Frozen frames

We're organizing a photo exhibit and naturally I needed to go over the snaps that I have available, and which tie into our theme of advocacy, theory and the media, especially as practitioners and academics.


We really only need two, but I realized I had quite a number which I thought would fit well. Here they are. Let me know what you think.

I got into photographing our shoots and our travels when I was still with the children's program I worked for. It was fascinating to watch them grow up in front of our eyes -- I know I sound like some surrogate mom. However, working with kids (and being responsible for them, I might add) gave you an acute sense of awareness and reawakening: the things I took for granted, I had to see through their eyes and describe in their language. And I realized how simple the world was for them, but also that, they had a way of making every moment count because like childhood, there was no going back. So these photos really are a documentation of these kids' time growing up, and me, growing along with them.

Supernova Steve

Steve Jobs

1955-2011

I suppose the only to way to leave a life that has been as innovative, colorful and transformative as Steve Jobs' has been is to do it like a supernova: with a great flash, a supersonic bang and a lingering curtain of light, made of billions of tiny shining points illuminated by an indefatigable spirit.

It's the only thinkable way, for Steve Jobs, because he deserved nothing less. He refused to be bogged down by the illness that plagued him, and though physically, his body looked drained, his spirit was far from defeated. He inspired, and will continue to inspire generations to come. He planted the seeds at Apple and future innovators will look to his legacy to guide us into the future.

Just as he said in his 2005 Stanford speech, the old will be cleared away to make way for the new. He is giving us that time now, and I believe he trusts that the world is ready for more innovations, just as he, on so many successful occasions, trusted his gut when it came to the "crazy" decisions. The spirit of his genius will continue to guide us.

So I guess the best tribute there is for Steve is to suck up our gut, follow our heart and trust in what we love, and witness how our own personal passions can change our world.

Thank you for the inspiration, Steve.

BC 199 MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS

Dear BC 199 Students,

You may click on the following link to view the exam questions.

BC 199 MIDTERM EXAM

Please follow the instructions carefully. Good luck and see you in September!

BC 199 MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS

Dear BC 199 Students,

You may click on the following link to view the exam questions. Good luck!

BC 199 MIDTERM EXAM

The UP Meme is now a Monster

There was practically a comment coming in every second!

The Facebook meme, Taga-UP Diliman ka kung..., is, as of this writing, housing 25,010 members on the group page, all within a week of its creation. It's been featured on a mainstream news channel already. The threaded discussions keep getting longer, and the posts keep on coming.

Did I mention a comment every second? I've had to adjust the notifications settings for my email.

What is it about this near-phenomenal gathering of the best and the brightest online? I suppose one would hasten to compare it with the intellectual gatherings at Renaissance coffee houses, talking about art, politics and society. It is a virtual gathering indeed, but one with a less high-brow purpose.

This, I believe, is the first time members of a community are attempting to document a shared culture, outline personal and group histories, and build memory through crowd sourcing. Specifically, people are writing down their personal experiences on campus as students, completing the sentence of the meme, "Taga-UP Diliman ka kung." The idea is focused and clear: there is a certain student culture within the UP Diliman campus that merits such a targeted question. It is so unique that one had to be a part of the culture to know what the question is all about.

As proof, members begin talking about personalities, events, artifacts of "student life" in UP -- badges that authenticate their membership in the community. Members complete the meme with phrases like, "kilala mo kung sino si Zorro," "gumising ka ng madaling araw para pumila sa registration," "kumain ka ng isaw kay Mang Larry." In some instances, posts attempt to map the political and economic developments through the years -- from the cost of an IKOT jeepney ride to the rallies they joined.

It's both fun and interesting to share similar experiences with people twice your age or younger, but still claim common ground. It's also quite flattering to have people notice your own attempt to start a mini discussion on the wall itself. Within the day I posted this question, I got more than 200 responses!

Still, it's nothing compared to Bibeth Orpesa's post, which has, to date, more than 3,000 comments!

This simple activity is creating a bridge through time and space, putting together a mosaic of personal experiences and individual histories to create a whole picture of the campus culture, which, hitherto, has been difficult to really pin down and capture. To document a hundred years of experience among millions of graduates would be a crime if it was to be written from a select group's point of view. And how would one select that group? What criteria would one use? What aspects of that culture would remain invisible by their very act of choosing which items to write about?

The unexpected monstrous response became a crowdsourcing activity, and one that had complete buy in from the most important stakeholders in the phenomenon: all those who graduated from UP. What made this work was a compendium of many things. First, it happened on a platform that was open and available to the 25,000 members of the page. They were all on FB anyway, and they just needed a signal or trigger that would get them to "talk" online. The question was provocative in itself: it was focused enough to limit the space (UP Diliman) but vague and open enough to connect various aspects of the UP culture to. It also did not discriminate against personal experiences or opinions. And since every student's experience is personal it was easy to relate with the personal is someone else's meme, and connect. Memory is one of the most fragile forms of documentation but doing it in a group strengthens the validity of an event, person or artifact existing. Personal encounters become important and corroborating members plug into the memory as well.

What is similarly interesting is that the members openly exchange views and experiences that are both pleasant and unpleasant. The freedom of posting on FB allows them to practice being controversial again -- a given trait of UP students, members claim -- in case in their political present, they are prevented from being so.

Most of all it is a nostalgic trip down memory lane to a time of freedom -- artistic, political, sexual, social and cultural. It was a time pregnant with innovation and possibility. It was an environment kept alive by previous generations of graduates and professors, and is guarded carefully til now. I suppose this is why the meme is such a success too -- it offers a space that proves there are minds that believe in the possibility of a nation that can be this free, innovative and courageous.

Tethered to Technology

I recently reactivated my Facebook account after disabling it for almost two and a half weeks. I deactivated it because I felt I was being bullied and I didn't need that stress on top of all the other stressors that were coming at me from work, from my GRE exam, from trying to meet deadlines in my classes. It was just as well, I thought, because, I was starting to procrastinate BADLY due to the addicting habit of reading updates every 30 minutes and checking other people's walls and photos.

I figured I needed to go on an FB diet.

I was amused by the text on the screens that instructed me how to commit FB suicide. One screen featured random profile photos of people on my friends list. Below the photos, it read: "A will miss you." "B will miss you." "C will miss you." I found it funny because FB really knew how to appeal to one's emotional side -- and I almost gave in. The attribution of feelings by this system to disembodied photos of people labeled "friends" gave one the impression that, the system itself was a friend, advising another against saying leaving without saying goodbye...and all those trite cinematic situations to which we're so attuned. Even if the photos of people they featured were just nominally friends -- and in fact, were ones with whom I have not interacted with for a long time -- it did get me thinking. Would people really miss my presence? Would others even notice? care? I figured I'd find out. When I finally clicked the "deactivate account" button, FB told me "We hope you return soon," or something like that.

It was bittersweet, parting with the communities and groups I identified with online, and shared unique life experiences with. I quickly realized how much of my self was sketched by the interactions certain people and I had, the kinds of exchanges we'd have on our walls, and how, somehow, I revelled in the fact that "others" could see whom I was "talking" with and what we were discussing. This indeed offered some form of legitimacy to my own perception of who Data was, and who I was projecting myself as to other people. Now that I was no longer connected to them, I had to negotiate with myself: just where and when did I start anchoring my identity on experiences long gone, and with people with whom I have not had any common experiences with since? It made me realize just how deeply these virtual experiences could shape how we see ourselves, and even our lives...all because we invited ourselves to do this.

So this made me thankful that I decided to let go of FB when I did. I was able to study better. I was spending less time online and found myself reading, talking to people face to face, actually having some time to myself! I spent a weekend out of town with the hubby, and I was glad I didn't have FB breathing down my neck: although the habit was difficult to break, I successfully resisted posting photos and status messages about my weekend. Suddenly, we had the time ONLY to ourselves, and the compulsion to tell everyone where you were and what you were doing helped define a private space again. No one knew, no one could "see," no one could judge. It was liberating. And for the first time in a long time, my mind was present in the moment. I wasn't thinking about how this would look on FB or who would be interested. It was all about me and the hubby and our vacation. And it was good.

I will admit, however, that I could not let go completely. I had to be tethered to something...just in case. Twitter was the dock peg of choice. Though I was not able to share a lot of media as on FB, I was, at least, contactable to my followers and those I was following. I still had a toe in the virtual pow-wow. I still needed to know what people were talking about and what they were sharing. I suppose it was also my way of reminding people that I still existed, although I felt that I was starting from scratch, building up a new community again. However I noticed that on Twitter, people were more independent in their thoughts. Sure, they may retweet links or messages, but generally individuals on Twitter seemed to stand "alone." They didn't need to plugged into any group and were solely accountable for all that they tweeted. There was no one to back you up with a "like" or a comment -- if they did it would come several tweets later, when others already made up their mind about what you just wrote. It called for a certain disposition of responsibility -- at least in my view. I found myself correcting my tweets, checking and rechecking links I wanted to retweet. I made sure my posts could fit the character limit but still be sensible -- without resorting to text spelling.

Again it forced one to be in the moment, and to appreciate the small things -- which for me are a reflection of one's politeness and even compassion. Why impose your horrendous spelling and grammar on an innocent audience?

Eventually I decided to reactivate my account. I found out people had been asking about me and wondering what happened to my account. I won't deny it felt nice to be noticed, but then of course, I had to answer people's questions about why I was gone. I decided to be vague, and instead just reassure them I was back.

Unfortunately, I realized it wasn't as easy to come back as it was to leave. Not only is my profile still un-visit-able, some contacts were having trouble even tagging me. The hubby said, perhaps the system needed time to propagate. All right, but, does it take five days to get it up and running like before? It's starting to frustrate me, and for all my fantasizing about people actually "missing" me, turns out, I am still probably just another profile on the system. This time, however, I am sort of a ghost: people can see "me", but they can't "touch" me. I am un-connect-able.

I left, thinking I was being noticed for the wrong reasons, and I came back, noticeably unconnected, virtually just an "other." There wasn't even any emotional welcome back message from FB either, none of the sentimental farewell ones that appear when you're going through the deactivation process. I suppose FB felt when deactivation occurs, there's one less profile to maintain, but when it's reactivated, they're not too happy with the additional work to get it functioning properly like before. They're too busy, so they'll skip the welcome party.

This is fine with me. The past two weeks showed me that I can discipline myself regarding my use of technology and I can regulate my consumption of social media products. I also know which people are truly my friends, online and offline. I can define who they are to me and who I am according to the encounters we've had in real life -- and I don't need to depend on FB's categories to tell me if I am accepted in certain groups or not. Technology is important but it need not run our lives, not does it have to define who we are. We define technology's function in our lives, and make it work for us, not the other way around.

On the right Track

If there is one thing that teachers like me live for, it's witnessing the breakthroughs in thought and realization in our students. It is the feather in our caps, the huge pats on the back, that long-held breath you're finally able to exhale as you think, they got it!

And it happened today, in one of my classes, when A responded to my question about their biggest insight after discussions on the historical tradition of the media form. Quite casually and even with a hint of annoyance, she said, in the end the form is a construct and it exists as different things for different people at different times. "Wala lang siya. Parang Malaya kaming I-define kung ano siya (it's fluid. It's like we're free to define what the form is for us.)"

I wanted to weep tears of joy and sing alleluias to the heavens. They got it! All this research, the late nights reading, the worry that would settle as I hoped and prayed they did't fall asleep in class or decide it was useless -- all of it seemed to diminish in that one moment. It was then I felt, wow, I can actually teach!

This gave me a much needed boost, a high, if you will, and I had to share the good news with E and B. They were delighted to hear the story and were happy that the students were becoming critical.

We're on the right track. It may have taken this long, but the fact that we got to this point at all is, for me, a cause for celebration.

Next-generation TV metrics

After social networks, social content on the web, and social mobile apps, we entering the age of social TV. According to this article in Mashable.com, television show producers, sponsors, and even the actors themselves are aware of the new shift in content and connection offered by the social networking apps. There are also proposals for new ways of measuring tv viewing, largely through the posts, shares, links and chats that accompany a program's airing. This article, also in Mashable.com, discusses Bluefin Signals's groundbreaking metric and software, all conceptualized and developed in the MIT Media Lab (*sigh*).

This comes at a most opportune time. I would love for them to try out their software here and see how people, former audiences, can begin to make deep impacts on television's program content. Though only 30% of Pinoys are wired, I am confident that this number will double in a year's time and we will nearly have reached critical mass.

For the most part, television stations need to take social tv seriously, and not, as described in the article, feature social connectivity as a "bolted on" component. There is a purpose for connecting to one's audiences, and it is not simply to brag about numbers. I think most producers think that, if they connect to Facebook and their show is popular, they should get an approximate number of "likes" and posts as well. Clearly, it's a different situation. They cannot expect all their viewers to be posting opinions on FB. For one, not everyone is connected. Second, even if they are connected, they may not have the technological literacy to navigate a social app. Third, they may not have the literacy to comment, period. Fourth, they really don't give shit.

They will not get the numbers, but they will get opinions, reactions, suggestions, and these, in my opinion, are far more richer nuggets of data than hard numbers will ever provide. Based on their reactions, it will be possible to see what it is they connect to in terms of content. Viewers, especially the last three generations of media consumers who were born into a mediated society, know when they are being played with. Well, that's what I want to believe. It's not enough anymore that tv producers sit around and try to make money by churning out template stories and spectacles, thinking it's "what viewers want."

Newsflash: viewers want to be taken seriously. That's why they go online and talk, rant, praise, recommend. So tv networks better listen, and take the emerging social tv phenomenon seriously. That, or risk losing more audiences to torrent sites and cable.

Blog promise

I would love to be able to blog regularly again.

So many tedious details get in the way of doing the things you want to do, things that society deems important for one to be part of the structure. Naturally some things get sacrificed. It's funny because the irony of it is that, in order to do what it is you want, you have to give it up to do things that will carve out the path for you to be able to what it was you sacrificed doing in the first place. Wait, is that an irony, or a paradox?

Case in point: me. I have to accomplish so many peripheral things to be able to just blog! What's funny is that, if I wasn't sick and alone, I wouldn't even have these few minutes to put down these thoughts.

And here I am dreaming of becoming a new media scholar.

I am making it point then, from this moment on, to blog at least once a week -- for now -- and reestablish myself in the blogosphere. I promise to write down musings on the Internet, new media, youth, kids, convergence, television, new media literacy, and empowerment. And gender. And creativity.

I promise to stop making excuses and start sweeping away the tedious details that are giving me such a roundabout path to what I want. There are more important things to do thin obsess about the inconsequential minutiae.

Social media marketers, take note!

Sharing an interesting article from Mashable.com about how social media strategies can rethink their ways of presenting content. It's a good, short read but it's got lotsa good stuff. I always thought web video was one of those convergent media forms that could help redefine the medium vs the message. And the ones driving its redefinition are the consumers themselves.

Producers have to reorient their paradigms towards a flatter process of information dissemination. No one organization or person now has a monopoly of the content. If they don't consider the fact that individuals online have the power to create, and destroy, the concept, then their content simply conforms to traditional presentations (and representations). And the battle for their attention is unequivocally lost.

When the Web becomes Noisy

I think I've come to the point where I have to go on a very strict internet diet. For the past few weeks I have caught myself wandering aimlessly through the Web, as if in a mall, looking through windows, lingering, never committing, feeling no sense of accomplishment or loss at what transpired between my physical self and the binary bits that define what it is it wants us to see. Before I know it, hours have passed. Thanks to my incessant, "oh, just ten more minutes; oh, just another refresh; oh just one more alert check," the minutes ticked away into hours. I sat down to wander when the sun was up. I turned my head to look out the window and was mildly shocked to see it was dusk.

The funny thing is, I KNEW I was wasting time, but I did it anyway. There's a hypnosis that accompanies the aimless searches. No fulfillment, no disappointment either, but when the mind is forced to switch back to the actualities of the offline world, there is exhaustion. Even sadness. It's like an addiction (dear Lord, is this what it is?), an escape from waking consciousness, especially when burnout is the only viable option to working towards a goal.

Social Media Distractions asre Costing Businesses Major Money (mashable.com)

Like now: I have to face several deadlines, house chores, social obligations, on top of preparing for work for the next school year. It has becoming so over whelming that I've taken to procrastinating, and trailing my eyes on my open tabs for message or post alerts. How sick is that?

I daresay, VERY! So here I am, declaring an internet diet to welcome the school year. I am determined to kick this very bad habit, starting with attacking my reading list, my unhealthy chips diet, my lethargy, and my overspending. I think these are all symptoms of this "addiction."

Wow. Well, at least now I can say I am truly a student of new media. I've been to the worst in this part of the virtual world. So now things can only get better. :)

17 Dreamcatchers

Through the years, I have trained myself to keep my goals simple, so that they'd be easily attainable. Well, doable, if you will -- the point is, I would have the opportunity to achieve the goals I set for myself based on the things I know and the skills I have. This would give me the chance to grow, sharpen my knowledge and abilities, and then celebrate whatever small victories that may result from the work I do. Yet, just because they're simple goals doesn't mean I don't have to work hard. It, in fact, forced me to work harder, to ensure that I could achieve the targets I set for myself.

This brings me to the goals I set for myself when I decided to try my hand at teaching. These are small, inconsequential things. I told myself that what I wanted to be able to do was advise a student on his/her thesis, be able to use the title "professor," and be told, "thank you for being our teacher. we had fun in your class, we learned so much, and these lessons we will bring with us always." That's all I ever dream of. I have no illusions of grandeur, no ambitions to become some officer or hold an administrative position. All I want to do is teach, write, and be appreciated. It's not too much to ask, but it's a bitch to achieve.



Thinking back, I realize how much I had fumbled, and how raw my methods were, in my earliest classes. There were times I was careless, or just plain tired. I recall how nervous I was upon entering every class, not sure if I was teaching these kids the right things. So I had to read, and re-read. I had to stay up 'til the wee hours of the morning, distilling information into visual presentations and planting them in activities for the students to extract. I had to find a balance between home life and work life, with the latter easily taking over my time for my family. It would have been easier to give up. Then again, I was never one to do things the easy way.

So I persisted. I lost sleep. I sacrificed family time. I am several months overdue on the books I borrowed from the college library. I've wept over the exhaustion, and stressed over the quality of my work. Most of all I obsessed over my students: was I getting through to them? Were they learning what they were supposed to learn? Did I equip them sufficiently?

You will wonder forever. Only time will tell if you taught the right things, or more importantly, taught things right.

And then one day last week, as I was packing up for the day, I realized that I had just signed the ninth bound thesis from my group of advisees. I was addressed as "Professor Data Canlas," and most of all, this: a video from my television production students, enumerating the things they liked most about their class, ending with a resounding "we love you/thank you." And then on Monday, I got a handmade card with notes from everyone, thanking me for giving them the one of the best semesters in their college life so far.



What's a girl to do? Do I now cross off the goals on my list? Do I move on to the next chapter? Where to? Do I draw up a new list of goals for the same task? Or do I look for a new task/job altogether? Or do I stay and watch them grow, only to say goodbye all over again. (Oh why do I always seem to relive this torture? 5 and Up haunts me forever. As long as there are kids who are worth losing sleep over, I suppose the ghosts of Uppies&Uppers-days past will always be around.)

So WHAT IS a girl to do? I guess, for now, nothing. All I can do is allow the moment to envelope me, and succumb to the truth that, in one semester, 17 kids just made my dreams come true.

Another brilliant step by Google

If there's anyone who can take the idea of convergence and turn it around in ways so simple it makes you want to cry, it's Google. Making good use of its HTML 5 technology, the allegory of print media and the collective knowledge of its engineers and social psychologists, writers and futurists, they put together their online magazine THINK.

The content of THINK is hinged on the knowledge of some of Google's think tanks, as well as experts in the field of data mining and visualization, economics, and even marketing. Most of this first issue is dedicated to Google's expertise: how to harvest the data and turn it into profit. I have yet to go through all the articles, but already I can tell you Hans Rogen's article on data and presentation should be a good read.

I was happy to find an article on web video too and the concept of virality. However the tone of the article was skewed largely towards marketing and promotions. This buys me time to write my new paper on video online, and maybe get it published.

HAH! Wishful thinking!

Still, it makes use of brain cells, which is what the editorial is about. The thermal imaging photo of brain cells and what these are used for is an indication of how far we've come in terms of gathering important information and turning it into knowledge. From data coming to us from the moon to devastation due to nuclear bombs, we find that we come full circle -- back to ourselves, our own powerhouses -- our brains -- and we realize just how much we really haven't discovered at all.

Awash with the Sendai tsunami videos

How are we going to use this technology of web video after such a tragedy?

With so many videos of the tsunami and earthquake uploaded on video sharing websites, passed on, replied to and re-appropriated by other web users, it would be timely to ask ourselves, just what are we passing on? Are we keeping the horror alive? For whom? Are we reliving the morbid awe we experience as we view the devastation again and again from the safety of our rooms and offices, schools or malls? What images are we proliferating?

It's the same thing we see on the news, isn't it? The more harrowing, the better. The idea is that, aside from informing the audience that a tragic, horrific, morbid event has just occured, they can invite audiences to tune in to them for more "awesome" footage. How you define awesome -- that's another blog post.

However, right now, I feel that web video, and the technology to capture it should turn to other uses now. People who have the means to report on people on the ground, should. Their stories should be shared, not as a way of spectacularizing their suffering but to document how they are coping, to get word out that they are more than numbers. They are people who need help. It's also a call to their government, humanitarian organizations and even fellow citizens on the kind assistance they may need.

I am no social scientist, but I would also like to think it is a way for them to purge the horror they experienced. For them to be able to talk about it may help them make sense of it. The technology and the opportunity should be there for them so that they can muster the strength to move forward, not for us to record and edit and apply our own scripts to. There are producers and news editors doing that already.

They just need to tell their side of the story, in their own words, in their own time, according to how they experienced it. The job of the videographer and the video camera begins and ends with the record button.

Facebook's new addictive apps

If being sucked into an FB vortex of incessant status updates, status checking, FB stalking and profile picture-plucking weren't enough, some quirky users came up with an FB profile VIDEO! You can now make your avatar into a video! Check out the how-to's on this Mashable page.

Now, while waiting for your video to render, why not think about joining the campaign to create a an FB wall in Mashable's New York office? Aside from being able to say you've been to NY virtually and you have the photo to prove it, you are part of a world wide experiment on social networking. Mashable details the objectives and instructions on this page.

Too bad concrete walls don't have video specs yet. It won't be long before they do though. Just keep checking back to find out!

A Visitor on my Own blog

The last post here was over a month ago. Again, it seemed like things came hurtling towards me. Though at the time, I didn't know how I was going to survive the tsunami of tasks and tedium. But I did. And here I am, sitting in our makeshift living room, among boxes and overturned shelves, tattered odds and ends fitted into niches above where I sit to give a semblance of relaxed decor, a spot where the eyes can rest for a moment before scanning the practically-empty first floor of our new home. Yes, a new home, where there is more space to move, grow, and entertain. I promised myself I would simply enjoy the process of fixing up the place, and not be too obsessed with filling it up right away. I catch myself wanting everything I see in the magazines, a virtual model of our home spinning in my head as I try to figure out where I should place this piece of decor or furniture. I'm glad that, several times, I was able to stop myself and make the wise decision to just walk away.

Our priority now is a work desk and a couple of chairs for the home office. It's imperative, since we do additional work at home. Gosh it never ends.

All of this on top of regular work load, and what my heart longs to do: write. I should just start making it a habit again, to write everyday, even just a line. What's the point of having a notebook and not writing in it. There are the Palancas to consider, CANVAS, papers, researches, etc. SIGH. I want to take a week off to just write. And sleep. And do yoga. What a vacation that would be!

I continue to dream.

In other news, my sister has a boyfriend! :) Sorry for the mundane-ness of this post. I just need to give my mind a break. Hope yours is faring better.

Saving Face

Recently I nearly gave a friend the cold shoulder because I thought I was being blown off online. F was a new-found friend and we were both getting along well. Over the Christmas break when I tried to catch my friend online, through Facebook and FB chat, I had a feeling F was avoiding me. As if, I had said something to offend her. She'd show up on the chat window and then quickly exit.

What was up with that?

I decided not to connect with F the whole time over the Christmas season. All I did was greet her through text on Christmas Day and that was that. I was quite miffed by her behavior. And here I thought we would be really good friends.

What is it about connecting on FB that seems to be an important requirement for building relationships these days? (or is that just me?) It's as if our online personas have to link up so that there's a permission of sorts that gets exchanged non-verbally. It seems to give us a pass to investigate each other quietly, stealthily. It's as if we need to "study" what went on, what is going on in a person's life prior to deepening the relationship. Will judgements come into play? Perhaps, but we can never know for sure, can we?

I mean, take for instance the way I quickly judged F for avoiding me online. After checking out her page, I wanted to chat about some of the photos, or the common connections we had. However it seemed to me that whenever I came online, she would go offline, and I'd watch as the little green dot in the chat window suddenly became a hollow, gray little round icon.

Whatever happened to common experiences, and building a relationship from that? What happened to face to face conversations and exploring common interests together? Even quarrels are a necessary element in deepening relationships. Are we afraid of confrontations now, and would we rather poke at one another indirectly via our status messages? Is it less messy that way? It it more complicated in person?

Our behavior online could be an indication of the actions we wish for ourselves offline. Online, despite the fact that we have our photos to identify our page, our names, and our "voice" in our texts, the asynchronicity still seems to provide a veil that aids in letting go and also accepting otherwise effacing actions. Maybe it's because we're so Asian that we really do set much store on saving face. Facial reactions definitely belie what is in our heads, and our responses cannot be changed or taken back once the facial muscles contract or contort in reaction. At least online, we can project an image of being cool and introspective despite snarky remarks. Wittiness is not lost on us as we can quickly pull up an emoticon or a smiley to mask our true emotions.

The next time I saw F, she seemed happy to see me, and I was befuddled. So I told her how I felt and she was just as surprised. Turns out she wasn't a chat person, and never liked instant messaging. She hardly ever chatted with her old friends, and she almost never responds to chat messages when she's on FB. So I had misinterpreted her actions. I laughed, and she laughed, and we were friends again, but it got me thinking some more of why I interpreted her actions that way. Was it just me and personal expectations of exchanging conventional gestures of friendship online? Or was she really violating some unspoken netiquette that I adhered to but didn't think she needed to?

Were we trying to save the friendship, or were we simply just saving face?

Clickety click

I'm feeling the pressure to be online.

Because of my self-proclaimed ambition to build an expertise about the web and new media, I have been hearing the familiar critical, nagging voice in my head berating me for not posting more often, reading more often, exploring more often. In a world that is increasingly wired and where information is exchanged and is accessible in a snort, I am constantly on edge when I am not online. It's as if there are a million things to do that don't get done -- that's in addition to the things that don't get done in the offline world.

It's a shame I'm not online more often to do some substantial work and writing. Real life gets in the way, not to mention the laundry, sleeping and and having coffee. Instead I browse FB, then find myself going off to other sites when a thought hits me. I end up not finishing what I started. Most of the time I forget what I started. THus, more things end up not getting done.

Take for instance my application to a university in the US. I have been staring at my laptop for the past three weeks, trying to finish the dang application essay. I've typed something, but it's far from being acceptable. And so off I go checking samples online. I hop and hop til the time I allotted for the task has run out. Oh world wide web. Why do you tempt me so?

But I suppose it's not because of the Web, but because I procrastinate and compare what I have with the others have. I am locked into a cycle of analysis paralysis because of all the information that overwhelms me. And all of these are available as long as I type the right word.

Ka-Ching! Another reason to stall.

Sometimes all the options at our fingertips can make it harder to decide. While we benefit from the access we suffer too from information glut. There has to be a way to get over the addiction of searching and clicking hyperlinks. While the offline world presents many viable options, I think the most effective one is to simply turn of the wi-fi router, and remember there's still an analog world to deal with, and a life to live, outside of the web.

It's 2011. I hope to write more, be distracted less, love more, criticize less, explore more, berate myself less. Smile more, hug more, give thanks. And it will all start with this happy medium.