Boring update

[liv]

Let's see. I joined Orkut, partly cos I'm a sucker for networking stuff like that, but mainly because I haven't been able to say no to darcydodo for five years, so I'm not going to start now. Is cute, nicer interface than Friendster and more flexibility about how much information you want to reveal. As usual I'm posting this instead of sending out invitations, because I think it's less intrusive. So if you're on the system, and want to friend me, that would be cool. And if you want to join but need an invite, comment and let me know so I can invite you.

I've created a second account under the name 'Livre D'or' (it won't let me spell it properly, which is kind of odd; plenty of people with particles in their real surnames spell them with lower case letters, but anyway). So if you read this, but don't know me well enough to know my real name, you can friend that account instead. I've done this for two reasons: firstly, because I don't want my real name to be connected to this journal, and secondly because I don't really feel I can vouch for people I just happen to have encountered via LJ. The second is probably taking the system way too seriously, but hey.

I got a valentine from an old flame today, which threw me slightly, but it was a sweet gesture. Anyway, happy Valentine's Day to everyone who cares about it.

In my own sad way, I'm kind of chuffed that I got promoted in the LJ support ranks. One consequence of this is that I have access to the discussions where senior volunteers talk about junior volunteers. I'm not at all the kind of person that can resist going back and finding out what's been said about me; I was very amused to discover considerable speculation about my gender. I don't know why I should be so pleased about this, actually; it's not exactly as if I'm hiding the fact that I'm female, much less that I have any desire at all to be male. But anyway.

Comments

[karen2205]

ooh, may I have an invite please?

[liv]

Sent to your @lj email; did you get it ok?

Re:

[karen2205]

Hmm, I haven't - try karenmcatamney@yahoo.co.uk

indian?

[puzzlering.livejournal.com]

where does the name 'orkut' come from? skimmed the site and couldn't see. it sounds exactly like a part of the gujarati word for 'know' ('connaitre' sense not 'savoir' sense, as in this sense), which i found interesting.

[liv]

Ooh, would be really cool if orkut meant know in Gujarati! Sadly I don't think so; as far as I can gather it's the name of the guy who wrote the site. From their FAQ (and no, it's not easy to find info there!) it's:
named for the Google engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten.

I can't tell by looking at that name if it's a Gujarati name or from a related language group; I was guessing Scandinavian, but that's a wild guess.

[sidhe-elf.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your answer to my moodset question! Very much appreciated :o)

[liv]

Oh, no problem at all. Thanks for the kind word.

hello

[(Anonymous)]

Like the blog dude; good way to keep up with what you're up to, although I'm not convinced I know how to read it properly or find you under your real name! Which means you may not be who I think you are. Lucky you're such a one-off, or I'd be much less convinced... lots of love from malice79 [see, I have a web alias too - but it's not as indecipherable as yours!]

[liv]

Ooh, Malice! So cool to hear from you. Have a virtual cuppa.

Let's see, whom do you know around here? My Oxford circle, of course: darcydodo, pseudomonas and blackherring. Two of the nicknames are obvious, and the third you can work out by elimination. Obviously you know fivemack, given I mostly know him through you.

There are a several other Oxford people here too but I'm not sure how well you'd know them. A bunch of Persegirls, mostly from the year below us, but with obvious nicknames: elemy, shreena and jacquic. You do know hmw26 (from our year) but she's moved to somewhere much more stylish and doesn't really hang out here with the plebs these days.

You should also virtually meet lethargic_man, cos he's great. I've been bad at staying in touch but not so bad that I haven't spoken to you since I started going out with him. A whole eighteen months he's put up with me, which isn't bad going. I feel.

Um, yeah, I'm not associating this with my real name (or anyone else's, as far as I can reasonably help it). Sorry if I confused you, it's just that I don't want things like potential employers to be able to find it on a simple google search. I hope it's fairly obvious to you, as a human being who knows me, who I am. The choice of handle was a bit random, it was more a title for the blog than intended as an identity, but hey. I've got used to it now. Out of interest, how did you find this, in fact?

As for knowing how to read this stuff properly... I don't think there is a proper way. The way I read blogs is to dip in and out, follow chains of links wherever they happen to take me. There are a few that I consistently like enough to bookmark and follow them. I wouldn't say so much regularly, just every so often when I'm displacing I go back and read everything I've missed.

LiveJournal is a bit different. It's kind of a community, on two levels: firstly it's a way I keep in touch with friends. We read eachothers' entries, occasionally comment, but that's not really the main point, it's just that we're au fait with eachothers' lives, so when we do actually get time together, or write to eachother or whatever, we don't need to waste ages catching up with 'so what have you been up to in the past x months, then?'.

I'm much better at this than email, I think because I approach email like writing letters, which requires a certain motivation. Whereas here I'll just write 'Mongoose' (which is blog slang for 'I've read your post and found it interesting, but I don't have anything particular to say about it') to maintain the communication.

The second level is just discussion, a way of meeting interesting strangers or getting to know people I'm tenuously connected to. There's nothing particularly special about that, there are all kinds of forums where you can do this all over the internet. I happen to think LJ works particularly well for this kind of thing, for various reasons I won't bore you with. And of course, sometimes people from this second level end up being friends, and slip seamlessly into that first level of maintaining community. *waves to rysmiel, redbird and compilerbitch*.

Yeah. That was long and rambling. Anyway, welcome.