Face to Facebook

People of my generation, and those who came before us, are not digital natives. My contemporaries and I were lucky enough to grow up with some emerging technologies but with nothing like the access of today's primary and secondary school students. We grew up in the times of Beta and VHS recorders and the accompanying debate that still rages (I guess today's equivalents would be Microsoft v Apple, Facebook v MySpace, XBox v Playstation v Wii, iPod v MP3 etc, but boffins will correct me). I remember being thrilled to get a Pacman game one Christmas, but the joystick broke and I lost interest. Our main commerce was swap cards, and our best pastimes elastics, skipping, kick to kick and turning cartwheels on the oval, until we got a bit older. Space Invaders at the fish and chip shop didn't hold much interest for me, but I know it did for others.

Kids are switched on in this digital age. They were born with technology, and know no different. Many probably had cameras and video equipment thrust in their faces before their bottom was even slapped by the doctor (I really don't think they do that anymore, but I'm showing my age and in-depth knowledge of vintage clichés). Kids all know how to snap a photo on mum's phone and whatever you do, don't stand in the way of a 6-year-old and Angry Birds. Today's kids are known in educational circles as digital natives. They have had it all their lives. But more so than generations before us, it is my generation that is expected to be fully conversant in the use of technology. Technological skills are considered a bonus for our parents, but our age group bears the weight of this expectation. We had to adapt to the technology as it was happening, especially when typing electives at school became "word processing" on Apple Macs with Mrs Tuckett in Year 9. Before that we all got high on the smell of the purple Gestetner ink from teachers ‘running off’ copies of worksheets with a crank handle. When we started using computers, choosing a font was no choice at all and "computer paper" used to have perforated sections and grabby holes on the sides. Phones were not yet mobile so you had to ring people at home and risk talking to their parents, or worse, their siblings who would rib you mercilessly if you were ringing someone of the opposite gender. Today’s teenagers can 'poke' their crush on the net without running the gauntlet of parents and siblings. To trot out another cliché, “in our day” flirting used to occur when you were in the company of the person you wanted to flirt with. And you had to have the guts to bully someone face to face or at least behind their back, not via text. Tough times.

I feel like I’m on Grumpy Old Women. Bear with me.

My generation is now at or about 40, and living in a world ruled by email, SMS, iPhones, iPads, Facebook, MySpace (really? Anyone use it?), Twitter (guilty), RSS Feeds, YouTube (sick leave would be really dull without it), Android, blogs, vlogs, avatars, digital photos, profiles and profile pictures, downloaded movies and high definition TV. And we're doing really well at it. At least we think so.

Then you see a 4 year old on an iPad and you think, how the f@!& did they do that? That's the difference.

In spite of that, we push on with our revolutionised communication modes, and justify keeping our friends and families at arm's length whilst remaining connected. We're basically insecure. And busy. In my opinion.

Despite being an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) advocate and erstwhile leader at my school, I am not an early adopter of new technologies. I like the hype to die down before I get on board, and even then I am critical and analytical in my approach to technology, at the same time as enjoying its benefits on a daily basis. I think this comes from my previous career working for Optus when mobile phones were a burgeoning commodity and the analogue network was still a viable choice. I was there when text messaging started, we could suddenly email each other and the Internet became a real entity. Just a couple of years before, I had written LETTERS home from overseas. By hand! I bought stamps and everything. Everyone did. It was 1993. But technology changed and so did we. But at Optus I was slow to see where it was all going, and surprised to be a part of it.

I have slowly built up my limited expertise in ICT in an almost accidental fashion. I was put in charge of leading the implementation of interactive whiteboards at school when someone else dropped out, and things just exploded from there. Because it's not about the technology, that's just the tool. And it's not about the software or the internet, that's just a means to an end. It's about what you do with it, and that's where the possibilities are limitless.

I avoided the whole “Facebook” aspect of the internet for a long time. I had this feeling it was self-absorbed, self-aggrandising rubbish, and I wasn't wrong, I just enjoy it now. I believed it was a stage allowing people to perform and be exhibitionists, where nothing real or substantial could occur. The thing is, and this is where I repeat myself, it depends on what you do with it.

Connection.

Interaction.

Communication.

Hit the 'Share' button and you do just that: share. Obvious isn't it? But really look at that. That's not nothing.

Since I started using Facebook regularly about 6 months ago, it has allowed me to connect, interact, communicate and share myself and my troubles and triumphs with others. For a naturally reserved person, it has allowed me to do it through my most preferred medium, writing. I have the protection and safety of non-face-to-face interaction, which has allowed me to share more than I would normally - just look at this blog! I never talk about myself this much. But write? No problem. (Because I am also editor-in-chief, I can try to make myself appear better and more intelligent than I am through careful editing. But I do try for honesty... most of the time.)

Facebook has also provided me with much needed feedback and support. Who knew the importance of the 'like' option? Knowing people are out there backing you to succeed is seriously uplifting and encouraging. Facebook can be good for you. But not too much. It doesn't pay to be obsessed: a little goes a long way.

These days, due to my lack of physical mobility and fluctuating ability to drive, I have depended on Facebook to retain a sense of being 'in touch' with people, without seeing them face to face. You see, despite all my self-centred faffing about in this blog, it's not just about me. I love seeing what others are up to, particularly as I don't get out much. I perversely enjoy a regular Collingwood v the world baiting session from certain FB friends (I can’t STAND Collingwood, but I love taking the bait). I enjoy humorous anecdotes and asides and even the cryptic comments that you have to guess at to find out what's happening with people. I love the pictures of family, little sons and daughters growing up, starting school, and going to the beach; the photos of big nights out and music festivals and going to the footy. Facebook is highly recommended for the convalescent, as it gives you a sense of living, not just existing.

And that's really what we're all here for, isn't it? To really live, and not just exist through the daily grind. Whether you use Facebook or not, whether elastics were your go, or your preferred pastime is tatting or planking, there are parts of our lives that show us we're really living and not just existing. Saying it on Facebook, Twitter, in a letter or card, in a phone call, over SMS or through photos or home movies reassures us that it really happened. Because basically we're insecure. And busy. And technologies make it faster and easier to connect, interact, communicate and share. That’s way cool, and the kids know it.

Number-ology

I am not a superstitious person, except when it comes to footy tipping or footy games with Hawthorn playing. I believe that once you've decided your footy tips, you should never change them, it's tempting fate.  And sometimes I think Hawthorn does better on the telly if I'm out of the room. It works best if my husband watches the game and intermittently yells "Buddy's kicked another one!" but that doesn't always happen.

I don't have a lucky number, lucky undies, a rabbits foot, an amulet, a side of the road that's better for me, and I don't believe in Friday the 13th. My dad's birthday has frequently fallen on a Friday, and he may even have been born on an actual Friday 13th, I'm not sure, but he's an absolute wonder, a gentleman and sage, and his mum raised him right, so 13 is no big deal. Additionally, according to the tv show QI, the devil's number is not 666, it's actually 661, so I like the number 6: there are 6 in my immediate family, and I have six nieces and nephews on my side of the family, so 6, its multiples and variants are fine with me. Also, I have had two black cats who I've loved intensely and who brought me only good times. Lately I have been asked a multitude of times whether I have had a run in with a chinaman, but the man who delivers our takeaway is perfectly lovely and once brought his son over with him because he wanted to meet Molly, our dog. So luck is hogwash to me, and so is superstition.

It's funny how many numbers are considered to be lucky or unlucky. 13, 666, 7, birthdates, disaster dates, anniversaries, there are so many numbers on which we place significance. In Chinese culture I believe the number 8 is auspicious, while numerology can spin any number into a collection of attributes, either positive or negative. It's the luck of the draw where you end up. Or, in other terms, your numerology number is a random idea arrived at by adding your birthdate together with attributes someone, somewhere, made up. Or maybe it's Egyptian. I don't know, I'm not in the mood for research today, and it might have just been made up by an ancient Egyptian anyway.

Randomness, coincidence, luck, superstition, auspicion (probably not a word, spellchecker doesn't like it), fate, karma, kismet, serendipity, curses, hexes, all a bunch of stuff desperately trying to explain the unexplainable: life and what happens in it. The good and the bad. And numbers feature a lot, ask a gambler. Also, I'm pretty sure the entire TV show 'Lost' would have been exactly that without all this bullshit (pardon my low English). Stevie Wonder had it right, 'superstition ain't the way'.

So 13 and 666 are not scary to me, nor is 661, the 'new' devil's number. We choose to place our own meanings on numbers and ideologies, superstitions and lucky undies, including choosing our spirituality (I prefer that word to "religion") and very rarely could it be considered a rational choice, as it involves some incarnation of faith. I have faith, but I think numbers are just numbers.

Here are some numbers that mean something if you or I want them to, or don't: 18, 21, 30, 39, 40, 50, all decades onwards to 100, 2, 31, 700, 4.

We come of age at 18 and are lawfully able to drink, drive, take responsibility for our own choices, and are old enough to go to prison. So why do we come of age again at 21? Tradition, habit, expectation, or an excuse for another party with better speeches? We place the meaning where we want to.

30, 40, 50, 60... 100. More age milestones we place meaning on. We get the sense of time passing us by, valued youth departing, age and decrepitude advancing. Bunkum. The phrase 'you're only as old as you feel' is cliched for a reason, it's true. I'm 38, have a walking stick, a shower chair, a disabled parking pass and an (albeit borrowed) wheelchair. Do you think I feel 38? Before all of this, I felt like a teenager most of the time. There are many people we meet and are surprised to learn their age, either because of their attitude or appearance. (So Nick, lose the hang ups about this year's milestone, will ya? You'll always be funky Nicko to me).

39 is another age milestone, though you may not recognize it, as it may be irrelevant to you. It's the age when women's fertility, their ability to not only conceive but to carry a healthy, genetically viable baby to term, drops dramatically. Yay, looking forward to my very next birthday. Yeah. But numbers mean nothing unless you let them. My body's real age could place me in a nursing home, so any kind of fertility, present or absent, could just be theory.

Here are the other numbers without meaning that I listed: 2, 31, 700 and 4. I'm going to work backwards on these.

I'm really questioning my wisdom in divulging this next one, because although my perspective on numbers is pretty well set, it doesn't work that way for everyone else. I haven't advertised that I have stage 4 cancer because a) some people don't know what the categorisations mean and panic, or b) they do know and they still panic. And truly, in my case it's not what it sounds like. Stage four is briefly and basically where the primary tumour has spread to another organ, but there are really two types of stage 4: the kind where they prepare you for the worst, and the kind where they don't. I am in the latter category and grateful for it. But you can see why I haven't shared this info around. It actually doesn't mean anything except in relation to treatment and ongoing screening, and they're sorted. And you'll further see why numbers mean nothing in just a moment.

There's a number called a CEA, which can be found by doing a blood test (the screening I mentioned above). It doesn't really matter but for those curious, it stands for carcinoembryonic antigen. The average person without cancer can have a CEA of up to 6 or 7. Cancer patients can have numbers over 1000. Before my surgeries (sorry for those who already know all this) I had a number in the 700s. I didn't know I had cancer. So that number had no bearing on how I felt or what I thought. I didn't know about the number at the time, I only learnt about it recently, so what meaning can it possibly have to me? After surgery the number dropped to 31. You think if they take out a tumour or two that's the cancer gone, but apparently not. But the real advance was my recent reading of 2, which at the time was nothing short of astonishing. That's a reading in the normal range for a person without cancer. You're going to insist that this has meaning, and I'll grant you it's a result to celebrate, and I don't disregard it or wish to complain. I'm just very frustrated.

The reason it means nothing yet is that I don't feel better. When I was apparently in the 700s I felt ill. I still feel ill with a CEA of 2. And although it's great, I'm glad my doctors are telling me I'm doing well, I'm still feeling crap and can't work and can't resume normal activity. I won't go into it again; if you think you're sick of hearing about it, imagine how sick of it all I am. I repeat: I'm just very frustrated.

So perhaps I should stop being a grumblebum. I'll reverse all my stone cold logic about meaningless numbers and come up with some that I place some happy meaning on. Even though it's bunkum. I'm allowed to be inconsistent because even though earlier I said I'm superstitious about changing my footy tips, I did exactly that last week and I was right to do so. So there.

Some happy numbers. 15: Luke Hodge. 23: Buddy Franklin. 35: the number of millilitres left to go right now in my portable chemo pump. 113: the number of days since chemo started. 43: the numbers of days until chemo will be finished, and hopefully normal life can begin again. 37: the number of days until my wedding anniversary, where I get to go to the footy for the first time this year, and in the corporate box no less. 5: the number of years my husband has put up with me. 3: the number of chemo sessions to go.

Without number: the abundance of supporters who work so hard to keep me sane and upbeat, and tell me I look well and even "beautiful" when I feel anything but. I try to reduce my miserable sod-ness for you all. Thank you.