Fragendas

I recently started a note on my phone called "fragendas" - an abbreviation I made up for "friend agendas."

The idea stemmed from all the times throughout the day I have a story to tell a friend or family member, or giggle to myself about it, and want to remember to tell them about it. I'm sure it partially came from status meetings at work and the notion that your co-workers and manager always have a 'status' of what's on your agenda, but your friends and family don't - especially if they don't live close or communicate often.

A few weeks in, the brief review is that it's been a great reminder of who I've caught up with, items to touch base on and the little things, like paying someone back for tickets and more. Try it out :)

Want instant gratification? Upload Facebook photos

We live in a world where we seek affirmation. As verbal compliments become rare and less genuine, and optimism, positivity and "thank yous" are at a low, the internet becomes the place we look for to seek this instant gratification.

There is no better way to get this immediate reassurance that what you are doing is cool than by posting photos on Facebook. As the unofficial designated photographer of my friends and family, I've dissected the art & science of uploading Facebook photos and found the following:

1. It's all about the time of day. 
Although it might be easy for you to upload Facebook pictures a time that's convenient to you (ex: 1 a.m. instead of studying for your test the next day), if you really want gratification, post them at a time when everyone is online. I quickly figured this out when I was posting my Argentina photos as I studied abroad. Your photos, if cool enough, can disrupt someone's daily routine by being so good-looking that they make someone want to click on them in your news feed or on the ticker bar. Plus, your pictures will naturally show up on news feeds right after being uploaded so posting them at a time when everyone's signed on puts your pictures right in their face. Some of these "prime times" are Sunday evenings during the school year, and weekday evenings around 8 p.m. If you're in the work force and your friends work on computers daily, that time can shift to an 11 a.m. break from work. Plan accordingly!

2. If you post pictures too much, no one will like them. Or, "Like" them. 
If you are posting often, it's too regular for everyone to see your posts and they no longer become exciting. Same thing with statuses in this category--when you post a lot, people start to not care because you're a source of information overload. But if you only post photos and statuses when something awesome is happening, everyone from hiding seems to "like" what you're doing. Your high school math teacher, mom's best friend and that kid who sat next to you in an elective class freshman year. So space out your uploads!

3. Tag people and places.
While a main function of tagging is to share these posts with the friends who want them, tagging also is a way to target your post to get to the audience you want. Even if it takes time to tag the big group photo from dinner, each of their friends are going to see the picture. If you tag a location, others see where you are and look at the rest of the album for interest in that regard. In addition to over-informing, tagging definitely calls more attention to your album.

Following these simple tips will not only get you a temporary self-confidence boost, but also provide reassurance when posting your photos. Enjoy!

Día del Amigo- Friend's Day!

Friendship is one of my favorite things in the entire world. There is nothing that makes me happier than spending time with and keeping in touch with the people I love, and knowing that they are happy.

Wikipedia accurately sums up the values of friendship as the following, fitting very well with my definitions:

• Tendency to desire what is best for each other
• Sympathy and empathy
• Honesty
• Mutual understanding and compassion
• Trust
• Positive reciprocity

Today, South America is celebrating Día del Amigo, Friend's Day, ironically enough, on my half birthday! I wasn't too familiar with what the holiday was except from advertisements, until a lunch conversation at work yesterday. My co-workers were shocked to hear that the USA does not have anything really comparable to this, at least societally-noted and celebrated.

Wikipedia describes it as the following:

Día del Amigo (Spanish, Friend's Day) is a celebration of friendship, held annually on July 20 in South American countries including Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

In Argentina, Friend's Day is often a good excuse for a common friendly gathering, though people also employ the day to get in contact with old and seldom-met friends and greet them. …The gatherings tend to happen during the evening.

Friend's Day has in recent years it has turned into a very popular mass phenomenon. In 2005, too many well-wishing friends led to a temporary breakdown of the mobile phone network in the cities of Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba and Rosario. …Seats in most restaurants, bars and other establishments are already booked out completely a week before the celebration.

The idea for Friend's Day goes back to Argentine teacher, musician, and dentist Enrique Febbraro, who lobbied to turn the anniversary of the first moon landing into an international day of friendship, along with his Rotary Club de Once, Buenos Aires. He argued that on this particular day, the whole world had been friends of the three astronauts. The first official recognition of the day came with decree No. 235/79 by the government of Buenos Aires Province, which authorized the celebration and gave it official nature.

I say this a lot, but I have the best friends in the world. Looking at these pictures does not fully explain how special each and every one of you is to me, and how nice it is to know I always have someone to talk to. Whether I'm skyping someone from Argentina, making plans at home or school, talking on the phone or going on adventures, it's the people and not the conversation or events that make it for me. Having people to trust with your thoughts, share experiences and listen to is a special thing. Excited to observe how Friend's day is celebrated, I reflected on some of my fondest memories with my friends. I might be crying of happiness as I post this, but here we go.

FRIENDSHIP IS...

Going to St. Louis together Labor Day weekend to catch up from the summer

and cheer on Mizzou at the Illinois game

Building houses at Project Mexico for a month

where you meet and forever keep in touch with

some of the greatest people in your lives

Eating with your sorority sisters after chapter

to debrief and comment on everything that just happened

Sleeping in a hotel room in downtown Chicago with 17 girls,

because you want each one of them there

Celebrating New Years' with your best friends

then forever lying to your friend's mom

Traveling through Argentina together

and picking each other up while you fall

the first time you all try to ski
Going downstairs on midnight on your birthday

to see that your best friends trekked over to your house

in the snow to sing Happy Birthday and share some cake

Having all the people you love come to your birthday

dinner on a school night even after the original reservation

was cancelled because of snowstorms

Coming home for Sts. Peter & Paul's 50th Anniversary

and Greek dancing all night with all of your church friends
Road tripping to the Michigan Dunes for

ultimate relaxation and an annual catch-up

Having the opportunity to celebrate Orthodox Christian Easter

not only with your family, but also three of your best friends

who care enough to go to Chicago and attend a midnight church service

Valuing every minute you have together, even if it's

the one day you see each other all summer before taking off

for different countries, summer and future lifestyles

Love you all!

Feliz Día del Amigo &

Happy Friend's Day

to all of my best friends out there!

TKM

Total Katie Moves. We know TFM (total frat move), TSM (total sorority move) and more, so I'll describe my stories from today and some from the past week in terms of TKM- total Katie moves. I'm sharing them in this format because they're all things I would, stereotypically as myself, do. Enjoy!

Every day on my way to the Subway I walk down Puerto Madero. Because there are plenty of historic boats, tall buildings and a beautiful bridge, there usually are people attempting to take "Myspace-style" pictures by holding the camera up and trying to get their self, spouse or kids and the whole background. Every walk home, I probably offer at least four times to take pictures so these people can at least have one good picture from their trip! And sometimes they even say no!

On my way from school to work this morning, a random man stopped me on the street and asked me for directions to the big Russian Orthodox Church. Oddly enough, not only did I know what and where it was, but I knew how to give him directions even though it was a mile away! This church looks like it's from the movie Aladdin with a huge blue exterior, and now this man will get to see it before I will! Yay for looking authentic enough to be asked for directions twice in one week!

I saw a ton of huge equipment on the side of the port so I stopped and asked a security officer what it was for. He said in honor of Argentina's national donate blood day, they were lighting Puente de la Mujer, a big white bridge, red for the night! How cool is that?!

Second part of that story: The security guy didn't quite say it was national donate blood day, he probably did but more, he just mumbled a lot and I heard "sangre" so I looked up that it was national donate blood day THAN went back to see the red bridge at night.

I've spent the past two days working on an intense 1000-word paper for my journalism class on the recovered factories movement of Argentina, and whether I think worker self-management is possible in the United States. It's actually been fun to write and research, so I put it on my Wordpress professional blog so you could see. Check it out! TKM.

Our apartment has a doorman downstairs named Angel. He gets a kick out of the fact that we're American, and tries to mess with us. As customary polite people, I usually greet him by saying Hola! ¿Qué tal?- which means Hi! How are you?! He always responds in English just to make us mad. Stacey finally greeted him in English once and sure enough, he replied back in Spanish. So when I greeted him and he answered with HI, HOW ARE YOU? I couldn't even respond because I was laughing so hard to myself. Awaiting a response, I said "bien, ¿y vos?" to his English, which finally forced Spanish out of him. Haha!

Yesterday, I stayed at work 45 minutes late just to chat with coworkers at lunch…and didn’t even realize I was there that long.

After seeing that Facebook, GroupOn, Pandora and LinkedIn have recently made or are in the process of making initial public offerings, I researched what IPOs are and why you would make them.

Jordin and I went to buy empanadas and the price had gone up from 6 pesos to 6.50 pesos...and we noticed. If that's not already a TKM, we questioned it and then realized that .5 pesos (50 centavos) is only 10 cents more in the United States. So it wasn't even that big of a deal.

Regardless of whether the door says tire/pull or empuje/push, I still don't pay attention and walk into it. Whoops.

When Stacey and I saw the tango show (two Fridays ago), we walked into the Subway station to head home and I saw our train in sight ready to leave. I ran into the station, put my card in the machine and it processed but didn't have enough time to let the silver steel turning bar that lets you onto the other side turn fast enough. I rammed right into the bar and still have a purple bruise on my right leg. #fail

My coworkers shortened this story into a comical phrase. "So you met people on the street, they told you to go to this club in La Plata, and you went?!" Yup. My best comparison for my Chicagoans out there is if someone approached you downtown and said "Hey guys, we have the party of the year....all you have to do is get on a bus to Elgin." I don't know what makes these situations okay when you're studying abroad, but we're safe and alive, right?

Last but certainly not least, there's a politician running to stay in his current position as Chief of Government of Buenos Aires, his name's Mauricio Macri. His election slogan is "Mauricio en la ciudad," and upon hearing this, all my roommates and I could think of is Carrie from Sex & The City saying..."sex en la ciudad." So we utilized our Photoshop skills to make the following mock images of Mauricio en la Ciudad. Don't worry, there's more to come, but we're journalism majors, we make infographics for fun, right?

There's more. Apparently Sexo en la ciudad really WOULD be a better slogan for our good friend Mauricio because he's been divorced twice already and has three kids! #politicians #adultery

Our personal favorite, Carrie Bradshaw's Mauricio poster

Mauricio with Sex in the City/en la ciudad

"Juntos vivimos bien" literally means "We go well together" en español,

so this image is mocking Mauricio as Carrie Bradshaw, legs up, laptop in hand writing a story,

telling Samantha from Sex & The City how well they would go together.

Have a great day!