Update: Drop #27- Wean Myself from Social Media

     I haven't been on Facebook since mid August, and I can't say that I miss it.

     I've done this Facebook Sabbatical' before, but I've never done it for this long. It's been nearly four months since I've logged in. The reason for this past sabbatical has been so I can maintain focus on real life and my senior year in college without unnecessary distractions. It's been absolutely wonderful, just as my last sabbatical was.

     This sabbatical officially ends Friday, coinciding with the last day of this semester. Today I am going out and buying an old-fashioned pen and paper address book. Yes, if I can remember my password I will log on to Facebook friday, but it's going to be to ask people I actually care to keep in touch with for thier contact information. After that, I'm deleting my Facebook. There's still plenty of ways to keep in touch with the people I care to keep in touch with. Humanity has been successful enough up until this point without social media sites and, although times are changing, that doesn't mean I can't pick and choose what parts of me changes with it.

     I am not God. There is no reason for me to be checking up on what everybody is doing, just like there is no reason for anybody to be checking up on me. By the time spring semester starts up, my Facebook will be deleted.

     New York Times wrote an article yesterday about other 'Facebook Resisters'. It isn't a particularly persuasive article, but it provided me just enough food for thought to basically solidify the decision I already made about my own usage on the site. There is a link to the site below:




Photo Courtesy Steve Dykes for The New York Times

To visit article, click here

 

Update: Various Comments About Various Things

     I have recently decided that my bucket list is pretty boring. Do I really want to live a boring life? Why aren't there more adventurous, exciting things on this list? Why don't I want to swim with sharks or see the seven natural wonders of the world? Shouldn't I be aspiring to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or submarine down to the wreck that was once the Titanic?

     I thought about it a little bit more, and really I don't need all that much in my life. I don't have the desire to fly to the moon or spend thousands of dollars traveling the world. Yes, I do have certain places that I would love to visit and certain things that I would love to do, but I guess the reason why I want to do these things aren't just so I could say that I did it. It's moreso because that experience is going to mean something to me once I do get around to it. I guess it's the underlying reason for accomplishing something rather than the accomplishment itself that provides a sense of accomplishment.

     Regardless, I decided to stop being such a dried up prune and update my list to make it a bit more interesting. I had a lot of help from some other people's lists, but honestly not much. I guess I am not a risk-taker. Anyways, they are drops 49 to 56.

     Also a little bit about how I recently changed the blog, if there is anybody out there (?). Those items on the bucket list which are completed are now hyperlinked to the blog where I talk about thier completion. A bit of technical awesomeness on my part :-). In addition, I also made my background less depressing. That is all for now!

Drop #47- Conduct a Life Interview with a Family Member

     I would like to talk about this one a little bit.

     Life interviewing is something that I heard of only recently. The concept was developed by psychologist Robert Atkinson from the University of Southern Maine. Basically the concept is to sit down with someone for one or more sessions of however much time you need and record the individual's whole life from birth until present. It can be a stranger or someone that you know well, or maybe someone in your family you don't know well but wish you did. Although it was developed by a psychologist, it isn't a type of therapy. Yeah, it's good practice if you want to work with people, but the goal is to help the person record an account of thier life.

     I would love to do this with a lot of people in my family. I think it's a great opportunity to learn some things about them and my family history that I could have never known otherwise. Most of all, however, I think I would like to do this with my Nana. I really don't know much about her and her life other than who she is today. I would love to learn who she was, and what she did that brought her to this moment in life.

     To learn more about life interviewing, you can visit the Univerity of Maine's website by clicking right here. The website will describe what life interviewing is, some sample questions, and even some life stories that were conducted. There was a book published too that you can get on Amazon if you are seriously considering conducting a life interview.

    On a related note, if you are interested in life stories in general there is a great project by StoryCorps. Booths are set up at various locations in the United States, as well as a traveling booth that goes to various locations. Anybody can interview anybody else about whatever topic they choose, and it gets archived in the Library of Congress. A great way to become familiar with this is to watch some of the animated shorts that StoryCorps has made out of a few of the interviews. Watch some of them here:



StoryCorps Animated Shorts