…and the story goes that I actually started a blog. As Marc said to Betty: “Welcome to 2006!”- or something along those lines- lol!

I’m not quite sure what the people who use these things post, but here’s an essay or two that I wrote.

x – x – x

In The Midst of Peace and the Moon

Adam walks up to the counter and takes a seat as a warm ray of sunlight catches the dazzling green of his eyes.
He’s perfect. And he’s here to see me.

When I first started my waitressing job at the beachfront diner, I wasn’t expecting anything exciting to happen. Then Adam came along and changed all of that.

He was a first time visitor to Knysna, and I thought he made a really cute tourist so I said he could come and hang out with me whenever he liked. And that’s how it all began.

We could talk for hours about anything and everything. He made me laugh. My holiday was definitely turning out to be much better than I’d imagined.

Two weeks into December, and I felt as if there was potential for more than friendship.
The way he suddenly started acting shy around me showed me that he felt something too.

One night after one of my late shifts, Adam came by the diner and offered to walk me to my hotel room.
I had been on my feet all day, and I couldn’t wait to lie down and rest, so I just let myself be led along. By the time I noticed that we were going the wrong way, it was already too late. Before I could ask Adam where we were going, I heard my favourite song. “Peace and the Moon”, playing softly in the distance. I looked at Adam, but he only took my hand and led me towards the music.

We climbed the pier and before I could ask Adam again what was going on, he reached into the darkness and pulled a light switch to reveal a romantic picnic. It was the last thing I’d expected, and I saw how beautiful it was and thought ‘Wow!’

It took Adam a while to say what he wanted to say- he fumbled and stuttered in that adorable way of his, and got even more flustered when the CD started skipping- but eventually he gave me a bracelet which he had made out of shells and a card which read: “Thanks for showing me the best of Knysna”. I wished the holiday didn’t have to end as we held hands and watched the sailboats bobbing up and down in the water.

And today we’re going to the ‘End of Summer Break’ braai together. A last hoorah before we go back to school.

It’s time to get back to reality, but I won’t forget our moonlight rendezvous.

x – x – x

Facebook: Friendly Cancer and Great Escape?

I wonder what was going through the mind of the man behind www.facebook.com the day he decided to unleash this terrible, delightful thing into the world.
Did he expect it to have such a great impact on people’s lives? Did he want to make people happy? Or was it just a little game he came up with because he was bored and it was gloomy weather outside?

Whatever his idea was about it, Facebook is here now, and people just can’t get enough of it.
The millions of downloadable applications, photo-sharing options, and even the “status updates” are forms of virtual self-expression that have helped people all over the world to keep old friendships alive, and also to escape the stresses of real life.
Isn’t everyone looking for just that: a great escape which makes life more fun?
Facebook is a very, very good thing.

But, as with all very, very good things, too much “Facebooking’’ could lead to getting hopelessly entangled in the crazy world of social networking etiquette.
Each time you log into your Facebook profile you’re confronted with choices.

Questions about whether or not to accept unknown friend requests (because you absolutely must take into consideration the feelings of the complete stranger), when to poke and when not to (even though I’m sure our mothers taught us the answer to that question early in life), and what to post as your status update today could end up causing more stress rather than relieving it.
And that is when Facebook becomes like a friendly cancer: slowly eating away at your life while still having you believe that you’re in total control.

The world and all its people were getting by just fine before social networking, but now no one can live without it.
Users suffer a sharp feeling of being “disconnected” if they’re not online, and many are now using the charms of cyberspace to develop and nurture real world relationships.

Posting a comment on a boy’s photo could be seen as the equivalent of holding his hand at break time, but there is no real emotion there- only deft keystrokes.
Facebook is also a place where people are constantly seeking attention and validation, mostly through posting disturbing updates and hoping the right people notice.

Social networking is not only a part of life anymore, it has become like a second life for people.
Cyber living is a slow death of the soul.

Despite all my earlier cynicism, I have to admit that I myself can’t bear the thought of one day logging off completely, or deleting my Facebook account. I have worked too hard on my cyber image.

I am, however, willing to take advice from someone who can help me to beat this friendly cyber cancer.Leave me a message in my inbox and we’ll take it from there…

x – x – x