Blast from the Past

Last week, in a fit of boredom, I was flipping through Facebook to see if I could glean any interesting information out of it.

Let me first of all say, that though I have nothing in particular against this particular networking site (or whatever you'd call it), in general I find it pretty useless. People generally put almost no relevant information on their profile (except their favorite books, movies, etc., which doesn't blow my mind anymore) so I can't learn what anyone is up to, and if I'm going to send an email, I'd rather send an email than write some nonsense on someone's Facebook page. I guess I shouldn't be too judgmental, seeing as it was really created for college kids to post their drunken photos on, and for that it seems to work quite well.

But whatever, this was not meant to be a diatribe against a college website. The point was that I actually DID manage to find something useful - somehow I stumbled upon a relatively large number of people from high school, with whom I've had no contact in 12 years. So I ended up becoming "friends" with them, as well as posting the URL to this blog. There were a number of subsequent visitors linking from Facebook, so I assume some people from Shaker now know what I'm up to. To those people, I greet you.

Anyway, the whole thing has made me very contemplative about how long it's been since graduating high school. And I wondered how much any of us have changed. Looking at the photographs on Facebook, most people looked virtually the same as I remembered them. I imagine I must look somewhat different, as I haven't had long hair since Sophomore year of University [(Un)fortunately, I have no pictures of that handy, so I can't post any on here, but needless to say, it doesn't seem as cool now as it must have then]. But more importantly, how much have people changed personality-wise? I feel like I have changed pretty significantly - I was extremely introverted in high school, but during my college years I gradually came out of my shell. I'd say I'm still fairly shy on the inside, but have learned to temper that by making an effort to be outgoing and friendly. It's definitely gotten easier over the years, too, to the point where people I know now are sometimes a little surprised that I say I used to be really shy. I guess it's not so surprising, either - with age comes maturity and a certain amount of growth of self-confidence.

But I'm also still much the same, I think. Still pretty nerdy, clearly still into academics, still have the same basic personality traits... so it'd be interesting to see how other people have changed and how they've stayed the same. How much of personality is developed early on, and how much does subsequent experience affect you? Maybe I'll just let the philosophers decide.

But anyone out there who I once knew, welcome to reading about my life...