http://www.davidbowieisverydisappointedinyou.com/

Right after high school, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to <>. This is, of course, before we all had myspace and facebook to hunt down anyone from your preschool teacher to your entire family tree. Nine years later ... well, you just don't think about high school so much. And there is a lot more past with a lot more people to wonder about.

(On a side note, the only reason I still have a myspace account is because I haven't bothered to look the people up on facebook, and to read one or two blogs.)

Lately, it seems like people have been cropping up all over. I don't know if it's the new year, the holidays, the wedding, the internet, or a 10-year reunion around the corner, but people seem to be finding me all over.

I periodically get spurts of high school friend requests on facebook. But it seems like there are so many more now (and somewhat surprising who they are!). My general rule of thumb is to befriend people who I know in real life, and at least have some inclination to keep up with. But then there are the people that I just can't seem to place. And I don't mean the random people who make a request who you clearly do not know, who are in their early teens with an awkwardly provocative profile picture that makes you feel icky, or who randomly know you through the six-degrees game. Which spurs the inner dialogue, "Do I know this person? I think I do. Maybe we went to high school together? They've clearly married and that first name/maiden name combination seems oddly familiar. But if we went to high school together wouldn't I kind of recognize them? Did we even speak then?"

Arg.

I will confess that I'm more interested in looking up people I went to high school with now that I've graduated and am almost married to a perfectly lovely, good looking, normal guy. Yes, it's shallow and petty and I am not really all that embarrassed to admit it.

Apart from the wonders and mysteries of social networking sites, there are also a multitude of coworkers reappearing at work. Now, I work for an enormous company, but more often than not it seems that everyone knows everyone else somehow, so it doesn't really feel that large at all. And with nearly one new job for all four of the years I've worked here, that's a pretty large network. I ran in to one former coworker that ended up was leaving for a new job somewhere else. And one old manager sent a picture of my old group (which still had a number of familiar faces), while I heard that another manager was going to be living out his happily-ever-after scenario early this year (and whom I couldn't be happier for).

I'm feeling a little nostalgic now, which is making me want to friend a bunch of long-lost friends to see what they're up to.

So, now that school is over, I'd like to read more. I used to read all the time, and then reading got associated with some kind of awful class and studying and it just wasn't fun any more.


This is a good and a bad book.

Bad:

• Too graphic at some points. I mean, why not let the reader imagine bad things to the extent that they want to?
  
• Too full of itself. The characters aren't pompous, but the author is trying really hard. And ends up just repeating plot structure. Plus I like guessing plot twists, and there wasn't enough evidence to guess the twist well before it happened.
  
• All I can imagine is a pinched, balding Tom Hanks! Although I'm glad I only saw the preview, rather than the whole movie, before reading the book.
  

Good:

• Rome sounds lovely. I want to go visit now that I'm old and can appreciate it.
  
• Just like the DaVinci Code, connecting all the history and conspiracy is clever. I appreciate that this has got to be very, very hard.
  
• There were one or two discussions on religion and religion versus science that were very well written. Not that I'm suddenly going to become a church-going Christian.
  

It's great for reading on a plane, as it's long enough for a whole trip of long plane rides, and you don't have to think very hard about it. Given that the DaVinci Code movie was not nearly as worthwhile as the book, I suspect this case will be the same: good for DVD rental. I'd say go ahead and read it; it wasn't a waste of time.

Yesterday was most people's first day back from break, and so a very busy day.

But most importantly I got an "urgent" email from school that my degree has been conferred and will be sent shortly.

So it's official, I am finished with school for real this time.