Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundupĪnd perhaps unicorns like Matt can show us that there’s another way to live entirely, that maybe we don’t need to Google the word “Mastodon”? Maybe we just … stop? It’s a snapshot of a growing awareness among longtime social media users (and people who still dimly remember a time before the internet) about how vulnerable they are to changing algorithms (and owners) and what drew them to social media in the first place. Twitter might be a social media minnow (29.5% of Australian internet users use it at least once a month, compared to Facebook at 76.8%) but watching people tweeting about whether to stay or go in real time is instructive. Like a true scientist, brevity (and committing casual comments to the public record) also put him off: “I didn’t know what could be usefully said in 140 characters.” I’ll tell them they can sleep when they get home.“I’m not very quick to pick up and run with new technologies,” says Matt from the Victorian town of Geelong, “but that lag time meant that I began to see things I didn’t like about their adoption.” Along with privacy and data concerns, he figured most algorithms encouraged outrage and constant use. Our visitors will wish they had the leisure to explore, but there’s a lot to see and only so much time. We’ll race through San Francisco and to the coast. The plants in the National Garden were mostly familiar, Dusty Miller, Cannas, Pampas grass, lantana … but they were in Greece! I’ll see some of these plants again when our next international group arrives in California. I’ll look at the statues more closely on my computer at work as we plan for the group of international visitors who arrive in Chico in January. We raced through the vine-covered archway and stopped long enough to take photos of statues. “The National Garden is two blocks away,” he said over his shoulder as I power-walked to beat the light at the crosswalk.Ĭhrysanthemums, every color of chrysanthemums you could imagine, blooming in neat rows near the ornamental sundial. ![]() “Didn’t you want to see the garden?” my boss said with a smile, increasing his stride. We found a second church where workmen were placing bouquets of white flowers along the pathway for a wedding. I needed to run/jog to keep up with him as he raced to the nearest Byzantine church, near the ruins of Hadrian’s Library. He had studied the city map in the lobby of the hotel. We finished early and had the afternoon and evening before flights the next morning.īossman accepted my sheepish apology for my grouchy mood those first few days, but he had one more “assignment.” On that final day in Athens, our Chico team gathered again in the hotel lobby to finish reports, tabulate conference surveys and pack our conference supplies. Instead I made plans to meet a friend in Ireland. I should have planned to stay the weekend for an island hop. One day we boarded two coach buses to visit the Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum and I remembered that I have the best job in the world.īy the time our workshop was complete, I had seen most of the old city, in bits and pieces, gained a few pounds from baklava and chocolate-covered pistachio ganache, and witnessed so many important moments, most of which had nothing to do with me or my planning. We welcomed the former visitors to Chico like proud parents as they reunited with long-ago friends. The day came when our workshop attendees arrived, dozens at a time, suitcases in hand, jet-lagged and gleeful. Instead of gratitude for this amazing work location, I resented that I was not born into aristocracy, and my job was not simple sightseeing and shopping for high-end shoes. ![]() Bossman’s to-do list included finalizing our workshop topic lists. We needed to finalize plans for the final banquet, which meant walking briskly past the Temple of Zeus and the National Garden. I poked my head through the entrance but was soon whisked away. The outdoor cafe was at the Benaki Museum. One afternoon we had tea with officials from the Greek Ministry and Fulbright Commission. There was no time for the National Museum that our taxi driver had said was a “must-see.” Yet, for those first few days, I sulked over things unexplored.Īfter using the hotel computer and printer in the hotel lobby, I peeked at the stacks of tour pamphlets and felt sorry for myself that there was no time for a half-day trip to an island. The hotel in Athens had an amazing view of the Parthenon. ![]() The planning took months, with three of us toiling at computers in our offices at Chico State.
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