What Not to Do - on Facebook

So it’s nearly study month, which means 70% of study time will be dedicated to aimlessly searching through Facebook. Some brave souls opt for suspending their accounts with the hopes of erasing social networking from their lives for 2 whole months. I don't have that kind of self- discipline. And I’m not that delusional. Looks like Mark and I are in it for the long haul.

For those of you who’ll be accompanying me on the procrastination train that is Facebook, I’ve made a list of things that people do on FB that seriously annoy me. I’d appreciate it if any offenders could take note and adjust their behaviour accordingly – would make my "study" time far less irritating.

   1.       Don’t “like” your own status. Aside from a frape, you wrote it yourself so there’s a high probability that you already like the fact that you’re “Going to London tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!” You don’t have to reiterate it for us, it’s okay; your excessive use of exclamation marks gave us some indication already.

   2.       Facebook isn’t a diary. Everyone has that one friend who clogs up your news feed with overly personal details of their life (if you don’t, it’s probably you). It results in very awkward replys to the effect of “Hope you’re okay” or “I’m here if you need to talk?” or that one person who doesn't quite know how to respond and just “likes” it instead. Bad call.

   3.     “Bex Clune is at Bed” Really? Was this necessary? It’s like 11.30pm on a Monday night.

   4.      "LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH!I'm the luckiest girl in the world!!These past 3 days have been the best ever, so happy your my boyfriend!!Love you 4EVA!" Now I don’t want to come across as some desperate, jealous singleton -  I usually love nauseating, romantic gestures (See Youtube videos in previous post).  But when someone’s writing posts to this effect EVERY SINGLE day (I’m not exaggerating, I’ve seen it) it just becomes cringey. Get a room - or a phone.

   5.       Using Facebook as Twitter. If you’re posting more than 6 statuses a day(and that’s seriously pushing it), follow this link and set up an account okay?
 https://twitter.com/signup  
Problem solved. Now you can tell anyone who wants to follow you that you're "Really tired today, FML" 

Like Picking a Scab.

 I came across this amazing video on my Twitter news feed earlier today,shot by videographer Andrew Clancy.



A Year in New York from Andrew Clancy on Vimeo.

Now, having spent the last year in New York, watching this was like emotional self- harm.

I have literally been in a constant state of depression for the last two months after returning to Ireland. The initial excitement of coming home quickly wore off. The anticipated catch- ups with friends occupied me for less than a week. Nothing much had changed in Cork- at all. And I realized that I had a much better relationship with my family when I was living 3,000 miles away!

So I did what any completely sane person would do- I spent an embarrassing amount of time watching movies set in Manhattan, flicking through my countless albums of pictures - basically trying to convince myself that I never left, in denial that I actually live in Ireland. I seemed to find NY anecdotes talking about the most unrelated topics, much to the annoyance of my friends and family who eventually became uninterested with my obsession.

After a couple weeks, I began to think I was in recovery. I came to the realization that I was a Fourth Year College in UCC, no longer living in Gramercy or Brooklyn Heights. I needed to get over it. I unsubscribed to my various NYC newsletters, Groupon accounts and emails. It took a while but I eventually did the inevitable and changed my current location on my Facebook and Twitter accounts from New York to Ireland.

However, once my mouse hovered over that play button, I was done.  Looks like I’ve fallen off the wagon anyway.

Expect a few of nostalgic, New York- related posts as I hopelessly indulge my addiction.