlighted, which always made the difference.) This boss ain't like the "Best Boss in Town", actually he's quite a nightmare, playing favorites, being irrational about things and so on, BUT he has the added value, which means a lot to me, that he works on the Economics side of the company, demands a lot and could really put me back in my career, which on the mid-run would mean a very big benefit for me: an improved, rich CV to present at home. Besides, it will be only a year and a half (God willing).

I had to cancel a date with Shimmy, which I was expecting so much, and had to decline other meetings with friends to do amazing things such as going to lunch at one of our favorite places, going to the movies and also going to the gym, for a spinning class, which I really need. My legs would certainly benefit from a bit of shaping up. So I piled up, like back in the University, with rulebooks, regulations and financial reports and sat down with a bucket of colored highlighers (I'm one of those people that highlight according to a color code), a note pad and a pencil and started delving into the depths of a world I've been casted out for too long to lick my wounds now. So yeah, I've been off the picture in many, many levels, connecting to the Internet only to meet with my boyfriend, or to read my e-mails.

I received a message from a Hungarian friend of mine, Emmy, through the iwiw, a Hungarian profile site, which works much like the Facebook, but much simpler (more awful too, since you can run intomy mother-in-law there @_@). In here I've 20 contacts, which are already too many for me, so I'm thinking on who I gara wipe out and who I gara keep. Compared to my FB account, well, it's not so high, since there I keep a list of 30 people on. 30 people and that I gara start shaving. So, thing is that this got me thinking about the profiles I keep. I can give use to my iwiw because that's the way I have to communicate with some of my friends back at home, but what about my FB?

Thing today with the FB is that they play too much on the apps they offer. FB becomes a playing protal where you either give up your personal info for quizzes, and games. Haiko Pets were a big hit, and then there are these "Sorority Life" sisters you play with. The haiko Pets weren't as evident as the sisters. The message behind this game is awful. you pick a college girl avatar, dress her up, and you have to pick a job (if you have enough money to pay for it), and spend all your time and effort socializing, fighting other sisters, going to the spa and shoping. And it's not about buying the things you might need, but to buy to be popular, buy to be charming. I don't know if there are kids playing this game, but the point is that this, either way, reinforces into people the idea of money being needed in order to be popular. And if you are not popular, and you are not fighing and debasing others, they you get trumped. Your life is all about getting pretty things, because pretty things make you worth more, make you stronger.

So how's that? What about living a simple life, delving into other activities? No, there's no space for that. Because, really, if you area in a sorority, aren't you supposed to be in College, and so shouldn't you be studying? No. Life is not about that.

Thing is that there's the real life where you work and pay bills and so on, and there's a cyberlife, to which people access to escape, but do you want that escape to be shallow? Meaningless? Do you want it to be poisonous? Or do you want it to enrich your life?

I chose to enrich. Thing is that I decided Sorority Life doesn't worth it for me anymore, so I won't play it anymore. I won't kill the girl, for I believe Dragonfly needs her in her house, but a game that goes into you putting your own real life credit card money for winning, hurling over friends so that the database of these people gets bigger and they get to sell more data for advertizings, ain't my kind of game. I won't add strangers to get people into my house, and I won't give my data around.

So sorry, game's over.

On the Wait

"Will we have 'white smoke'?"

The question caught me by surprise as well. What? What white smoke? My boss was staring at Kolja. I wondered if he thought I was still bitching about him being an HP, not like I wouldn't rather have a ThinkPad, but let's be honest, that's impossible, so an HP it is, deal with it, and I have.

"You do know what 'white smoke' is, right?"

I was five seconds away from answering one of the following:

"Of course! It's the filling of your skull!"
"I do. I'm just trying to figure out whether you ACTUALLY know what is it, or if you think it's some kind of 'eco-friendly' emission from a car."
"Do you?"
"No. I'm stuck on the Purple Haze."

Really. Well, he was asking about this project I call ISGA for myself, of which my boss knows that it "exists", but it has such a fancy name (International Standard General Analysis), he can't remember it. Well, we talked about it, and we went into a conversation of which I was left out in less than five minutes as my boss inhaled the toxic emissions of his own mind and drifted away in a cloud of examples and idea liaisons only he is able to follow. You know, the typical case of someone used to never being heard, that starts talking to himself until it forgets that PEOPLE DO NOT READ MINDS and so, in order to liaisons to be stablished they have to be exposed. So he drifted away merrily on his ... well, I wasn't even paying attention, particularly when he tried to give me a lesson on the relationship between quality and rentability, and I had to bite my tongue before asking him my trademark question: "Did you studied economics? No. Well, I did, so shut up, I know, you don't." I wonder if he actually think he's right and if he does believe he has something to teach me in my own area of expertise. BTW, his speech was eerily in the line of that annoying little man who tried to prove the relationship between Client Management and Profit thought correlation (or the lack of it) of financial indexes with the financial profit.

Question: is stupidity an obligatory requirement for chiefmanship?

It's just a question.

Oh yes, and btw, he's anti-semite. I have several friends who are antisemite, so it doesn't particularly upset me. In my eyes, people has the same right to hate, than the right they have to love. We are human, after all, and hate is a vital part of who we are. Anyway, today, after the mind drifting and trying to get a deadline from me (which I won't be as stupid as to give him, given the things that has happened before with deadlines), somehow things came to banks and stuff... and he was saying that all that was due to the Jews and that "some of that gas wasn't wasted".

I just comment, I don't judge.

I was talking to my friend Hans yesterday, commenting on common acquintances, people who is a royal pain in the ass and so, and at one point, I considered opening a Hi5 account to add him. He has no Facebook. Then I started thinking about it. The Hi5 is a youngster social network for the Seventeen and High School Musical minded ones. It's okay for the teens and the late teens, but for a "going 40" like me it's a bit ridiculous to get on it. What possible business do I have there? Linger with a bunch of kids? So the FB it is... which I still have to clean and trim and debug a little more. I still have 33 "friends" and they are not "my friends", they are not my "court", my "Community of the Chosen Ones", so I have to go over The List again and keep plucking out all of those that are not related to me. Hopefully I'll end up with 15 contacts max. Yes, unlike the trend, I like to keep my friend list very, very short.

I have another account, which I've got through great pains, which is the elusive iwiw, a Hungarian social website into which you have to be invited. My contacts are only 6. A nice number. ^_^ I hope I can keep it... or even lower it! The less contacts you have socially, the better. One thing is to have political contacts or career contacts, and there the more the merrier, but socially? No. For me the term "social butterfly" goes more on the line of "social whore", and social websites are full of these whores. Disgusting, don't you think? I rather keep the exclusivity, so I can also take better care of my beloved chosen ones.

I guess I'll be pulling out other social websites, such as barátikör and habostorta. But what about Hans? Well, I'll keep visiting him, calling him and chatting with him. So with Vic, whom I love and adore and with whom we laughed our heads off watching Jensen Ackles do the "Eyes of the Tiger" thing by the end of last weeks episode. Hahahahahahaha! Dude, that was hilarious! And BTW, Baby has LEGS! Both Vic and I were drooling like dogs when he grabbed his leg to play guitar on it.

On a side note: Hitting Bottom. Dude, some people have no dignity, and I believe they actually don't even know the word, or have never been introduced to it. There was this "mean sentence" I learned for French once which apply to this person: "The Reality and You don't get along well, right?" Well, sometimes lack of touch with reality (maybe he thinks "Reality" is a woman, and so he wouldn't be caught near her) provokes lack of dignity as well. And actually, how can you have dignity when you possess absolutely no sense of reality? What would be your referential point to have dignity?

I was showed the most pathetic letter ever written, and I would like to state the following: I have received letters and e-mails by Marie-Joséphine in a whining tone about "life is no life without you, and if you are no longer in my life, I may as well die". (Telling something like that to me earns a nice smile from me with a sweet wish: "may you succeed in all your projects ahead".) Anyway, the pleading note was filled with "I've told the girl repeatedly to invite you to my house", "I can't stand how you put 'anything' in the place I used to have" and "I regret not valueing the love and care you showed towards me". A lot of "please, please, be part of my life again, and make a part of yours", and "be part of my court of followers". Okay, REALITY CHECK: he has sent a lot of emissaries to Hans to ask him to talk to him. Hans has refused everyone of them, including me, and he loves me. REALITY CHECK: Hans has refused his pleading personally. REALITY CHECK: Hans has refused his many attempts through e-mail Hi5 and others.

So he fucked it up big time, and tried to apologize. No, wait. He fucked it, he apologized and Hans forgave him. He fucked it up again, he apologized and Hans forgave him again. He fucked it up AGAIN, he apologized and Hans forgave him AGAIN. He... (times n)... Well this time around Hans got fed up, read into the pattern and decided this wasn't going to change. So he wants him out of his life. The leech doesn't want to go. Man, how low self esteem and how little common sense one has to have to keep on going at it.

I mean, I have fucked it up pretty bad with people. Sometimes I leave it like that, go with the flow and let the contact go lost. It's a "like I care" and "go die where I won't smell the stench of your rotting carcass". Then, some I think "Okay, maybe XY is a nice person, let's try to fix it", and I go and offer to fix it. ONCE. I GO, I don't send emissaries like some cowards, spineless little shit, but I face my mess and go shovel in hand ready to clean it. If it doesn't work, then I just shrug my shoulders and "at least I tried" and I move on. If it works, dude, I try to be careful the next time around, and if I fuck it up again the second time, I just don't come back.

But then again, I define myself, I measure and value myself. I don't need other people to tell me what's my worth, and if they don't agree with the value I give to myself, that's much THEIR problem, not mine. My opinion is the only one that matters to me. However, not everybody is like that. Some people, like Mr. Maggot needs to be valued by everybody, and he actually needs desperately to be valued an AAA+ even though, truth to be told, he's worse than a subprime.

My valuation of him should not affect him, though I know it does and it can send him spiraling into the deepest pits of depression his pitiful self is capable of, and so Hans' valuation. However what he should, really take in consideration under threat of losing the respect of everybody around him, is that if Hans thinks poorly of him, and has repeatedly rejected him, then he's not welcomed, he's only generating more and more negative feelings and it could blast on his face.

Okay, he choses to live without dignity. Fine. But why can't he keep his disgusting self away from us, decent, self-loving people?

Cleansing

It feels good to cleanse and throw things out. It feels good when you do it from your closet, off your desk, off your purse, but also out of your life. A lot of people tend to hold tightly into things and "clutter up" with a whole lot of unnecessary stuff. The reasons for it may be many, but basically, for me, it's due to lack of confidence. People who save things because "they don't know when could they use them", or those people who would pack up even the walls of their homes when they are leaving for an overnight stay somewhere, because "you never know", and can actually tell you about that ONLY, ONE TIME when their prevision actually worked. Sure, there are stuff hard to leave, and us women usually have problems with that, which is why the overwhelming majority carries purses filled to capacity with our "bare necessities". Of course, through the years we learn to select stuff, and really carry around only what we really need, but that's not always the case. (Problem comes when you do your "time-and-necessity benchmark" and realize that you actually have to carry a whole lot of heavy stuff on daily basis, which in my case is my journal an a book to read, for the many times in which I'm bored out of my head, or to satisfy my compulsive need to write, OR to break away from all this crap and submerge in a nicer dimension where everything makes sense [even if I'm reading Kafka].)

For a while now I've become a "Spirit Liberalization" partisan, and at least once a year make an evaluation of my stuff, categorize it and throw away everything that's no longer of use, or has proven not to be useful to my normal activities. Movies, tapes, books, clothes, shoes, bags, music CDs, files, documents, tchotchkes, decoration, toys, jewelry, electronic devices... it all gets sorted out and the discarded items either get donated (to my family, it hardly makes it past Mom and Julie) or discarded.

The feeling is awesome and I'd love to recommend it to everybody, because it feels like letting fresh air in. The very process, no matter how long and hard and tiring is, is full of joy at every step. It's like a big party. Of course, the best part is when you do it all by yourself, where all criteria and decision, the tempo, the progression, the direction, the labeling is ALL done by yourself. No third parties adding external inputs: it's all YOU. And, so, as you sweat, as you work, as you do it, and as the fresh air starts to flow in (you don't really have to get to the end to start feeling it) is all YOUR work, your effort, your credit. It's one of those times when you feel in so much control of your fate, the whole Existentialist theory courses your body and you are pure philosophical poetry, and at the same time, not only abstract, but applied, pragmatic as well. You feel so HUMAN and humanist that's easy to lose perspective, broken away from the castrating social conventions that make you believe you are useless without the others, and you feel like a god. I guess I pity those who can't go through this alone. Must be real sad to be so unable to take control of your life, but always need someone there to do things for you. People who spend their lives on the copilot seat, busy blaming others for the decisions they themselves failed to take. Sadly there's a lot of people in the world living like that, and the worst is that many of them don't even realize how negative this is, or even realize what are they doing.

This whole "get rid of everything that doesn't add value-and-function to your life" can be applied not only to stuff, material stuff, but also to many other things, and I'm not talking right now of asbtract things like "attitudes" and "character flaws" and such, but to something a bit more concrete: intangible things you don't need in your life, such as contacts and friends. I mention this because yesterday, I went into my Facebook profile (after milleniums of not getting around), and eliminated a whole bunch of contacts from my "friends" list and even blocked a few of them. My list was already small, compared with the 500+ lists people keep (I hardly reached a 10% of that number), so if I say I eliminated X amount would sound small, but the whole impact was important. In total, I de-friended 16 people, which represented about a 35% of my contacts, and it felt goooood! After all, for real, who keeps up actually with 500+ friends? Who has time for that? Who can properly take care of that? Even my current 33 contact list seems rather long for me, so I'll keep raking it and trimming it until I reach a decently manageable number, probably under 20. Also have been considering taking off apps and stuff that only clutter. Have decided not to close it entirely since that's a channel through which I communicate with my family in Hungary, and with some of my dear Hungarian friends (and because the outlay is far better that that of the iwiw...), but I'll make it more functional instead of turning it into the Chinese-Clutter-Store a lot of people make of their profiles.

Free space, free your mind, free your soul, free your spirit and let air and joy and emotions feel the space anchors used to take in your life.

I love you All.

Outraged!

«Facebook also reserves the right to shut down accounts if users post fake names, write offensive messages or pull content from Facebook to post on a blog or Web site.»

No fucking shit! So «I», the CLIENT, the user, the reason why the exist and get MONEY (because if I as user weren't there would their advertisers invest money on them?) can't pull content from the Facebook for my blog, but Facebook and their advertizers can pull information about ME from it? Man, you are in for some shit storm...

Start The Day Blocking Away The Ottoman Invasion

Again... another jackass.

szia

Mehmet Suhan Ilhan:

sziaa Zs. hogy vagy? is it so late to meet for me such a beauty lady like you? isnt there any map which show me the way of your heart? :))
or just let me say hi to you :))
i think you are the only one who can open my locked heart and make me fall in love:) you looks great
hope to see you soon
memos

Me:

Hi,

Does that line actually work on someone? Is it late? It wasn't, but the admission is with invitation only. As for the map of my heart, why don't you just Google Earth it? If I'm the only one who can open your locked heart, dude your heart was sentenced to life. Kiss it good-bye. Make you fall in love? Okay, this is when I start laughing, right? Thanks for telling me I look great. I don't have a mirror at home to see that for myself.

Look, sorry I was rude, but you are the n-th stranger sending me messages like this and I just don't like it. I am not interested in relationships. I can go for a friendship but even that takes time with me. I'm old, I'm not a gullible chick, and don't swallow lines and common places. Sorry, really, but this part of Hungary won't be invaded by the Ottomans.

Better luck with someone else, and please excuse me if I was too rude.

Kind Regards, Zs.

"Sorry IF I was too rude". Noooooo! What would ever make you think that? Well, at least I was ... polite? Well, I did apologize at the end! Besides, the motherfucker had it coming? What in the fucking hell makes him think he can send that kind of messagest to people? he so had it comming. Specially loved the part where I sent him to Google Earth the road to my heart. Hahahahahahahahaha! You gara admit that was brilliant! Sure the asshole would stop using that same line, though if he doesn't, I hope other women slap him back with simething clever and mean. Tukish, Egyptian... is this heat season? Well, I had to tighten my security and now I have forbidden everybody from writing to me. I mean, I fucking had some fucking asshole writing to me "hi, plzz add me". Oh Geez, sure man! Right away! Oky-Doky! What are they thinking?

Blocking

This is outrageous. Only today I had to block three profiles out of my Facebook. First there was this absolute asshole from Toronto, some emigrated Hungarian loser who was pushing and pushing for me to friend him. You know, the typical "the more friends I have in my list the cooler I am" kind of LOSER we all hate. The fucker already has like... 400 "friends" and was pushing and pushing for me to accept him (if I don't friend him back, he doesn't get "the point" for me). Well, I don't outcast people at first glance, unless I can tell at first glance that they are a pain in the ass. So, I had no idea who his asshole was (who by the way started with a line like "you will be greatly benefitted if you ad me to your friend's list). He alleged he had read my profile and so he could see we are alike.

(...)

Okay, I have my profile blocked. People only see like... my photo and my name. And that's it. So, how in the fucking hell can he tell we are alike? The ASSHOLE doesn't put his picture (sure he's BUTT-UGLY, or like Carrie says, he's FUCKGLY), doesn't use his real name and doesn't put any real data. Oh, but 15 years ago he found the truth. Okay, I'll try and exercise the "Empathic Listening" from the 7-Fucking-Habits (Eric isn't reading this, right?), and so I gave him a chance. "So, tell me a little bit about you?". I assumed he has seen me through the Hungarian Network, and through it from the group "You Know You Are Hungarian When...", which is the most clever and cool group in the whole universe. Well, I believed he knew it and so I added to the message a "joke question". Specifically: "What have you read? Bulgakov? ^_^" Why is it a joke question? For this:

47. When you are snobby and think that anyone who has not read Dostoyewski and Bulgakow is not an intelligent human being.

^_^ Now you see the joke. Well, ASSHOLE didn't, so he counter attacked saying: "It doesn't matter how many books have you read, but WHAT you read". Okay, how does my question turns into a question of qualtity? (Maybe asshole doesn't speak English or Hungarian well...) So I explained him. "It was meant as a joke, you know, from the list at the group?" He kept on and on with "if I want to know what has he read, I should check on his profile (two non descriptive authors...). Add to it he had been pushing this shit about "fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity" and "love is loyalty and commitment" and some third shit. So I was trying to tell him, that, well, things ain't like that, because you can fight for peace, peace doesn't just appear, you have to earn it, add to it, peace without independence is not real peace. Not for me, at least. And then, love is freedom otherwise it's emotional slavery. So I was fed up. I explaned him my point of view one last time and then explained in big, capital letter that "IT WAS A JOKE!! A JOKE!!" the thing about the reading. I told him that I have enough pressure at my work for me to take on Internet discussions with stragers, that I see things are not taking us anywhere, so better stop it, I won't friend him.

Deducing him an unstable character prone to outbursts of violence, I blocked him. I mean, I was sharp, direct and contundent with him, but all in all, I was polite (well, within the paramethers. I never called him an asshole in his face... just told him to wake up and smell the coffee.) Well, he did came back through another profile mixing obsenities in Hungarian with shit in English. Needless to say I blocked that profile too and ran to report him and his message. It was the right thing to do. Okay, I also posted on the Hungarian network for everybody to be aware that he is agressive and ill intentioned. People answered at it. ^_^

So, there go two profiles. Prior to that asshole the only one I had blocked was this troubled girl, Maria José, whom I had the misfortunate luck to meet a few years ago, and who developed and ill obbsession with me. So, in order to stay clean from her comments and prohibit her from seeing my profile, I blocked her. Well, today some Egyptian loser sent me a message that he's in love with this Hungarian girl and he needs advise about out traditions and he "loves me and misses me". Oh man!!! I sent him a polite but dry message telling him that his message was incomprenhensible and intrusive. He shouldn't be asking such personal advises from complete strangers, nor address them so informally (letegezett!!), or display such personal feelings. That he should do better seeking the advise of a friend. Naturally, I immediatelly blocked him.

What's wrong with this people???

I guess it's time to tighten my filters even more. I have met cool people, like Ana Kuka from Portugal (her name in Hungarian is just too funny!!), and Viktória Helga, but does it worth it when there are such assholes out there?