Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A Small Succession of Amusing Events in My School Year So Far

Based on what I have encountered in Geography so far, I am not worried about that class. Today, the concept of latitude and longitude were explained to us. Since I sit in the front row (perhaps I need to kick that bad habit), I tried not to look bored out of my mind. Sorry, Dr. Mikey!

There are, again, many signs telling us to, "Go Greek!" What I find more amusing is the fact that there are little buttons that say the same thing. An attempt was made to carry the theme a bit further and so they used Greek letters for some of the words. However, they did not use the proper Greek letters for the English ones, so for anyone who knows what the Greek letters actually stand for, it turned out a bit silly. Two sigma's stood for capital E's, presumably because of the superficial similarity. However, sigma is an s, not an e. K at least works, since kappa is still k. The letter G is, I think, unknown to Greek. Their gamma looks like L but with the horizontal line on top instead of at the bottom.
Oh, and did I mention that, after this heroic effort to Hellenize their buttons, someone apparently forgot that 'Greek' has an r? Unless, of course, they all want us to, 'Go GEEK!', which may be the case, for all I know...

Also, I know now it is possible to go from Wesleyan to the communications building in three minutes. I know this because I ran the whole way Monday. Not fun. From the teacher's observation, I thought I had eleven minutes. As I walked down the hallway, I pulled out my phone and saw that I had five minutes. Cue immediate panic. I raced down the stairs, nearly knocking over a few unfortunate souls at the bottom, and literally ran across campus. I had no dignity left to lose by that point, so I pelted across the bridge/overpass/whatever it is officially called, dodging people left and right. I had to swerve around the right of the Guillot, dodge cars in the parking lot, and race into the com building before Mrs. Harden started. I made it with two minutes to spare- very much out of breath, my throat burning from the Formeldahyde smell the office in Wesleyan had reeked of (seriously, what was that smell? I have a horrible sense of smell, and I could still smell it! Formeldahyde has no place in Wesleyan!). But I made it. I was a little pleased with myself.

The people I nearly paved to the ground may have a different story to tell, however...

GAH I HAVE TO GIVE A SPEECH WEDNESDAY OR FRIDAY ABOUT MYSELF. The only thing I can think of for an attention-getting opening, since I would totally flub any attempt at humor, is to quote something no one has heard of before, go off on a philosophical tangent, apologize, and yank myself back into blabbing meaninglessly. I think I shall go the 'describe three characteristics of yourself' route. Which three? Perhaps I could elaborate on my confession that I am a Grammar Nazi. I could state that I love reading and ask the class who else loves LOTR. I could state that I like to write and have written several of my own novels, which are never definitively finished since I keep updating and changing them. I could explain how I live on a farm.
I'm not good with analyzing my own personality. I could say that I am socially awkward. That would probably not need many examples. I could say that I don't like to complain (which is true, even though my habit of stating things rather baldly may sound like complaining to those who don't know me). I'm not very patient with stupidity. I am a bit of a perfectionist and a procrastinator when I let myself get away with it. I would like to think that I am trustworthy and hard-working, but I maintain that that is for other people to decide. Just the thought of coming out and saying, "I'm a good friend, I'm trustworthy, etc.," in a speech sounds a bit arrogant to me.
I am usually in a good mood. This may sound odd, since I am a bit grumpy when I wake up and I am susceptible to panic and worry attacks as anyone else, but I am usually prepared to be amused by things. I still say, "Good morning," to the bus drivers each day and have a habit of thinking lots of happy thoughts. (Or, at least, a habit of thinking about my stories, which I like doing, and so it makes me happy.) However, I would not classify myself as an optimistic person. I tend to be a bit more realistic, I think. For instance, if someone complains about the weather, I am likely to point out how much worse it could be. I was told that this made me an optimist, you know, that I subscribed the view that, "Hey, it's not as bad as it could be, so this is great!" My thinking is more along the lines of, "I don't think this situation standing in the rain here is great, either, but it could be a lot worse and the sky could decide to dump hail on us at any moment, so I'm keeping my mouth shut."
I am not a cruel person. I am not very good at holding grudges. A lot of the times, I forget offenses soon after. Samuel may have been annoying me all day, but in the evening when I am reporting his infractions to dad I have usually forgotten half of them. I don't like getting angry (I'm usually just irritated) and I never really want to cause harm to someone.

But how do you condense even part of this into a 2-4 minute speech? What I've typed is a jumbled mess. How do you pick out three adjectives out of it and develop on them? I should probably stick to telling the class about some things I like and don't like. Hey, even your likes and dislikes can say something about yourself... if people are so inclined as to dig a little deeper and think about things. Which not everyone wants to do. There seems to be a conspiracy against thinking these days.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

1 comment:

  1. "GAH I HAVE TO GIVE A SPEECH WEDNESDAY OR FRIDAY ABOUT MYSELF."
    and you said you don't complain! Hehe.

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