The facility of communication

I keep thinking of excellent blog ideas, but because I do not write them down immediatly I clearly forget what the ideas were. So this idea, which I thought of not 2 minutes ago whilst reading another blog, I will record promptly.

As the title would suggest, this entry is about communication. Namely how easy technology of the past decade has made it. I don't know how many of us I can speak for when I say that I certainly take for granted that I can pretty much talk to whomever I want whenever I want. But just now I noticed that the dynamic internet has taken "whomever" to a whole new level.
Earlier this year I was reading Freakonomics and I was just amazed by how smart the writer is and how he was able to make connections between phonomena that I would never even think of connecting. I won't go as far as to say that I idolized Levitt, but I placed him in the category of incredibly smart people who do not easily converse with the general public simply because they are in such high demand, and have so much of their own business to sort through, that they can not sit down for afternoon tea with everyone willing. But everyone willing can leave him a comment on his blog. As i was reading the blog entries and the comments it struck me how the people responding ARE the general public. They have the freedom to write whatever they please in response to Levitt's entries, and by no means shy away from accusing him of being "a moron, a traitor, or both". Everyone who wants to can give his/her two cents about the blog. Everyone can tell Levitt that he is an idiot, even though the book he wrote was brilliant. Surprisingly though despite the possibility of anyone commenting on the blog, seemingly only people who legitimatly know what they are talking about (i.e. the smart intellectual educated segment of the general public) decide to leave comments. This outcome can mean two things. One- Only the aforementioned sort of people read New York Times online (where the blog is currently located), an even smaller percentage of those are interested in the blog, and an even smaller percentage of those actually understand what Levitt is saying enough to argue or concur with his thoughts. Two- Not only smart people read the New York Times online and the Freakonomics blog, but the ones who do are not only awestruck by both the posts and the poster, but also are too shy and do not have anything worthwhile to say in response. I belong to the second group of people.

Now to resort back to the constantly (and annoyingly) repeating motif of forgetting the words that I was going to write, a little while ago I had an excellent closing statement for this entry, but seeing as I got distracted, I completely and tracelessly forget what I was going say.

Each to her own...except not exactly

Last night I visited my grandparents, and mostly we talked about my younger sister in the context of social standards and how she will stop at nothing to fit in. My grandmother was telling me that when I was younger, I was not as concerned- obsessed even- with fitting in by acting the right way, wearing the right clothing, watching the right TV and singing the right songs than my sister. My explanation to her was as follows. My parents and I are first generation immigrants, while my sister was born here in the States. I am mostly an introvert while she is mostly an extrovert. Though we look similar we are have very different personalities and characters, which explains why she is not exactly as I was when I was her age. The fact that she is in grade school also bears relevance. At her age peers are vicious! If she does not fit in, she will most definetly be looked down upon, and potentially ostrasized. And even though she has a pretty strong character for her age, her character is nothing without her support groups. I wish, though, that she would realize that rather have no friends at all than have cheap lame friends. When I washer age I did not have any close friends in my school and I was mostly fine with that because I realized that I am better off without these kids. So on the one hand I understand exactly what is going on with my sister, but at the it bothers me. That I am helpless to convince her of her flawed ways bothers me even more, seeing as she is so stubborn that even saying "No, you are wrong" leaves no impression on her. How different we are is ammusing. When I was her age, I would feel stupid at the mere suggestion that what I am doing might be wrong, whereas she is so convinced that her ways are wrong that she will not even listen to the critique of those who are older and wiser than her. However, her stubborn-ness is not all shortcomming. When she herself becomes older and wiser, she will be able to get people to do what is right because she will stop at nothing to have it her way. It's just a matter of how she uses this ability.

Welcome to the workforce, matey. har har, it's not what you expected

Well first of all, before I get into explaining the title of this post, I would like to, if I may be so bold, welcome myself back to the blogging world. Of course, at this point I have about 2464765451 blogs in the past, 1 Livejournal in the present, as well as a Good Old Fashioned paper diary. So how do I deal with the very easy potential for redundancy, which would drive me absolutely nuts? I guess I'll let go of the Livejournal, or convert it into an artistic beacon. Also at this point I have a whopping ZERO readers of this new and soon to be beautiful blog, which I guess is a good thing because I am a bit rusty around the edges with the blogging etiquette deal.

And now for the more interesting topic of the day- work! With a bit of personal backstory. For a while now my fashion obsession has been office clothing. The elegant pants and skirts and very trendy shirts, not the metion the stunning click-clacking high heels that are epitomized by the movie Devil Wears Prada have for a long time been my favorite type of dress. Unfortunatly for me, I would never be able to pull off such attire in a school setting seeing a most teenage girls are still consumed by the prep clothes hype, and I could not want to be as conspicuous as, say, a sore thumb, or a three headed dog or soemthing. In short, I just would not feel comfortable in a setting where I am wearing clothing that does not match with the location. I keep getting sidetracked here. From my love of the office wardrobe came a fascination with office life itself. So as you can imagine, I was beyond thrilled when I was presented with the opportunity to work at a Cambridge-based company for a month this summer. I am currently almost done with my second week of work, and, as with all situations in life, the office is both everything I expected and nothing I expected. The position that I am working, receptionist, is very good for me because I not only get practice working in a corporate setting task-wise, but also socially. I am learning how to interact with co-workers, and phone answering etiquette. The drawbacks of the job are the early waking up time (which leads to the unbearable afternoon sleepiness) and the mid-day boredom when I have no work to do to make the time go by.