facebook – back from the brink

Last night I went out with Toby, Christina and Pete, and we were talking about (among other things) people’s use of Facebook, how it can be quite irritating and invasive, and a new thing that pops up when you add someone as a friend (which I rarely bother doing!) – apparently you choose the ‘level’ of friendship (e.g. close friend, or acquaintance, or colleague). There is some other system of creating a “life event” and of viewing a friendship between two particular people (which Christina labelled as “spooky”, as Facebook will find all of the pictures that both people were tagged in and create some sort of pictorial / event timeline out of it).

Now, when I rejoined Facebook, I did so mainly to keep in touch with my old colleagues from Cirencester, which has been nice. But after the first week or so of being in London, I didn’t really use it! I don’t update my profile (I have twitter for that), I don’t post up pictures (because I have this blog and my occasionally-used tumblr for that) and people communicate with me via other means. Last night, Toby also stated that he hasn’t really been using Facebook properly for the past year or so, and we both considered closing our accounts (for me, this would have been the second time). I don’t know if Toby still will, but I was set on it – returning to Facebook only proved to me how much I didn’t really need it. But this time around, it’s hardly been a burden having Facebook because my presence on there is very minimal and completely for the purposes of communicating with friends of mine who use that as their main outlet.

And then, this morning I woke up to find that Victoria – an old friend of mine from Oxford – had messaged me to find out how I was doing. We hadn’t written to each other in a couple of years, and I hadn’t seen her since I graduated from uni. We were very close in our first two years, living in the same corridor and spending a lot of time with one another. She is such a sweet person, so it was really nice to hear from her! I have written her back, and this experience said to me “if having Facebook now is so light on commitment, why bother deleting it? At least every blue moon, somebody will get in touch and revive a friendship.” This approach made sense, and I feel that I have struck the ideal balance – I’m not completely detached from Facebook, but it is something that I use only when I feel like it. There is no compulsion to check it or update it the way that there used to be at university. I feel unburdened by it, and every now and then a nice surprise like Victoria’s message makes me glad I joined it again.

Tube update: Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park.

Today Toby and I went to meet Nana at the Hummingbird bakery on Portobello Road. I had never actually been inside a Hummingbird bakery or tried their cakes; I had a slice of vanilla cake and it was very nice! Nana and I had a good catch-up, despite the fact that in total the bakery has 6 available seats and so Toby had to stand up; very awkward when there is a long line of people (half of whom are taking pictures of the red velvet cupcake!). Once we had finished our food and coffees, we went for a walk along Portobello Road (the market part I don’t see very often because my office is based right near the beginning of the road) and in amongst the tourists, we found a handy craft shop!

It reminded me of the first time I went to Portobello Road with Toby and Said, and I had a bright idea to go to Golborne Road (which is quite a long walk from Notting Hill Gate!) to see what Little Morocco was like!  This time however, we didn’t venture that far but we did get to see Ladbroke Grove (which has a nice colourful part of the Westway bridge next to it!):

And on the way back, we stopped by Westbourne Park tube station too:

Toby directed me to get a better shot of the station extending up the street, rather than straight on (which omitted some of the building). 5 tube stations in one weekend is certainly not bad going!

hidden memories.

Lately I have been in situations which have triggered me to remember things that were long buried in my childhood and adolescence. These are things that I had basically forgotten about, and aren’t really important but they make me pause and think “did I really do those things? I was evidently such a different person back then!”

Toby recently bought a book about fonts called Just My Type, and he has really been enjoying it (I might be borrowing it from him afterwards, though I have two books queued up to finish first!) and we have been noticing the uses of Century Gothic (our favourite), Helvetica and so on in the public domain and media. We were in Starbucks in Richmond yesterday and Toby observed the use of various fonts on the menu boards, napkins and articles on the walls – it was a little bit random and I think that it is probably down to different things being created at different times. I subsequently remembered that in Year 7, I had an IT lesson where we actually created our own font and we had to engineer the spaces around the letters so that words didn’t look too spaced apart etc. It was interesting, but not really anything in itself to write about. The thing that interested me is that I was 12 years old when this had happened, and yet it felt buried in my past and when remembering it, it was dim and cloudy like I was remembering the life of another person.

I suppose this is proof for the fact that at 12 years old, although we feel like young adults and don’t want to be referred to as ‘children’, we still have a lot of growing up to do and by the time we are fully-formed adults, we have changed a lot. Recently I was working on some lyrics for some new songs, and I remembered that when I was a teenager (12-14 years old), I spent quite a lot of time on the internet writing poems and sharing my poetry on forums. Now, these poems were probably frequently bad, but it didn’t matter – at the time when I was still only allowed on dial-up internet for half an hour each night (remember the days?!), it was the most important way for me to express my innermost thoughts and creativity, and read others’ as well. As I shared things that I had written, I made friends and ended up being invited to another forum where I would contribute regularly, and I also remember most of these people being quite Christian and I believe from the southern USA. At a time when I was still questioning my own beliefs as well as discovering my own sexuality, there were certain things I could talk about and others that I couldn’t, and from a place where I had been granted freedom of expression without judgement, I found myself (even at 15 years old) being careful about what I could and couldn’t say for fear of backlash from people I didn’t know that well and yet knew intimately. I didn’t stay on the forums for much longer after that (although I wrote poetry infrequently and headed up the St Anne’s Creative Writing Society with my friend Daria in my second year of university) because I could tell that I was headed on a different path to the other people on the forum, who were all adults and knew themselves already. I didn’t leave on bad terms, and I think that the forum fizzled out naturally shortly afterwards, but to think that for a substantial period of my teenage years this was one of my main hobbies, and yet now I barely remember it and it feels like I am looking at my adolescence backwards through a telescope. How far I have come is a very good thing, but it’s something that I can only really appreciate when I compare it to where I started from.

Tube update: Richmond, Kew Gardens and Hammersmith

Today Toby and I decided, to start our healthier lifestyle (all my clothes still fit but I was disconcerted to realise how snug my suit jacket felt when I put it on yesterday at work), that we would have a long walk. We got on the bus to Richmond (which takes a lot longer than 30 minutes – don’t believe the bus timetables!) and had a lovely lunch at Starbucks! The station however is not what I have been used to. Witness their underground sign:

Underwhelming, n’est-ce pas? So after fruitlessly searching the station, I decided that this shot would have to do:

After speaking to the barista at Starbucks (and finding out that you have to pay to get into Kew Gardens proper), we decided that the best thing to do would be to walk round Old Deer Park and then along the Thames – which was a two mile walk! We did well! It was very pretty and we took some pictures along the way:

We saw a rainbow!

Toby was pleased by our walk and decided to look stately.

Eventually we got to Kew Bridge, walked through Kew (and decided that living there might be a bit too out of the way, but all in all wouldn’t be too shabby) and made our way to the Kew Gardens tube stop, which was again somewhat underwhelming but at least an improvement on Richmond:

It was a lovely day and we both felt tired but healthy after our walk! We got the bus back and although this is sort of cheating, during the journey I managed to get a good picture of Hammersmith tube station:

Good times! Shame that as I post this blog, I have just come back from the pub and sneaked a couple of profiteroles… A well, every day is a new day! Goodnight folks x

Tube update: Paddington and St. John’s Wood

I went back to Bristol last weekend, and I evidently forgot to upload my photo of Paddington tube station! I also took a picture of Bayswater, but with my thumb in front of it, it got deleted and I will have to take another one sometime.

I never realised that the building for Paddington tube station was so grand, having been mainly used to the railway station / hangar.

And then today, I went to the American School in London and I had to reveal this London Underground Photo project that I am doing to my colleagues – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get a picture of St. John’s Wood (where I have never been up until today) and I couldn’t just take a picture of it without looking like a total weirdo. So I explained the photo project, and I got my picture!

Another two off the list! Where will I go next?…