Morse Code Romance

If ten years ago someone told you you'd be meeting new friends and lovers on the internet, would you have believed them? Ten years ago, the word blogger would have sparked images of overweight thirty something year old sociopaths who still lived with their mother.

Ten years ago, I was eight, and only just started to familiarise myself with the magical world of Paint. I was thirteen when I learnt how to connect onto the internet with my high tech 56K modem. The static sound was like music to my ears, and getting disconnected was practically the end of the world.

When I die and my life flashes before my eyes, I will experience about another two deaths just seeing the hours of my life wasted alteRnaYting Betw3En uPPaH aNd Low3RR caYse AnD intent!OnaLLy mi$peLLinG th!nGs cOz iT waSZe c00Lie$.

I officially started losing my grip when people started using the word 'zor'. I still don't understand what that means!

Does the word Ringo ring any bells? If so, shameful isn't it? It was my first taste of social networking. In order to upload photos, I laboriously had to take them using a film camera, get them developed, and scan half of them onto the computer (the other half had bad lighting - probably because my finger was covering the flash). By then, my latest photos were at least two months old.

People (including myself) migrated en masse from Ringo to Hi5 to Friendster to Bebo to Myspace to Facebook. What influenced this move considering they all do the same thing? Maybe it was the super accurate quizzes on offer. Then maybe it's also because we were able to experiment with personalised fonts, backgrounds and special effects. And maybe it's because we could add moving images such as .gif files and Youtube clips. And the one that prevails is usually the one that entails all of the above.

The tabloid news will tell us that our generation is known for pill popping, binge drinking, drunken fights, promiscuity and… online relationships. But as if our parents didn't do the same thing! Whose parents were hippies and did mushrooms? Whose mum got pregnant when she was sixteen, or before she was married? Whose dad STILL gets drunk with his friends every weekend? I know parents who fit into at least one of these categories and they are all wonderful people.

During the 1800's, people were meeting and having romantic relationships through morse code. The book Wired Love is based on a female and male operator falling in love online (the telegraph line, that is).

The first telegraph wedding took place in 1876 between San Diego and Camp Grant, AZ (137). Online telegraphic romances between operators were common and coded message between lovers were as well. This predates internet dating by more than a century. - http://mlennert.wordpress.com

Take this blog. Without the hyperlinks on my Myspace page, you may have never come across this site. Without MSN, a friend of yours probably wouldn't have been bothered recommending it to you. And perhaps, without this blog, you wouldn't have any other reason to approach me in real life.

So are meeting people on the internet and getting to know them through IM really all that new? Or have we just found new ways of doing old things?

Online interaction is shedding its old stigmas. One only needs to look at the number of commercials promoting dating websites for adults. They've gotta be funded by something. Funded by the success rate.

Instead of being seen as a substitute for reality, is the virtual world the new real world?

My 14th First Day of School

This blog has been a long time coming. Not that I actually have the time to write this. I'm probably sabotaging a potential pass, credit, distinction or high distinction (I wish!). For my sake, let's hope I'm only sabotaging a credit: that way I'll at least pass.

Let me explain. I started my five year university course on 25 March, and I've been bogged down with work ever since. I'm still adjusting, and trying to find a routine that works.

Remember that dream where you're running towards a door at the end of the hallway, but the more you run towards it, the farther away it gets? Well for me it's a reality. I feel like no matter how much work I do, there's so much more ahead of me.

But don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the content! Which is a great consolation; because I think I'd pass out if I ever have to label a scientific diagram of the polypeptide chain again.

I must admit that during my high school years, the hope of productive group work was dimmed after numerous bad experiences. I was the girl who eventually gave in to doing a generous amount of contribution because I was the only who cared about grades – while everyone else took turns listing what genuinely better things they had to do.

Which is why it came as a pleasant surprise during my first week of uni. My first assignment was the infamous group presentation. It was an eye opener to finally be with people who were just as determined, just as hard working, just as motivated – if not more. It felt like a breath of fresh air after living your whole life in an underground mine shaft.

It's incredibly nice to finally be in a classroom without your prize wingers – insistently nagging things such as: 'Why the f*ck do we need this for Miss? As if I need equations to be an architect. Aren't there, like, calculators for that sh*t?' Because now there's no excuses. Most of us chose to be here.

And friends? Well, so far I've still managed to keep in contact with old classmates by meeting up before or after class, as well as weekend parties. I realised that my greatest weakness is remembering names. So let's just say I've met many interesting, new faces.

I feel like the boring, plain white bread surrounded by Apple Cinnamon Swirl, Banana Slice, Sultana and Raisin… so yeah you get the point. Everyone else is so cultured. There are foreign exchange students from Germany and France, people who've been travelling the past couple of years and prior to this, I had never known anyone who came from boarding school.

So far the only down side is how much money I spend on train tickets every week!