没有大舅的日子：第1259天

Without Social Network, for now...

As at this morning I had deactivated my Twitter account. For almost two years of using Twitter, I had NEVER once deactivated my Twitter account.

(At this moment) it had been more than eight hours since I deactivated my Twitter account. I PROMISED to stay away for AT LEAST a day, just 24 hours... I can do it!

Life took a 180 degrees change when I joined Twitter. Initially, it was very boring. I rarely follow anyone. I found some of my F6 classmates later and the Twitter circle had expanded. I fell in love with this micro-blogging site, 'madly'. I Tweet more than 30 times a day, according to some Twitter statistics.  Take the amount of 30 Tweets a day. There is 24 hours a day, which means I Tweet 1.25 Tweets per hours. In a matter of fact, I think it is more than 1.25 Tweets per day. That was just a rough calculation.

I read this article entitled "A Twitter over 'death'". The columnist stated, "I felt so isolated because I could not connect with my Twitter friends and share the frustration that Twitter was down... It is not as if I'm a Twitter addict. I've stopped tweeting while I'm having a meal with someone. I can live without Twitter".

I am feeling isolated right this moment because I feel disconnected to Twitter-sphere. I might have missed something today. The columnist also stated that he got the news of a journalist killed in Somalia from a user. Similar to him, I got the news of a bomb scare in the Shah Alam courts from a Twitter user who happens to be a lawyer.

Twitter is indeed a nice space to 'hang around'. You tend to meet different kind of people that you followed, they followed you or both of you follows each other. I also love those sarcastic jokes on Twitter from various accounts.
What I do mostly on Twitter are bant-and-rant, gossip with my girl or sometimes guy friends, and interact with other users.
I thought I'll be clean from social network sites for today... However I can't hold my 'addiction' of going online. Think about it what do people ACTUALLY do when they surf the Internet? Before the Facebook and Twitter domination era, I surf the net mainly on YouTube and looking at the entertainment news. I spent an average of four hours online in two days. Nevertheless, times had changed dramatically. There is 24 hours a day, and still I feel that I don't have enough time to online. To accommodate my convenience of web-surfing, I switched to a data plan on my mobile so that I can be online for most of my walking hours. The only time I'm 'offline' would be the time I'm asleep. For the past eight hours, there were many thing I had came across that I wanted to Tweet. Wait! My account was deactivated and I (strongly) promised myself that I stay away for AT LEAST or MINIMUM 24 hours.
OK, I CAN DO it! (The statement doesn't sound convincing huh?)

There were some things that I came across for the past eight hours that I WOULD Tweet, given that my account is active;

1. "Being a Grammar Nazi of BM! Ha, ha, ha!"
2. "Girls, don't 'over-make up' on yourself. I can't recognize you when you're not in make up"
3. "Can I please have my desired subject for my final sem, please?!"
4. "LOL! Accountants are indeed calculative. They won't let go even for a cent!"
5. "Who wants 'souvenirs'?! Ha, ha, ha!!!"


Writer's note: I DON'T think that I can actually survive a day without Twitter. This deactivating serves as a fasting for me. Although I can survive without Facebook, I can't live a day without Twitter. Currently I am trying very hard, not to go to Twitter web to reactivate my account...

没有大舅的日子：第1198天

'Friends' on Twitter...

1st of all, how am I going to start it...?

'Friends'? How you define it? People you knew well personally through face to face interaction? People you knew about on bits and part, like the basic information of name, job description etc.? Try figure... I don't have the answers too...

Today, the definition of 'friends' had blurred. 'Friends' may be those that you interact with on a day-to-day basis, that you knew (doesn't matter if you knew them well or not). There's the 'Facebook friends'. 'Facebook friends', as what I found from Urban Edge, (urbanedgeny.com) defined it as "individuals who have mutually agreed to be Facebook friends, allowing you to view information on their profile, follow each other's postings, post on each other's wall etc. Either party can request to be a friend, but the other party must accept the request". Huh? Some definition right there...
To sum it up, people who want to be friends with each other on Facebook.

I had numbers (how much in total by the way...?) of Facebook friends... Some I knew in the past and present. There were some I barely knew. Just met them a few times before in life. That's it!
Anyway, I'm not a big Facebook fan. I rarely post statuses there. Wouldn't I'll be looking like an attention-whore if I kept updating my status... every 5 minutes? And also, I think that the 'Like' button is too overrated. You clicked 'like' because you really 'like' it? Or just for fun?
Forget Facebook. The account was there mainly because there are groups I'm in and I need information from group updates. Just that...



What I'm more interested at is on Twitter!
Love it so much! It was because you can interact with anyone (YES, ANY SINGLE ONE) on Twitter. With the condition you made your Tweets public for other to see.
On Twitter you can Tweet every walking seconds without anyone finding you annoying. I guess that was why Twitter for, you update (literally) non-stop... without someone judging you and calling 'attention-whore' behind you. Ha ha, ha!

Currently I'm following 73 people on Twitter, which included old school friends, news updates from online news, politicians and some interesting people. Take note of interesting people because this blog will be about them...


This guy i followed, according to my old school friend Yu Liang (who also happened to be one of my Twitter friends), the guy was his ex-lecturer in Sunway. Currently doing his thesis. That dude... He was so darn funny... He was sarcastic in a funny way in his Tweets. A small little thing he can turned into something superbly hilarious!

Next up, another guy. Related (not through blood) to the 1st person. I came to know from 1st guy that he and 2nd guy were in a band. Yes! A singing one! 1st guy is one of the vocalist while 2nd guy is the rapper. 2nd guy knew Chinese too! Woah! Suddenly I'm so proud to be Chinese...! Ha, ha, ha!

Thirdly, a Mass Comm student from UiTM Shah Alam. I blogged before on helping someone on Twitter, he was the one! Another sarcastic Twitter-user from Malaysia! Also a Mass Comm student as I am... It was my burning curiosity that had he approached me to translate the Chinese texts... Basically that was the story.

Also, I followed this journalist from a local news publishing company... Ha, ha, ha! I knew lots of political news from him, from West to East Malaysia. Quoted from his Tweet, "We are jiran. Separated by (future) LRT". He lived opposite me, just across the (currently under construction) Jalan Kewajipan... This ex-Form 6 classmate and friend, Ju Yi once said he interviewed her father for his article. Her relative, who happens to be the journalist's colleague, introduced Mr. Ho to him. Ha, ha, ha! The world is so SMALL! Smaller even in the social network world!

Lastly, another lecturer from KL. I bought up his name during K's class. What stunned me was when K  told me he knew this lecturer! "Yes, he's PhD in Political Science..." said K.
Er... Left me speechless at the end of the class.
This afternoon, I was being another busybody on Twitter (again)... One of today's news was the 2013 Budget from Pakatan government. The lecturer, he is a member in one of the political parties in Pakatan. Yes. And involved in doing the Budget. So the 'Mikhael Blomkvist' in me surfaced, just wanting to check whether K's claims are right or not... Then I told him the story,"... I was told by this person yesterday that he knew you... Ha, ha, ha!". He replied by asking who is the person and I gave K's name to him. K's name is too common. Type into Google and you can see tonnes of people with the same name... The lecturer answered he knew *K's full name* from LaSalle. "Which LaSalle? I knew there's few LaSalles in Malaysia. LOL" I Tweeted a reply.
He asked which *K's name* I was attending. "lecturer. Ha, ha, ha!".
So he REALLY knew K! And knew K worked with MalaysiaKini before! "yes. Him!". To double confirm we're talking about the same person, no misunderstandings! He Tweeted to me telling me to say hi to K and he haven't seen him for some time...
'Mikhael Blomkvist' is still there inside me... Kept on asking... "... You're not happen to teach mass comm in Cheras right?". He replied saying he had no experience in journalism... "it's fine. You can teach other related fields mass comm can make use of. Ha, ha!"
At last, he asked where I am doing my degree. "where K teaches. Inti."
*end of conversation*


Another case in this month: I 'picked' on a politician, asking him if I can interview him for assignment...  That was another absurd outburst on Twitter...




Writer's note: Re-emphasise again, I love Twitter so much. Felt connected with those people on the virtue world, even if I never met them in real life. I believe that, there's some days I can meet some of the people on I followed... Maybe we DO turn out as 'friends'... Who knows?!