It's 4.30am and like MrC almost 2 years have past since my last post. I have been lying awake writing a blog post in my head so I should just get these reflections out of my system. My brain (or perhaps my spine) is juddering slightly from sleeplessness and so far i have not followed the lines so eloquently penned in my mind before the fight to create a physical manifestation (from basic huddling out of bed to start up Cow's laptop, to having to work around her illegal Windows Vista finally being held to account for its crimes (I cunningly clicked the activation link which grudgingly allowed me access to the net) and then having to dredge up my ridiculous one-off password that I created for this blog) Anyway I think I should start again..

In short I was reflecting, not for the first time, on the virtues of the blog compared to the ubiquitous facebook. Perhaps it's partly about control and privacy- it is your own personal domain and your voice carries far above any comments. But I feel the greatest appeal is the unique niche a blog can carve out, with a personality, a story, and a natural flow that the superficial information explosion of Facebook (where most of our talented and entertaining blogosphere - yes Bikey i mean you- migrated) cannot match. From Fudge, to Mad Cow, the Cs, and Slimey we had tales of their adventures told with brilliance and high drama (or if you're a C with elegance and urbanity)

Perhaps I'll be able to articulate this better another time but somehow it seems that facebook has created an emotional distance and voyeuristic aspect even with close friendships as day-to day-life is reduced to an information stream accessed without any interaction and received alongside a hundred other friends and acquaintances. It is a medium that doesn't lend itself to introspection or story-telling or sharing life experiences with more than a tagged photo. Everything and everyone is often public property- you are communicating your personality in lists. It's almost like an extension of the kind of overexposure once reserved for celebrities where pointless trivia such as favourite movies and books is given to people who barely know you and have no reason to care. It's a useful tool for connecting groups of people but it's all too much.

For example, I added new friends from my CELTA course as we reached the third week of our brief but intensive acquaintance. The contrast between the natural acquisition of knowledge about these guys and the sudden overload of hobbies, photos and unknown friendships felt somewhat intrusive and awkward to me. One guy had a horror of social networking and although he was a funny House-like misanthrope, I could sympathize even while uploading photos to preserve our transient friendship.

i'm tired and incoherent as usual I know but at least this time I don't have an audience!

Anyway my insomnia was tinged a little by the panic of thinking you shouldn't have given up that snug secure year long library post for thankless EFL work- or at least that 'adventure' could have waited a year and perhaps if you ask nicely you could get another internship. My other angel/ demon then rebukes me for being so lily-livered and assures me that so long as I save enough money to fund any artistic dreams then i have a sweet and free-spirited life, and that I am a rare, fortunate creature to have free living in Central Rome. But then I also hear whispers of concern that the iron is cooling rapidly for graduates and I should try for something with potential beyond scraping together enough for food and board. If I were to go back to July 21st though I would have taken a month to get travelling out of my system secure in the knowledge that a respectable university had given me a worthy librarian traineeship in an Art and Design library out of perhaps hundreds of applicants.

I don't know. My choices always seem wrong with transport and Life. I'm fairly content to chalk it up to experience but I fear my nature (at this point Windows officiously logged me off for illegality- but blogger magically saved the draft so I didn't have to silently shriek curses for long) rebels against obvious wisdom. I could list the ways but it's a sad story: my transportation choices are too often cause for regret- the wrong bus, the worst route, always, always.