#GeekSpeak: The sometimes random misadventures of @Abby_Cake

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Abby. I met her in Chicago at the #20SBSummit, and this chick is raaaddddd!! She considers herself more of a nerd than a geek - but I think she's just all shades of random and awesome. Oh and FTR, the TNTML stance on nerds versus geeks are that nerds are products of a genetic predisposition, and geeks are raised. BOOH-YAH!!! I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ABBY!!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Abby_Cake

I have been considering the way individuals present themselves both online and off. We all want to be perceived in a certain way. But our perception is a choice. In college, I heartily resisted this fact. I have always maintained a style of my own creation, it’s something I have taken a bit of pride in over the years — and I thought people (all the people!) would automatically like me because of my personality, ignoring my, sometimes odd or unpopular, fashion choices. This, I’ve since realized, is an idealist notion.

On my first job interview I looked ridiculously not-put together. My very long, blonde hair was still slightly damp from my early morning shower, my highlights needed to be redone; I was wearing a button down white shirt, my mom’s heels, and a new pleated skirt I had bought from Ross — I was unaware you needed to cut the strings off of the pleats, and white strings hung awkwardly. A teacher clucked disapprovingly at the state of my outfit, later telling me I looked “simply, bad.” Looking back, I can acknowledge I looked perhaps slightly desperate.

Until my second year teaching, I literally did not own a pair of closed toe shoes, aside from running shoes. I live in Texas, it rarely gets cold enough to need foot covering if you aren’t outside all day. I had an overwhelming amount of flip-flops, open toe heels, and sandals. One of the other teachers actually asked me if I owned any closed toe shoes, I said “no.” She proceeded to look appalled and asked if I wanted her to go shopping with me. I was beginning to realize that how I looked mattered to other people.

However, outward appearance is not the only thing that matters in public presentation. When creating an online or offline perception, we must be increasingly aware of how we appear without the physicality of a meeting. It becomes essential to aid in the understanding of your personality via other forms of communication. On my fourth job interview I had dropped off a resume without meeting anyone, when I got a call-back the principal exclaimed, “Oh! You’re the girl with the pink resume!” Yes, I had printed my resumes on bright, salmon colored cardstock. I had given up on the traditional route, and it definitely made me stand out at job fairs. It was a risk (a stupid one, if you asked my education professors), but one that played out well and (I think) assisted me in obtaining my first adult job.

Present yourself well online & off and gain confidence from your self-presentation.

• Wear clothes that make you feel confident, but also are appropriate. I’ve always felt confident in my clothes, but it took some time for me to gather an assortment of different professional looks. What you choose to wear may not be the latest fashion, but it should be something that makes you appear groomed, kept, and put-together.
• Be aware you will probably make some kind of first impression each day. Whether it’s a new reader to your blog, or meeting a new co-worker, someone is formulating a perception about you. Make sure it’s a positive perception.
• Constantly tweak and revise your ‘about me’ page and resume — keep it current, updated, and interesting. Strive to make your personality prevalent within your words.
• Smile, even when you might not feel like it. Don’t underestimate the power of a smile. When I started entering my workplace with a smile, one of the football coaches commented: “You always look so happy in the morning, it puts me in a good mood.”

Last bit of advice, buy a pair of closed toe shoes. 

xx, @abby_cake

#nerdsunite

Want more from Abby?? Check out her blog over yonder - and don't forget to drop her a follow on twitter!!

#GeekSpeak: The sometimes random misadventures of @Abby_Cake

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Abby. I met her in Chicago at the #20SBSummit, and this chick is raaaddddd!! She considers herself more of a nerd than a geek - but I think she's just all shades of random and awesome. Oh and FTR, the TNTML stance on nerds versus geeks are that nerds are products of a genetic predisposition, and geeks are raised. BOOH-YAH!!! I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ABBY!!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Abby_Cake  

“You have five friends, and the rest is landscape.” -- Portuguese Saying

I’ve been interested for a while in the concept of online and offline friendships. I believe at this point, online and offline are generally indistinguishable and it simply depends on the mutual emotions felt by each person not the location of the friendship’s physical aspect.

I had heard in passing recently that people are really only capable of possessing five close friendships. So, I did a bit of research on the topic.

According to Robin Dunbar: “On average, we have five intimate friends, 15 good friends (including the five intimate ones), 50 friends and 150 acquaintances.”

Humans are only capable of mentally maintaining a close or intimate relationship with up to five people. This inner clique is devised of the people who we see (using this term loosely) at least once a week, or would go to at moments of emergency and crisis. This five-person list can include parents, siblings, children, and lovers.

Additionally, there are two distinct caveats to this five friend theory. One is that if a new lover enters the picture, two relationships from this circle will suffer or disappear altogether. The second is that, as Dunbar says: “Those individuals don’t have to be human. They can be your dog — or your favourite chrysanthemum plant. They can be people in an entirely fictional world — they can be soap opera characters. They can be God or they can be saints.”

The next circle, following our most intimate collection, is referred to as the “sympathy circle,” or people who we would miss if they passed away -- I found this a bleak, but accurate analogy.

Dunbar maintains that an excess of 150 acquaintances is impossible to maintain. Unless you’re me and can’t imagine having 150 friends at all.

With our friendships broken down, I had the opportunity to examine social networks in connection with this theory. Our social network preferences allow us to interact differently with our varied friend groups. I think Google+ is best for the simpler utilization of separating our “circles.” Facebook, on the other hand, is an ongoing broadcast. We can have anywhere from 20-5,000 friends or fans on our pages, openly staring into our window, so to speak.

However, the people in our online social worlds that we interact with most frequently are typically the same people who are active in our offline social worlds. Which validates my earlier point that IRL has become a defunct moniker in most cases.

With my personal combined online and offline friendship worlds -- and in the spirit of minimalism -- I’ve begun to minimize my friends (defined as: people who are closest to me). This has become a process of necessity for the ongoing maintenance of my sanity. And I have begun maintaining social networks which only allow interaction with people who affect me in a primarily positive way.

If a friend affects me negatively, I am going to untether from that friendship. If a relationship is not worth investing my empathy, emotions, and affection into — I’m just not going to anymore.

Is this going to be simple? Of course not. Will I perhaps hurt some people’s feelings in the process? Maybe. But I want a community. I want a circle of close friends who value the emphasis I place on relationships rather than selfishly criticize or demand for me to change.

I can only maintain 15 "good" friendships? That sounds like a "good" number. What's your number?

xx, @abby_cake

#nerdsunite

Want more from Abby?? Check out her blog over yonder - and don't forget to drop her a follow on twitter!!

#GeekSpeak: The sometimes random misadventures of @Abby_Cake

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Abby. I met her in Chicago at the #20SBSummit, and this chick is raaaddddd!! She considers herself more of a nerd than a geek - but I think she's just all shades of random and awesome. Oh and FTR, the TNTML stance on nerds versus geeks are that nerds are products of a genetic predisposition, and geeks are raised. BOOH-YAH!!! I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ABBY!!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Abby_Cake

Street vendors are a part of an age old trade, and one I took part in this weekend. This was the first garage sale I have ever held myself and it was quite successful.

Jared and I have been purging our apartment of meaningless items over the past few weeks. Part of the reason is that we are moving to Korea soon and, even so, I don’t want to fill a new place when we return with useless junk. Particularly I was intending to get rid of clothing, non-vegetarian cookbooks, and my overwhelmingly superfluous kitchenware. I had too many pots and pans, too many appliances, and way too many dishes — some of which are still in the boxes they came in, and most were gifts. I did keep a set of dishes, bowls, and salad plates along with a set of our silverware, tea mugs and assorted glasses. I only kept the pots and pans I use with regularity.

Already it feels like this ridiculous weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Just the act of being able to let go of my dishes was purifying.

Lessons learned:

• People will talk to you about anything if you appear friendly. I heard stories ranging from how heavily medicated one lady was, to a woman whose husband asked for a divorce (something she obviously did not intend to give) — she then proceeded to buy all four Twilight books, to a woman who insisted she was going to kill her cat for getting hair on her jacket.
• Don’t feed the stray dogs. Yes, they are very cute. No, they will not go away for the remainder of the garage sale.
• Merchandise the clothing. Clothing is notoriously hard to sell at garage sales. In order to maximize profits we had a “show” area for some of the nicer clothing (jackets, a prom dress, several other dresses). It enticed people to try things on. Also, only the people who should not, under any circumstances, be squeezing into your clothing will be the only people who buy it.
• Advertise. We put an ad on Craigslist the day before and hung signs around town, but putting an ad in the local paper probably would have gone a long way. Especially since in small towns garage sale-ing is a legitimate sport.
• Categorize. If you have a box worth of cookbooks or kitchen utensils (I had both) don’t bother pricing them all individually, just write “entire box $10” or “everything in box: 50 cents.” This might sound lazy (because it is) but it's also easier for everyone.
• Don’t be too proud. Price low on the second day. I am NOT a haggler. Confrontation makes me wildly uncomfortable and I will just stare wide-eyed until the haggling ends. Luckily, no one really haggled and some people even commented on my pricing being fair. I felt vindicated.
• Donate. Anything that doesn’t sell the second time around goes to Goodwill, it does not go back in the house! When we move out officially and begin packing for Korea, I suppose we will attempt one more garage sale before we go — so we broke this rule and kept a few things we might try to resell.

We ran our garage sale for two days, Friday and Saturday. I’d never heard of having a garage sale on a weekday, but surprisingly Friday was our best day monetarily (who knew). People stopped on the way to work or on their lunch breaks with newly filled envelopes from the bank. I honestly felt a little guilt about taking their newly acquired paycheck; but they were excited and I enjoyed the general ebb and flow of conversation. Jared sat in a chair and played guitar, much to the amusement of some older gentlemen who reminisced openly about their guitar years and spoke at length about “House of the Rising Sun.”

Overall, the best sellers were: books, cookbooks, kitchen utensils (pots, pans, etc.), dishes, fashion jewelry, and picture frames. We had a fairly priced paintball gun, fondue pot, and digital camera which didn’t sell, much to our surprise. Also, I must add that selling clothing is particularly frustrating because everyone just complains about not being your size (which is clearly my own fault).

We made about $350 total, not bad for sitting on our butts outside. Also, I am open to suggestions on what to spend the money on, anyone? :)

xx, @abby_cake

#nerdsunite

Want more from Abby?? Check out her blog over yonder - and don't forget to drop her a follow on twitter!!

#GeekSpeak: The sometimes random misadventures of @Abby_Cake

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Abby. I met her in Chicago at the #20SBSummit, and this chick is raaaddddd!! She considers herself more of a nerd than a geek - but I think she's just all shades of random and awesome. Oh and FTR, the TNTML stance on nerds versus geeks are that nerds are products of a genetic predisposition, and geeks are raised. BOOH-YAH!!! I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT ABBY!!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Abby_Cake

When I was in junior high and high school, I spent my evenings in chat rooms, forums, ICQ, or AIM conversations. I would talk to my classmates, but oftentimes I would talk to people I didn’t know. I made some great friends, some of whom I still talk to, during that time. I was never alone, because I was always talking to someone. Always sharing a nerdy laugh or surfing the internet together. However, we referred to what we were doing offline as IRL activities and our offline friends as IRL friends.

Some people found this to be offensive, especially on forums, because IRL we are sitting at a computer exchanging words with other human beings. How is that not real? It denigrated our friendships and hobbies. Many a 2AM squabble erupted in the chat box while we discussed the parameters required to dictate what IRL truly meant. And although online we were highlighting the key points of our arguments, offline we were eating cheetos in our underwear.

IRL, for those who don’t know, means “in real life.” In real life, I was a student, I played video games, I hung out with my friends, I read books. Online I participated in forums, met new people, created and discussed digital art, and was most often represented by an anonymous avatar.

Now, things are different ...

A meme, IRL. The internet is escaping.

We use our own pictures as avatars, putting our faces out there for everyone to see. Even in our Gmail inboxes we see the faces of the people contacting us. There is no anonymity. Social networks are no longer underground rooms on the Palace Chat. They are mainstream, things like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter. We are a digitally connected world.

The idea of separating your digital life from your offline life is nonexistent. IRL no longer exists.

The people we know on the internet are simply our friends, just like the people we know from work. Online shopping is not any different than IRL shopping (aside from the necessitation of pants), it’s all just shopping.

With the IRL distinction no longer being necessary, we must accept a full integration of online and offline. We are our online personas whether we are walking down the street or posting on a forum. We are searchable. We are defined by the amount of information we share over the world wide web. We are our Facebook profiles. We are our feelings in 150 words or less.

We are all through the looking glass.

xx, @abby_cake

#nerdsunite

Want more from Abby?? Check out her blog over yonder - and don't forget to drop her a follow on twitter!!

They're Talking Nerdy Baby: Nerd vs Geek vs Dork vs Dweeb

Nerds are a product of a genetic predisposition.

Geeks are raised.

To be a dork is to be blissfully unaware, and otherwise relatively ignorant.

Nerds can be dorks but a dork biologically can never cross over and be a nerd.

That's like trying to turn Japanese, it just doesn't happen.
And a dweeb is a novice dork. 

I was born a nerd, I will die a nerd. I may geek out from time to time, and certainly have my dorky moments ... but I bleed nerd.

#NerdsUnite

but ps. thanks for the #follow love!! this that and much more back!! *MWAHHHH*