Internet Oops!

Santa, and life in general, has been very generous to us this year. The children each got a personal laptop for Christmas. Indulgent? Perhaps. Convenient, in terms of home school, absolutely. My roller coaster life and human encounters over the year have given me a sense of excitement about the technological world we live in. If a fabulous, fun group of teens can utilize such things to such an advantage why not me? And why not the offspring. Maybe it'll make me "cool". OK, let's not go to far.

I've spent the better part of the week setting the offspring up with email accounts and school files on their computers. In my enthusiasm to gift them their laptops I've been trolling the Internet for the past few months looking for websites to help them out. In my excitement, with the help of my brother, I set up a MySpace page. Great idea, right? And, I put a link to my blog. Fabulous!! Or, not. Enthusiasm got the better of me I'm afraid. Being 'hip', is one thing. Being smart, a better idea. I learned to participate in a lot of things this summer in my "adventures", whether or not that makes me "in touch", "hip", "cool", or anything else, depends on the day and the activity. I rather think it's more apt to make me an ignoramus, as of late, than anything else. And I'll just delude myself into thinking I get an "A" for effort.

I think enthusiasm got the better of me, though. New Year's Day I received a rather scathing comment here at MisAdventure. The worst I've ever received.(Uhhh) When I tallied it, we were only missing one of the "seven dirty words". And one that isn't listed with the seven! (Good grief) It was not, fortunately, at the children's blog. Perhaps the MySpace page was a little too over the top. We'll see. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I crawled to the bathroom to...Hmmm, TMI. If you know me, you know the this did not bode well for my anxiety. It was a rough few days.

None the less, a lesson in cyber-bullying learned. Anonymity for the sender will work in their favor, I on the other hand, will be far more cautious. Security and privacy are of the utmost importance. I've been burned. And I respond in kind, Ouch! Perhaps it was a good one to learn. Maybe I can be more wary for the offspring.