What to do with all this extra time...

The last two weeks have been dedicated to midterms, so I apologize for almost abandoning you all. I do have some good news, however. Thanks to my no facebook experiment, I have all this extra time in my hands to do things like, well...study.

As a journalism student, I live by deadlines. I'm good at multitasking and setting priorities, but only when I have to. This week, I definitely had to.

On Monday I had 2 papers and a midterm, Tuesday a research paper and about 200 pages of reading, Wednesday another paper and about 100 other pages and for tomorrow...ta da, my COM LAW exam. Between this week and last week from hell I should be celebrating. Combine it with the fact that it's Halloween, only my favorite holiday EVER and you have a recipe for disaster.

But before I get to rock my costume (it's a surprise!) , I need to finish work. Guess what? Having no facebook had left me stressed free.

That seven page paper that I handed in today? It would have taken me at least half a day to do--if I was lucky. It took me a total of three hours to get it done once I finished doing all the reading (which might have taken me half a day, but that's debatable).

And why I'm I not stressing out over my COM Law exam? probably because after I finished my six-page paper that's due tomorrow (which I did in about three hours also, normally, in which I skyped with my friends from home) I had some time to review my notes and get my questions straightened before I really start cramming tomorrow.

I still have to work on that whole getting started way in advance. Maybe I will once I actually miss a deadline, which has yet to happen. But if this keeps up, I might not get back on facebook until the semester ends.

How many margaritas do you think I can I get out of that bet?

I'd love to take you out, but I can't find you on facebook

Friday night at Chuck's bar. It was the typical crowd of Yankee sports fans (the game was on) and college students. If you are hoping to see people that you haven't seen in a long time, there is a really good chance that they are here.

Case in point: lawyer boy. I'm not going to disclose anyone's name if I'm not saying anything positive about them. Especially when they are in law school and they could find a way to sue me for presenting them under a false light.

Lawyer boy and I had been facebook chatting for a few days before I I disabled the social network. He is, in fact, one of the many reasons why I did it in the first place. I was getting tiered of meeting guys and not having actual conversations with them. I figured (maybe inspired by watching He's Just Not That Into You) that if he really was interested, he would find out about my no facebook experiment and find my phone number from one of our mutual friends. He didn't and I put him in the he's just not that into you shelf (Yep, there is a shelf and I have no problem adding people to it).

But lawyer boy was at Chuck's and the first thing that comes out of his mouth when he sees me is: When are you getting back on facebook? Obviously, he had cared enough to ask why my profile no longer appeared when he searched for me.

"Excuse me? You could have just called," was all I could say.

"I couldn't. I don't have your number."

Whatever. My mistake. I thought you had to be smart to get into law school. I left Chuck's laughing. He never asked for my number, but it' fine. Let's face it. I'm not that into him either. And I have no intention of seeing anyone who doesn't know how to use the phone.

Group projects

October is, apparently, the month for group projects. Three of my professors have divided us into groups and asked us to complete some form of task.

After the inicial, "Hi, I'm Andrea. Yes, I'm your partner. Sure, let's get this done this weekend!" I get the comment that I know will ultimately make me look like a complete loser.

-"I'll facebook you."
-"Uh, I actually don't have facebook. Do you think you can call or e-mail me?"
-"Why don't you have facebook?"

Can I remind everyone that five years ago no one had facebook?

I'm trying to be cool here, people!

Don't say I didn't warn you yesterday..

200 and plus pages to read and a paper due first thing tomorrow morning. How I wish I can blame my procrastination on facebook.

I have call waiting. Look at that!

I'm beginning to like this no-facebook experiment of mine. Maybe my friends are as excited as I am or they are just worried that I am going to go crazy from not connecting with people. Whatever the case, they are actually calling! Some just to say hello!

The day before I deactivated facebook I posted my experiment idea as my status and sent my e-mail to a few friends in a private message, just in case they didn't get a chance to see what I was up to. I told myself that I was only going to send the private message to a few people that I knew would worry if suddenly they couldn't find my profile, but I was surprised when out of
50o+ friends I ended up sending the message to about 20.

Out of those, a few called last night asking how the experiment is doing. Some tell me they are proud and understand why I'm doing it; others are advising me not to. One is betting me a Margarita if i make it up until November 1st.

I really am loving the 5-minute phone conversations that I'm having with these people. I hope the keep on coming. I can already taste the tequila.

It hurt. I admit it.

I just deactivated my profile. It hurt. I admit it. I felt guilty when old pictures with me and someone I actually don't even talk to anymore appeared on the deactivating page saying the were going to miss me.


Maybe I should do homework or something.

I hope you miss me...

I just spent the entire morning chatting on facebook. I could have done homework, or gone for a run, or clean my apartment, but instead, i sat in front of my computer anxiously waiting for my crush to reply.

Then, a creepy feeling hit me. I might have conversations with this person, but between facebook and text messages, I have no idea what his voice sounds like or if he could even construct a sentence longer than 140 characters.

And this wasn't just my crush. Friends I once spent hours talking to on the phone were suddenly wishing me happy birthday through a message on my wall.

It wasn't until my own mother started chatting about her day that I decided something must be done. And this is how my little experiment came to place.

For the whole month I am disabling my facebook profile and all forms of social interaction that require, well, minimum interaction. This means that I will not sign on to IM, twitter or gmail chat.

There are a few things I want to test. First of all, I want to improve the way I communicate with people. A lot is left to the imagination when body language and tone of voice is missing from the conversation, so perhaps this experiment will avoid a few misunderstandings.

Then, of course, is the problem I'm going to refer to as the tree in the forest. Just as no one knows if the tree makes a sound if no one is around I wonder, do I exist in the social world if I don't have a facebook profile?

Guess we are about to find out.