In which Ginger meditates upon the role of Facebook, wine and biltong in her life

I spent the first two days of this week at the National Digital Forum at Te Papa, soaking up the smart digital people rays and thinking very hard about the Future and the Sector. It was super inspiring y'all! The key note speakers were great - Michael Edson from the Smithsonian, Dan Hill and Nick Poole from the UK Collections Trust. I felt Inspired, verily. This inspiration has translated into

1. lots and lots of thinking about what I'm going to do after my course next year 
2. lots of thinking about who I need to talk to and how I need to talk when I'm talking to them
3. an increased desire to get off Facebook. FUCK THAT FUCKING PLACE.

I am so over Facebook. I've been thinking about leaving a lot lately and really I can't see that Facebook serves any real purpose in my life. If anything I find it a little depressing - like standing in the corner at a really crowded party full of terribly exciting people that I don't know very well. It makes me quite socially lazy. Examples: I have the strange idea that I'm keeping in touch with people when really all I'm doing is following their "public" comments; I find myself RSVPing yes to all sorts of things that I have absolutely no intention of attending; I keep in touch with people I met once and thought were kind of cool, but then never take it any further than a relationship of Facebook-stalking. You never have a true impression of the lives of the people you actually give a shit about either - nobody posts anything difficult, and to be frank I would be revolted if they did. It's just too public a forum for anything approaching real relationships.

And the fact is, I already keep in touch with the people that I genuinely want to be in contact with: I email, text, or Skype them. And if I'm not keeping in touch with them now it's because of Facebook. As I wrote above, it makes me socially lazy.

And so, I'm not doing it anymore. I thought that I would disconnect in six weeks but to be honest, I don't know if I can even be bothered waiting that long. It seems to far away! Two weeks seems about right. Will revise.

Similarly, I tweaked my Tumblr so it's a Ginger Hub. All my social media bits will feed into it, and then if you really care enough you can follow what I'm doing from there. It's bound to be as boring and as self obsessed as Facebook, but at least I'll be boring and self obsessed on my own terms. EAT THAT FACEBOOK DUDES.

(Similarly, the lovely Rebecca at Thrifty Chick has blogged about that new movie about Facebook, and it looks as though she's gone ahead and disconnected herself. JEALOUS).

And now, back to food: I'm so.into.biltong. at the moment. I periodically have these times where I'm more obsessed with eating delicious dried meat than others, and apparently I am crazy nuts about it at the moment. The main issue with this is that eating a lot of (especially garlic flavoured) biltong will upset your stomach, and make you rather unpleasant to be around. True story: I've eaten huge amounts of garlic biltong on two separate occasions with the same result. I find other flavours to have little or no effect.

Other foods I'm obsessing about: sesame crackers, tamari-flavoured almonds, baguettes. And cheese, of course. I made a lot of muesli for a couple of weeks, but it was for everyone else in the flat really and I ended up eating more of it then I'd initially intended too. Although having breakfast was so good...? I struggle with the whole breakfast thing, keeping enthused about eating in the mornings et al.

The "only one" change in my drinking habits is working quite well. I forcibly gave my flatmates white wine last night because I thought that otherwise I would probably drink the whole bottle by myself which would be no good at all. I think I had two-ish glasses in the end, but it was rather delicious. There is just something about having a whole bottle open that makes me super keen to finish it off. I've decided the best answer to this age old problem is to only buy alcohol in separate vessels (i.e. six pack), drink at cafes and bars (where I can't afford to drink too much anyway), or forcibly share my wine bottles. I'm sure the people around me are most upset by the latter decision.

The Anxiety Meds thing is better now. I've changed my pattern of reduction so that it's less of a shock to the system and it seems to be working rather well - my seratonin levels are much better (thanks for asking). It also helps that I had some sleep, saw some sunshine and that my period finally arrived. The pre-period times are the worst aren't they? At any rate, they don't mix well with the non-seratonin times. Take my word for it.

Unfortunately, my Boy has been sick since Monday! Poor darling. I have been mopping his fevered brow and bringing him offerings of tea and water. The Gudwif indeed. There is nothing more miserable than a sick Boy.

Finally: Lizzie sent me this picture by Maira Kalman. I think it's pretty awesome.