I am also a carsick if I read. I used to draw on our trips btwn De and TX every year.

My weekend is get ready for vacation, yoga,bday dinner, VACATION!!! Man am I ever ready for it.

Reading a book in the car gives me a headache, but I can play Angry Birds or follow a GPS map just fine.

I've never gotten carsick reading, thank god. We spent a lot of summers in the car, and I was always backwards, with my back resting against the passenger seat, reading.

I have been known to grade during car trips, however I don't recommend it.

Oh good god, someone get me off this call. It's never going to end.

Thank god I can read and be driven. I can't imagine child and teenagerhood without it. Commutes would have sucked.

Can't drink and sit backwards, though. Learnt that later.

Hivemind question for those associated with academia - we're starting to work with a company called 9thperiod.com. They apparently do "social media for college campuses" with the idea that students will sign up, be grouped into their classes, and exchange information, share useful links (including from the library website, which is where we come in), create study groups, etc. Note that we already have eLearning Commons (Blackboard type product) and obviously most students are on Facebook.

I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that what they do is worth doing, but maybe I'm missing something?

ION, I got the back of my skirt in the toilet. Stay classy, flea!

My back and shoulders hurt so bad. I barely slept last night; just kept flopping like a stunned fish. UGH.

I used to read like crazy in the car--I was one of the world's easiest kids on a long road trip: a couple of pillows and a stack of Marguerite Henrys and I was good to go for the next six hours.

Now I can manage, barely, to read a map if I hold it at arm's length, but if I so much as open a book or magazine or newspaper while the car is moving I can only tolerate about 90 seconds before the smell of the paper and ink make me gag, and it takes about half an hour before I feel normal again.

flea, maybe it's better than Facebook because it's narrowly focused and strictly academic, with no distracting photo albums or comments to like or imaginary gold coins and silver chickens to dole out?

I don't see why. I think that you can do everything that you want to do on Facebook or Blackboard. Their "value" may be in that you can do everything in one place and/or you control the platform and any information shared.