disturbing new facebook widget

it was only a matter of time. of course the folks at facebook (aka "stalkbook" to many, including students themselves; aka GIANT GODDAMN TIME-SUCKER according to most all profs who know that while they're lecturing to a hall full of students with open laptops the students are really NOT taking notes, just doing crap on facebook) have known for awhile now how to track WHO is looking AT WHAT. of course.

but it wasn't until this morning that i got a little freaked out. i joined facebook when i first started teaching, spring semester of 2005, and so my profile features a random (some say "little richard-esque") woman with a dark mullet and mustache and then all the info is just about me being an old lecturer with arthritis or something. nothing personal at all. i have NO widgets. nada. (i did, finally, at the insistence of students last fall, get a "wall," but this has proved uneventful. they wished me a happy birthday when it rolled around, which was sweet).

anyhoodle, the students find me and add me as their friend and it's all fun. i love love love reading their profiles, seriously. i wish i could mandate it as part of the class. kidding! (sort of ...) yes, because i'm a stalker in the grand tradition like they are, but also because LIKE THEY ARE, i'm just so curious and interested in their lives. what they choose to make public. the girls love jesus a lot. the guys like "family guy" a lot, and "fight club" and often "jesus," which should maybe be a contradiction, but whatever. the girls have WAY more pictures up of themselves, lol. (i like the profiles where guys/ladies seem all insipidly "wholesome" in their values and then there are pics of them puking in an alley, mrah).

all in all, facebook is a fabulous thing, GIANT GODDAMN TIME-SUCKER or not. i love what it lets students and people (increasingly, adults and professionals all over the world) express about themselves, and then connect to others.

but. (of course there's a but).

this morning as i was perusing a profile of a student who just requested me as his friend (a sweet kid from a small town who likes stock car racing yet is in a group supporting hillary clinton?!? cool! [why not give obama a chance, kid?]) i was scrolling down when i was startled to suddenly see, yes: MY VERY OWN MULLETED PROFILE PICTURE STARING BACK AT ME ON HIS PAGE.

aaaaaaaaaaccccckkkk.

now, to be sure, it's totally fine i'm scoping out his profile. he just added me as a friend. i'm his teacher. we're both scorpios, etc. the name of this widget i had yet to come across is something like (i closed the page and haven't been able to bring myself to open it up again, so i might have this wrong) "Who's Looking At Your Profile Right Now?" and then it has the picture of the "friend"/"stalker" right there, jesus christ.

oh, facebook. disable that feature, will you? i mean seriously. yuck. of course you need the technology for when/if there are real stalking issues and so on, but: ugh. let us explore each others' worlds quietly, and you know what? if we didn't want our "friends"/"stalkers" to see what we have up there, we wouldn't put it there, right?

p.s. obama kicked ass in the potomac primary last night. like we all knew he would. he now leads hillary in delegates, like we knew he eventually would. YES WE CAN win the democratic nomination for president in denver in august (will probably cinch it long before that).