Meep.

[devi]

Oh, hello, it's been ages again. In an effort to salvage my relationship with livejournal, which has been all dysfunctional and avoidy lately, I've just had a rather large friends cull. (Both unfortunate words. The loadedness of "friends" - rather than "people I read" - and the implication that you're hitting baby seals with bludgeoning weapons.)

The thing is, I now have a job which when it gets busy (and the bursts of busy are unpredictable) means I am not online at all during the day. There's no time allotted for class changeovers, no tea breaks, and lunchtime tends to fill up with admin. If I'm desperate to check mail I might manage a minute for that (if I get to use the one in the tutors' common room, or if I have the rare luck of getting my laptop to see the school network) but my next students will probably already be sitting in the classroom waiting. So when I get home and I do get to read LJ, I always feel like I'm running to keep up and failing, and not making proper contact with anyone. It makes sense to read my whole friends list before I start making comments. But in practice that can mean I don't get to the end that night and so don't make comments on anyone. I end up passively absorbing LJ as if it was TV and not giving anything back.

No mind-games, no ill will. I haven't Took Agin You (as secretrebel says). I've tried to stick mostly to people I haven't seen or talked to in a while. You're welcome to stick around or defriend me back as you please.

Comments

[lathany.livejournal.com]

How's it all going? Are you getting to teach what you want to teach?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yes, more and more. I only have one IT student left and we'll be finishing up in the next few weeks. After that it'll just be psychology and sociology, which are much more fun than bloody IT (aka the syllabus which takes all the fun aspects of computers out behind a shed and shoots them, leaving only the parts that make you want to chew off your own arm to break the tedium).

It's very very busy, but it's OK.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me read, I enjoy your posts. Hopefully as I only post once in a blue moon I won't be too taxing on your time :)

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

I survived the purge! Thank you.

[titaniccapybara.livejournal.com]

I'm also feeling touched and complimented at having survived the purge. I am so glad that I am in a situation where a quick minute or two spent online for personal reasons isn't too strongly frowned upon - it sounds like your days are very stressful. Still, I'd disagree with the notion that you ought to read your whole friends list before making your own comments - I think its fine to postpone the catchup till the weekend but to say what you want to say before then if it's relevant.

[juliet]

iawtc!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I think its fine to postpone the catchup till the weekend but to say what you want to say before then if it's relevant

Fair enough, in most cases, but there's always the nightmare scenario that you'll make a comment saying "squeee! Isn't the world brilliant!" only to scroll down and find that person's second-last post says "My entire family just died."

Or similar situations not quite as exaggerated but which also come off a bit insensitive/unobservant.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Comments, in my mind, apply only to the post on which they're made. Trying to take other things into account leads to complete gibbering madness. If someone posts something like "Well, that didn't work", I might look for some context from other posts, but that's as far as it goes.

[caescarna.livejournal.com]

Here's a suggestion for a pint in 2008 - what are you doing on August 11th -leading lights of the early 90's american sound - Greg Dulli & Mark Lanegan are playing in Oxford as The Gutter Twins. Sound interesting?

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

Thanks for friending me. It's good to know that in a flist recession, some LJs can prosper.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Never apologise! Never explain!