Monday 25 May 2009

S'pose I need to get with it...

Ok.... I don't know when it happened but I am out of the loop. No longer down with the kids. I am officially the oldest 25 year old I know.

I dont know when they came but I have noticed a sudden influx of musical 'artistes' have arrived in a puff of glitter looking weird and wonderful...and slightly intimidating. We have a Ladyhawke, some Little Boots and a La Roux, whatever that is.

I made a conscious effort today to educate myself because well...I must admit I don't like it. T'was a wondrous time when I had my finger on the pulse. I knew who people were before your Average Joe had an idea that they even existed. I know I am reading about the next best thing in the friggin' Guardian. So I went on to my Last.fm page (don't tell me..that's so 2008) and put their names in to the search engine. So the re-education began...

I began with a Little Boots record called 'Stuck in Repeat', which I had to admit I really liked. Great, I'm not old! I like this music. Then we moved onto a VV Brown song and I found it slightly irritating, a little grating, if you will. So it begins, middle age. Then Last fm crashes.

I think it was for the best really, I can't envisage the experiment ending well. Just me, in a ball rocking, mummering incoherently about the 'good ol' days'.

It's getting bloody hard to keep up. But then, that might because I don't want to. It's like clothes, as soon as you find a trend you like, some magazine is telling you that it is 'sooo over'. I like to have time to develop a taste for something, get to know what it is I actually enjoy about something. I can't do that in the space of a few months or because an article tells me I should love it.

For risk of sounding old, I think we need to learn to give things time to make an impact. Let the people decide...or at least, give me time to hear it first for me to decide!

52 Poems

Sunday 17 May 2009

The internet set me free - A girl's story

I have spent alot of time thinking about the benefits of this blog and whether I am just jumping blindfolded on to the bandwagon. I mean, I'm on twitter for goodness sake. Then I read this:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/02/social-networking-increases-cancer-risk.php


In this article, the writer discusses a Daily Mail piece that suggest that social networking cause cancer. You may laugh but this was the Daily Mail. It is never difficult to disagree with the Daily Mail so I shouldn't have much trouble here.

I have felt notably more intelligent since signing up to this endless amazing tools the internet is providing. Yes, it can sound intelligent to be flippant towards it all and shrug it off as a passing trend but I am finally feeling free to write.

And for someone who has aspirations to be writing that it is a bloody good thing... Creating this identity for myself and writing from behind it, is allowing me to publish a version of myself to public for their acceptance or otherwise without leaving myself open. I feel free to write.

And the scope for reading, I have read more in the past two weeks than I have read in the past few years using Delicious, Google Reader and Daily Lit. I feel more intelligent and equipped to understand the world.

For someone with an addictive personality, who can get caught up and obsessed with negative habits, to find another 'addiction' that actually sets me free rather than trap me, is a pretty life-changing thing.

I might try for another sensationalist headline:

Web 2.0 changes in technology saves girl's life.

Bit much...but I think the Daily Mail will like it.

Sunday 10 May 2009

Web 2.0, here I go!

IN the past few months, I have joined four different social networking sites that I feel in some way aided me achieving my primary outcome: To be a better person.

I have joined dailylit.org, where I can read through daily classics via email or RSS; twitter.com, no introduction; mymedhelp.org, to track my mood, water consumption and sleep patterns; and delicious.com, to share my bookmarks with the world!

The twee-ness, the trendiness, the popularity of it all actually makes me feel kinda embarassed but this morniing I woke up and thought 'hey, you know what...I'm gonna start writing a blog'.

I have no idea where I'll begin and how this might pan out but f**k it, cos if there is one thing I've noticed about all this Web 2.0 stuff, there are so many people doing it, I probably won't get noticed anyway.

Keep posted...