HeyChristine.com

Friday, October 13th

Did it. I managed to open up the journal before checking emails. It's a constant challenge having to keep disciplining myself when it comes to checking emails because before, I used to be SO addicted. I could spend all day on it and stay on a constant high, managing everyone and everything around me through my inbox, including my personal relationships.

But there are consequences that go with that, like everything else we do without discipline.

First, we compromise the very foundation, i.e. personalization, of our relationships, be it with family, friends, clients, colleagues, and especially our signficant others. And I find it so ironic the growing number of new start-up companies focused on "personalization" products when the very essence of email runs contrary to their endeavors.

Without a doubt, email has significantly improved the quality of our lives and has enabled us to connect with people and to do things in ways we never could before. But when it is used as the primary mode of communication between two people, I question the kind of impact it has... a lesson I learned the hard way recently with a long-distance relationship I was in, that never really was. Under such circumstances, it could not have (did not) sustained.

Take for example Mingson and Carson, our featured events columnists on the site.

Gus and I had dinner with them once - almost a YEAR ago - when we first asked them to come on board and do what seemed like a simple weekly write-up of an upcoming cool event. We set them up with a simple online input form on a secured webpage of the site, they copy and paste in their write-ups, and post. Done deal. From that point on, the four of us have been communicating by email, with an occasional phone call from time to time.

Only LAST WEEK did we make it a point to see them.

And to be totally honest, the main reason was because we needed their input on a wonderful idea that Gus came up with of creating a separate "Events" mailing list for our site visitors. There were too many questions and details to discuss over email, so we invited them to dinner instead.

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Note: Our EBs are published on Monday mornings because it allows our readers to note the events (as posted to the site by community organizations) that will take place that week, which gives them the opportunity to plan their schedules accordingly. Mingson and Carson typically highlight upcoming WEEKEND events, which they post on Thursday or Friday. It wouldn't make sense to publish the EBs on Thursdays, yet it would be impossible for Mingson and Carson to have anything to write about BEFORE Monday morning for the upcoming weekend, which was a shame. Added to the challenge was the fact that page views naturally diminish towards the end of the week, which meant that the most interesting content on the site, i.e. Mingson and Carson's weekly event highlights, is seen by the least amount of people. This is probably boring the #&*%! out of everyone who is reading this except Gus, but it's important for us to document. Gus and I, uh... we love what we do...

But I digress.

The point I am making here is that having dinner with those guys, aside from the details discussed about the new mailer, made us realize what a mistake it was not to have gotten together with them sooner, and more often. The things we shared with each other about the whole effort was amazing (for one, Mingson STRONGLY suggested that Carson change his photo...), but more importantly was the human relationship that began really that evening.

We'll be seeing more of each other... offline.

In the afternoon...

Gus stopped by to drop off a newspaper clipping from the Taiwan News entitled, "Foreign writers share tales of Taiwan", and we had a conversation.

Gus: Uh... Chris? Is that eye make-up you're wearing?

Me: (scanning the article for a mention of O, unaware of where this conversation was going)... yyyyyes Gus...

Gus: (staring at me) ... well... it kind of looks like you have a rash...

Me: (looking up) Huh?

Gus: (still staring) ... on both eyes.

Me: (rolling my eyes at him) ... shut up, Gus.

Gus: I'm serious (he was serious)... Your eyes look SWOLLEN.

At this point I'm starting to laugh. Gus didn't see the humor.

Gus: (staring really hard now) ... sorry Chris. You know how I am... make-up doesn't really do much for me. I once had a rash over my eye... and it sort of looked like that... and Jeannie's had rashes on her eyes too... but not on BOTH eyes at the same time. I just thought... errr... never mind.

Me: (I've stopped laughing): Gus are you SERIOUS?

Gus: Uh... yeah?

Now HE's laughing... not because he can tell that I'm wearing eye make-up now that I've pointed it out to him... and not because he is at all embarrassed at the possibility that he might have embarrassed me. Actually... I'm NOT SURE WHY he was laughing.

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