How would my life be different without Facebook?

It is interesting that this question should be brought up in class today because I am currently, in a sense, experimenting or experiencing life without Facebook.

In the Catholic religion, we are in the season of Lent. Lent is (approximately) the 40 days of preparation for Easter and it is custom to "give up" something or to make some sort of sacrifice that will ultimately help you to focus on your faith and reflect on what this time means to you. In the past, my sister and I have given up sweets or chocolate or desserts, the usual things, things that we are relatively addicted to. But this year I decided to try something a little different. This year I have "given up" Facebook.

I have only had a Facebook account since I have come to college. Not having great internet access at my house, it was more trouble than it was worth to have it during high school. But once I got into it...I was hooked. I became a Facebook fiend in very little time; constantly wanting to see who posted what on my wall or chat with someone (someone who I could have just called on the phone). Soon enough I made it easier for myself and put the site on my favorites bar on my computer so that I needed only to click the button rather than click into the search bar and type "f" to have it come up first in my drop-down list. Things were faster and more efficient with that step eliminated. The scary thing was, I knew that I spent too much time getting lost in the world of status updates and "likes" but I didn't really change my habits; I merely admitted guiltily that I wasted too much of my time. So it was not difficult to recognize what would be one of the bigger sacrifices for me this year.

In making my decision, I knew that not having Facebook for the season of Lent would help me in more ways than one. Besides the religious aspect of it all, my hope was that I would spend more time on my academic studies and that I would be able to pay more attention to my classes. Not only that but without Facebook, I could try to bring back the sense of real person-to-person interaction; something that has been dulled and faded since the outbreak of Facebook. In order to get in touch with someone, it is now necessary for me to either meet them in person, text them (though not a great alternative), call them, or talk to them via Skype. For the most part these forms of communication are a lot more personal than chatting on the internet and, therefore, a positive outcome of my lack of Facebook.

It has been three weeks since I have been without Facebook, by no means a truly significant achievement but certainly a start. Though I will admit that I went through a slight withdrawal during the first week or so, I am now very pleased with my modified lifestyle. I honestly feel as though I am not missing anything important, in fact, I no longer really struggle with the desire to break my Lenten promise. I have been getting more sleep and have been (I think) accomplishing more work, two changes that I assume happened because I am not constantly part of that social network.

I don't deny that Facebook is, at times, a very useful tool. It can help people stay connected from great distances,  help people find old acquaintances, and provide a certain level of entertainment and fast communication. In this generation, however, people have overused this form of social networking to the point of abuse. Many people (young people especially) are too dependent on Facebook, and I will be the first to say that I was one in that crowd. But I think that my life without Facebook has gone through more improvements than drawbacks. Perhaps because it is a conscious effort, I have been far more productive in doing things that I never thought to do, reading the books I've been meaning to read, and spending that extra 15 minutes studying. Above all, I think that life without Facebook has made me realize just how much time I waste when I could be doing all kinds of more significant things!

Although I am pretty sure that I will go back to using Facebook after Easter...okay let's be realistic, the day of Easter...I will hopefully not use it as frequently or as mindlessly as I did before.

Why do teachers assign work over spring break when it never gets done?

Many a spring break I have sat at my kitchen table and asked myself this question. Is it the cruelty of the teachers and their desire to ruin the few days that we students have to forget about everything we have worked on in school? Or are they hopeful that they will not be forgotten; that their influence in a student's life will not go unrecognized though the students are not in the academic setting? Perhaps they view work over break as a favor in that it allows the students to work in the comfort of their own homes and in the company they choose rather than in the occasionally oppressive classroom with a predetermined selection of students. As a final contemplation, I thought that perhaps the teachers are using their positive judgment and trusting the responsibility of the students to get their work done in the free time that they have been given. These may all be possibilities, but I think it seems most fair to look at the latter situation in favor of the teachers.

As much as I don't like to admit it, homework is often an essential way of ensuring the progression of the class. The students are required to apply what they learned within the classroom to their everyday lives outside of the classroom setting so that they can continue learning at a fairly steady pace. With this in mind, it makes sense (to some degree) to give students work over break. Putting the typical procrastination of the students aside, the idea behind the assignment is that there will be continued learning throughout the break session so that students will return to class prepared and ready to continue with the lesson rather than have to spend the first few days back having to backtrack and revisit the progress that was made prior to break. Whether or not this plan gets carried out is purely up to the students.

Now that I have expressed a reasonable explanation in support of the teachers, I must also examine the other side of the argument. Clearly, students are much more fond of the idea of no work whatsoever. We figure that no work leads to happiness all around: the students can fully enjoy their time off without having to worry about work piling up and teachers can appreciate the true essence of a "break" without having to think about the overwhelming stack of work they will have to grade upon their return to school.

From a student's perspective, even I cannot fully explain the teachers who assign a mountainous pile of work that must be crammed in alongside extra sleep, social lives, relaxation, fun activities, and whatever other homework that has been assigned by every other teacher. For example, an intensive project is not a logical assignment to give students who are not looking to engage in activities that requires any amount of brain power. An assignment that asks the students to start preparing for a project that will be picked up once school resumes would be a much more friendly task. Of course I suppose that the less important the assignment is, the more likely that it is not going to get done...

Its a fine line when it comes to deciding how much work is reasonable to assign kids over spring break. There is not really a clear solution, no win-win situation as you can see from my somewhat contradictory arguments. Personally I think that spring break would be best used as a time to catch up on work, to revise work, and  to recollect your thoughts which have likely been spread far too thin. Try as they might, teachers cannot avoid the fact that students are almost guaranteed to procrastinate and save the majority of their work until Sunday...afternoon...after dinner. Its no secret that students wait until the last minute so maybe the better way of deciding how much homework to assign is to consider how much can get done in, say, 5 hours. Or maybe I'll just have to stop complaining.

My Name

Hannah Jones Julian. It is the name – my name – that I was given and have grown into for nineteen years. I wonder how long it took my parents to come up with my name. That has to be a pretty tough decision! One name for the rest of your life... well that's the idea anyway. I suppose people go ahead and change their names all the time these days. But that seems like a desperate search for a new identity to me. At any rate, I'll be sticking with my name. I think my parents did a pretty good job when they name me. I love my name. Although you can find at least 36 Hannah Julian’s on Facebook and quite a few images of Hannah Jones on Google, there are not so many people, if any, named Hannah Jones Julian.

I never really had a problem with my first name, Hannah, except that you can’t shorten it to make a cute nickname. There’s only Hannahbanana, which, as fun as it is to say, is just too cliché. Many friends have tried to think of a nickname for me, but with nothing but “Hans” or “Hanny” I consider them very unsuccessful. But other than that minor detail, I only have positive things to say about the name Hannah.

For me personally, Hannah is a family name; my mother’s great great grandmother’s name or something (I can’t remember exactly how far back it goes). But Hannah is also a biblical name; she was a woman known for her strong faith and powerful prayer.

If you were to look up the name Hannah, you would discover that it means something along the lines of  “grace of God,” “favor,” or “good listener,” depending on the interpretation. I find these to be beautiful interpretations of the name, in fact I often brag about them, especially to my sister Holly. In our little book of names at home, Holly means “bush.” But overall, I find these meanings to be relatively accurate. In a conversation I once had with a friend of mine, she told me that she had never met a Hannah who didn’t have pleasant personality…and I have to agree. It may be coincidental but I can’t think of one person named Hannah whom I didn’t like. (Keep in mind this thought is purely concerning the name Hannah in general. I am in no way idolizing my own personality; it was merely an interesting and complimentary conversation.)

The final and most fun fact about the name Hannah is its appealing quality as a palindrome (which is why I believe you must spell it with an “h” at the end.)

I was not so fond of my middle name when I was younger. For a long time I did not share my middle name with other people. Not that I tried to keep it a secret, but I found it rather uninteresting and not very pretty and so I rarely brought it into conversation. I used to wish I had a more “normal” middle name. So many people I know share more common middle names such as Marie or Elizabeth. These names are pretty, but I imagine it loses a little of its luster when you have seven friends with the same name. I have yet to personally meet someone with my middle name.

My sister and I both have unusual middle names. Mine – Jones – I thought sounded like an old lady name and my sister’s – Andrews – sounded like the name of a boy. And the truth of it is my name is an old name; once again, it’s a family name. It’s a name that I have come to appreciate for its uniqueness.  The name Jones brings out my mother’s English heritage and contrasts it with my last name, a representation of my father’s Italian heritage, heritages I am very proud of. And so I have made the transformation from not caring for my middle name to embracing it.

And my last name just seals the deal; Julian, or Juliano as it was originally. I remember being a sophomore in high school and one of my peers, someone I had never really talked to, informed me that "Hannah Julian is a perfect name, it has a nice ring to it." Needless to say I was flattered and slightly embarrassed.

It can be fun to play the name game with friends and try to figure out what name they "look like." But in the end, I think that my name fits me just right. :)