Non-verbal accents

I vaguely remember several years ago hearing (or perhaps reading) something about regional accents in BSL (British Sign Language). I find that fascinating. This week I was reminded of it whilst reading some stuff on facebook. I am friends with a few teenagers (one from madchurch, who I remember when she was a bump!, and also a couple of cousins of mine) there, and they tend, more often than not, to post their status updates in txtspk. As most of you probably know, once you post a status update people can comment on it, and they can end up being a bit of a conversation.

So the other day I saw a status update from my 15 year old cousin, and the ensuing conversation between her and one of her classmates. All of it in txtspk. And as I read it, I suddenly realised – I could “hear” the Northamptonshire accent as I was reading! How freaky is that?!

More facebook fandom

Over the last few days it’s asked me if I’d like to become a fan of even more things. Such as:

* Oreos !!!!!! (it had the 6 !s specifically)
* Strawberries
* University of Sydney
* Chicago Cubs
* The Gentle Good
* Welcoming the Stranger

It’s getting more and more irritating!

Weird friends

For some time now facebook has had a feature where they come up with people who have a few mutual friends with you and suggest that you may know them too. I’ve got back in touch with a few people this way.

Also on facebook it is possible to become a fan of all sorts of things and people and musicians and all sorts really. Over the last couple of days these two features (friend finder and become a fan) appear to have merged, and so in the “You may know” box we’ve started getting suggestions of people and things of which we may wish to become fans. The suggestions are generally things and people that other friends are already fans of.

So far today I have had the following potential subjects for my adoration and fandom suggested:

* French knickers
* bacon butties
* God
* strawberry bonbons
* Celine Dion
* Orders of the British Empire

I think my friends are a bit weird.

The Passion of Christ according to Facebook

This is brilliant: facebook Passion (NB pdf file).

Celebrity

I discovered today that I know a lolcat! How exciting is that?! This cat spends most of the day in the building where my office is, usually on landings leaning against the radiators. She’s been there the whole time I’ve been at Glasgow University, I think she’s been visiting the building since at least 2000. She even has her own facebook group!

moar funny pictures

Facebook privacy

Just wanted to flag up this useful advice about protecting your privacy on facebook. I knew a few of these, and many are just common sense, but there were a few tips in there which I hadn’t realised.

Spring is on the way!

The only news today is how comprehensively beaten I am getting in ALL my games of Scrabble/lexulous on facebook. This morning Mary and I finished a game where she beat me by around 200 points. I demanded a rematch, which we played most of the day. She beat me by around 300 points. It’s a good job I don’t have (too many) self-esteem issues!

This picture is from the grounds of the Cathedral of the Isles in Cumbrae, so taken last Saturday. These are the first snowdrops I’ve seen this year, though I have seen a few crocuses peeking through the ground at uni (not flowering yet, but hopefully in the next week or so). I’ll look out for bulbs in Queen’s Park tomorrow, assuming I get up in time to go to the Farmers’ Market (not guaranteed given how tired I feel!).

I’m really tired of winter now. I want some COLOUR again! (I know grey is a colour, but that doesn’t count!).

Colliding worlds

The world continues to shrink and collide. I remember when I first started getting involved in online communities, talking about my “real life” and “virtual” friends, and then getting really startled when “real” and “virtual” worlds started to coincide and overlap, and “virtual” friends became as “real” as “real life” friends. People from the wibsite and Ship of Fools turned out to know/have grown up with random people I knew in real life (especially people from madchurch, bizarrely), and since being on facebook it’s been amazing to see how many people have unexpected mutual friends with me – a few people I know from online are friends with a friend of mine from uni, whom they know from GCN, for example. I’ve had several facebook exchanges along the lines of “where on earth do you know x from?!” – one madchurch friend saw a comment from someone (whom I got to know through a friend of HD’s) and messaged me to say “I was at a Crusader camp in the 80s with someone called Jane Bloggs*, I wonder if it’s the same one”, so I messaged her and it turned out they were indeed already acquainted but hadn’t been in touch for 20 years, and then they spent a fun evening reminiscing together and catching up via facebook messages. I’ve also had a couple of “real life” friends come up to me and sheepishly confess that they think they’ve been reading my blog. One of whom as lots of people already know now has her own blog here too – we first met in the early 90s, and I think at first we were both a bit freaked out by the real/virtual overlap.

Now it’s my various virtual worlds that are colliding. I’m really delighted that Katya, one of my most faithful and regular commenters over on my Glasgow photo blog, has started to comment here too. I can thank Ian for following her comments on Glasgow DP and starting to comment on her blog for her getting to know the wibsite a bit.

Every time I experience one of these mini-world collisions I get a bit of a jolt. A pleasant one mind! I think I didn’t realise until I had lots of friends in lots of different places coming together the extent to which I choose what I reveal about myself in each different context. I think all of them are authentic expressions of who I am, whether it be the creative, spiritual, pseudy, or whatever sides of me, but I always wonder if those who know best the spiritual side of me will be surprised by the slobby side, or those that know the creative me will be put off by the more spiritual, even though it’s all me. I think I’m rambling (Shurely not – ed), not to mention getting a bit “me, me, me” on you – anyway really all I want to say is despite the momentary discomfort I think the coming together of these different worlds is fun and helps make the world both a smaller and bigger place. Yay!

In other news, working at home hasn’t worked at all. I have no self-discipline whatsoever (she says, like that’s news). Tomorrow will be better (actually maybe I’ll go into work after all). Sigh.

* Name changed to protect the guilty, obviously!

School

This evening in my home town there is a reunion of my year at school, entitled “Now we are 40″ (well, actually some of us aren’t yet – at last, a reason to be pleased my birthday came at the end of the academic year rather than the start. Now being one of the youngest in the year is cool!). If HD had still been working down south we would have been near enough that I could have gone to it, but given that he’s not working, and it’s a long long long way just for a weekend when we haven’t got much money coming in, I’m staying up here with my slippers and Horlicks while they all dust off the ra-ra skirts and the legwarmers (and that’s just the boys, *boom tish Ithankyou*). It’s been organised via facebook, and I’ve had such a laugh the last couple of months as all sorts of random people from my class and year, and the school orchestra, have got back in touch.

Also fun, in a cringeworthy sort of way, have been the school photos that have appeared on facebook on the page for this event. I can’t believe we ever looked that young!

It’s got me thinking though. When I first heard about the reunion, I really didn’t want to go. Although I did well at school, apart from music I didn’t really enjoy it until 6th form (the last 2 years, before uni), and I was never part of an in-crowd, but always a bit on the edges. I was a bit angsty, and clueless, and awkward, though being good at music and drama meant that I could overcome that to an extent. And all I thought was, I’ll walk into the room where the reunion is taking place and all the feelings of awkwardness and not really belonging will come back, and I’ll end up needing therapy! But, as it’s come nearer and I’ve got back in touch with people from school through facebook and the conversations have been fun and inclusive and there’s been no sense of the excluding tendencies of packs of teenagers that I experienced at that age, I’ve been more curious to see what people are like now and what they are up to. Though, as I said to HD today, I don’t know if once we’d got past the “OMG it’s you!!!” and talked about what we are up to now there’d be anything much left to talk about. I’ve just told as many people as possible whom I know will be there to take millions of pictures. I’ll be avidly scanning facebook tomorrow all day (though knowing what happens with hangovers at this age, it will probably be more realistic to expect people to not be back online until the middle of next week!). I think I am a bit sad not to be there – but at least it means there won’t be any hideous photos of me plastered over the internet (at least not from this event anyway!).

Scrabulous

Well, they took Scrabulous off facebook in North America yesterday – and in the last few minutes, it’s gone from facebook altogether.

Oh dear God, I’m going to have to actually do some work now