A place called Here

I’ve always thought of my blog as a little home. Maybe a second home, but not a physical home. So naturally I get a bit sad (just a little teeny weeny bit) when I see that I don’t blog as regularly as I used to. The reasons for this aren’t just that I’m busy, but it’s that there hasn’t been much to write about. I blogged earlier in the week, and of course I realised I hadn’t done Fashion Friday like I’d been trying to, so there goes two weeks without it. Hopefully I can pull up a post this week. :)

I actually took some time off the internet this week. I know I work on the internet, but it started with me feeling ill (physically) and crap (emotionally), which led me to being antisocial. I’m not very social in the first place, but I kicked one thing out of my life for five days: Twitter. People have said I’m addicted, or continually comment on how I reply insanely fast. I follow a lot of people on Twitter who I don’t see much of in real life, or at all, and Twitter is a good, quick way to see what people are up to. I’ll be honest, I don’t go around reading everyone’s updates all day long, but I liked Twitter enough to check it on the train, and it was good to see when my favourite musicians would be next having a gig…

Well, five days, I didn’t eat for at least half that time because I wasn’t feeling well at all, with the thought of food making me want to retch. I must say, being without Twitter was like I was missing out on something, but I clearly was not, because I didn’t really miss Twitter. It was easy to step away from it, and just ignore it – after the initial “I wonder what so-and-so is doing”. That made me realise who I was actually eyeing on Twitter, and who I really care about (or stalk). Either way, me not tweeting meant that no one felt any reason to mention me or message me. I wasn’t missed, and I wasn’t missing anything.

Upon my return, I realised Twitter was exactly the same as when I’d left it. People were the same – tweeting about the same things, sharing the same things, tweeting at the same frequency. Despite this, I was looking at Twitter with a fresh and entirely different vision. Twitter was pretty freakin’ boring – as it had always been.

I spent a couple of days without internet – or at least, with a connection not stable enough to tolerate – and it felt a bit relieving to just be away from it. When you put it into perspective, you don’t really need the internet. I hesitated before calling our service provider, because they usually tell me to do the same thing over and over. I’m glad I called them this time: they did a check on our phone line and found out that it had far too many devices on it. After unplugging a spare phone and our fax machine1, resetting our router a couple of times, and setting it up again, everything seemed to be swell.

I’m still feeling pretty ill, and my appetite has returned, but it’s returned in such a drastic way that I ate two bowls of spaghetti for dinner and the other day I ate nearly a whole block of chocolate. It’s not my weight I’m concerned about; it’s my health. I haven’t been taking my vitamins either, because I’ve been stupidly forgetting (which is no excuse). I now have really bad insomnia and I’m sleeping between the hours of 3am to 6am, and I’m not sure if I feel 100% crap – but I don’t feel 100% great, either. I’m sleeping late, but I’m still getting to work alright, and my mood isn’t as horrible as it was a week ago. I just feel physically bummed. Right now I have a sore throat that I felt develop throughout the day, and it hurts to swallow. I’m positive this happened not too long ago, and I hope it goes away pronto.

I have actually been enjoying myself at work learning some new things – I have been encouraged to implement microdata schema into my blog, and update my fanlisting HTML to HTML5, and optimise all my favicons/icons across multiple browsers and systems. It’s nothing really visual, but I’m loving it because I adore working with code, and putting more effort into my code and making it rich makes me feel good. It gives me the same feeling as when I created this theme, making it crazy-responsive. Now that Internet Explorer 10 is forgivable, I looked into scanning my webpage and fixed up my code to give myself perfect results. It made me sooooo happy to see this in the results:

We’ve found that this webpage is using responsive web design practices to support many browsing devices. This helps your users get the better site experience on devices like Apple iPad, Microsoft Surface, Amazon Kindle, XBOX 360, and other modern browsers on smaller or larger screens.

No further action is suggested.

I’ve still been posting on Project Simplify Georgie every time I ditch something from my life – mostly technological, but there’s the odd “I emptied my bin” kind of post. What I’m most excited about lately, though, is moving my entire fanlisting collective (currently at Eyethief.com) to a new location (a subdomain, at love.georgie.nu). As I’m moving the fanlistings over I’m updating their HTML and CSS to make it lovely and neat, and updating layouts where needed. It feels good because at the end of it, I’ll be letting eyethief.com expire, which means one less domain to deal with.

Here are the fanlistings I’ve moved so far, in order… so these are the first three fanlistings I ever owned. :)

  • Guitar picks/plectrums
  • Armor For Sleep
  • Poets of the Fall

Thank you for all the lovely comments you’ve been leaving. It honestly means a lot. I probably visited one blog in this past week… but I’m pulling myself together. I hope you’ve all been well.

  1. Please don’t laugh about the fax machine thing. I don’t use it, but my parents need it sometimes. ↩

Comments on this post

I consider my personal site to be my online home as well, but I’m sure you know since it says so right there on the home page XD So that’s yet one more thing we have in common! :3

Physically bummed — that’s me for the longest time (I don’t even know how long it has been), so I totally feel your pain :( I especially know that feeling all too well when it hurts to swallow. I end up refusing to eat, and even drinking water becomes astoundingly difficult. That said, it is encouraging to hear that your mood and appetite have improved recently. I hope you feel even better this week!

I’m glad you’re learning new stuff at work, as well as being productive with moving your fanlisting collective. In fact, being there with you and watching your fanlistings take shape as you make progress on them, has kind of motivated me to want to work on my personal site as well. And that’s saying a lot, because nothing else has motivated me all this while!

Thank you, Georgie, for being an inspiration to me. I hope we have a great month ahead ♥

Ah, Twitter. I get what you mean in that it’s boring — sometimes on my side, at least. I certainly don’t pay as much attention as I used, too much traffic to be able to keep track of every tweet and keep my sanity. It’s not that I follow too many people. Rather, I follow a small number of people who interact with each other on a constant basis that gets a bit annoying sometimes.

I still wouldn’t give it up though, and taking a break doesn’t seem like something I would do. Just like the Internet haha.

You’re right, we don’t need it Twitter, or Youtube or the Internet in general. I keep thinking of that exercise Catherine got us to do for Social Informatics — to go for a day without the Internet. I know I could do it easily if necessary, but doing by my own choice for no particular reason seems a bit harder.

Blogging… I know how you feel about not blogging as much as you used to. I swear I feel bad about not blogging much in the last few months. It’s hard to find things to talk about it (even more so when I’m not quite willing to talk about my everyday-life since nothing interesting happens anyway. .__. Well, not that often.) I have been writing a few posts though, saved as drafts until I decide to get back to then and edit/publish them. Maybe I should do that this week . . .

Anyway, I’m glad that you’re feeling better. I hope you don’t feel as bummed as you have been feeling soon. And don’t forget to take your vitamins. Gotta take care of yourself man. :P

(Whoa, this turned out longer than expected. Sorry.)

Whenever I go on vacation I try to unplug from the Internet as much as I can. When I was in Hong Kong over the holidays, I checked in once a day (emails, FB, Twitter, blog, etc). But with the time difference, nothing exciting was happening whenever I logged on, which was just as well. It’s always good to take a step back and realize that while fun and addictive, the Internet is no replacement for real life.

Get well soon! Being ill just sucks, no matter what you have.

I have been following your Simplify project since you started it, and I am amazed that you had so many accounts and so much Internet clutter at the beginning of it! So great job for simplifying! I guess that we’ll be saying goodbye to eyethief.com soon?

Thanks Stephanie! :) I’m so glad you’ve been following it – I always suspected I was writing to myself most of the time but it’s good to hear you’ve been watching on. It also surprises me how much clutter there is that I didn’t notice before. Most of it is web stuff, but each little piece makes a difference and is one less thing to worry about.

Eyethief.com doesn’t expire until late April so I’ve given myself enough time to move everything over, but yep – it’ll be a goodbye eventually!

I completely understand what you mean. Sometimes I just leave the internet alone and I watch Netflix or regular TV or my movies for a few days and it feels so relieving! Like I am overwhelmed with joy. Then I have times like, right now, where I want to work on my sites but I have nothing to do with them. Lol. I hate times like those. I know i have to update some of my fanlisting layouts but 90% of them are fine. I am just procrastinating.

I find my blog as a home away from home as well. I don’t know what I would do without it.

I hate being ill. I hope you get well soon. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten bronchitis. My mom has it. :/

Good luck on moving your thousands of fanlistings over. Lol. I moved mine to my main blog but I mainly just copied and pasted everything through cPanel’s File Manager. Lol. Pretty easy since it was a subdomain on the same server. :P

Leaving the net is worth it from time to time. I do it to. I am about to do it again so that when the football season starts end of March I will be all fired up for twitter … I actually noticed your absence. And I was about to SOS you, but you popped up and I was SO happy …

Feel better soon ♥ ♥

Sorry to hear that you’re not feeling well :( I hope you’ll be able to get some more rest, and I’m glad your appetite is back at least. That’s a start!

I agree that Twitter is mostly boring yet… I still end up checking it daily, haha. I feel like I should take a break from it too. I get the same realization after coming back from a trip though. I think I’m so far behind on my social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, but when I get back, it’s really nothing different from before.

I think it feels good to update the code on my sites too. Even though people don’t see those results, it just feels good knowing the code is cleaner :) I’ve done microformats for work, though I always forget to give it a try on my sites (and then I get lazy).

Feel better soon!

I’ve been leaving Twitter too and I’m glad I do it, because it’s not like anyone even realized I’m gone. Rather, when I returned, they’d be “omg I miss you” and it will just make me cringe like “wtf” because when I was there, they’re too busy with their other friends/social circle that it’s not like they noticed me anyway. It’s ironic, really. Maybe i’m being bratty but nonetheless, I find myself happier without having to see my timeline being drenched by online ~friends~ who pretend as if they care when they don’t. XD I don’t make any sense haha
Unlike you, though, I can’t live without a proper connection. not because it’s twitter I’m freaking about but because I can’t go tumblr or watch/read manga/anime online..that’s what annoys me. without a steady connection, I see the PC as nothing useful /ho
I really envy you sometimes ….that you can eat so much but you’re still thin….give me that skill,please haha
Uh, on the contrary, I hope you’re okay. Sore throat is really a pain O_O as for being insomnia, I guess I can’t say anything because I’m nocturnal myself /bounce
Feel better soon :)

I am sorry that you have not been feeling well. I hope that you will feel better soon. I hope the reason because you are not feeling social is just the fact that you have been sick and not that you are depressed. If you ever need to talk, I am happy to listen. :)

When I have time from the internet I actually feel the same way. Things are the same, but they feel different. It feels very weird in that moment when you realise that.

It feels great to learn new web skills and update old code, and knowing you have made really valid coding is great. I have been a bit lazy lately (having not designed a proper website in a while, and the last ones I have, haven’t been properly checked either, whoops).

Blog when you feel the need. /eee

I hope you feel better! *hugs*

Yeah, I don’t bother with twitter much. There isn’t anything there for me despite me having an account there. I don’t understand it much and I don’t think I will.

Yeah, I feel like my blog is my home too, that is why I want to take care of it and keep it all right.

I gave up Facebook for a week over Christmas and realised I wasn’t really missing out on anything – it was actually kind of a relief to get away from it!

I admire all the stuff you’ve been doing on your sites – motivation is tough for me recently.

I’m not at all regular when it comes to blogging… I hardly get time to blog… or even check the comments… sually when I switch on the computer I tend to worry myself sick about some stuff related to studies etc.
I try to stay away as much as I can from facebook…Cuz I find it way more addictive and disturbing than Twitter… people post such stupid things on FB that it sometimes feels like banging my head or something… I don’t have many friends on Twitter, mostly just the website acquaintances who I follow… that doesn’t trouble me much… But i can’t give up on FB cuz we have these group of college and stuff where I have to post stuff about that change of college schedule etc…
Hope you are feeling better now!

I hope you’re feeling much better now. :) I feel like I know how you feel though. I’ve felt like you’ve felt often throughout the years. (Wow, I used ‘feel/felt’ a lot :P)

I think social networks in general are pretty damn dull. I can’t find any actual use for any of them but they keep my mind busy because apparently nothing interesting happens in my life so I have to read about awesome things happening in other people’s. /jealous. & Don’t worry! I’m on Twitter all the time too.. although I don’t think people pay enough attention to me to even notice that either XD

PS – About the fax machine (not laughing): where I used to work, they take a lot of stuff via fax and that’s when I realized just how many people still used the fax machine O_O we get stacks of faxes every day.

I was quite the mild-addicted girl, but then writing every problem or feelings that I have (mostly the negative ones) won’t solve anything so right now I only tweet about things that is meaningful to me, that could help others or things that are positive :3

I started to unfollow a bunch of my friends. The bunch that I didn’t really know, never talked to online and offline, and the bunch that just kept whining over and over again. Those tweets heated up my days and made me feel like crap too :/

I bought my domain a year or two ago and I didn’t make an effort enough to actually build it. I’m hoping to this year though! It’s cool to know that your website is perfect and I’m really really interested into responsive designs now (been off the code for a while).

Where did you learn, Georgie? /faw I got 3 semesters left to go and I’m planning to take on something like Graphic Design and/or coding+designing responsive sites.

All that said, I hope you get well (physically & mentally) soon! My boyfriend is going for Sydney in less than 2 weeks, hopefully I could spend a week there mid-year . Maybe then we’ll meet :P