...don't let anyone wake me...

Currently listening to: Dreaming Out Loud - OneRepublic


First of all, Happy Chinese New Year, guys.
May this year of the Rat bring happiness and prosperity for all of us. *smiles*

Cooked lunch-dinner and had fun with friends yesterday. We were dressed up in red just to make things more festive *laughs* and ate up like there was no tomorrow. The food was awesome, the moments were great. I'm still thinking of whether I should put up yesterday's pictures on Facebook, though. Dunno why I feel reluctant about it. Hahahaha.

My parents called me halfway through the night and I chatted with some of my cousins as well as relatives. It broke my heart knowing they were all having fun together in J-Town for the night, while I got stranded in the Land Down Under in my pursuit for brighter future *throws up*, but hey, I guess it wasn't so bad after all.

In fact, it was actually quite heartwarming to know that they were all actually missing me THAT MUCH to be willing to spare some thoughtful time to call me up and ask how my CNY day was. *laughs* So, yeah.

By the way.
The weather's been uncharacteristically cold since this morning and even now I'm shivering. Summer's creeping away fast, faster than I thought it would be.

I woke up this morning with a million thoughts all jumbled up inside my head, wanting to explode. And then I just realized that I had been subconsciously robbed off my personal private space without knowing exactly how that happened.

Like, I remember my eldest cousin [who's currently living in Malaysia] asking me for details about the contents of my Friendster bulletin board entries during the overseas family call last night, laughing and sneering and finally saying that these days information travels faster than the speed of light. Even a person can blatantly disclose his/her most personal things to random people without even realizing that he/she does through the magic wonders of the Internet. In this case, I have subconsciously disclosed some of my most private stuff to her via the bulletin board entries I posted, and she found out about those stuff within seconds.

In the reigning age of Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Blogger, Wordpress, and other Internet communities, it somehow seems like people are getting more and more personally-involved in their online existence. Those so-called forums are no longer acting as casual medias for mere leisure; they now serve as a "second-life" opportunity for technologically-equipped-and-updated people who exist as they are in the online world.

And, as the flow of information gets freer and freer, the idealistic concept of personal space and private spheres become increasingly obsolete, in one way or another.

For me personally, I don't deny the fact that I am also absorbed in this phenomenon. I, whose existence hovers around the boundary between a confirmed techno-freak and a potential exhibitionist, can frankly say that I actually enjoy being involved in the online world, as far as my accounts on Friendster and Facebook and Blogger go. I'm really lucky to be able to live in a developed country where Internet access is no longer a luxury, and that makes my existence in the online world even more established, proven with my constant reliance on the Internet for various justifiable reasons.

Yet sometimes I don't realize that when my online existence frequency increases, the size of my private sphere is pushed back, further and further, until the gap between my personal and public spaces are no longer noticeable. My previously well-kept personal space is now pseudo-existent, I might say.

And I can't reject the fact that I voluntarily expose myself to the risk of losing my private sphere by getting involved in those online communities in the first place. I initially just wasn't quite aware of the extent of possible privacy-deprivation that I was going to expose myself to by placing my existence in the cruel cruel online world.

This is inevitable, really; I'm even ranting about all this in my blog, which actually serves as one of the most direct channel to my personal thoughts and feelings. Go figure, right. I'm actually being redundantly two-faced with my words. Whatever. *sighs*

On one side, I'm now feeling the sudden urge to at least minimize the public disclosure of my personal aspects through all the online community accounts that I have. So at least I can try to salvage what is left of my private sphere and keep some for myself. or maybe strive to re-build the dividing walls and protect my integrity.

Yet, on the other side, 21st-century-and-moving-ly speaking, isn't this how the modern world is supposed to work out like nowadays? Like, things are supposed to be more and more impersonal, people will be more and more ignorant, and privacy will someday become nothing more than another aspect of an ideal world?

After all, it's not like I'm gonna start digging up a hole for myself and stay there forever to disappear from the online world, right...? *laughs*


Well, that's the thought for today.
Sorry for my inexcusable speech. I just couldn't help it.

Have a blessed weekend, guys! *hugs*