New Facebook-Life realities

The other day I sent a picture to my Facebook profile, and later got an e-mail saying a good friend had made a comment. When I wanted to answer her, realized the comment was not there, and when I searched for her... she was gone from my Facebook contacts. So, are there Facebook ghosts???

I got a little worried because she is going through a divorce and went back to Ecuador to sell some things, etc. and I didn't have her e-mail address, because I contacted her through Facebook. I thought, well, I hope she is doing Ok, I'm going to pray for her.

Then today I got a call from another friend, who usually takes Facebook breaks. She has two really active toddlers and thinks that sometimes she uses too much of her time to be on-line and in FB. She told me she had briefly connected to Facebook and she didn't find our friend either, and that she was worried... That made too of us.

The strange thing is we haven't seen our friend in who knows 5 years? but when we contacted her on FB we started following her life, and we miss that. I think that with Twitter and FB our relationships are changing a little bit.. we are following people's lives, and when we don't have updates, we feel strange.

I for example am a little frustrated that my best friend back in Ecuador won't consider getting a Facebook account or a Blackberry, and since we both have too many things on our hands we never e-mail... Now we look for instant gratification and instant communication... Good thing that when we meet we have the best conversations, that won't replace FB or Twitter updates.. it will always be better.

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Coming from the South

I love the States, but I also enjoy going to my hometown, Guayaquil (Ecuador).
I love seeing my friends and family. This time I only went for a week, so I really had to stretch time to be able to meet with everyone I wanted to. That meant I barely had time to sleep, so I came back from my one week vacation exhausted.
Ecuador is one of those ungovernable countries, so we never have good presidents. But in Guayaquil we have had great Majors, so the city is in good shape.
I become really spoiled when I go there... My family, like many others, have "help"... we have "people".. We don't have to do any cooking, or ironing, or laundry washing.
And the food is great so it's a complete gastronomic experience.

I discovered some advantages of being in Facebook. It takes too much of your free time, but in some cases it's pretty useful. My cousins and I had a reunion planned in Facebook, it was the first time in... well the first time we got together just the girls... We've had huge family reunions in the past (I have 40 cousins on my mother's side), but this smaller gathering was really too much fun!.

Also, thanks to Facebook I was able to share some of the things I wrote about the blessing of a Shrine over there (I belong to a Catholic Movement), and my photos were shared many times again and again.

And talking about connected life, my Blackberry saved my life. For some reason everybody has a Blackberry over there, so I was able to contact them via the Blackberry Messenger... cool. Although I've had Macs for many years now, and I love them, that Blackberry Messenger and ATT are keeping me from getting an Iphone. Read more!