"You are everywhere" Am I omnipresent...meaning addicted to internet? Hm...

Dear diary, it's me again, and it's quite late. Again. I know. What can I do if I have inspiration at some point of the evening. (Read: night.) However, there is San Remo on tv, the Italian music festival, and while I am trying to admire a golden dress of the festival presenter Antonella Clerici, (or it's her hair style that I admire? Whatever.), I decided to write few lines.

Yesterday Vladimir, a friend of mine from Serbia, wrote me in gtalk: "Eminče, svugde te ima." Eminče, a loving nickname that my family and friends from home still use when they speak with me, you are everywhere. "Idem u korak s vremenom." I am following step by step the time we live in, I replied. The time we live in, full of innovation, modernization and there is, of course, the greatest invention of the century: Internet. Before moving to Italy I was totally against it, or better, I did not know what was it. I did not even want to know about it. Technology of that kind was a špansko selo for me, a sort of tabou I gladly avoided. Actually, at the computer science classes, my friend Ljiljana was in charge of turning on and off that big tv box called computer. I was more for theoretical part of the thing. But, the case was that after the high school I moved to Italy and then everything changed too fast for my taste.

"Do you have e-mail?" A tall, blond guy from class asked me one day. "Do I have what? E- what?" "E-mail. La posta elettronica." The only electronic thing I knew about was connected somehow with some cables, but it was not my field of interest. "No, I don't have e-mail. I prefer normal letters. I am a member of pen friends organization." That was true. There was an Italian girl from Switzerland with whom I was practising italian, for my entrance exam at the university. The guy took my hand, still astonished, and dragged me to the pc room. We had a very important mission: to create my e-mail adress. "You need e-mail for all university stuff." "Can't I just send them a letter?" He probably thought that I was from some unknown planet. His eyes were saying: Are you sure that Serbia is a part of Europe, or better, is that some new planet? However, after a while, I got my yahoo adress. The first one. I have other two, but I mostly use the last one. The Gmail one. And the hotmail one is obviously just for the msn purposes.

That was just the beginning. One day I discovered that I can stay in touch with my friends in Serbia thanks to this Internet thing, to read Serbian newspapers online, and even to meet some new friends. So, that's how I discovered a chat. First there was java thing, then a famous icq, (I could not log to it now. How would I remember the id and password now?No way!) then that mirc program. It was a kind of way to "kill the nostalgy", speaking, writing to totally unknown people who were still in the country. With some of them I am still in contact, we even met in Belgrade one summer I was back home. And they quite helped me to discover Belgrade in a different way, and to estimate it and even love it. I had a very bad relation with a Serbian capital ten years ago. It is a quite long story, to be told some other time, but the most important thing is that Belgrade is now a big part of me and I would never be able to hate it again.

After I graduated, I went for an MA. I moved from Gorizia (I will speak further on about it) to Forlì and there I discovered a skype. A very cheap way for calling abroad. It was quite useful when I was in an exchange student program in Hungary, and it was the best way to be in contanct with my parents in Italy and the rest of my family in Serbia. In Hungary I discovered social networks. Firstly, there was a myspace. I have not open that profile for a long time, probably I'll deactivate it one of these days. And after it, a facebook appeared. Actually, the facebook was quite useful for me. I found some old friends from my hometown, like Vladimir I mentioned already, Nadica, Tanja and others, who I haven't seen for 13-15 years. Where ever you go, people ask you if you have a facebook. Nobody asks any more if you have a house adress, and the most of people forgot how does it look like to receive a letter. I love letters. And sometimes I even write them. The only negative thing is that letters travel slowly. In one click you can open e-mail you received couple minutes ago. And it's easier. The next week is a birthday of Ivana, one of my dearest friends from Belgrade, and I have a perfect excuse to write a birthday card.

Now there is a twitter. Piermario helped me to find out about it. And ofcourse, the new toy, a google buzz. And Aleksandar, other my friend, already invented a new serbian verb: bazovati. What will be next? I do not not. I just discovered blog. It could be already labeled as something oldfashion. Outdated. But you know, I am from Serbia, and we are quite behind with modernization. At least some people say so. Am I that oldfashion? According to my friend Vladimir, I am everything but oldfashion. And, I would add, quite modern. It's 2010 now. And that is how the things work. If you are not online, you are outdated. But do not exaggerate. Somebody might call you addicted. My mum would say that I am addicted. I still prefer omnipresent. Whatever that means.