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.

Skype isn't cheating

I had a full house this weekend, so not being able to go on facebook or messenger to interact with people didn't seem like a big deal. Until everyone packed their bags and I was left alone in my apartment.

One thing I've learned so far is that I didn't need facebook to procrastinate. Okay, so I already did all the reading for one of my classes this week and I actually got started on homework that is not due until Wednesday, but that paper that is due on Tuesday that my friend started on Friday night? Still no sign of it coming alive. You'll sense my stress tomorrow.

Since my roommate is out and most of my friends are busy with homework, I decided to look for ways to interact with my friends from home. I had a web cam hiding in the back of my closet that I wasn't using because it required me to install messenger, a big no-no on this experiment.

Thinking that I couldn't use Skype with it, I let it go. Until today when my friend Nancy told me that Skype would read my web cam without the need for messenger. My apologies if I sound technologically challenged.

So after about an hour (where I again delayed working on my paper) I finally installed my web cam and Skype and my friend and I had an actual conversation. Almost face to face! Isn't this awesome?

I love how I'm easily pleased...

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.

Text a little, why don't you?

Maybe getting rid of all text messages is a little too much. Texting is a great invention. It makes it easy to get in touch with people when they are in a place where they can't take a call and, when you have unlimited texts in your cell phone plan(as I do), it is cheaper that the actual phone call.

What really bothers me about texting is that people, myself included, use it as a means to have conversations that would be better done on the phone.

"I'm outside," said one text I recently received from my friend who was picking me up. By this time, my phone is usually at the bottom of my purse and I'm sitting in front of the couch, watching TV, waiting for the doorbell or at least the phone, to ring. And she gets mad because I made her wait.

So taking this into consideration, I decided that for my experiment I am only going to answer texts that require a simple "yes, no, maybe" reply. No picture or video texts can be seen, and when I do get a text, if it requires me to scroll down to read the entire thing, then I can't reply to it.

On a brighter note, I did get a few phone calls last night from friends that wanted to make plans fom the night and knew I wasn't allowed to text. Extra points to those that knew I couldn't text and called me anyway even though they are addicted to their Blackberries. Is this a sign of friendship? I think so.

Signs of withdrawl...

We are creatures of habit. When my little brother broke my car's radio a few years ago, it took me a while to get used to. I'm not exactly a music person and I didn't want to spend $200 to fix it right away, so I did the only thing I could do: drive in silence.

The funny thing is that every few minutes you would find me reaching for the power button to turn the radio on, only to discover that nothing would happen. I'd laugh at myself for forgetting, get my hand back on the wheel and keep on driving. Yet less that a minute later the same thing would happen: I'd inadvertently reach for the on button trying to get rid of the silence.

The same thing is happening now that my facebook page is disabled. I get up, turn my computer like I always used to, go to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee while it uploads and sit back to my desk, only to remember that I can't go on facebook.

Let's face it: last night was Friday. I wasn't going to start that paper on sex tourism that's due on Tuesday, so there really was no point on having my computer on, teasing me to check any of the many social media websites that are saved in my history. So I do the smart thing: I turn the computer on and go to the living room and catch up on Grey's Anatomy.

Guess what I do less than an hour later? Yep. Get off the couch, go to my room and without thinking about it, I turn my computer back on. Only to realize once it's set that I have no use for it.

Anything like this happened to you? And if so, how long did it take you to get out of the routine?

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.