Magic Jewball

Since I’m at school, I have a couple of Technology and Society questions with multiple choice answers. Have a go! Write in your own answers if you wish!

1. If someone follows you on Twitter, ostensibly it’s because they like what you say, right? I mean, if they’re not a spammer or a pron site… that’s different. So you follow them back, not only to be polite but to interact, because they seem OK. Let’s say after a couple of months you realize that 90% of their Tweets (apologies if you hate the twee language… see what I just did there?) is comprised of bad puns and quotes by other people. This is not really why you signed up for Twitter, it was about having a dialogue and sharing interesting thoughts and content, and so you subsequently unfollow them. Immediately, like within an hour, they unfollow you. Does it mean:

a. they never really liked what you said, they just wanted you to follow them.
b. they did like what you said but now they are mortally insulted and so they say good day, sir!
c. dropping them somehow changed the content of what you Tweet.

OK then.

2. If your blog is now more autobiographical than ever and someone who professes to be a good friend of yours (and they are, seriously, under almost any definition) and knows about your blog e-mails you to check in. That person asks several good, friendly questions about your life, all of whose answers are in the last two weeks of your posts. Should you:

a. point out that they should read your blog.
b. write out all the same answers that you just posted in your blog.
c. feel hurt.
d. a and c
e. b and c
f. realize that no one is obligated to read your blog, Becca, you always said that.

I thought so. ~sigh~

Title comes from Maureen’s adorable daughter. I wish there was a song with that title but there isn’t. Yet.
Boston – More Than A Feeling

Labor Day: a day off from your labor. A day to celebrate the worker, toiling for The Man. This has been me since I was sixteen years old. In fact, this is the first Labor Day since I was fifteen that I have not been on the payroll of a giant corporation. Weird! Notice I didn’t say “not working.” Because today I did do some labor, I was baking for photographs and weights and packaging. That’s right, just a day or two till the opening of The Great Big Rugelach Store. Stay tuned!

And to those who aren’t working for The Man because The Man cut you loose, I’m thinking of you today. And not just because I read this sad article in the NY Times about people who gave up hope of even finding a job. Unemployment is scary and hard and frustrating and self-esteem-hurting. This is your season to find a fantastic gig, I know it.

Title comes from:
Tears For Fears – The Working Hour

I always get annoyed at people when they say, “I hate blogs” or “I don’t read blogs.” I know what they mean by that, they mean, “I don’t like reading someone’s personal diary about what they bought at the market and if their boyfriend will propose or what a douche their boss is.” What they don’t get is that it’s like saying, “I don’t read books” when in reality you just don’t like romance novels. Gawker is a blog about gossip. Engadget is a blog about new cool electronics and such. Unclutterer is a blog about an activity I wish I could actually do. I always thought my blog was not a “diary” blog, it was about music and New York City and Judaism and my take on things. Lately, it’s been more the kind of blog that people think of when they say, “I don’t read blogs.” I hope that’s OK with you because I’m not sure it’s OK with me. But I’m learning to accept it. Maybe it will change again eventually but for now, here we are, with yet another post tagged “Life in General,” my code for “about Becca’s life.”

That was all a big intro for just a little vignette. Today, I was reading through my feed reader and saw an item about a local band that has made good and appeared on a late night show (I had about 3,500 items in there so it probably wasn’t from this week). I don’t know why, but something about it made me look at it as a fan and not someone who was evaluating all the steps and the efforts that it took to get this band there. I think I will still read an item like this one about how the Toronto Blue Jays allow copyright theft in their locker room every day and burn with anger. I probably always will. But it’s just a principle; it doesn’t affect me in any real way.

In my first week of school there were a lot of intros and “what did you do’s” and “what made you come here’s” and I thought about Bob telling me that the only thing she missed about the music industry was telling people she worked in the music industry. I have a bit of a halo effect with that, I suppose, but what I realize is, most of my cohort came from cool places and have interesting journeys that brought them to the same hundred-year-old classroom as me. When I tell people, they are interested, but their stories are just as good. I really like all the other MA students in my program and the other day, at our required colloquium, I made my study group and the professor laugh and laugh. And that’s when I realized, every day is different and unexpected but I like it. And I am still me.

Title comes from (only 30 seconds of a beautiful song, sorry):
Nine Inch Nails – In This Twilight

I jotted down all kinds of notes on my orientation but in the end, I’ll just share this one thought with you: the math teachers of the future are going to be HOT. Oh, and the orientation volunteers were so enthusiastic and knowledgeable (any one I asked knew the answer to any random question, I swear) that they kind of scared me. Also, TC has wifi so I can Tweet in class. Just kidding! Maybe.

The US Open has been awesome but fitting it in between school stuff has been hard. I’m a little exhausted. I know because I wrote a post at midnight on the #7 train last night and when I looked at it this morning it resembled the ravings of a drunken hobo. But, if anyone knows what it means in Spain to make a stinky face while mock pulling down your shorts gesture, I and the rest of the people at the Feliciano Lopez match would like to know. That one didn’t make the BlackBerrycam, but you can see others by clicking on the links on my Twitter page.

Also, I got a graduate assistant job and it is fabulous. It is not pushing papers or filing stuff, like my work-study job at Hopkins was. It is doing marketing on a literacy project and I am truly excited about it.

I did have my first class and it was online but live, which was weird. Afterwards, they left the session open so people could get to know each other. You know the intro to the Brady Bunch where everyone’s head is in a box and they each are looking around at all the others but not saying anything? It was kind of like that.

In housekeeping news, I had to remove the fun box that ranked my commenters by verbosity because there is a new and awful trend where companies hire people (not like the bots who usually spam you) to make relevant comments on a few of your posts so they can appear on the list. I could deal with computers doing this (they’re usually caught before they appear by the spamcatcher) but the idea of some woman in the Philippines going through all my posts page by page and leaving comments like, “I never thought Carrie was pretty!” with a link to some spammy site really creeped me out. Stupid spammers ruining it for real people who think Carrie isn’t pretty!

But that reminded me to change my description over there in the About Me box. That box is actually based on one that Blogspot has on their blogs, but when I came over to my own site I really wanted to keep it. I could remove it now but I’d definitely miss the picture. I’m not sure I love this descriptor, though, so I may tweak it.

Anyhoo, more US Open and more classes tomorrow! And maybe I’ll figure out what to write About Me.

Big Star – September Gurls