Unfortunately, ROSI wasn’t so kind to me this year. I’m in my final year of undergraduate studies and got the late 10 AM enrollment time…leaving me on waitlists for courses that I desperately want to take. But alas, that is the life of a U of T student.

Read what other students are tweeting about course enrollment…some were successful, others, well, not so much!

tweet. meet. give.

It’s a Twesti-whaaaat? It’s a Twestival! …A global fundraising event that is bringing together the online Twitter community from hundreds of cities around the world to support  and celebrate a good cause. And yes, it’s coming to Toronto! This Thursday, March 25th at Tryst Nightclub, join hundreds of Torontonians as they rally behind Concern Worldwide, raising funds for an international humanitarian organization dedicated to reducing suffering and ending extreme poverty. Organized 100% by volunteers, the team behind Twestival Toronto ensures that 100% of all tickets and sponsorships go directly to Concern Worldwide.

Now I know the question that’s hanging on all of your minds… “I don’t have Twitter, can I still go?”. Of course you can! You don’t need to be on any social networking site to go out and support a cause that you believe in! So this Thursday, take a break from your studying blues (you know you want to!) to kick back and meet some cool new peeps all while supporting a more than worthy cause!

When: Thu, March 25, 2010 1:00 AM – 1:00 AM

Where: Tryst Nightclub

More Info/Ticket Purchase: http://www.twestivalto.com/

This year’s event features keynote speaker Anthony Lacavera, chairman of WIND Mobile and, appropriately enough, a U of T Electrical Engineering 9T7. Other notable speakers will be at the event some of which include George Ross, Sean Neville, and Peter Evans. The NBTC will also be holding various seminars, panel discussions, and workshops to help hone students’ understanding, skills, and expertise. Finally, there are two competitions that offer incredible opportunities for participants. The Consulting Competition is offering a $1000 cash prize and the Entrepreneurship Competition has a prize valued at $25,000! This is an opportunity not to be missed so visit their website at www.nbtc.ca for more information and registration!

Exciting news! As of Sunday, the Change website and posters have gotten a redesign. I was looking forward to some content addition under the triangle arrows pointing to “campus life,” “social justice,” “advocacy,” and “save your money.”. (Have they always done the blinky rotation?? I’ve only just noticed it writing this post) The Stronger Together website seems considerably more information-rich in contrast (even if it’s just better layout and copy-writing), I would have thought one of the more pressing priorities would be a presenting their campaign platform in another way than a straight page of text.

Another design element that I really question is the placement of candidate videos. The clips are placed vertically in a row, one after another, requiring the user to scroll down through the page to access each video. Someone who has studied the psychology of graphic design could probably speak better to this than I could but there is a clear sense that the candidates are being ranked in some hierarchy – whether it’s importance, level of responsibility, involvement in the campaign, or some other metric. Steve Masse for President at the top. This unfortunate formatting is compounded by the lack of website space for the individual candidates. Nowhere are any of their names even mentioned on the website other than as the title of the youtube videos. What is up with that?!

As expected, the effect of the video layout can be seen in the number of views each videos get. As of posting time, Steve Masse on the Change slate has 1105 views, far surpassing any other members of the Change team. Adam Awad’s video, on the other hand, has only about 100 more views than three other members of the Stronger Together Slate, all of whose videos are within ten views of each other.

Speaker Mark Kuznicki of ChangeCamp. Photo by Andrew Louis/Torontoist

Last Thursday, #voteTOin416 was held at the Annex Live, an event organized by #voteTO, a group of self-proclaimed municipal geeks that came together through Twitter with the shared goal of a better Toronto. Hosted by writer, broadcaster, and organizer, Jane Farrow, and using the upcoming municipal election as a backdrop for discussion, the event showcased fourteen different presentations that captured various solutions for Toronto. And staying true to the Twitter style, each presentation was kept short and sweet…not quite as short as 140 characters but almost. Each speaker had 4 minutes and 16 seconds to share and discuss their vision, some of which included voting reform, the establishment of Toronto as a fair trade city, and the need to solve the city’s bedbug epidemic (yeah, you read correctly).

Packed into the venue like a can of sardines, attendees (a few of which were even mayoral candidates) were hopeful and optimistic. Not everyone may have been supportive of or in agreement with every solution presented but ideas and well-thought out conversations were being generated. And during times like these, that’s always the first step…

Alas, these often maligned and questioned 140 character tweets have served as a launch pad for something so much bigger and it has opened up the societal dialogue that is so essential in a healthy and fully functioning democracy.

So thanks Twitter. And thanks #voteTO.

Today I got asked my bra colour by a perverted male who shall remain unknown. I told him to f*** off. It’s none of his business, and for all he cares, I may not even be wearing one. The pervert in question then told me that all the girls were doing it on facebook to raise awareness for breast cancer. I am all for raising awareness for such a wonderful cause but I am very dismayed at the means by which women are reduced to doing this. I find it incredibly ironic that something that was once an appalling symbol of male oppression is now being used to spread awareness about an illness that is mostly prevalent in women.

Historically, the use of bras would change in response to the male attitude towards the female bosom at the time. So basically the bra was (and arguably still is) yet another means by which women find themselves at the mercy of the male’s fancy. Even though modern day bras cater more to the comfort and needs of women, they have no medically proven benefit.

More importantly, I fail to understand how indicating your bra colour raises awareness for breast cancer. Ladies, by letting men know your bra colour on facebook, you are just piquing their perverted male ego. They could not care less about the cause or breast cancer itself. If anything, you are diverting attention away from the cause and just encouraging the opposite sex to visit lingerie and pornography stores. So fellow sisters, I ask that you think before you so openly surrender your bra colour to the enemy. By letting them know, you are desecrating the very basis of feminine empowerment that every woman is entitled to.

It sounds like the perfect advertising campaign: tell people you’ve built the new generation of [insert product name here], and make them wait for an invite to use it. In theory, it’s the perfect way to build up hype. This must be what was going through Google’s marketing people’s heads when they chose this as the strategy for marketing Google Wave.

So what’s Wave? Well, that’s part of the problem.

Wave is Google’s new product. From my experiences with it, I would say it’s part email, part messenger, and huge chunk wiki. As their horribly-named video host, Dr. Wave, explains, instead of sending copies of the same message around (like we do with email), there is only one copy of the message, which anyone can access, modify, and comment on. Like wiki in email form. It’s a brilliant concept.

The problem is, Google seems to see it as “the next generation of email” which it’s decidedly not, since it’s incompatible with other email services like hotmail or even gmail (i.e. you can’t send a wave to a non-wave address, or send an email to a wave address). Plus, marketing it through a limited release means that people fish for invites over Twitter and Facebook, and so end up equating it with social media, which it is also definitely not.

When I and some friends got invites, we played around with it, did everything it was capable of, had fun editing and sabotaging each other’s messages for a bit, and then got really really bored. Wave is an amazing tool for collaboration, for building, editing, and finalizing anything that involves a group of people – whether a document or just party plans – but pretty useless for anything else. It should have been targeted towards areas where collaboration is important, like universities, small businesses, even media outlets. Instead, it’s being marketed to the social media crowd. I just hope this brilliant tool doesn’t fall by the wayside, a victim to yet another bad marketing campaign.

Of course, maybe you disagree. Try it out for yourself! The first 10 people to comment will get an invite (just include a gmail address in the “address” blank; do NOT put your email in the comment itself.) Tell us what you think!

Sailor Moon

I have yet to meet another girl (or boy) around my age who was not a fan of Sailor Moon during their childhood years. This was probably the first show I have ever followed religiously. I even remember that the boys in my class enjoyed the show as well; so much that they collected Sailor Moon cards. (I was so envious since they had more than I did.) My favourite sailor scout was Sailor Mercury. What was yours?

Dragonball Z

Although I never really watched the show (yes, boo me), the Dragonball series were always pretty popular back in elementary school, mostly for the boys. I still remember amusing myself as I watched the boys play their pretend games where one was Goku and the other, Vegeta. I had no clue what was going on; all I knew was that they were acting funny. Oh boys…

Polly Pocket

I apologize if some of these toys/shows/fads tend to be directed at girls; however, if it’s any comfort, I was a bit of a tomboy during my childhood so I was interested in a lot of things the boys were and I hope that this will be reflected in the rest of the article. For now, let’s just take a minute to remember that Polly Pocket used to be these tiny little box-things with tiny little dolls with round bases at the bottom so you could fit Polly and her friends in tiny little round slots around the little doll house. I find it a bit sad that I had to search “Original Polly Pocket” in order to find a picture of what I played with in my childhood. Nowadays, it seems that Polly dolls and sets have grown and can now no longer fit in your pocket.

Pogs

I’m still puzzled as to how you played with pogs despite the fact that I owned quite a few back in my childhood. There were the paper discs and then that big metallic one… I think it involved throwing the big one… Thinking back, how on earth did I get my pogs in the first place?

Furby

Gosh, I had forgotten how hideous these things were, hence why I never owned one. Nonetheless, who could ever forget those funny tales and urban legends of people teaching furbies how to swear (with disastrous consequences as swearing was so bad back when we were kids). Even to this day, I still wonder at the truth of these stories.

Tamagochi and other virtual pets

Tamagochi, the little virtual pet that was supposed to teach you to be responsible… that is, until school started, which by then if your pet was still alive, you’d become an irresponsible student since you were too busy taking care of your virtual pet to pay attention to your teacher as they explained the basics of long division. There are also those who managed to keep their pets alive for 100+ days, which in that case meant that you had no life. I had another one of these virtual pets, a Dinky Dino, which died after 12 days no matter what. I was very sad the first time it happened, but I got over it.

Pokemon

Gotta catch’em all! (Or go catch little animals, trap them in little balls, make them fight their fellow animals so that their owners can also put them in little balls!) Ok people, let’s get this straight, 150 Pokemon are more than enough to satisfy children seeing that an entire generation has grown up with the Poke-rap that only had 150 Pokemon to name. Even then, as long as you know Pikachu, we know that you haven’t been living under a rock during your childhood. Now that I think of it, I wouldn’t mind a gameboy and Pokemon red or blue for Christmas, those games were kind of fun. (The boys in my class used to let me play with theirs. I also still have my old tiny stack of Pokemon cards somewhere…) Anyways, Pokemon are still popular, just don’t ask me to name them all because there’s about a gazillion of them by now.

Digimon

When we think of Pokemon, let’s not forget the other show with monsters that actually had a plot. In other news, T.K. and Kari got together after season 2, no matter what the epilogue says.

Butterfly Clips

When I mentioned that I was a bit of a tomboy, this is my reason: I owned Pokemon and Digimon cards, but never, ever, ever did I own these hair clips. All the other girls in the class but I preferred my anime. No wonder I was never part of the “popular” girls group. Oh well, being a nerd is so much cooler.

String Chokers

Unfortunately, the internets have failed me. I cannot find a picture of those tiny string chokers that were another sign of being in the popular girls group. Needless to say, I never owned one of these either.

Crazy Bones

I loved the glow in the dark Crazy Bones, probably because my first pack of Crazy Bones consisted solely of glow in the dark bones. Taking a look at pictures on google, it seems that the bones are now multicoloured with faces painted in and everything. I disapprove. I mean, none of these new ones could ever compare to the adorable little “Eggy” Crazy Bone, which I wanted and have never owned. *Tear*

Super Long Series of Books

Of course, they weren’t great literature, but still fun to read, but it was hard not to enjoy series like, “The Babysitters Club” or “Goosebumps”. (I was an equal fan of both.) Who’s still a bit scared of ventriloquist dummies thanks to Slappy?

The list can go on and on, but I will stop here. Tell me if I forgot anything! It’s always nice to remember all the lovely things in childhood.

Pictures from here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

As Julia mentioned, social media has given us all the opportunity to keep in touch with our friends, reconnect with lost ones, and even share relevant (and well, sometimes not so relevant) information with each other with a simple 140 character tweet. More than anything else, Twitter and other social media tools lets us “learn about and interact with the world in real time, and in a way we never imagined”.

I’d like to take this one step further. Not only has social media given us this chance to connect with each other on a one-on-one basis, but it has also opened the way for a much more far-reaching and collective purpose. Case in point? Tweetsgiving. Never heard of it? Let me give you the low down.

Tweetsgiving was started in 2008 by the non-profit organization, Epic Change, as a campaign of gratitude. Using the power of social media, they were able to raise a whopping $10 000 in as little as 48 hours to build a classroom in Arusha, Tanzania. That’s ten thousand dollars in two days. And today, students there are interacting and engaging in the online conversation that’s happening all around the world…something that was once unheard of! This year, starting from November 24 to 26, they’re continuing that celebration of gratitude asking people to simply express their thanks using social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Such a simple concept. And yet, because of the far reach of the Internet and social media, the results are incredible.

Far from being evil then, social media is actually being used to harness social good in our community and beyond…and Tweetsgiving is but one example of the inspiring campaigns and movements that are all taking place online. So I guess like everything else, social media is not a matter of good or evil, but a matter of how you choose to use it.

** To find our more about Tweetsgiving, visit tweetsgiving.org