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To take our OT conversation even one step further afield...

I am a regular on a site for healthy weight loss and have made some online friends there. I have often wondered about how real meetings with such virtual buddies would play out. How many of us are in life as we seem online?

I know I'm much less organized when I speak than I am when I write--I edit a lot when I write! I talk too much. Oh, and I snore, too.

It's nice to know your real name, Sophia, though it's hard to think of you as anything but Trinity now.

Come to think of it, to introduce a religious analogy befitting the name "Trinity," I think you, Dottie and Lorel are the "trinity" of the site guiding newbies like me along the "true path" and all that. Tee-hee!

It's funny because the entire time I've been posting here (which isn't long) I've been thinking, "I could be friends with these people in real life"! It's amazing how nice and helpful everyone is on this board.

Sophia is such a beautiful name. But I agree, it is hard to think of you as anything other than "Trinity". :-)

Sophia is NOT my real name! I urge everyone (except Lorel) to protect their children's anonymity here online.

5 points to anyone who got the joke "Sophia=Wisdom"

But I thought that signing my posts Wisdom was even worse than signing in "Trinity" ((gulp))

Too funny about unchecking the edit box! I do that once in a while too! Oh Vanity! Maybe I should change my name again.

Seriously, I love my screen name. It's after the Character in my favorite movie, "The Matrix" who brought her friend back to life with a determined kiss, something many of us have had to do for our own children. I do appologise to the folks who are uncomfortable with the religious connitations. I did dabble in Feminist Spirtuality as a College Student, so for me, at this moment, "The Trinity" is the Maiden,The Mother, and The Chrone. Again, appologies.

Smiles and Giggles and Love and More Love,
Trinity

Also,
Ug - here's a new thought that a bit obsure - but here goes:
Growing up Jewish in a Christian culture, there were many aspects of Christianity that I was aware of, but not "allowed" to even think or puzzle over. So I just realized that has left me with a "repressed Christian side." Well, maybe not a whole side, but at least a rib or two (humor alert)

Anyway, Being Trinity here is so much fun because it allows the part of me that is curious about all these things to run free, and it allow me to imagine what I would have been like if I had that extra cultural support of being part of the majority culture. LOL - I'm the majority culture here, aren't I? DS11 says that all things loop around to the origin. You are right again DS11!

Anyway - that does sound like a gifted person's perspective, doesn't it?

Trinity

Trinity, I know I use my real name here, but that's because I am not permitted to use a screen name over at bella. I figure if I am "out" there I might as well be out here. I still use pseudonyms for my kiddos though, FWIW.

Yes ladies, it is wise (see, Wisdom was right again!) to use caution online. You never know who is reading and taking notes.

take care-

KCab - LOL the edit! And here's your 5 points!
So brag on!

Oh Lorel - I excused you because I figured you were on your way to becoming a "Professional" in this field. If you are heading that way, I say "Yippee!" we need your wisdom.

Smiles,
Trinity

I totally missed the Sophia/Wisdom thing! Doh! Gifted, schmifted! LOL!

And I hope I didn't offend anyone with my decidedly Christian analogy. I'm not religious, but I'm a recovering English major with a philosophy & religion double-minor. You can't use the name Trinity and not have my mind go all "Father, Son & Holy Spirit" eventually! But I realized even as I wrote it that I was potentially opening a can of worms. Sometimes I'm too "clever" (sarcasm) for my own good... I offer my sincere apologies if I've been insensitive to anyone's feelings or beliefs.

I do like the idea of the three of you as "the big three" though! It makes me smile!

And really, if I didn't uncheck the "edited" box, nearly every post I make would have that note. It would be embarrassing. And that doesn't even tell you how much I edit BEFORE I click "submit"! Call it a grad school habit, I guess...or maybe a perfectionist habit! When I talk, stuff sort of tumbles out and I repeat myself a lot. When I write, I try to keep these annoyances to a minimum.

As for online security: I don't worry too much about giving out my first name online. But never my kids' names and never our last names or specific location. But I think most people are pretty much what they seem online, especially on a site like this one. You'd have to be a pretty patient predator to get any useful identifying info here...

My own OT soapbox: Frankly, I think people are much too paranoid these days, generally speaking. Child abusers tend to abuse their own children or kids they have easy access to (baseball coach/players, piano teacher/students, uncle/nieces & nephews, etc.), not random people's children from far away. (Especially if the kids themselves are not e-mailing the predator!) It's just too easy to make kids and too hard to steal someone else's! Nowadays we know about every Amber Alert from Maine to Hawaii, so we feel that our kids are under constant assault. The reality is that if your kids are going to be taken or assaulted, it's probably going to be a relative or close friend who does it. The VAST majority of the kids on the side of the milk carton were taken by their non-custodial parent in a custody battle. I think people waste a lot of time fearing strangers for no good reason. I think it is far more risky to keep kids constantly in your sight and teach them that all strangers are out to get them. Overprotected, fearful kids are not happy, healthy kids, and they become neurotic, unhappy adults.

Stepping down...

Kriston -
I think you should be proud to edit your posts. The main point is to get our ideas across to each other, and I am sure that editing help this. So I say thank you for taking the pains to be as clear and understandible as possible. You are going to want to role model for your children that some big efforts are worth making, and then patting oneself on the back over.

As for me, well, I use the spell and grammar checker when it's availible, but I decided here a while back that the dissonance between that Wisdom of my words and the total lack of spelling awareness might be a wonderful growing lesson for someone, somewhere out there. To me it's all about how easy it is for us to disregard our intelligence, any little flaw will send us off in circles of "i must not be so smart afterall." This isn't really useful, and keeping my folk spelling intact here has really helped me be less perturbable.

Smiles,
Trinity

As for Sophia, I just finished reading a fun link about one of my sheros - http://jwa.org/discover/infocus/comedy/tucker.html
Sophie Tucker!
Sophia

Trinity, I obviously didn't get the "Sophia" reference either. I guess my FOK is decidedly lacking!!! LOL!! Does that mean I lose a few IQ points??? (((giggling)))