MatthewMeyer.net

I can’t believe it’s already the last month in June.

I haven’t had much to say recently. I forget how easily I get isolated back home, and that leaves me with little to write about.

I’m currently doing a little bit of freelance work on d20 products… nothing much, but it’s something at least. Unfortunately it won’t pay much, and it won’t pay for a little while, but it’s at least something.

I need to start looking for a part time job around town too. Unfortunately I’ve been really sick this past week so I wasn’t able to go out to look, but if I can shake off the last of this sickness I should be productive again this week.

I’ve location a Philadelphia Japanese group, too, so I look forward to participating in that. There was a conversation meeting last week that I missed due to being sick, so I have to wait a few weeks until the next one. I’ve also been given the number of a Japanese man nearby who tutors a few students, so I will call him to get some information on that as well.

As long as I’m able to keep myself busy, things will be ok. Problems only arise when I get lazy and spend too much time watching TV and messing around online.

On that note, I should take a shower and get painting!

What do you do when you’re bored online?

As for me, every now and then I’ll wonder, “Hmm, what happened to so-and-so?” Not celebrities, but ordinary people I grew up with. Sometimes elementary school people, sometimes high school people, and now that I’ve graduated, college people as well. Sometimes it’s people I don’t know too well, but I just feel like seeing what they’re up to, or where they’ve been online (as people leave their footprint everywhere, it’s not too hard to find references to AIM names, email address, or other things).

The most common sites I find are old geocities pages, long abandoned but still functioning. They always give a really neat slice of the person’s life. For college friends, it’s even more interesting as it gives a picture of their live before you knew them (as college seems to be a common time to abandon your old geocities page), insight into their thought processes, and in the case of artists, their former work before they became good. I’ll spend hours reading if I can find that much material, and it’s so fascinating.

The second most common things I find are livejournals. In a lot of cases they are still being updated, so I can see what the people are doing now, after I stopped knowing them. Livejournals are a lot less interesting though… in fact, they can be downright depressing. Maybe it’s just the people who I search for, but it seems like everyone has just been using LJ to whine about how much their lives suck.

Yeah yeah, big news flash there, I know… but I don’t know, it seems to me that if you’ve spent years writing down your emotions for the world to see — if you’re willing to wear your heart on your sleeve for the whole internet to see — then you’ve got (or are at least developing) the right mindset and insight to fix whatever problems are dominating your life. But instead, it seems that the people who write online about their problems do less to solve them than the people who bottle their problems up. Rather than helping people communicate emotions and solve their problems, livejournal just acts like a stagnant pool where people dump their problems and allow them to fester. It actually seems to make the problem worse.

What may actually be the root of the livejournal problem is the comments that go along with each post. The mentality of the livejournal “commenter” is to just sympathize and “band-aid” the problem instead of offering real advice. The type of advice you’d get in a one-on-one discussion with a friend where they can see your emotions and empathize with you, offering real help or insight. In the cold, emotionless arena of the internet, people will just pat your back and tell you what you want to hear to cheer you up.

I’ve finally created an online portfolio! I’m pretty happy with it… check it out for yourself (link on the sidebar).

I’m still working on more art to put in there, and I’m sure it will change a lot in coming weeks… but I’m proud to finally be able to show an online portfolio to people.