the above are two of my favorite pictures that i took in my 5 day paris extravaganza. i'm so cute, right? in paris i climbed really high and looked at the city (aka my favorite touristy activity), i ran around different parts each day, ate some various cheeses, drank a lot of very small glasses of wine, saw a bunch of middlebury people, ate a lot of falafel at the #1 recommended by lenny kravitz l'as du falafel in the marais (they should pay me for that plug), and managed to keep my spending down to a very amazingly low minimum.

i also slept on the floor of my cousin's incredibly tiny apartment and really bonded with her, which was probably the best part. my entire life i joked about being adopted, but really felt a sort of "my so-called life" alienation from everyone i was related to. now that we're both old enough to bridge the awkward age-gap that comes on with adolescence, in my cousin gabriella i finally found someone in my pseudo-immediate family that i 100% understand and connect to. im not saying we listen to the same music or watch the same movies, but she reads! interesting intelligent books! she travels! she understands leaving new jersey! she's funny! and smart! and honest! and not crazy! i mean, i don't want to gush, but it was a pretty big revelation. the only downside is that since she is much like me, and we both are pretty independent and disconnected from the family, we most likely won't cross paths at the traditional carrasquillo pool party bbq surprise party events, especially since she's moving to california to be with her boyfriend. it's still nice to know i'm not the only one in that family that, i dunno, gets it.

lately spring has sprung in europe, which is nice, and i think it has improved my general outlook on everything. i've spent a fair amount of time lately soaking up the first weak springtime sunrays on my balcony, brunching with tim, roaming flea markets with jack, and this week marked the first week of my spring semester! i feel like i'm pretty much getting all my shit together, but you know, always the same issues: worried about being homeless for my last month here, my room being in a permanent state of dirt and chaos, frustration at a lack of time/energy left for pleasure reading, blahblahblah.

travel always inspires me to take lots of cheesy pictures, yet throughout these adventures i feel that i have mostly stuck to my anti-technology-age platform as usual. for those uninitiated with this platform, it's simple. i, much like any self-respecting young adult in 2008, have multiple internet outlets for my personality. i got my first livejournal when i was a freshman in high school, in order to fit in, duh. this was at the time that people might not remember, when livejournal was selective and you needed to get invited to get one. a user had only one invite and they could then invite you to get an account - i think i gave my invite to molly or chrissy, i'm not sure. i'm pretty sure that one year later i got the opportunity for another invite and i definitely gave it to dan pierson. anyway. shortly thereafter i got a myspace, probably within the month. im not trying to brag and say i was ahead of the trend, really the bizarre sinkhole of culture that is southern new jersey is the culprit. everyone everyone everyone has this. college was the first place where i realized that not everyone's social life was so deeply enmeshed in the internet and it became practically a source of shame that i had gleaned a fair amount of html knowledge by putting together my friend's livejournal backgrounds.

but one thing that is universally accepted on college campuses is facebook, and let me just say this: facebook is no less creepy, exploitative, egotistical or soul-sucking than myspace, livejournal, friendster (yeah i had one of those too), xanga (never thank god), centerfuse (which is a philly/south jersey thing only) ... it might even be worse, due to its sheer popularity and mass appeal.

where is this current rant going? having spent my formative high school years focused on the internet and documenting much of my life there, i am no stranger to the concept that you want all of your friends to be able to see the good times you have with each other and talk about it, but instead of spending money on film and physical photos and spending time together looking at them, everyone can interact in front of their computers, individually, most likely unshowered and sitting around in their underpants. facebook has warped this pastime into something more sinister in my opinion. suddenly if something has not merited a facebook photo album, if you are not tagged in pictures of something, it did not happen and you were not there. i hate this. i hate the way you feel when you see the next day that you did not merit entry into the internet verification of your identity. i hate the popularity-contest circle-jerk that facebook incites (sorry for the language mom).

so for that reason, i share these two pictures of my daytime touristy exploits in paris. that is what pictures were about when i was little - we looked at this thing and made big cheesy smiles in front of it. am i hypocritical for remaining a cog in the internet system? i mean, i have a facebook, i post pictures on it of my travels, my friends see them and talk to me about it. i still maintain an extremely neglected livejournal and myspace page, despite consistent threats that i'll delete the whole mess. i justify it thusly: i refuse to drag my camera to every club, to every dinner party, to every cafe date. i consciously leave my camera at home more often than not. i generally avoid pictures of myself anyway, due to my surprising non-photogenic tendencies. i refuse to feed into the idea that i need to document every aspect of my life. i also refuse to let facebook depress me or alter my self-esteem with digital images of events that i didnt go to because i happened to be 3000 miles away, enjoying the best year of my life without the aid of photo documentation.

i suspect that there will be a huge facebook fall in the near future. as it is, the coolest hippest kids don't have one, and the top-tier cool kids have extremely limited facebook profiles. as the website evolves to become more and more involved in every aspect of your life and tie it all together with your real-life non-computer devices like your cell phone, it will go the way of any trend ever in the history of everything and lose touch with youth. just like when livejournal stopped requiring invites, when adults started getting myspaces, and when your parents and middle school-aged little sister got facebooks, it'll be gone soon. but while it's still around, and still mad creepy, i can rant, and get serious - besides the internet, complaining is my FAVORITE hobby.