But Zak, FOSS ombudsman and advocate, whose love of Free Software and Open Source is turning him into a penguin, decided to morph the “7 Things you don’t know about me” meme into the “Seven things that you probably don’t know about me that I didn’t know about myself until the last year or so”.

However, sticking to a long established tradition on Inspiration Bit, where I share things in bits (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.), I’m too altering this meme a bit and listing not seven but eight things I did not know about myself until the last year:

1. …I’ve developed an acute allergy to lists, the ones that contain numerals in the headline, so much so that I stopped advertising numbers in my post titles and am trying to come up with alternative ways to go about lists for my articles.

   I don’t have anything against lists, they indeed break down the long content nicely, nor do I condemn other bloggers for posting numerous articles with 66 Hottest Portfolios or 777 Designers You Must Follow on Twitter, but I’ve decided that I won’t be contributing to that numbers pool anymore.

2. …Leaving all fears behind I finally quit the corporate world and became my own boss. I have also learned that running my own show is more challenging than I prepared myself for, but after getting that sweet taste of freedom I don’t want to give it up.
3. …while running my own design studio I will be building web sites for clients from all over the world, even from New York.
4. …I’m capable of simultaneously working on projects that run on three different CMS (eZ Publish, Drupal, WordPress) and teaching students how to build custom CMS solutions with PHP and MySQL.
5. …I will develop new passions and interests that will include jewellery design, interior decorating, and obsessive collection of beautiful things.
6. …Never thought that I will be watching Seinfeld and Desperate Housewives with so much interest. And before you start thinking in a wrong direction, let me surprise you with another revelation: I’m watching both shows with my husband, and the other day I overheard him re-telling an episode from Desperate Housewives to a friend of ours.
7. …Became an impulsive shopper and buy things I’ve postponed buying or had second thoughts about in past (Nikon D90, numerous magazines and books both for myself and my daughter’s ever increasing library, are just some of the examples).
8. …I too would catch the Twitter fever and Procrastinator became my middle name, but my social network grew to proportions I could’ve never imagined before.

So there you go. I won’t be tagging anyone, but feel free to spill some beans about your own self discoveries from 2008.

I wonder if the idea for Twitter came to guys from Obvious after watching that so popular but oh, so annoying Budweiser Wassup commercial back in 2006? Twitter’s simple question “What are you doing?” clearly resembles the one The Bud fans were asking each other.

Who could know that in less than two years such a plain idea of sharing with the world what we’re doing at the moment will turn into a craze where blogging and Harry Potter fail in comparison. Looks like everyone has at least opened an account on Twitter and tried to join the world of micro-blogging. But what can be said in 140 characters or less other than “enjoying a hot cup of java with Baileys”?

Apparently a lot. Humans are very curious and clever creatures, who can create something out of nothing, or turn an unassuming personal communication tool into a powerful marketing and political machine. (Would somebody enlighten @hillaryclinton please, that she needs to at least pretend she’s following some of her followers, or follow the steps of @BarackObama, who follows everyone who follows him?)

There are many tutorials written on how to use Twitter for marketing. Copyblogger has even announced a Twitter writing contest, challenging everyone to write a story exactly 140 characters long. If Hemnigway’s shortest story ever was only six words or 35 characters long, and hundreds of others have tried to follow his steps on Wired, someone should be able to write a novella with 140 characters.

So what is it about Twitter that attracts so many people? Why should we consider opening a Twitter account? CommonCraft did an interesting and entertaining video tutorial on Twitter in Plain English. Though it only covers personal and social aspects of Twitter, it is a good introduction on how someone can start his addiction to Twitter. Oh, yes, there’s already a new term — twitterholic — along with the heated debates on whether a post to Twitter should be spelled twit or tweet.

As for myself, I’m still trying to uncover the Twitter magic that excites thousands of its fans. I couldn’t keep reminding myself to visit my online Twitter page to twit, so I’ve installed several third-party Twitter applications that I found convenient:

1. TwitterBar

   This add-on allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox’s address bar.
   
   Clicking on a small grey/green icon that sits at the end of the address bar will post your twit along with the displayed URI, and you can hover your mouse over the icon to see how many characters you have left.

2. TwitterFox

   This Firefox extension “adds a tiny icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets”. I like how easy it is here to click and reply to someone’s twit and also click on the tab to see all replies to my twits.

3. MoodBlast

   This is a standalone menubar application that allows you to “blast” your mood, thoughts, activities not only to Twitter but to a number of other apps that makes it really helpful to be on top of your online social life with various social networking sites and IMs like Facebook, Jaiku, Skype, iChat, Tumblr, Prownce. MoodBlast comes with a hand full of useful features, make sure to check out the how-to Screencast on Cicrle Six Design

4. TwitterFeed

   
   Even if you don’t have time to twit, adding your blog’s feed to Twitter will give your site an extra exposure, and to your followers a quick way to check your most recent post.

Hopefully, those four apps mentioned above will improve my Twitter experience and make it less time consuming and more efficient. There are many other popular Twitter apps, which one did you find helpful for your twittering needs?

One thing I’m still trying to figure out is how some people can keep up with following hundreds of other Twitter users? Do you really read everyone’s twits? How much time do you spend on Twitter then?

What are your thoughts on Twitter? What do you like or dislike about it? Do you consider yourself being a twitterholic, or do you find yourself wondering what’s with all that Twitter buzz? How do you use Twitter? What do you twit about? How do you present yourself on Twitter — are you extending your blogging personality or revealing more of who you are and what you do when you’re not “wired”?

Finally, if you like to follow me and my progress to becoming a Twitterholic, or on the contrary, giving up on Twitter, then feel free to do so. You know I always welcome new friends.

Without going into too many details, I’m now standing at a crossroad where I need to decide whether or not I should look for another full time job or simply leave the corporate world behind and become my own boss. To say the least, the past few weeks have been very stressful at work due to its disappointing instability and frustrating uncertainty. I’m usually a pretty patient person and often perceive things optimistically, but in this case even my patience is wearing thin.

My blogging enthusiasm is getting affected as well, I can’t seem to get myself into the right mood for creative and inspirational writing. I’ve got several ideas drafted but they are just staying there untouched and collecting dust. This week has especially been a difficult one, which resulted in no posts from me since last Saturday, but I thought of letting some things off my chest and seeking for your input.

I realize that I can’t put you on spot by asking for your direct advice, however it would help me a great deal if you could share your thoughts and personal experience with me. Plus, I’m sure that there are many others who, like myself, can’t decide whether or not going solo and working for themselves is the right thing to do, so hopefully the discussions around this post would help others as well.

First of all, I would like to outline several PROs and CONs in being your own boss. Please, feel free to add to this list, as I’m sure that I’d miss some important things here.

CONs in going Solo

Let’s start with the list of disadvantages of solely depending on ourselves and being our own boss.

1. No Steady income

I’m aware that owning a company, no matter how small or big it is, involves a risk. I can’t say that I’m the type of a person who likes to gamble with life, but I’ve had my share of risky decisions — some good, others not so much. However, as it stands today there are several important factors to consider before I throw myself into building my business: family with a little child to support, a relatively high mortgage to pay every month, plus all the other monthly expenses and bills.

As we all know, the only thing that beats a nice steady paycheck is the constant stream of clients and revenue from the business. But this is where the risk starts.

2. Looking for Clients/Projects

Currently I’m already owning a small web & graphic design business which sometimes brings so much work that I have a hard time keeping up with, while other times it gets very quiet. I realize that I haven’t had much time to build up my business and go after more clients, so things might change once I dedicate all my time for that. However, that’s when #3 comes to play:

3. Too much of overtime work

It certainly takes quite a long time to develop a lucrative network of contacts that would result into profit-making contracts. Of course, people occasionally work overtime at their full time jobs, but running your own business is different. Building a network, meeting with clients, following up on business requests and proposals leave very little time for the actual work (in my case, design and development). That means I’ll have to sacrifice more than usual the time with my family and friends.

4. No more teamwork

This aspect of working alone can be very important to some people. I love working with other people and I would definitely miss the daily interactions outside the house. That’s actually one of the reasons why I still blog – connecting with people on the Web.

5. No paid vacation

This is another important detail when working for ourselves: no paid vacation, sick days, no paid benefits. It is all possible to arrange, however less time for work results in less pays.

6. Extra paperwork

Owning a company means we have to deal with all the paperwork and fees surrounding our business, which once again leads to the extra expenses with less time for the actual development work.

PROs in going solo

I think I’ve covered the major disadvantages for self-employed, now let’s see how the PROs work out:

1. I’m the boss

The fact that there’s no one else to report to and depend on is certainly one of the most appealing parts of running your own business.

2. No more commute

Here’s another big plus — saving time by working from the home office rather than getting stuck in a traffic on the way to work.

3. Flexibility

Even though I mentioned that the overtime work usually accompanies self-employed people, in general terms you’re much more flexible in setting your own hours of work, and the vacation time. Plus we’re the ones to make the choice of working with a certain client/project.

4. Striking it rich

There is always a possibility that my company thrives, which leads to more income and less the actual work time.

And now, back to some serious subject matters…

April 1^st – Breaking News

• Seven years in writing, J.K Rowling is ready to publish her Harry Potter Encyclopedia. Mugglenet has a preview of it and will be publishing the excerpts throughout the day.
• Google Australia has introduced a new feature, gDay^TM with MATE^TM, enabling you to search content on the internet before it is created.
• DevianArt has sold its soul to Mudkip, from now on every user’s avatar will be an animated Mudkip, which no one can change anymore without insulting DevianArt – “u don’t like mudkips?”
• If you’ve never heard of Rick Astley before, head of to YouTube, where every featured video on YouTube takes you to Rick’s greatest hit “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
• On the Type front: Comic Sans walked into a bar only to be told ‘We don’t serve your type here…’

On a lighter note, here are some Designer Jokes to brighten your gloomy April First ;-)

• What kind of relationships do typophiles prefer?
  The open type
• Typophile’s Favorite Song?
  I shot the serif by Eric Clapton
• Typophile’s Favorite Madonna song?
  Justify my love
• What did the child of a type designer say when she was asked to share?
  “My Fonts!”
• 1st Designer: “Wow, you always have so many fonts, where do you get them from?”
  2nd Designer: “Oh they come from Monaco, Geneva, Chicago, New York… I get them delivered at various Times throughout the day…”
  1st Designer: “By who?”
  2nd Designer: “A Courier!”
• Murphy’s graphic design laws:
  • If three designs are shown to a client, your least favorite will be chosen. If two designs are shown, a third will be requested. If provided, then one of the first two will be chosen.
  • Your best idea is already copyrighted.

and last, but not least, something that will make you feel better about yourself:

Tech Support jokes

• Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
  Male customer: Hello… I can’t print.
  Tech support: Would you click on “start” for me and…
  Customer: Listen pal; don’t start getting technical on me! I’m not Bill Gates.
• Tech support: Your password is the small letter “a” as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.
  Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?
• Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
  Customer: Netscape.
  Tech support: That’s not an anti-virus program.
  Customer: Oh, sorry…Internet Explorer.
• Customer: can’t get on the Internet.
  Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
  Customer: Yes, I’m sure. I saw my colleague do it.
  Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
  Customer: Five stars.

If you feel you can handle more humour and your boss is not watching, then head to the following pages to get some more laughs.

SOURCES:

April Fool’s hoaxes from Wikipedia’s 2008 collection

Type jokes: Typophile

List of design and font jokes

This ought to make you feel better about your computer skill

FUNNY Graphic Design Jokes and Humour

Funny Graphic Design Jokes, Humor, Satires, Parody & Anecdotes

Google’s new G’day MATE

HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!

Many years ago I read a science-fiction story that reminds me of what we’re experiencing today. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what it was called, nor who wrote it, so if you can recognize it, please let me know. I’d love to read it again.

The story is about the future when someone has invented walls that people can switch on like a TV and see what their neighbours are up to. So naturally, everyone wanted to install those walls, and see what their neighbours eat, listen to what they talk about, how they’re dressed, what their rooms look like. Then people started getting jealous of what others had, and wanted really badly to be keeping up with the Joneses. Their behavour has changed drastically – they were trying to be perfect with their manners, dressing well, talking softly. All that was causing most of them huge stress – after all, we can’t be perfect and nice all the time. Fortunately, one day someone has invented a paint that could be used to cover the walls so that the neighbours can’t see through. Oh, what a relieve that was – everyone started buying that paint like crazy. So for awhile things got back to normal, but people got bored with that, they were itching to find out what their neighbours are doing, talking about, eating. So then someone invented another paint that can cover the anti-see-through paint and make it transparent again for everyone to see through….

Doesn’t it resemble a bit the way we live today? It certainly does to me, including the social aspect of our lives online. We even took it one step further – we’re willingly opening ourselves up to others, sharing stories, personal information, business and financial details, pictures, videos, we want to follow each others steps, and we actually update the world on what we’re up to at any given moment.

Two months ago we started an experiment – a collaborative Social Media Mega group writing project, so that anyone can share his/her experience with social networks and learn from each other.

Today I present you with over 60 submissions on Social Media Mega Project from 9 bloggers, which cover over a dozen different social networking sites. It will definitely take you awhile to go through all those valuable tips from the social universe, so be sure to bookmark this page and all those submissions that you can’t wait to read, on del.icio.us, share them with your friends on Facebook, Twit about them, Stumble, Digg, vote on Reddit, spin them on Sphinn, refer to them your fellow Flickrs. In other words, ENJOY:

Facebook

HOST: Ina from InspiringWear

• Gobala Krishnan from Easy World Press wrote about Getting Blog Traffic From Your Facebook Profile
• Simon from Yeepage.com shares his view of Top 9 Facebook Applications
• Jacob Share from JobMob offers us his article-review I’m on Facebook – Now what?
• Jeremy Lim from Marketing Ruined My Live brings us a very interesting, youthful, point of view in Facebook Ruined My(Social) Life
• We even got a contribution in Spanish – Cómo hago para estar en contacto con mis amigos? Facebook!
• in the latest issue of “Oprah Magazine” there was an article on Facebook as well You’veBeenPoked! by By Liesl Schillinger

Social Photography

HOST: Brian from Epic Edits Weblog

• In Social Media as I See It an amateur photographer pays her gratitude to one of the most popular photography sites, strobist.com, that managed to take the blog to the next level and turn it into a community of passionate photographers.
• In his contribution Blog Writing Project Iain confessed that Flickr gives him angst at first, but then realized that in reality it gives him “an opportunity, and maybe in time, inspiration”.
• Read Utilizing Flickr as a Photoblogging Tool to find out how to use Flickr as a blogging tool.
• Help me Flickr! I want to be a better photographer! is a must read post on how to get the most out of Flickr and improve your photography skills.
• Brian wrote an excellent guide on using photophlow: A Social Experience for Flickr Photographers.
• Twist & shout! is about another social photography site called Shutterchance.
• Virtual community becoming real is just one example of many how virtual friends and social networks are transcended to the real world.
• In the article Flickr is the key to my social photography experience Lilahpops recounts how Flickr helped to become the active member of this photosharing community.
• Audee warns us about Things to Consider Before You Join a Flickr Pool

StumbleUpon, MySpace and YouTube

Karen Zara from a1-fan-fun

• Steven Snell suggests Promoting Older Posts With Social Media
• Tibi Puiu gives us A Guide to StumbleUpon: Understanding and Beating The System
• Simon shares his personal experience in StumbleUpon: My Story So Far
• Tejvan Pettinger reveals Why StumbleUpon is Better Than Digg
• Isabella Mori shares her StumbleUpon finds on Frozen Pea Friday: Breast Cancer Info on StumbleUpon
• Karen Zara has also written her views on StumbleUpon, Networking At MySpace and Silent Interaction With YouTube Users.

Twitter

HOST: Isabella Mori from ChangeTherapy

• Carol from Alphablogs has posted a valuable find – Lee Lefevre’s great video on Twitter.
• Rhett ponders about our lives on Twitter with 140 characters or less.
• Karen talks about why Twitter may not be for everyone.
• Glenda thinks Twitter is much more than instant messaging. it’s about building community.
• Simon on yeepage has a mini-series on Twitter with a step by step approach on all you need to learn about this social network.
• Gregg has written his post about Twitter on yet another microblog, Tumblr.
• Sameer has written about Twitter stats and many other twitter-related posts.

Digg and Reddit

HOST: Vivien from InspirationBit

• How To benefit from Digg by Tejvan Pettinger. Broken up in 13 easy-to-follow steps, Tejvan shares his observations on how to prepare your site for Digg. Afterwards he followed up this post with another article, which is questioning and reflecting on
  Is it worth Trying to Get On Digg?
• How To Get Onto Digg’s Front Page in 8 steps by Jacob Cass. Ever wondered what are the sure-fire techniques on reaching that coveted #1 spot on Digg? Jacob will not only share the secrets but also will make you laugh.
• Experience with Digg by Dexter. This is one of those no-luck-with-Digg-whatsoever articles which actually tell the truth about this social networking site.
• I’m Really Not a Digg Fan by Karen Zara.
  Now you too can join Digg’s NoFan Club, just head over to Karen’s post and share your reasons for not being Digg’s fan in the comments.
• Redditers – What They Tend to Do? by A u d e e. If you’re like me and still didn’t quite figure out how Reddit works and how to tackle that site, be sure to check Audee’s article.
• Can You Dig Digg?, where I contemplate about 8 things that I especially don’t understand about Digg and the obsession with it.

Technorati

HOST: Monica Hamburg

• Simon addressed the purpose of Technorati and how it works.
• In another post Simon shares tips on How to improve your Technorati ranking
• Kriz Cpec contributed his Secrets of Using Blogorati
• Monica has also posted responses to her Facebook query, so be sure to read the results on how bloggers use Technorati.

Sphinn

HOST: Simonne from AllTipsAndTricks

• If you’ve never succeeded with Sphinn, be sure to read Simon’s advise on How to reach the front Page in Sphinn
• Karen Zara briefs us with some Quick Notes On Sphinn
• Simonne gives us an honest and eye-opening review of what goes behind the scenes of Sphinn’s community.

LinkedIn

HOST: Isabella Mori from Alphablogs

• Simonne contemplates about Why LinkedIn And Pen Names Don’t Go Well Together
• Jacob has put together Gigantic Tips Guide for Finding Jobs With LinkedIn
• And Isabella has collected interesting LinkedIn Stories from her fellow bloggers.

Del.icio.us

HOST: Aaron Stroud from On Financial Success

• Simon from yeepage.com shares his Tips on how to use del.icio.us
• Simonne explains why she likes del.icio.us so much in her article They Used To Call It Social Bookmarking
• Karen goes as far as claiming that Del.icio.us Is The Best, so read to find out why.
• Jacob provides us with the Success Checklist To Hit #1 on del.icio.us
• Ronald teaches us how to Share Your del.icio.us Links With WordPress.

Squidoo, Mixx

HOST: Pearl from Interesting Observations.

• Lauren teaches us all there is to know on how to Use Squidoo to Drive Traffic and Make Money.
• Karen shares her Mixed Views on Mixx

Comparative Analysis of several Social Media sites

I’ve decided to list the following four articles separately since they cover various social networking sites:

• In Social Media In My Way Tibor Radványi shares tips on several social photography sites, such as Flickr, photographyVoter.com, Jumpcut and Animoto, Propeller and Squidoo.
• Socializing is about social media sites like Flickr, photographyvoter.com, stumbleupon, technorati.
• What is the best social media website? Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit?, by Jacob Cass
• In my interview with a local enterpreneur, Social Media as a New Way of Doing Business, Rastin shares his experience with Flickr, Facebook and LinkedIn.

P R I Z E S / W I N N E R S

And now, roll out the red carpet, play a drum roll, the award ceremony begins. As promised, I’ll be awarding five bloggers who excelled in hosting their part of this mega project. Each one will receive $25 cash prize. And the winners are:

1. Karen Zara from a1-fan-fun for hosting the project on StumbleUpon, MySpace and YouTube. She killed me in a good way with her four hour Social Media marathon, where she contributed 10 articles to this social media mega project. Amazing!
2. Brian from EpicEdits for hosting the project on Social Photography.
3. Isabella Mori from ChangeTherapy for hosting the project on Twitter. She also hosted another project on LinkedIn
4. Ina from InspiringWear for hosting the project on Facebook
5. Aaron Stroud from On Financial Success for hosting the project on Del.icio.us

Congratulations to all winners! I’ll be contacting you shortly with your prize details.
And a huge, gigantic THANK YOU to Simonne, Monica and Pearl for hosting projects on Sphinn, Technorati and Squidoo, Mixx respectively.
And of course, a mega colossal THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this social media project, without you there would’ve been nothing – no articles, no valuable tips, no winners. Because of you there are no losers here, we all won by being part of this social experiment, by belonging to this great online community. And with your votes on various social networking sites we will be able to expand this community and make it stronger, so grab a cup of your favourite java or tea and start clicking – reading and sharing, voting and reading, click-click-click….

Somehow I thought that a group writing project on social media would attract lots of attention and get many participants, but I was wrong. Even my part of the mega project, which was dedicated to Digg & Reddit, has managed to get less than ten submissions. I wonder what had happened?

Was it due to lack of promotion from my side? But then I haven’t really promoted much my two previous group writing projects, however they both did very well, getting 30+ entries.

Or was it due to lack of people’s experience with social media? But then I did specify in the project rules that one doesn’t need to be a guru with a particular social networking site, you could write what is it that confuses you, or what would you like to learn more about.

Or perhaps it was due to lack of time? I certainly had this problem, which prevented me from exploring other social networking sites and writing about them.

Any other reasons? What do you think?

Whichever reason prevented people from participating in this social media mega project, I hope you find the submitted entries useful. On Friday, I’ll publish the collaborative results from all other partnering blogs&hosts (Aaron, Ina, Brian, Isabella, Karen, Simonne, Dandellion, Pearl, JHS, Monica), today I’m featuring only the articles on Digg&Reddit.

• How To benefit from Digg by Tejvan Pettinger

  Broken up in 13 easy-to-follow steps, Tejvan shares his observations on how to prepare your site for Digg and how to focus on the content of your articles, the look of your blog and build a genuine interest in social networks.
  Afterwards he followed up this post with another article, which is questioning and reflecting on
  Is it worth Trying to Get On Digg?

• How To Get Onto Digg’s Front Page in 8 steps by Jacob Cass

  Ever wondered what are the sure-fire techniques on reaching that coveted #1 spot on Digg? Jacob will not only share the secrets he uncovered in his study of Digg, but also will make you laugh so hard you’ll never look at the Digg’s front page articles without finding them hilariously ridiculous ever again.

• Experience with Digg by Dexter

  This is one of those no-luck-with-Digg-whatsoever articles which actually tell the truth about this social networking site.

• I’m Really Not a Digg Fan by Karen Zara

  Now you too can join Digg’s NoFan Club, just head over to Karen’s post and share your reasons for not being Digg’s fan in the comments. You know how it is – it’s so much better to talk to a soul mate who can relate and understand what you’re going through.

• What is the best social media website and why? by Jacob Cass

  Now, who could know that only two weeks after writing his humorous and unflattering post about Digg, Jacob, who desperately wanted to experience the Digg effect at least once, would finally write an article that received staggering 2985 diggs and 365 “loving” comments on Digg? See? It could happen to you too. So to prepare yourselves for reaching Digg’s frontpage, be sure to read Jacob’s analysis of the Digg’s aftermath.
  And if you would like to read more comparative articles on various social media sites, you can also check out my own experience with reaching Digg’s and Reddit’s frontpages.

• Redditers – What They Tend to Do? by A u d e e

  If you’re like me and still didn’t quite figure out how Reddit works and how to tackle that site, be sure to check Audee’s article, you will definitely learn more than a thing or two from there.

• Can You Dig Digg? by Vivien

  This is where I contemplate about 8 things that I especially don’t understand about Digg and the obsession with it. If you have answers to my questions there, I would really appreciate to read them, otherwise please share what is it that you can’t quite get about Digg or what is it that annoys you about it, or on the contrary – makes your to be one of its loyal fans and power diggers?

Thanks to everyone who joined us in this small endeavour. Don’t miss my Friday post, where I’ll feature the submissions from my project colleagues, who received articles about 17 other social networking sites, as well as award the Top 5 bloggers-partners whose group writing projects were the most successful ones.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by hundreds of various social networking sites that seem to be growing like mushrooms after rain, each one claiming to be the next big thing that human society won’t be able to live without. Some of them manage to get thousands and even millions of followers, sometimes addicts who indeed can’t see themselves surviving another day without the dose of their favourite cup of social java.

For some of us social media presented the ways to express ourselves, make friends, escape the troubles of the real world or simply feed our lifelong desire to learn. For others social media became the perfect tool in growing and conducting business. I’ve always been curious to find out how do they work that out and how they can be active on so many social networking sites, yet still flourish in business, where do they find time for such an active social life online in addition to their dynamic life offline? It’s not a secret that it’s the effective networking that brings to most businesses the success they never dreamed of achieving.

That is why I thought of interviewing Rastin Mehr, a successful entrepreneur, talented developer and an open source advocate. Sometimes it seems to me that no matter what networking event is happening in Vancouver, Rastin is there – either sponsoring it, or organizing or simply participating and building his ever expanding circle of contacts. He is an avid user of social media sites, and that’s what I wanted to learn more from him about. Besides running his own business, an Internet Technology Solutions company, he’s also a Development Work Group member in the Joomla project. Last year he partnered with Jen Duguay, the founder of Tazzu, to turn that forum into one of the most popular online business, technology, and knowledge networking communities in Vancouver.

V: Rastin, which of the social networking sites do you use on a regular basis?

R: Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tazzu.

V: How about Twitter, Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon ?

R: Oh, sure I use del.icio.us too, but not the social aspects of it. I have installed a Facebook application for del.icio.us, so when I add a bookmark it shows on my Facebook profile. I have registered with the StumbleUpon but haven’t had a chance to actively use it. I’ve opened an account on Twitter, but haven’t been using it yet. There are just so many of them, and so little time. I suppose that is becoming a problem pretty soon – so many social networks to keep track of.

Facebook

V: Do you use Facebook daily? Which other Facebook applications do you find the most useful and benefit from?

R: At least 3-4 times a day. I use Facebook apps that bring some actual value for me, in terms of communication or organizing events. To me that is the good part of Facebook in general, the utility aspects of it. I use Facebook groups, events, pages. I like Flog Blog, because when I update my blog it gets announced in my facebook news feed; photos, posted items, my LinkedIn Profile. One of my most favorite Facebook apps is the Flickr Photosets.

V: What if you receive a request from friends on your FB to activate another facebook app: to compare tastes, rate movies, become the best friend?

R: I just ignore them. I’ve noticed the best all those apps do is to slow down and clutter up my page.

V: How do you find which Facebook apps to use?

R: Sometimes I actively search for an application that I might need. I also check out my friends’ profiles and see what useful apps they are using. I have this intense desire to interlink all the social networks that I am involved with to each other.

V: I know you’ve attended the FacebookCamp in Vancouver, what was the most interesting thing about it?

R: The most valuable and interesting find was my current business associate and partner Ash Sanieyan from PeerGlobe. He was demoing his Facebook app (Class Talk). We met and talked afterwards, and since then have been working together 10 hours a day 6 days a week, mostly at the same desk.

V: I remember you once told me that all your clients use Facebook, otherwise they won’t be your clients, is it always the case?

R: Well not ALL of them use Facebook but most of them do. We develop custom CMS and Social Media, so it would make sense that our clients be familiar with those type of media beforehand to see the value in our services and products or else it would be a very cost and time intensive process to educate those who aren’t using social media technologies yet.

V: Did you have many people approaching you to do business with them via Facebook or do you have LinkedIn for that?

R: Sometimes yes, but they often use Facebook or LinkedIn to learn more about us or find out if they have any common friends with us. Those factors do count in creating more trust. Nobody wants to eat at a restaurant with an empty parking lot. I think Facebook or LinkedIn make really good replacements for CRM applications used by traditional companies.

V: How about you? Do you use Facebook or LinkedIn to get clients?

R: Yes we do use social media to do a background check on our clients. Clients that aren’t somehow in our network of friends are considered high risk, so we need to be more careful doing business with them. Having the right chemistry, a history, and common network of friends, all contribute to the success of a project or business deal.

V: That’s very interesting. Did you actually have a case of declining the work with a potential client who didn’t belong to your “circle of trust”?

R: We did actually pulled away from a few deals, because we didn’t have the right gut feeling about those clients. Not that they weren’t trustworthy, we just didn’t have enough history and common friends to get into projects like those together. In that case we prefer to break a project into smaller stages and create the opportunity to gradually build a history and trust between us.

LinkedIn

V: How are you using LinkedIn on a daily basis, besides updating your profile and checking on potential clients?

R: I use LinkedIn maybe once a day. The level of activity there isn’t as high as FB at least in my network of contacts: mainly to expand my existing network of contacts. And I must admit I kind of like LinkedIn’s Q&A – it is like sitting in the boardroom of traditional companies and eavesdropping on what the old school managers think about the current state of Interent industry. Traditionally having that kind of close encounter required knowing a friend, who knew a friend, who knew a friend within a corporation

V: You mentioned expanding your “existing network of contacts”… what are the different methods that you use in achieving that?

R: I go to networking events and make friends on other social networks such as Flickr or FB, and also add them on the LinkedIn. If I have a significant number of common friends with someone I don’t hesitate to send out an unsolicited request to join their network of contacts. Some of my contacts are people I know through my activities in the open source world. Bottom line: good LinkedIn contacts are the ones that I have some sort of history with. When I receive a new business inquiry the first thing I do I look up the sender in the LinkedIn and Facebook

V: Would you characterize LinkedIn as a more corporate way of doing business, while Facebook is a more casual one?

R: LinkedIn is (and was) modeled after the corporate structure, because it prohibits free user interactions by default – which is a paradox, and it is still kind of rigid. LinkedIn is partially doing the job in combination with Facebook. I think part of the success of LinkedIn was because of Facebook. They’ve even copied some of the FB features recently if you have noticed – mainly how they reorganized their User Interface, and added user avatars and User status update “what are you working on?”. But in general, I think the LinkedIn creators had more money than imagination.

Flickr

V: Ok, now it’s time for Flickr: how long you’ve been using it? Do you use it daily as well?

R: My most favorite of all social networks that is. I’ve been using it for 2 years I think. I use it every hour as a way to reduce my stress, or trigger my imagination.

V: So how do you use it, besides uploading photos, can you give me some examples, please?

R: Photography is my main hobby, and looking at other photographs is a way to reduce my daily stress. I use it for pleasure, for organizing and showcasing my photographs, and making lots of friends, and reading people’s comments. I’ve learned many new photographic techniques and concepts just by looking at other people’s works.

V: How do you go about deciding which photographers to check out?

R: I have a preference, I mainly do glamour, Jazz, street, architecture and interiors photography, and display some of my fashion drawings and illustrations on Flickr too. So people who inspire me in any of those fields become my contacts, and friends of those people often have the same taste as I do, so it becomes a recursive process. Every once in a while I decide to drop a contact, based on the quality of their work and activities, so my list of contacts gets constantly refined.
I also use Flickr as a marketing tool.

V: How do you use Flickr as a marketing tool?

R: First, I like the fact that I can upload and organize all my pictures in one place and then link to them from other websites ( blogs, forums, social networks ). For example when I update my Flickr account, my Facebook profile displays a news item letting all my contacts know that I’ve just uploaded new pictures on my Flickr account. A lot of my clients know me through my photography. It is amazing how many software development projects I have received in the past few years, because some clients found my photography interesting.

When we organize or sponsor events I usually take lots of photographs and upload them on Flickr and Facebook, so people could see us busy at work. I think it is important for developers, designers and architects to document their work at every stage using whatever medium they are comfortable with. It inspires other people, attracts potential partners and clients. It costs next to nothing, yet more effective than many traditional means of advertisement and marketing, not to mention that it is loads of fun and fuels my addiction to photography. I think services such as blogs, YouTube, or Flickr make the costly traditional marketing and advertisement methods obsolete.

V: Are there any social networking sites that you personally consider as a waste of time?

R: No, but I’m sure soon there will be technologies available for people to aggregate different services in one place. I’ve never signed up with MySpace, but I’m sure it has some value for some people. I have seen many copycat social networks. Many sales and marketing people are throwing money building empty shells of so called social networks, and hope to populate them with users using traditional marketing methods ( i.e. advertisement or promotions ), which I think is quite naive.

V: Yes, there are definitely many copycats, but there are some that raise the bar and create an interesting site.

R: It is an evolutionary process – many new social networking sites will be build and some will be successful, the rest will be wiped off by natural selection. As someone who offers social media services and development, I think the best way to learn the concept of a new online community is to join in and play along for a while.

V: What advice you would give to someone who’s just starting to get involved with social media?

R: Not to be afraid if they don’t know the rules of the game. Just play along in small steps, and learn from other people. The ability to interact with other people and make friends will soon be as important as any other social skill allowing to earn a living, make friends, or life partners. So it is worth investing some time into it.

V: Thank you so much, Rastin. Got lots of valuable tips from you.

R: Awesome, thank you very much. That was fun.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading this interview as much as I did. How do you use social media sites for growing your business? Please share with us your experience either via comments or by participating in our Social Media Mega Project. The deadline for that is this Saturday, March 22^nd, so don’t miss it, please.

I was trying to come up with an appealing title for this post when I realized that I’ve been badly brainwashed by the overwhelming number of blogs that bombard us with their top-notch marketable headlines. I’m not saying that headlines like Become a Blogging Wizard – 6 Lessons from Harry Potter or Top 5 Tips For Success in a Crowded Niche don’t work, on the contrary – they get readers flocking to those articles like bees to flowers. But have you noticed that some of those headlines are several times longer than Hemingway’s shortest ever story that was comprised of only six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

The biggest argument behind the need in writing such “killer” headlines is to get noticed, to stand out in a crowd. Perhaps that was true a year or two ago, but now, thanks to Brian Clark, Digg and other high-profiled bloggers and social media sites, everyone is molding their post titles in the same fashion. As a result many readers are getting so prone to those headlines that bloggers have started experimenting with some outrageous mumbo jumbo twists in grabbing people’s attention. In the end we get nothing but catchy though easily forgettable headlines, scannable articles that were written in 20 minutes and can be read in 20 seconds. The same is true for the magazine headlines that the very same Brian Clark advises us to learn from.

Fortunately there are still bloggers out there that don’t follow the herd and direct their work towards a production of highly valuable and mostly original content rather than stating obvious things in an i-bet-you-didn’t-know-that-did-you manner.

I’m afraid to think about how some bloggers who are on a quest for reaching the Digg’s front page with every article they manage to publish would’ve titled Andy Rutledge’s brilliant piece titled Design Psychology or Daniel Mall’s reassuring article Design by Comfort, or John Boardley’s concise straight to the point blueprint A Guide to Web Typography. Probably something like “The Eight Critical Principles In Achieving Perfection In Design”, and “How To Appear To Be An Artist When You Can’t Even Draw”, and “Are You Forgetting About The Four Crucial Doctrines In Web Typography?” respectively, or something along those lines.

So rather than going with “The Most Important Essence of Social Media” or “Connecting People Is What Matters The Most”, I decided to call this post simply “Connecting People”. After all if it worked for Nokia, one of the most recognized leaders in telecommunication in the world, why should it fail for me? Ever since Ove Strandberg has coined this advertising slogan for Nokia, the company has made its name precisely for its ability to Connect People.

Initially I was planning on writing about the social media, blogging including, and talk about one of the fundamental principles of Web 2.0 – connecting people, point out to you that the platinum sponsor of the last year’s Web 2.0 Summit was non other than Nokia with its slogan Connecting People. But then I got sidetracked with this how-to-title-this-post business.

On the other hand, I haven’t really changed the original direction for this article. I wanted to remind everyone, myself including, why we’re all here, what made O’Reilly and MediaLive International to announce the arrival of Web 2.0 in 2004. Of course, there are more characteristics of Web 2.0 than just user interactivity, services and rich user experiences. You can read all about What Is Web 2.0 from Tim O’Reilly himself. But I’ve been noticing a dangerous trend in Web 2.0 or whatever the current version of Web this is. The trend of selling. Everything from selling the brand to selling the article with its headline to selling every possible pixel of the remaining whitespace on the site.

It seems to me that in a hasty chase for the increased traffic numbers, comments and subscribers on our blogs we’re forgetting about the most vital block of the Web structure – about connecting with people, not with the numbers that represent people, but with each other as individuals.

So next time we start writing an article or devising a headline for our blog post, let’s not think about how to attract a crowd, but rather how to express your thoughts in a way that other people can relate to and connect with, let’s reflect on how our contribution can make the blogiverse a better and more inviting place to be for everyone, not just for the chosen few.

Last week I’ve learned a new trick in getting my soon to be three year old daughter to stop crying. Recently she started calling herself a “big girl”, so now every time she’s bursting into tears, I’m reminding her that she’s not a little baby anymore, and that only little babies cry. It works like a magic: through the quickly drying tears she confirms that she is a big girl and that she stopped crying.

I know there will be many things that I’ll have to learn about handling my child as she grows. Her vocabulary is rapidly expanding and I’m preparing myself to answering lots of inquisitive questions from her about every little and big thing that will catch my daughter’s attention.

Today’s bit of literature looks at the world through the eyes of a four-year-old boy, and shows how his father struggles to explain his son the difference between the reality and something that had happened long time ago.

This short story was written by Hjalmar Söderberg (1869-1941), Swedish novelist and journalist. His novels and stories often portray melancholic or disillusioned people. But in The Burning City a little boy knows how not to let himself down.

The Burning City

by Hjalmar Söderberg

Through the two windows with their bright lattice-figured curtains the level sunlight of the winter morning falls in two slanting oblong quadrilaterals on the soft green carpet, and in the warm sunny spaces a little boy skips and dances. He knows but little of the world as yet. He knows he is little and is going to be big, but he does not know either that he has been born or that he will die. He knows he is four and will soon be five, but he does not know what is meant by “a year”; he still measures time only into yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

“Papa,” he suddenly exclaims to his father, who has just finished breakfast and lighted his first cigar of the day — he being a person to measure time with cigars — “Papa, I dreamed so many things last night! I dreamed about the whole room! I dreamed about the chairs and the green carpet and the mirror and the clock and the stove and the shutters and the cupboards.”

With that he skips forward to the stove, where the fire flames and crackles, and turns a somersault. He considers the stove and the place in front of it as the most important and dignified things in the room.

His father nods and laughs at him over the corner of his paper, and the boy laughs back, laughs away uncontrollably. He is at the age when laughter is still only an utterance of joy, not of appreciation for the ridiculous. When he stood at the window some days ago and laughed at the moon, it was not because he found the moon funny, but because it gave him joy with its round bright face.

When he has had his laugh out, he clambers up on a chair and points to one of the pictures on the wall.

“— And I dreamed most of all about that picture,” he says.

The picture is a photograph of an old Dutch painting, A Burning City.

“Well, and what was it you dreamed?” his father asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Come, think!”

“Oh yes, I dreamed it was burning and that I patted a doggie.”

“But generally you are afraid of doggies.”

“Yes, but on pictures I can pat them nicely.”

Then he laughs and skips and dances.

At last he comes up to his father and says, “Papa dear, take down the picture. I want Papa to show me the picture again the way he did yesterday.”

The picture is a new arrival in the room; it came the day before. With the other pictures around the walls the little boy has acquainted himself long ago: Uncle Strindberg and Uncle Schopaur (i.e., Schopenhauer) and Uncle Napoleon and ugly old Goethe and Grandmother when she was young. But the Burning City is new, and is furthermore in itself a much more amusing picture than the others. The father humors the little boy, takes the picture down from the wall, and they enjoy it together. Over a broad estuary that winds toward the sea and is filled with sloops and rowboats runs an arched bridge with a fortified tower. On the left shore lies the burning city: rows of narrow houses with pointed gables, high roofs, churches, and towers; a throng of people running hither and thither, a sea of fire and flames, clouds of smoke, ladders raised against walls, horses running away with shaking loads, docks crowded with barrels and sacks and all manner of rubbish; on the river a mass of people in a rowboat that is almost ready to capsize, while across the bridge people are running for dear life, and away off in the foreground stand two dogs sniffing at each other. But far in the background, where the estuary widens toward the sea, a much-too-small moon sits on the horizon in a mist of pale clouds, peeping wanly and sadly at all this misery.

“Papa,” inquires the little boy, “why is the city burning?”

“Somebody was careless with fire,” says the father.

“Who was it that was careless?”

“Ah, one can’t be sure of that so long afterward.”

“How long afterward?”

“It is many hundred years since that city was burned,” says the father.

This is a bit puzzling to the little boy, as the father clearly realizes, but he had to answer something. The boy sits quiet a moment and ponders. New thoughts and impressions about things stir in his brain and mingle with the old. He points with his little finger on the glass over the burning city and says:

“Yes, but it was burning yesterday, and now today it’s burning too.”

The father ventures on an explanation of the difference between pictures and reality.

“That is not a real city,” he says, “that is only a picture. The real city was burned up long, long ago. It is gone. The people that run about there waving their arms are dead and don’t exist anymore. The houses have been burned up, the towers have fallen. The bridge is gone too.”

“Have the towers burned down or tumbled down?” asks the boy.

“They have both burned and tumbled down.”

“Are the steamboats dead too?”

“The boats too have been gone long ago,” replied the father. “But those are not steamboats, they are sailing vessels. There were no steamboats in those days.”

The little boy sticks out his lower lip with a dissatisfied expression.

“But I see that they’re steamboats,” he says. “Papa, what’s that steamboat’s name?”

He has a mind of his own, the boy does. The father is tired of the labor of instruction and holds his peace. The boy points with his finger to the old Dutch merchantmen and prattles to himself:

“That steamer’s name is Bragë; and that one’s is Hillersea, and that is the Princess Ingeborg. Papa,” he cries all of a sudden, “is the moon gone too?”

“No, the moon still exists. It is the one thing of all there that still exists. It is the same moon you laughed at the other day in the nursery window.”

Again the little boy sits still and ponders. Then comes yet another question:

“Papa, is it very long ago this city was burned? Is it as long ago as when we went away on the Princess Ingeborg?”

“It is much, much longer ago,” answers the father. “When that city burned, neither you nor I nor Mamma nor Grandma was here.”

The boy’s face becomes very serious all at once. He looks positively troubled. He sits quiet a long while pondering. But it seems as if things would not work out for him.

“Tell me, Papa,” he finally asks, “where was I when that city was burned? Was it when I was at Grenna with Mamma?”

“No, old fellow,” replies the father, “when that city burned you didn’t yet exist.”

The boy sticks out his underlip again with an attitude as much as to say: No, I can’t agree to such a thing as that. He then repeats with emphasis:

“Yes, but where was I then?”

His father answers, “You didn’t exist at all.”

The boy looks at his father with round eyes. Suddenly all the little face brightens, the boy tears himself away from his father, and begins to skip and dance again in the sunny spots on the green carpet, crying at the top of his lungs:

“Oho, yes I did, just the same. I was somewhere, I was somewhere!”

He thought his father was only joking with him. Such an idea was clearly too ridiculous! The maids used sometimes to talk nonsense to him in jest, and he thought his father had done the same.

So he skips and dances in the sunlight.

Have you ever wished to go away, somewhere very far, start your life anew? I’m sure most of us had dreamed of some new exciting adventures, or hoped for something not necessary thrilling, but definitely something new – new experience, new surroundings, new faces, something very different from the same old existence we call life. Some of us were brave enough to leave everything behind and face the unknown future, turn a new leaf, others are still questioning whether they’re ready for that big step, or simply haven’t had any luck in doing so.

Today’s bit of literature, written by H.E. Bates, is a story of one such soul, seeking and wishing for a change in her life.
This story will inevitably make you feel if not emotional then quite moody. So read it only if you’re either in a very good mood and nothing can spoil it, or if you’re already singing “moody blues” and won’t mind to be at least joining someone’s else club of sad souls.

Oh, and if you rather listen to someone reading you this story, then you can tune in to this wonderful podcast by Miette.

A few interesting facts about H.E. Bates (1905-1974): his was an English writer of short stories and novels (full name – Herbert Ernest Bates). His first novel, written when he was still a teenager, was discarded, and his second novel, “The Two Sisters”, written when he was twenty, was rejected by nine publishers but finally accepted by the tenth one. He was a very prolific and talented writer, many of his stories were adapted for screen, including the The Purple Plain which starred Gregory Peck.

Never

by H.E. Bates

It was afternoon: great clouds stumbled across the sky, In the drowsy, half-dark room the young girl sat in a heap near the window, scarcely moving herself, as if she expected a certain timed happening, such as a visit, sunset, a command… Slowly she would draw the fingers of one hand across the back of the other, in the little hollows between the guides, and move her lips in the same sad, vexed way in which her brows came together, and like this too, her eyes would shift about, from the near, shadowed fields, to the west hills, where the sun had dropped a strip of light, and to the woods between, looking like black scars one minute, and like friendly sanctuaries the next, It was all confused… There was the room, too… The white keys of the piano would now and then exercise a fascination over her which would keep her whole body perfectly still for perhaps a minute. But when this passed, full of hesitation, her fingers would recommence the slow exploration of her hands, and the restlessness took her again.

Yes: It was all confused. She was going away: already she had said a hundred times during the afternoon- “I am going away… I am going away. I can’t stand it any longer.” But she had made no attempt to go, In this same position, hour after hour had passed her and all she could think was: “Today I’m going away, I’m tired here, I never do anything, It’s dead, rotten,”

She said, or thought it all without the slightest trace of exultation and was sometimes even methodical when she began to consider: “What shall I take? The blue dress with the rosette? Yes. What else? what else?” And then it would all begin again: “Today I’m going away. I never do anything.”

It was true: she never did anything. In the mornings she got up late, was slow over her breakfast, over everything-her reading, her mending, her eating, her playing the piano, cards in the evening, going to bed. It was all slow-purposely done, to fill up the day. And it was true, day succeeded day and she never did anything different.

But today something was about to happen: no more cards in the evening, every evening the same, with her father declaring: “I never have a decent hand, I thought the ace of trumps had gone! It’s too bad!” and no more: “Nellie, it’s ten o’clock- Bed!” and the slow unimaginative climb of the stairs. Today she was going away: no one knew, but it was so. She was catching the evening train to London.

“I’m going away. What shall I take? The blue dress with the rosette? What else?”

She crept upstairs with difficulty, her body stiff after sitting. The years she must have sat, figuratively speaking, and grown stiff! And as if in order to secure some violent reaction against it all she threw herself into the packing of her things with a nervous vigor, throwing in the blue dress first and after it a score of things she had just remembered. She fastened her bag: it was not heavy. She counted her money a dozen times. It was all right! It was all right. She was going away!

She descended into the now-dark room for the last time. In the dining room someone was rattling teacups, an unbearable, horribly domestic sound! She wasn’t hungry: she would be in London by eight-eating now meant making her sick. It was easy to wait. The train went at 6.18. She looked it up again: “Elden 6.13, Olde 6.18,
London 7.53.”

She began to play a waltz. It was a slow, dreamy tune, ta-tum, turn, ta-tum, turn, ta-tum, turn, of which the notes slipped out in mournful, sentimental succession. The room was quite dark, she could scarcely see the keys, and into the tune itself kept insinuating: “Elden, 6.13, Olde 6.18,” impossible to mistake or forget.
As she played on she thought: “I’ll never play this waltz again. It has the atmosphere of this room. It’s the last time!” The waltz slid dreamily to an end: for a minute she sat in utter silence, the room dark and mysterious, the air of the waltz quite dead, then the teacups rattled again and the thought came back to her: “I’m going
away!”

She rose and went out quietly. The grass on the roadside moved under the evening wind, sounding like many pairs of hands rubbed softly together. But there was no other sound, her feet were light, no one heard her, and as she went down the road she told herself: “It’s going to happen! It’s come at last!”

“Elden 6.13. Olde 6.18.”

Should she go to Elden or Olde? At the crossroads she stood to consider, thinking that if she went to Elden no one would know her. But at Olde someone would doubtless notice her and prattle about it. To Elden, then, not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now. She was going, was as good as gone!

Her breast, tremulously warm, began to rise and fall as her excitement increased. She tried to run over the things in her bag and could remember only “the blue dress with the rosette,” which she had thrown in first and had since covered over. But it didn’t matter. Her money was safe, everything was safe, and with that
thought she dropped into a strange quietness, deepening as she went on, in which she had a hundred emotions and convictions. She was never going to strum that waltz again, she had played cards for
the last, horrible time, the loneliness, the slowness, the oppression were ended, all ended.

“I’m going away!”

She felt warm, her body tingled with a light delicious thrill that was like the caress of a soft night-wind. There were no fears now. A certain indignation, approaching fury even, sprang up instead, as she thought: “No one will believe I’ve gone. But it’s true-I’m going at last.”

Her bag grew heavy. Setting it down in the grass she sat on it for a brief while, in something like her attitude in the dark room during the afternoon, and indeed actually began to rub her gloved fingers over the backs of her hands. A phrase or two of the waltz came back to her… That silly piano! Its bottom G was flat, had always been flat! How ridiculous! She tried to conjure up some sort of vision of London, but it was difficult and in the end she gave way again to the old cry: “I’m going away.” And she was pleased more than ever deeply.

On the station a single lamp burned, radiating a fitful yellowness that only increased the gloom. And worse, she saw no one and in the cold emptiness traced and retraced her footsteps without the friendly assurance of another sound. In the black distance all the signals showed hard circles of red, looking as if they could never
change. But she nevertheless told herself over and over again: ” I’m going away-I’m going away.” And later: “I hate everyone. I’ve changed until I hardly know myself.”

Impatiently she looked for the train. It was strange. For the first time it occurred to her to know the time and she pulled back the sleeve of her coat. Nearly six-thirty! She felt cold. Up the line every signal displayed its red ring, mocking her. “Six-thirty, of course, of course.” She tried to be careless. “Of course, it’s late, the train is late,” but the coldness, in reality her fear, increased rapidly, until she could no longer believe those words.

Great clouds, lower and more than ever depressing, floated above her head as she walked back. The wind had a deep note that was sad too. These things had not troubled her before, now they, also, spoke failure and foretold misery and dejection. She had no spirit, it was cold, and she was too tired even to shudder.

In the absolutely dark, drowsy room she sat down, telling herself: “This isn’t the only day. Some day I shall go. Some day.”

She was silent. In the next room they were playing cards and her father suddenly moaned: “I thought the ace had gone.” Somebody laughed. Her father’s voice came again: “I never have a decent hand! I never have a decent hand! Never!”

It was too horrible! She couldn’t stand it! She must do something to stop it! It was too much. She began to play the waltz again and the dreamy, sentimental arrangement made her cry.

“This isn’t the only day,” she reassured herself.” I shall go. Some day!”

And again and again as she played the waltz, bent her head and cried, she would tell herself that same thing:
“Some day! Some day!”