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.

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.

I was also dead wrong about my expectation to initiate and to have uncensored discussions through this blog. I myself censor my posts; I can’t express my political opinions openly for fear of persecution (and no, Jordanian “democracy” will not guarantee my safety), I can’t express my thoughts on religion as bluntly as I’d like, and I often hesitate before publishing posts about the situation of women in modern society for fear of being dismissed as “an angry man-hater.” Heck, I don’t even use my real name for the above mentioned reasons! If I am limited thus, how can I expect others to be any different?

Another, existentialist, reason which still stands today is the very nature of this blog. In months past, I felt my posts were a collection of unconnected opinions, personal accounts, and various clippings from here and there to illustrate a point or to be sarcastic. I still feel the same way, but I am more at peace with this now. This blog is part of who I am, and I am these things. I am sarcastic, I like writing and orange juice, I am slightly egocentric, I am pretty multi-layered and ever-changing, exactly like this blog.

Yet another reason is my own personal demon, that being a private matter I won’t discuss here at this point in time. Suffice to say that the cloud of despair with which I was plagued has lifted, at least temporarily. In addition to that, I was very busy in recent months, in a really, really good way and a really, really bad way. That usually left me exhausted or simply not interested in blogging and ultimately led to my decision to stop.

To balance things out, there were reasons why the time was right for me to resuscitate Tololy’s Box. To start with, I missed it. I guess it has become a serious hobby of sorts, an exercise in writing and a worthwhile activity. My favorite part about it is that it has become a register of my intellectual growth, for future reference.

I also felt like I had things to say which were not being said in the blogs I read. There were too many excellent links wasted, too many articles and posts neglected, and some issues were simply never brought up. I kept looking around trying to find posts treating some of these pivotal issues, to no avail. That was frustrating, but it encouraged me to come back so I can blog about what I find to be important, interesting, or plain bizarre.

Perhaps the most selfish reason of all is that I realized what this blog can do for me. I recognized its power and potential, especially when it comes to my desired career. I’m a practical person, and so I will shamelessly take advantage of this situation and work it to my benefit.

There. I said it. I’m thinking outside the box.

Now dance.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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?