disconnect

I have been thinking sometimes sad thoughts about our place on the Internet.

Unfortunately, the government in M has blocked Blogger.

Unfortunately, I have little time to blog.

Unfortunately, I have little desire to blog.

These excuses are the reason the blog has been dormant, with no changes, no updates, and no responses from our side of the world in almost 3 months. We're in Thailand now, and I've been quickly realizing how removed we are from the world of the newest social networking trends; Twitter, Digg, Facebook. To be honest, I don't even know what Twitter is. What will the world be like in 2 and a half years when we get back to the US? 

Podcasting, of course, is difficult to do. It takes time, and then you need a fast Internet connection to post it to the Web. I still love doing it, but it can literally take hours to post a show.

So how do we stay in touch with you all on the other side?

I'm realizing social networking today is an up-to-the-minute update on what friends are doing, made simple by the influx of Internet connections every place we go.

So what happens when a guy who loves that interconnectivity goes to a place that hasn't moved past dial-up, and rarely finds time to do the simple things of social networking, like blogging and e-mailing. Even e-mailing takes it out of me now!

Thankfully, there is much to be gained from being cut off from those things. Our language study is the first thing. The more we are separated from the Internet, the less I read English news, type English e-mails, listen to English podcasts and watch things from back home that keep me from being completely here. And being completely here is the goal if we're to actually learn this incredibly difficult, but fun if we work hard, language. I'm thankful for that in disconnectedness.

The second thing that benefits is my daily quiet times. I can tell even from our last 4 days in Thailand, how much a distraction the Internet is to me. If I have wireless in my room, the first thing I do when I get up is check my e-mail. Then read the news. Then check all of the other things I can think about. And by then, it's time to go out for the day, and I haven't even thought about my quiet time. In M, I get up early before there is anywhere to be. I don't have the distractions that I have had everywhere else in my life. And my quiet time has flourished for it. I'm thankful for that disconnectedness.

So, when it comes to a disconnect, there are positives and negatives, as with everything else. I'm finding the negatives are affecting me more than I expected they would. This whole culture shock thing has brought those out sometimes - missing family, missing friends, missing college, missing baseball, missing news. But I'm also finding the positives are helping me grow, in ways I never could have imagined (and honestly didn't desire).

Thanks for the bitter with the sweet.

Later guys,

M