What have I been busy with? A number of things really. My personal life has had a few ups and downs over the past couple of months, which has left me a little stressed out. But it’s not all bad – on the 8 July I’ll finally be realising an ambition that I’ve had for a couple of years now, I’m doing a one day course (along with lots of ‘homework’) to get my first degree Reiki certificate. I realise a lot of you don’t even know what that is (go here for more info if you want to find out), and those who do often give me a sidelong glance as if to say I’m nuts – but hey, I’ve been used to that all my life and I no longer care! Suffice to say it’s made a huge difference to my life, and I’m really excited to be finally completing the first stage.

I’ve also been attempting to learn Ruby on Rails, though I’ve gotten sidetracked a little with that. It’s been great fun so far, and even though I’m nowhere near having a clue what I’m doing yet I’m determined to persevere. I doubt I’ll get to a professional level with it but I love learning new stuff, especially new geek stuff. Though if by some miracle I did become a RoR expert I wouldn’t object to being paid to do it of course.

I haven’t been completely inactive around the web though, I’ve just been using different mediums. My latest obsession is Facebook, and since they brought out their applications platform I can say for definite I’m not alone. If you’re also on there feel free to add me as a friend. Just do a search for Jackie Plage, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person with that name on Facebook. Twitter posts from me also appear semi-frequently, though in the last few days I’ve been exploring – and loving – Jaiku. There’s probably a post about the differences stored up in the depths of my mind somewhere which I may do in the next few days. Despite outward appearances, they’re actually very different.

I’ve been neglecting my blog I know, but I’m not going to promise it’ll get any better in the near future. I’m having far too much fun doing other things right now. :)

I’m not really sure what came over me. I’ve spent weeks wondering what on earth all the fuss was about, thinking it was probably just the latest “web 2.0″ trend and it’ll likely disappear if I ignore it for long enough. Then I had a mad moment and thought I’d try it out. I’ve been hooked ever since.

It’s turned into something of an addiction. I now have twitters coming through my browser, my IM client, through Twitterific, and even my mobile phone. It has a strange addictive quality that’s not easily explained, one of those ‘you have to try to understand it’ kind of things. I do see now why it’s so popular. For a start, it’s a great tool to keep in touch with friends. You can keep track of what they’re up to, and join in the conversation at any point (or not). I’ve also found it good for discovering new geek toys – whenever somebody posts a link to something that sounds interesting I’ll go investigate.

All in all, I can now see me being a Twit for quite some time to come. And I don’t care who knows it either!

Should you be interested, here’s my Twitter profile.