downtime
…I absolutely HATE downtime. I hate not being busy. I hate sitting around trying to find trying to find things to occupy my time. I feel so unproductive and useless. There are so many things I want to do and accomplish that I feel like sitting around is such a waste of my life. I don’t have work on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and I’ve yet to find a way to occupy those days. I don’t want to sit on the computer all day and surf around the web as I’ve been doing these past weeks. I need to do something more proactive!
Other than that, I started my new internship on Wed. It’s great so far. I’m actually doing WORK, unlike my old internship. It’s great because I get to play online all day making web pages and stuff like that. Can’t ask for more. The commute still stinks, but it’s a little less crappy than to NYC. Yesterday on the train this girl sat next to me. Not totally unusual, except for the fact that she started talking to me!! No one ever talks to their neighbor on the train, they just stay in their own world and do their own thing – myself included. Now I hate the fact that it’s like that. I don’t even listen to my iPod or anything just in case someone wants to talk to me. I think iPods and other such devices make people seem unapproachable. Anyway – back to my point – so this girl starts talking to me, and we end up getting into some pretty interesting conversation, from what we’d like to do in life to the US’ foreign policy and NJ’s budget problem . It was cool. I ended up giving her the URL for the eRC site because she said she liked to do service projects and really wanted to better people’s sense of “community”. It’s like she took the words right out of my mouth.
While I’m still on a bit of that “iPods make you unapproachable” tangent – I’ll share another series of related incidents. So, as I said, I never wear my iPod when I’m walking places or waiting around for something. I take the train to and from work every day. Now remember, this is a train that runs to NYC, so anyone who wants to go there for the day from anywhere in South Jersey tends to take it to avoid driving to the mayhem of Manhattan. At least once a day this past week I’ve had someone come up to me looking for help. One person needed to know how to get to Bradley Beach and couldn’t figure out why the machine gave her 2 tickets instead of one, another was a family visiting from France (or Quebec?… i don’t know, they were speaking French though) and they didn’t know how to operate the ticket/turnstile system, another man was from some small island in the Caribbean who needed change for a dollar to call his mother to pick him up from a payphone. He told me he’d never spoken to anyone asking for change before because he has a studder and doesn’t want people to think he’s a beggar. Another woman came up to me asking, in Spanish, if the train was going to Elizabeth. None of these people would have approached me if I had been listening to my iPod like the countless other passengers/drones en route to or from work. Case and point – I had my iPod in 1 especially bad commute day. When we got to the transfer station, a man came up to me to ask me a question, but the second he saw me grab for me headphones to pull em out of my ear to hear him, he said “oh, excuse me, sorry” and walked away to find somone else to ask.
Why this tangent you ask?? Well, 1 – I need something productive to do, 2 – this has been on my mind for a while now as something that just irks me about life in the technology age, and 3 – it seems that since I started working in the City I’ve started to get that “tough” about me, like the typical New Yorker who wants people to know s/he’s no one to mess with and to step back – and I don’t like it. I like looking friendly! How would all of these people who needed to find their way to their destination have found it if everyone on the train platform seemed so unapproachable? It seems so wrong to me that people are out there in need of just a bit of clarification or direction, nothing that would inconvenience me or bother me in any way, yet so many people are so caught up in their own worlds, just going through the daily routine, get on the train, read the paper, check the blackberry, put on the iPod, get off the train, push and shove your way to the door so that you can make your connection, get on the train again, get to work, work, and repeat in the opposite direction. People don’t seem to want to take the time or the consideration to look around them, maybe there is someone who just needs a question answered. Is it really that hard to smile and answer it?
So yeah… that was my little rant. Sorry if it was totally pointless or useless, but it just needed to be said.
In other news, following up on my “get in touch with old friends” mission – the coolest thing happened! Turns out my plea to old friends actually worked! Brandy, one of the people I used to talk to back around ‘02 saw my blog and IMed me! See! It’s all about being approachable and taking the time to reach out to others.
Cell phone news: going to the store tomorrow to see what we can do about my phone. The plan runs out next month, so I just may get the RAZR. I considered the Treo, but I realize that I don’t really have a use for it yet, and it’s not worth the investment.
There are a bunch of new pics in the flickr check em out.
I’ve added some new pages around. Mostly in the “Jenn” section I believe. music and dreamer that I am and there are a bunch of updates on other pages.
One last thing before I wrap this up – WOW, 8 comments? I can’t even remember the last time I had that many!! Thanks guys!! You’ve made my week! Ariel, Brittney, Danielle, Brandy, Kelly, Ellie, Chloe, and Lissy.
So that’s it, that’s all. That was my 200th blog! I hope it was a good one!
Until next time…
Forever-Digital is a look inside the life and mind of 
I’m enjoying the flickr – these photos are beyond words. I agree on your rant and I’m guilty of it too – but it’s a tossup – crowded bus, I’ll put away my iPod/book – but medium busy to not too busy, I feel like I should be multitasking or something. What are your thoughts on when it’s not too busy? Obviously people still have questions and need help when it’s less busy, but ought we put aside reading material/music etc. to keep available all the time? I never thought too much of it before and I may change my habits.
It was indeed a fantastic 200th blog. Hey, neat preview feature below here… fun!
YAY. Your 200th blog. hehe. Of course, you wouldn’t have noticed it if weren’t for me. hehe.
I know what you mean about your IPod. I don’t carry it around in public places eiither. They say NOT to use the white ear phones, because that just signals that you have an IPod (everyone knows their white). I use a different set (when I use my earphones). I mostly use my IPod in the car, since I have an ITrip which broadcasts your IPod through the car stereo. :)
Interesting topic. I’d die without my ipod. And my college campus must be severly unapproachable then cause everyone walks to class with their ipods, lol. And yet, people still try to talk to me…it does irritate me sometimes because at times, I just want to listen to music…hmm.
If there’s one thing worse than downtime, it’s the feeling you get when you’ve wasted your downtime. I absolutely HATE sleeping ’til 2pm, eating a gallon of junk food, fooling around on the computer, then falling asleep again in front of the TV, yet I always seem to do just that when I have downtime because I have no self-control.
That’s really interesting how you got into random conversations just by being the only approachable person on the train. I’m mostly too shy to do that, but I do occasionally look around at people on elevators just to see their muscles tighten. hehe, Yes, I am evil.
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[...] media event, I have to say, I wasn’t all that excited. I’ve mentioned in the past, a few times, that I’m not a huge fan of iPods and their antisocial ways, but when I returned to my room [...]