next?
i hate lines. i hate waiting. unless it’s a camp out in line, those can be pretty fun. traffic is just 5 or 6 lines not going anywhere with people thinking they can just skip you if you give them enough room, sometimes with not enough room. it took me and my roommate 4 or 5 hours to get inside the georgia dome for american idol auditions only to realize we had assigned seats for the order of our auditions. whack!
however, i’m not just going to hate on lines. they actually do a lot of good. they keep order, they make things fair (people who got here before others will be able to do whatever it is before the later people), they give you time to slow down in a fast-paced world, etc.
i remember learning about lines in elementary school. they told us that lines were infinite. i was like, no way!! there’s a line right there! it’s not infinite! i seriously thought my teachers were going crazy. either that, or i thought maybe i’ve been learning it wrong this whole time. if lines were infinite, then what was i drawing before? ahh, yes. line segment. i see. things make sense again.
lines tell if a ball is in play or out of play. lines give actors freedom of expression. lines make dancers amazing to watch. lines keep you writing in a straight pattern. lines prevent traffic accidents (for the most part). lines tell you peoples’ ages. lines create artwork. lines compose symphonies. lines perform poetry. lines supply power.
what else do lines do?
pic per post
i’m going to try to post a pic taken from my phone every post. or, i dunno, we’ll see how long it lasts. it should make for some interesting posts.
today’s pic is the book that i just finished reading: Life of Pi. you see the nice hand modeling job i did there? honestly, i think the reason why i wanted to read the book so bad was the pi. i dunno, secretly i guess i thought it was a book about math. oh, how wrong i was. it starts off kind of slow, but it picks up in the middle and the end. and i definitely wanted to read more when the story was over. i guess i needed some closure. i would recommend this book. chapters are short (which i love), and there’s animals (also which i love). it deals with religion, reasoning, and survival. i think i’m more happy with the fact that i finished it.
you see, i buy a lot of books without reading them, or if i do read them, i usually never finish them. my completion rate is pretty low. i’d say 1 out of every 10 books i buy will be finished within 5 years of buying it. haha! and yet i still buy more books. what’s wrong with me? there’s a quote that goes:
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” -John Naisbitt.
That’s totally me. i have so much information around me, but i don’t know a thing. ahhh… books will be my comfort.
better when we’re together
you ever notice that things a lot funnier when other people are around? i can’t remember the last time i was at home watching tv and “lol-ing”. it just doesn’t happen. it’s as if your sense of humor dies with the absence of friends. i could be watching something by myself and not laughing, but if i watch the same thing with someone else, i’ll be laughing uncontrollably. what’s up with that?
do we actually find the content funny? maybe. maybe not. if it was funny, wouldn’t we laugh even it was by ourselves? but if it’s not funny, why do we laugh when other people are present? my guess is, other people make something funny. or, other people are necessary to express our laughter. laughter is just wasted when it is only kept to ourselves. part of the joy of laughter is sharing it with someone else, even if you’re laughing at them.
i had a roommate once that would yell and scream at the tv when watching a basketball game when i was in the other room. i wondered if he’d still yell at the tv even if i wasn’t in the apartment. i came the conclusion that he would. for me, i’m a little different. i need someone there in order for me to be expressive. if no one is there, i’m pretty expressionless. the only exceptions are: playing video games and driving. even if i’m by myself, i will express my frustration and anger at the tv or other cars without anyone around.
so i do think that the things we don’t laugh at by ourselves are funny, it’s just that to fully express our feelings, we need other people there to join in.
relative greetings
by this i don’t mean greeting your relatives. i mean greetings for different people are relative. for instance, this is what happened to me yesterday:
i was walking to my apartment when a young, black man was walking past me. when we saw each other, he said, “sup” and i said, “hey.” after our exchange, something occurred to me. he didn’t have to say anything. i didn’t have to say anything. but we exchanged greetings anyways. why? is it because it’d be awkward if we just walked past each other without saying anything? i don’t think so. tons of guys do that with no awkwardness. i think we said it to be polite. it’s kind of like extending an olive branch or something. there’s peace between us (not like we were hostile or anything before).
and then i got to thinking about his greeting and my greeting. he said, “sup.” i said, “hey.” i wondered if in another context, different people would say the same thing. for example, in a white, upper-class area, they might not say, “sup.” it might be rude. they’d say, “how do you do?” with a british accent or some kind of upper-class greeting. i dunno. however, for this man, it was extremely appropriate and i took it as being very polite. i don’t want to sterotype anyone (although i fear i already have), but i just wanted to point out that greetings are relative. “sup” can be rude to some people, or it can be extremely polite. it can be a greeting, or a question. for instance, sometimes when i say “what’s up?” i actually mean it. i want to know what’s up. other times, i use it as a greeting, which confuses people i think. they’ll say, “what’s up?” and i’ll be like, “oh hey what’s up?” and then they’ll answer, “oh nothing much.” and i’m thinking, “oh crap, was i supposed to answer theirs first? did they really want to know what’s up? i thought we were just greeting each other.” there should be rules.
so the next time you run into someone (mostly those that you don’t know), see how they greet you and how you greet them. i think it’ll make you think about strangers in a different way.
