In a lot of ways, it's been hard readjusting. I really miss the constant air of activity that I've lived with for the past months. Even if I wasn't directly involved in anything, there was more than a little comfort knowing that somewhere nearby, someone was always doing something no matter what time of the day or night it was. Life was so much more concentrated. I could walk for 20 minutes in a straight line and pass by more people, shops, restaurants, homes, businesses, and (sometimes) street vendors than I could take in if I spent all day on the same block. Now I can walk for 20 minutes and I might be able to get to the nearby vet's office, if I walk at a brisk pace. I think I really miss city life.
Fashions are really different, too. I'm barely a neophyte when it comes to trendy dress so I can't even begin to talk about it, but suffice it to say that I saw very few people dressed in jeans and college sweatshirts. There's a lot more of that here. I wonder why that is. Do people here simply have more school spirit, or is there less of a concern (or perhaps less pressure) about outward appearance.
One thing I know for sure is that there is a lot more emphasis on the spiritual side of things. For the past months, I felt like I was the spiritual, religious person, and nobody else really cared. Here, though, I feel like a lightweight.
Mostly though, it's just getting used to living almost by myself again. Two-and-a-half weeks ago I was sharing a flat with 16 other people, so there was always someone I could talk to, and we always had something to talk about, whether it was something one of our other flatmates said or did, or how nasty the kitchen was ('cause there were only like 4 people who ever cleaned in there), or work, or vacations and trips, or anything else for that matter. And with that many other folk around, even if I'd never talked to anyone outside the flat, I doubt I'd ever have had the same conversation twice. So, as you can imagine, living now with only two other people - both of whom I'm related to - is a very different experience.
Hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining; I'm just trying to get used to the differences between here and there. I wonder if I'll be more comfortable when I move in at school next week?
PLUR!
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
P-L-E is not for me
I "stole" this from a friend. I'm not expecting too many people to pay much mind to it, but it's always interesting to see what people have to say when they take the time to answer a handful of silly questions. Enjoy!
PLUR!
You're on my friends list. I'd like to know 25 things about you. Just hit reply to sender. Thanks!
You'll be surprised how much you didn't know about your friends after this!
1. Ever punch someone in the face?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you single or taken?
4. Eat with your hands or utensils?
5. Do you dream at night?
6. Ever seen a corpse?
7. Have you ever wished someone dead?
8. Do You Like Bush, the president?
HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ...
9. Whats your philosophy on life? and death?
10. If you could do anything with me, and have no one know about it, what would it be?
11. Do you trust the police?
12. Do you like country music?
13. What is your fondest memory of me?
14. If you could change anything about yourself would you?
15. Would you date me?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Have you ever peed in a pool? while you were still in it?
18. Would you hide evidence for me if I asked you to?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. What is your favorite thing about me?
21. Do you think I'm attractive?
22. What's your favorite color?
23. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?
24. Tell me one interesting/odd fact about you?
25. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?
PLUR!
You're on my friends list. I'd like to know 25 things about you. Just hit reply to sender. Thanks!
You'll be surprised how much you didn't know about your friends after this!
1. Ever punch someone in the face?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you single or taken?
4. Eat with your hands or utensils?
5. Do you dream at night?
6. Ever seen a corpse?
7. Have you ever wished someone dead?
8. Do You Like Bush, the president?
HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ...
9. Whats your philosophy on life? and death?
10. If you could do anything with me, and have no one know about it, what would it be?
11. Do you trust the police?
12. Do you like country music?
13. What is your fondest memory of me?
14. If you could change anything about yourself would you?
15. Would you date me?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Have you ever peed in a pool? while you were still in it?
18. Would you hide evidence for me if I asked you to?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. What is your favorite thing about me?
21. Do you think I'm attractive?
22. What's your favorite color?
23. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?
24. Tell me one interesting/odd fact about you?
25. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?
Friday, December 22, 2006
More Than Words...
I am a dork. I am aware of this, will acknowledge it, and - while I wouldn't go so far as to say that I embrace the fact - I don't try to hide my penultimate oddness from others. Not often, at least.
Anyway, the whole reason I even thought of that was because of recent thoughts about human communication. More than once I've heard people griping about how they hate communicating via any sort of on-line medium because "it is so impersonal" and "it just doesn't communicate the same way as face-to-face, or even talking on the phone!"
I understand that holding a conversation in any sort of traditional sense is...difficult at best on a computer, but it's not as difficult as some would make it seem, in my opinion. Whether it's effective or not, I've devised my own system to deal with the difficulties of conversational nuance on-line. It's by no means perfect, but I like to think that I manage to communicate myself more expressively because of it. And also, that it's straight-forward enough to understand.
italics - this is a given that should be practiced by everyone. To italicise a bit of text is to emphasize it, but not generally in an aggressive or confrontational way. Most often, it can be used to emphasize already-extended words ("maaayyybbbeeeee..."), to denote excitement ("Oh man, that's awesome!"), or denote sarcasm ("yeah, that's a good idea"). Italicising is also a useful thing to do if you're using words, expressions, or quips from non-native languages ("szia!", "Hey, how's it going amigo", "c'est la vie.").
Limited use of emoticons - this is both a real sticking point and a slipperly slope, as far as I'm concerned. On the one hand, I dispise emoticons and "smileys" with a passion. On the other, they're useful tools when used similarly to punctuation. Especially when saying something that could be otherwise misconstrued a properly-used emoticon can indicate that a phrase has a specific shade of meaning (usually one of friendly teasing) when a message could be easily mistaken for a disparaging or downright mean thing to say. For example, if communicating with someone who is not tall, typing "you're short" could be considered a rude and unfriendly thing to say. However, if you were to type "you're short. :-)", your comment is more likely to be considered an expression of endearment, rather than an expresison of derision. My personal favorites are the "happy face" smiley: ( :, the "sad face" smiley: ) :, the "estatic" or "anime" smiley: ^_^ (which is especially versatile, as it can be expanded to denote even more extreme levels of pleasure (ex.: ^___^)), and the "laugh out loud" smiley: XD
As long as your use is limited and tasteful, any combination of emoticons should suffice, I suppose.
Don't abbreviate! - there are few things that bother me more than people saying things like "lol" or "brb" sincerely. In my particular circle of friends, a few people have perfected the use of of expressions like these in an ironic manner, being able to use them in a way that makes it clear that the speaker/typer is aware of the absurdity of what he or she is typing. Except when such usage would be proper, please don't use this kind of "IM-speak". The same goes for "1337-speak". I'll acknowledge that there are certain instances in which using these ciphers might be appropriate, but unless you actually talk this way, you're just hurting you're ability to communicate expressively. Although it will take a few more keystrokes to type out, use comparable expressions that you'd actually say. If, in spoken conversation, you'd say something like "hold on a second", then why type "brb"? Why not say "I think" instead of "IMO"? Why not "later" or "bye" instead of "cya"? In some instances where time is of the essence, it might be neccesary to revert to the "IM-speak" abbreviations, but on-line communication can be far more expressive if you get comfortable typing the same way you talk.
Verbs - conversation is rarely strictly verbal. Even when two people can't see each other (like when talking on the phone), there are lots of non-verbal cues that are used, such as pauses, sighs, laughs, and many others. Non-verbal communication becomes even more apparent in personal conversations, when people can actually see each other. Nonverbal actions can be distinguished from "spoken" text in a number of ways. My personal preference is to place it within asterisks. (*laugh*) I've talked with others who use colons or double colons (::scratches head::) or sometimes brackets ([yawn]). When using brackets, sometimes a backslash is used to denote the end of a long action. ([holding breath], [/holding breath]). Part of the brilliance of using nonverbal actions is that is allows you to communicate a great deal more expression without having to use a lot more words. Sometimes even a complex state can be described quite simply. If, for example, you're deep in thought about a significant topic, simply typing the verb expression "*pensive*" can give as much information about your state of mind as a paragraph-long explanation. Personally, I prefer the verb expression "*laugh*" to the ubiquitous "lol" because, to me, it seems more human and natural, and also because it can be adjusted to fit a broader range of laughing states. One could, for example, simply *laugh* or, if you said something that was only vaguely funny you might *laugh softly* or *laugh to self*. A pun might only garner a *chuckle*, while a bad pun nets a *groan* or might not earn a verb expresison at all and only get a ">_<" (which I've always thought of as the emoticon equivalent of Homer Simpson's "D'oh!").
More "shortcuts" of personal states - sometimes punctuation itself can be used to indicate the state you're in. For example, "!!!" is generally understood to represent a state of shock or suprise. "???" is a state of non-understanding, or a way to indicate that you've got questions, but don't even know where to begin asking them. "..." usually indicates a significant (sometimes "dramatic") pause, used both in and between sentences. Sometimes repeated use of "..." is used to represent a sort of longsuffering state, especially in response to something that, in real life, would probably make you roll your eyes and sigh. To the best of my knowledge, there's no additional meaning that's been ascribed to the use of commas, colons, semicolons, or any other form of punctuation.
(example conversation:
A - Guess what!
B - What?
A - Me and my girlfriend eloped!
B - !!!
A - I know!
B - ...
A - ???
B - It's just that you and Jennie are the last people I ever would've expected to get married.
A - ... ... ...
CAPS - this is a good way to empahsize something that, in conversation, you'd say with a lot of emphasis, significantly changing the tone and/or volume of your voice. ENTIRE SENTENCES THAT ARE WRITTEN IN CAPS TYPICALLY SIMULATE YELLING OR TALKING LOUDLY.
There's more, I know there is. I've just forgotten it, because I forgot to take notes before I started this post. I hope that my ramblings didn't come off too preachy. Like I said, I was just thinking about these things, and it struck me that there were plenty of ways, pretty easy ways, to get around the "the internet is impersonal" cliché. I meant for this to be more of a public analysis of my own on-line communication style rather than any sort of instrution manual or primer, but if you see some suggestions and would like to incorporate them into your own lexicon, don't hesitate! Also, if you've got any other ideas or suggestions ('cause, like I said, I know I missed some), feel free to post 'em. I think it'd be interesting to come back every once in a while and update this post.
Well, until next time...
PLUR!
Anyway, the whole reason I even thought of that was because of recent thoughts about human communication. More than once I've heard people griping about how they hate communicating via any sort of on-line medium because "it is so impersonal" and "it just doesn't communicate the same way as face-to-face, or even talking on the phone!"
I understand that holding a conversation in any sort of traditional sense is...difficult at best on a computer, but it's not as difficult as some would make it seem, in my opinion. Whether it's effective or not, I've devised my own system to deal with the difficulties of conversational nuance on-line. It's by no means perfect, but I like to think that I manage to communicate myself more expressively because of it. And also, that it's straight-forward enough to understand.
italics - this is a given that should be practiced by everyone. To italicise a bit of text is to emphasize it, but not generally in an aggressive or confrontational way. Most often, it can be used to emphasize already-extended words ("maaayyybbbeeeee..."), to denote excitement ("Oh man, that's awesome!"), or denote sarcasm ("yeah, that's a good idea"). Italicising is also a useful thing to do if you're using words, expressions, or quips from non-native languages ("szia!", "Hey, how's it going amigo", "c'est la vie.").
Limited use of emoticons - this is both a real sticking point and a slipperly slope, as far as I'm concerned. On the one hand, I dispise emoticons and "smileys" with a passion. On the other, they're useful tools when used similarly to punctuation. Especially when saying something that could be otherwise misconstrued a properly-used emoticon can indicate that a phrase has a specific shade of meaning (usually one of friendly teasing) when a message could be easily mistaken for a disparaging or downright mean thing to say. For example, if communicating with someone who is not tall, typing "you're short" could be considered a rude and unfriendly thing to say. However, if you were to type "you're short. :-)", your comment is more likely to be considered an expression of endearment, rather than an expresison of derision. My personal favorites are the "happy face" smiley: ( :, the "sad face" smiley: ) :, the "estatic" or "anime" smiley: ^_^ (which is especially versatile, as it can be expanded to denote even more extreme levels of pleasure (ex.: ^___^)), and the "laugh out loud" smiley: XD
As long as your use is limited and tasteful, any combination of emoticons should suffice, I suppose.
Don't abbreviate! - there are few things that bother me more than people saying things like "lol" or "brb" sincerely. In my particular circle of friends, a few people have perfected the use of of expressions like these in an ironic manner, being able to use them in a way that makes it clear that the speaker/typer is aware of the absurdity of what he or she is typing. Except when such usage would be proper, please don't use this kind of "IM-speak". The same goes for "1337-speak". I'll acknowledge that there are certain instances in which using these ciphers might be appropriate, but unless you actually talk this way, you're just hurting you're ability to communicate expressively. Although it will take a few more keystrokes to type out, use comparable expressions that you'd actually say. If, in spoken conversation, you'd say something like "hold on a second", then why type "brb"? Why not say "I think" instead of "IMO"? Why not "later" or "bye" instead of "cya"? In some instances where time is of the essence, it might be neccesary to revert to the "IM-speak" abbreviations, but on-line communication can be far more expressive if you get comfortable typing the same way you talk.
Verbs - conversation is rarely strictly verbal. Even when two people can't see each other (like when talking on the phone), there are lots of non-verbal cues that are used, such as pauses, sighs, laughs, and many others. Non-verbal communication becomes even more apparent in personal conversations, when people can actually see each other. Nonverbal actions can be distinguished from "spoken" text in a number of ways. My personal preference is to place it within asterisks. (*laugh*) I've talked with others who use colons or double colons (::scratches head::) or sometimes brackets ([yawn]). When using brackets, sometimes a backslash is used to denote the end of a long action. ([holding breath], [/holding breath]). Part of the brilliance of using nonverbal actions is that is allows you to communicate a great deal more expression without having to use a lot more words. Sometimes even a complex state can be described quite simply. If, for example, you're deep in thought about a significant topic, simply typing the verb expression "*pensive*" can give as much information about your state of mind as a paragraph-long explanation. Personally, I prefer the verb expression "*laugh*" to the ubiquitous "lol" because, to me, it seems more human and natural, and also because it can be adjusted to fit a broader range of laughing states. One could, for example, simply *laugh* or, if you said something that was only vaguely funny you might *laugh softly* or *laugh to self*. A pun might only garner a *chuckle*, while a bad pun nets a *groan* or might not earn a verb expresison at all and only get a ">_<" (which I've always thought of as the emoticon equivalent of Homer Simpson's "D'oh!").
More "shortcuts" of personal states - sometimes punctuation itself can be used to indicate the state you're in. For example, "!!!" is generally understood to represent a state of shock or suprise. "???" is a state of non-understanding, or a way to indicate that you've got questions, but don't even know where to begin asking them. "..." usually indicates a significant (sometimes "dramatic") pause, used both in and between sentences. Sometimes repeated use of "..." is used to represent a sort of longsuffering state, especially in response to something that, in real life, would probably make you roll your eyes and sigh. To the best of my knowledge, there's no additional meaning that's been ascribed to the use of commas, colons, semicolons, or any other form of punctuation.
(example conversation:
A - Guess what!
B - What?
A - Me and my girlfriend eloped!
B - !!!
A - I know!
B - ...
A - ???
B - It's just that you and Jennie are the last people I ever would've expected to get married.
A - ... ... ...
CAPS - this is a good way to empahsize something that, in conversation, you'd say with a lot of emphasis, significantly changing the tone and/or volume of your voice. ENTIRE SENTENCES THAT ARE WRITTEN IN CAPS TYPICALLY SIMULATE YELLING OR TALKING LOUDLY.
There's more, I know there is. I've just forgotten it, because I forgot to take notes before I started this post. I hope that my ramblings didn't come off too preachy. Like I said, I was just thinking about these things, and it struck me that there were plenty of ways, pretty easy ways, to get around the "the internet is impersonal" cliché. I meant for this to be more of a public analysis of my own on-line communication style rather than any sort of instrution manual or primer, but if you see some suggestions and would like to incorporate them into your own lexicon, don't hesitate! Also, if you've got any other ideas or suggestions ('cause, like I said, I know I missed some), feel free to post 'em. I think it'd be interesting to come back every once in a while and update this post.
Well, until next time...
PLUR!
Upside Down, Bouncing Off the Ceilings
This is the new one. The Blog Incarnate.
Well, perhaps it's not that (melo)dramatic, but it'll suffice. After all, I do like my attention, no?
More substantial posting to follow shortly.
PLUR!
Well, perhaps it's not that (melo)dramatic, but it'll suffice. After all, I do like my attention, no?
More substantial posting to follow shortly.
PLUR!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)