Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Young chatters

I don't know what's happening to me lately maybe I've started to soften a little... I usually avoid chatting with teen age boys because they usually want to talk about one single thing -I'm sure you can guess what that is-. Well, lately, especially in my chat rooms I have been meeting and befriending an increasing number of young chatters, 21,20,16,15,14 even 13. The youngest ones got me worried, you imagine those kids in the chat rooms meeting all those wild adults... And of course those children can be really naive.

I used to think that I got along well only with people about my age (24,25), with younger ones? no, with older ones? not really. But I do meet very interesting and nice people in their early 20s, girls and boys(mostly) even a few teen-agers have caught my attention. I met an American teen-ager who lives in Iraq(!), a teen age Filipina not knowing what a profile is and wondering how I guessed where she was from, a young American girl who came into my room to see what the grown ups were up to in chat rooms. To me it seems that a kid in a chat room is like a lamb in a jungle.

Rizal

Rizal (28,Perth) is the first -and still only- person I met thanks to this blog. He's from Singapore but lives in Australia. He came on chatterbox from technorati thanks to my Dharmvir post. We chat with msn(!) rather that Yahoo. You can check out his blog g®ëeNzØph®ëni@ LaiR v5.1.1. He's an IT professional and has designed his blog himself. A cool mate.

Haiti?

When people ask me for my asl and I tell them I'm from Haiti, most of them don't have the slightest clue where that is, many confuse it with Tahiti and one person even thought I was in some Hawaiian island. When I speak to Indians they sometimes think Haiti is somewhere in their country.

When I tell people Haiti is in the Caribbean, it means nothing to them since they have no idea what the Caribbean is. I try to say it's in Central America but many people think Central America is somewhere in the USA. Lately I tried to say that it's near the Dominican Republic and Cuba and Jamaica thinking that these countries are well known but still it doesn't work.

I have come to the conclusion that most people in the world are just not as interested in geography as I am and that my country is really small -in size- and just not as well known as I thought it was, in spite of the headlines in International news media.

I suppose I could say I'm in the West Indies but people in Asia and Oceania would probably think we are part of the smaller Caribbean islands where they play cricket. But Haiti is not a former British colony, we were a French colony until 1804(independence year), we don't play cricket. So what's the solution? Just let them find out by themselves where it is if they are really interested in knowing where I am in this world.

Me? An Indian?

My chatting experience as I am living it now only started last year. During these months, I have met many Indians in Yahoo chat rooms. At first there were just random meetings in various rooms. As I learned more about India and started to appreciate some of my new Indian friends I started going into Indian chat rooms to meet more Indians. But as I think of it in retrospect, my best Indian friends -the ones I chat with most often- are not the ones I met in Indian rooms except maybe for Dhruv.
Lately many of the new Indians I meet think that I'm from India because I know a little about Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra or Kanakarta or Tamil Nadu. I guess a little geographical knowledge can take you a long way. And thanks to Dhruv (again) I know what an NRI is. I suppose I could masquerade as an Indian if I wanted but what for? There are already so many real Indians out there! I have also noticed that most Indians I chat with have no idea where Haiti is -that's what you get for living in a small country-

Thursday, May 26, 2005

How to add me

Want to add me to your messenger list?
If you want to add me (my yahoo id is mjasmin_ht ) please send me a little note or a PM, otherwise I might deny your request because I usually only add people I chat with but I make an exception for those who visit my blog :D.
I know this is not a proper post but just 'for your information'.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

On being booted and Yahlite

This is an update on my "Misadventure in chat land".
I have not found Yahlite but I did find a site where you can download YahElite. I have yet to test it, therefore I am unable to give any feedback -use it at your own risks-. It's supposed to protect you from booters.

I was still unable to stay in my chat room for more than a few minutes but I noticed that I had no problems when I was in other rooms so I decided to change my room's original name and it worked, I was not booted, as simple as that...

Read about my experience using Yahelite to enter Yahoo chat rooms.


YouCam 2-Chat online using 3D avatars

Monday, May 23, 2005

Carboni

Agine is really funny, he is a 21-year-old Egyptian, he lives in Italy. I first new him as Carboni. I did not want to tell him my name during our first conversation so he decided to give me an Egyptian name and chose "bata" which -according to him- means "duck". I really don't mind him calling me "bata" -no, I really don't-!

The second time we chatted was different though since in is imperfect English he was asking me to love him (?!). I'll be nice and I won't make any bad comments since Agine is reading this but really guys I don't understand this 'romance on yahoo messenger with a complete stranger' thing. I think of Agine as being a little 'wild', that's why I haven't added him on my buddy list, for now that is...

Friday, May 20, 2005

Misadventure in chat land

If what I experienced last week what they call being booted well, it's nightmare and I hope you never experience it.

So I open a chat room, a friendly, nice a cozy room where I wanted everyone to feel welcomed.
It was going on really great, people were coming in, many girls and boys too. They were talking, laughing, showing (!?), some were trying to fight boredom while others just wanted to meet girls, things were just great and I was thinking that my room was great... Until, suddenly, it happened. I saw everyone logging off one after the other and then finally I was signed out of the chat room (!). I was unable to go in any other chat room, so I signed out and signed back again on yahoo messenger, and I hurried to open my room again. It seemed to be ok, so I start to send welcome messages for future visitors and it happened again I was kicked out of my own room!!!! I can't go into any other room, and when I create my own I don't last a minute. Dhruv told me I must be on "autoboot" or something and that I should use Yahlite to solve the problem. Well, I'm mad, confused and frustrated.

I don't know if this thing will stop by itself or whether I'll have to do I don't know what to solve it. HELP please!!!

Update: I've not found yahlite but I have installed and use yahelite.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Dozy

I met Dozy before I deleted my old archive. -I had gone through a phase where I wanted to get rid of my old conversations so I did just that and I had disabled the archive for a while.-. Nevertheless, I remembered Dozy, an electronic engineering student. Though I forgot the ID he was using when we met as well as his age and is precise location, I only know that he is in India, probably in a Northern region.

I saw him on web cam during our first conversation, I noticed that he was a Sikh, he went on to give me links to profiles with his picture with a friend and also his very own web pages where he tells about his family and himself. That's when I discovered that he had lied about his age, it turned out that neither the age on the web page nor the one he told me were correct, he was trying to impress me with and older age while officially his parents had declared a younger age for him for reasons still unclear to me. He gave me his email, told me he did not come online often and wanted me to write him -about what? you wonder, me too-.

Our conversations became interesting when he saw my picture and told me that every Indian girl had more hair than I did and he added, "... In fact I have more hair than you..." since then, Dozy started calling me black beauty when he greets me. Recently, I asked him whether he could show me his hair since he was at home and all alone in the room, he went: "oh, my ....", he was outraged, he was not expecting such a request, well I just wanted to see how long it was. He always tells me that he is not going to remove his turban right now and that he'll do it later because he is too busy to do it right now etc, and of course when that later finally comes he is not online anymore. I like it when people I chat with remember details from our past conversations, it makes me feel that it was worth at least the time and energy I spent typing. The last time I told Dozy I wanted to ask him something his response was: "...not about hairs...", well I don't persecute him with that request, I just think that I will see it eventually one of those days.

Nowadays, every time we chat he calls me black beauty and gives me a virtual flower, dozy is not only nice and polite, he is also boyish and sweet and seems to always be in a good mood.

When I asked him permission to write about him in my blog he said yes right away without any conditions -is that cool or what!-.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Haider

Haider_deow is a 20 year old Pakistani, he lives in Punjab. I first knew him as Hamza. He started by asking me for my good name, we were in January then and he still doesn't know my good name. I thought he was Indian when he asked me that right in the beginning of the conversation, I was wrong but close. I asked him why Indians and Pakistanis always ask for names, he says it's because they are good people -how nice!-. I saw him on webcam right from the beginning and he looked ok, well from the side he did look ok.

Actually we do not chat too much, but he often sends me these chain messages. Lately when I asked for his permission to write about him on this blog he was really hesitant, but I finally got the yes out of him.

While submitting him the original version of the text you are reading here -so he can give me his "yes",- I discovered a new side of Hamza, he is not as careless and crazy as I thought he was -though he does have a few of those moments,- he is a nice guy and that's probably why we still chat once in a while.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Dharmvir

Dharmvir is a 25-year-old Indian living in Punjab, he is an IT professional and also a teacher. He sent me a PM while we were in the "Hot Tub" -the yahoo chat room...-.

He wanted to know my name and thought I was married (!).
He was maybe the third person to ask me for my phone number that day, I wonder why they all wanted to call me? The second day we chatted he was slowly but surely falling in love with me (?), I guessed that the fact that I told him I had no boyfriend kind of encouraged him. And also I must say that I did accept to meet him on the next day in the morning, I guess he considered it a date -did someone say cyber dating?-. Every since that day he is in love with me and is waiting for me to tell him those three words -can you guess which? -.

He gives me a call on my phone in the morning so I can know that he is online, since I always log in invisible mode he does not know whether I'm there or not. Just in case you were wondering -and didn't guess-, I don't share his feelings and I have told him that clearly, but we still chat almost every day, he is nice when he does not spend his time buzzing me. Oh I want to add that I have seen him on webcam and he looks... Well why don't you ask him to let you see him on cam one of those days. Did I ever mention that I don't like when people are continuously buzzing me.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Ghazal

Ghazal is quite unusual, whether he sees me online or not, he will still send a very loooong "hiiiiiiiiiiii" to me as soon as he comes online. This makes me feel that he always wants to chat with me -oh how nice...-
He lives in Egypt, he is 25, seems to be a hard worker and can be funny at times.
He manages a factory and also teaches social work related classes.
He wanted to see me on cam, since I don't have a webcam, he never did get that chance.

I'm a little fuzzy about when we started to talk but it seems that we get along well enough even though our conversations have not been very extensive lately.

Bottom line is I don't know why we talk but I know we do.