First off, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or as I prefer, the non-denominational Happy Holidays!
Yes, I’m at home in New Jersey. As I’ve explained several times, my tendency to become unproductive while home is in full swing – and by “full swing,” I mean a less energetic albeit consistent medium-speed swing. The majority of my days consist of me lounging around in my pajamas, completely zoned into the television (or television shows on my computer), as time somehow passes. Though this kind of lazy hibernation is a particularly bad habit of mine, the mindless vegging not only helps my post-finals recharge but it also means more mindless reality-TV-bonding-time with my mom, cuddled under a blanket in our recliner. This break has so far consisted of Mad Men, a sudden cold which I expertly slept away, more Mad Men (I started the first season last Friday and I’m already halfway through Season 2), and hangouts with friends here and there. However, in an effort to be slightly more productive with my seemingly infinite free time, I finally made an account on both LinkedIn and Delicious last night.
I'm working on getting more connections at the moment.
I figured I should continue expanding my social network presence. Next up is probably Flickr – once I (hopefully) get this Blackberry, in which case tweeting will also become much easier with Twitterberry. Whereas Delicious is pretty self-explanatory as far as bookmarking sites/videos/articles/etc. go, LinkedIn should be relatively more interesting to explore. I’ve already come across college friends’ and coworkers’ profiles so I’m curious whether the network goes beyond this utility. As Julia explained it to me a couple weeks ago, LinkedIn has high search engine optimization, meaning it’s a good profile to have available/searchable no matter what. Case in point: it already shows up as the third link when I Google my full name, only preceded by this blog (which is first, woo!) and Digg (which I rarely use anymore). So far, I’m glad I joined and we’ll see how my digital professional network grows. Speaking of networks, I have 500 followers on Twitter now (skepticism aside, this is an exciting milestone, people)!
As for my next post, expect some musings on the tension between providing personal information on public networks and maintaining privacy and security. Not that I’ve ever had a problem [knock on wood] but due to recent indirect experiences, the boundary between public/private has been on my mind lately.
Anyway, Happy Holidays, dear friends and readers – stay safe 
