Random follow #235 - @LoveVegasNZ

When you walk past someone in the street or meet them for the first time you have no idea about the person, their life story or their accomplishments.  They could easily pass you by and you would never know.  Todays twitter person is exactly one of those people.

@LoveVegasNZ is literally brand new to twitter by about two weeks.  She joined twitter because a group of us were having a tweet-up and she thought she better at least signed up before coming along.  Whats really cool is that I actually get to work with Amanda pretty much every day so I have a pretty good knowledge of who she is and her personality.

Amanda is a generally quiet person with a magnificent sense of self confidence and achievement.  She has a very pleasant manner about her and a gorgeous smile that is totally infectious.  Calm would be another great way to describe her.  I have yet to see her get in a flap over anything.  Amanda is also a planner.  Her brain thinks in the long term planning goals that span many years while still being able to operate at a level of precision whereby she executes the demands of today.

Another thing is - she is a very attractive young lady who is smack bang in the prime of her life.  She also looks after herself both mentally and physically by getting out into the outdoors be it on foot or by mountain bike.

Did I mention that she has a PhD yet?  Like I said at the beginning of this post - if you didn't ask or know already then you probably wouldn't find out.  There is no false humility or fear of the tall poppy here.  Rather there is a quiet self confidence and knowledge that what she has achieved so far in her life, while amazing, is also not the sum total of who she is as a person.

If you were to look through her timeline then you'd never know any of what I just said up there.  Well maybe you would pick up on some of it.  Like the fact that she divulges very little about her accomplishments.  But then again there is only so much you share in 26 tweets I suppose.

So what has she tweeted about in her very short twitter life so far?  Mainly about education, sports and politics.  With a dominant weighting towards sports.  I recommend just keeping an eye out for what @LoveVegasNZ  is up to.  You might just find she could say something that could really impact you.  And if any tweet was going to sum up her and her experience of twitter so far, then it would be this - 

"WOW, this is like facebook but interesting stuff comes up!"

Random follow #154 - @booksadventures

It takes some serious commitment and drive to work your way through 12 years of school and then follow that up with at least another 6 years at University.  But that's what you need to do if you if you want to earn your PhD.  Well that and then some but we won't go too much into the details.

But having a few letters behind your name doesn't make you who you are.  What it does is tell everyone else that you have a passion in a particular area, you know more than most other people do about that subject and you have the skills and abilities to both teach about it as well as teach others.

That is exactly what @booksadventures does.  He is both a writer of books as well as a reader of them.  And he is also a teacher.

Matt is a really genuine guy who comes armed with a great sense of humor.  It appears that in real life he is just as witty as he is online -

"Really? I'm so proud. RT @catatonichic New word I learned from @booksadventures: sassmonger", and

"Now THERE's a Facebook status update. "Bleakish.""

And he is pretty good with his volume of tweets produced too.  Just be warned that he tweets.  A lot.  In a good way of course.  Matt also has a knack of seeking out and RTing some really good tweets too.  So this is in no way a boring account - quite the opposite.  There is light, laughter and love in this timeline.  And libraries.  Lots and lots of libraries.  And included in a large number of those library tweets are the truly legendary @corinh.  

He is pretty good at encouraging people to engage both with reading as well events that surround the library scene as well.  Matt gives you some insight into what books and materials he is using to teach different classes so you can sort of read along if you like.  He gives credit where credit is due which is a trait not often exercised - 

"That reminds me - coffee with Jo of @UnityBooks inspired & revived me this lunchtime. Great booksellers make such a difference to city life."

So if you are looking for a tweeter who is highly engaging, very energetic and entertaining to boot then @booksadventures is just the person you are looking for .  So there you go.