This is a quick note to remind you to update your RSS feed for Tololy’s Box. If you are not subscribed to my RSS yet, please do subscribe! For some reason the URL changed during the last maintenance works done by yours truly. So, yeah, show some RSS love!
Since I can’t find the time or the energy or the desire to blog much anymore, I decided to give microblogging a shot. I’ve always been against it, sillifying it whenever I can, but as with other trends I sillify, I end up trying them anyway.
I added a Twitter widget to The Box, it’s at the bottom of the right column. This will be where I post my rubbish and other vital stuff you absolutely need for your spiritual and intellectual well-being. I imagine it will mostly be trivia, the kind I don’t need to tell and you don’t need to know, but is totally publishable just because I have a Twitter account.
What actually motivated me to start tweeting is this following mockumentary about Flutter, the new Twitter. It’s hilarious in a creepy realistic kind of way, because I can definitely see something like the stuff in the video happening in reality. I mean let’s face it, 140 characters is a lot of talk and nobody has the time for vowels any longer. Watch this, it’s good:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeLZCy-_m3s&hl=en&fs=1]
HERE’S A LINK TO MY TWITTER. CLICK ME! …or just check the right column in this blog. I should totally drop my caps, and stop saying totally.
I’m still not sure why I decided to pick up blogging again. When I made the decision to take a break, I was pretty sure I will not revive this blog. I had many reasons to think so, most of which still stand now.
One of these reasons was/is my getting tired of what I call the gang mentality which plagues the Jordanian blogosphere. Everyone knows everyone else in person, it seems, and these connections develop into cliques which reproduce Jordanian society at large — complete with its social-economic-political-cultural maladies. I suppose you can argue that that’s exactly what social networking is about, connecting people, but wait a minute, I thought technology would empower us to think outside the box, not to bury our heads deep inside it. I thought technology would help us to craft a better model for our society to follow, to grow as individuals. That, to me, means no favoristic semi-exclusive gangs.
1…2…3…Testing.
If you can read this, then Tololy’s Box migration has succeeded and my obscure technical abilities are, once again, validated. Hurrah!
This is a technical note, and not a regular post. I am still on a sabbatical –the sabbath never ends for lazy people, you see. Hurrah!
Dear you,
I have found that I am too absorbed in my own condition to deliver much of value to the world, and for that reason I decided to take a break and reorder my priorities. Lately, I have been feeling that the quality of my posts has deteriorated, that I have lost my focus (if I ever had any), and that I yearn for something that I have not delivered yet. Some restructuring, shuffling, condensing, or toying must be done to pacify these feelings.
I will not be blogging for some time, so the box will get a bit rusty. If you want to communicate with me, drop me a line.
Do not despair though (hah!), I haven’t quit blogging yet. I’ll be back like the devil that I am.
Until we meet again, adieu!
The Box got reviewed at Araby Blogs, a new Arabic social network which I believe revolves around blogs for the most part. Here’s the rave:
We would like to introduce you to one of the most intriguing and articulate bloggers in the Arab world, Tololy. She is a Jordanian-Circassian woman living in Amman, Jordan who is always speaking her mind and sharing her criticisms on various topics.
Moreover, Tololy earned her status of being the first reviewed blogger on Araby Blogs due her artistic talent, articulation, and feminism [sic]. “The Box”, as she often calls it, is a mesmerizing and informative site.
Sweet! I am flattered and I wish Araby Blogs success and prosperity and everything nice. Thanks Araby Blogs!
Fear not, I can still blog in English.
Who would have thought that two consecutive Arabic posts would cause such a scare? I certainly did not see that coming.
This post is to announce that I have not switched entirely to Arabic, and that I do not have an intention to write exclusively in Arabic. Now relax, foreigners, and rest assured that you can always expect to find English posts in Tololy’s Box.
Now rejoice. Buy yourselves something pretty.
Hi,
I have a question for you: are you having trouble commenting on my blog lately? If yes, please let me know by sending me a short note using this form or by leaving a comment and I will look into it right away. Thanks for your help, anonymous internet readers.
Right about now, I was supposed to be at the University of Jordan’s Center of Strategic Studies presenting my opinions on “The Internet and Socio-Political Life in Jordan,” conveniently the title of the workshop I was invited to participate in. Obviously, I did not attend.
The reason I did not attend was primarily to preserve my partial-anonymity. The invite came in my nickname “Tololy,” which was something I found very interesting because there I was, receiving an official invite not in my official name but in the name I chose for myself. I thought this was a very interesting alteration of traditional boundaries (call yourself a name long enough and you will get official invites from institutions addressing you by it).
As I was saying, I wanted to preserve my anonymity by not attending. I normally respond to emails asking for my opinions on issues, and I even meet up with people whose cyber-personalities interest me, and many people who read this blog know me either in person or at least know my actual name. Therefore, my anonymity is a puzzling concept; very blurry around the edges.
However, this invite to appear in person in front of a crowd and introduce myself as “Tololy” was definitely a break in my cyber-life routine. It meant that I would have had to discuss issues with people who saw me right there in front of them but did not know my name, indeed, could not know my name. The situation as I imagined it in my head would have been bizarre, or at least pretty uncomfortable.
This is one disadvantage of being anonymous online. It is easily surmounted by temporarily revealing your true identity in such occasions, a thing I would have done had I not been entirely busy today and technically unable to attend that workshop. So, yes, there were other reasons why I did not attend. But for future reference, I will have to design a way to appear in person in speaking-engagements without trespassing on my anonymity. Speaking-cat hologram maybe?
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