Sarcasm

I, like many of the disheartened and soul-drained youth, have mastered the art of sarcasm. Sarcasm is said to be the lowest form of wit. Now that can't be true, because I use sarcasm all the time and that would imply tha...oh wait a minute...FUUUUU-!

People think I'm sarcastic all the time, but it's not that. I just seem to have a really monotone voice, making it really difficult for people to know if I'm serious or joking most of the time. This can sometimes work in my favour when I make a joke that noone laughs at. I can just play it off as though what I said was a serious comment. And you may be saying "I bet you bomb out with your jokes all the time, right?" And let me tell you, that is definitely not-true and never happens! Well maybe not definitely never...more like mostly never. OK, let's say "kinda" not-true, in the sense that truth is a relative thing depending on wher...Yes, it happens all the time.

But it especially backfires when I'm meeting new people who have yet to become accustom to by sarcastic-monotone speaking patterns. They often mistake my jokes for seriousness, and my seriousness for derogatory sarcasm.

 

90% of the time, I am sarcastic. 89% of the time, people think that I am serious. Let me paint a specific scenario for you. I was going through the Maccas drive thru. After I ordered my meal, I drove around the bend to find that another car was driving thru in the wrong direction. Since the drive thru was obviously only narrow enough for one car, the driver (who may or may not be of Asian orientation) realised his mistake with the directional help of the McDonald's staff and reversed his way out of there.

After the insane driver cleared way, I proceeded to roll towards the pick-up window. The Mcdonalds cashier who had just witnessed the bizarre incident finally took her gaze off the reversing car and looked back at me. Thinking that I was funny, I decided to sarcastically say to her "I think you need to widen the drive through".

Without any kind of reaction, she blankly looked back at me, and dryly said "Oh no, we don't have to. That guy was just driving the wrong way."

I had made a sarcastically and obviously ridiculous comment, but she responded as though what I said was a serious suggestion. She also added the obvious detail of "that guy was just driving the wrong way", to reinforce why my suggestion would not be a viable form of traffic control.

I have learnt that Sarcasm can be a cruel, cruel burden to have. But it can make for some very interesting stories that I hope you guys enjoy to read.

Reader: "Wow, your blog is really funny!"

Me: "REALLY???"

Reader: "...No"

* Crunch Time

Hey, I know I haven't been posting anything in the past week, but I'm afraid it will continue that way for the next 2 weeks or so. My finals are coming up and I really need to spend as much time as I can hunkering down to study.

This is my current studying habitat. That completely disorganised mess holds all the information I need to pass these upcoming exams. As you can see, I have everything under control...

I might post up a couple of mini updates here and there, but I'll most likely won't have enough time to post up proper posts. So why not read up some old posts and just pretend that they're new/funny. Here's one that I wrote a year and a half ago after I had finished my exams back then. It seems like such a long time ago.

Well time for me to get back to studying (which comprises of 10% of reading, and 90% of praying to every religion out there for mercy). And to you all, whatever it is you're doing for the next couple of days, good luck!

Social Interactions

Me: Oh, Hiiiiiiii! How are you??
Person: ...do I know you?
Me: ...no...you just looked really friendly =(
Person: *stab in the face*

Greeting people can be awkward when you've only met the person (briefly) once before. You might've seen them at some social gathering where they were the friend of a friend of someone's long lost cousin's pet. So you know of them, but that's as far as it goes.

Then comes the second encounter with this person. You make eye contact from a distance, which is when the mind games begin. The first thing you try to figure out is "Do I know this person well enough to say hello?" You go for it anyway and try to say hi, but you're greeting goes unnoticed as the person has turned in the opposite direction the exact same moment you opened your mouth. The failed greeting attempt is then further hindered by various other people conversing with the person you tried to say hello to.

So that's the end of that phase. There's a time limit between when you first make eye contact (which means both parties have acknowledged each other) to when you actually say hi to the person that you've barely met once before. Leave that gap too long, and it's too late to say hello, or else it'd just be awkward. So once that time limit is reached, the next phase begins where you pretend you don't know each other. This involves the avoidance of all eye contact, even if you are in close proximity to the person, your line of sight must not meet in order for the level of awkwardness to not escalate.

Instructional picture follows:

This whole process is called "I know you, and I know you know me, but I'm not gonna say hi and I know you aren't either, so I'm gonna pretend to not know you and I know that you're gonna pretend to not know me." This doesn't only apply to people you've only met briefly before. It also applies to:
     * people you haven't seen in a long time and have no intention of reconnecting on any social level
     * people you know you won't be able to sustain a conversation with (VERY important to employ the avoid-all-eye-contact rule when you know it would otherwise result in an awkward hour long train ride home)
     * distant family members who don't speak English
     * people whom you owe money to
     * Peter (you know why, you arsehole!)

Then there's that awkward conversation situation that involves you, a friend, and a friend of that friend. Let me explain with the aid of this diagram.

So in this diagram I am person C, my friend is person B, and person B knows person A (whom I have never met before). B has a conversation with A (represented by the red arrows) which I am left out of. This is only one aspect of the awkwardness. At some point in the red conversation, B mentions something about me to A.

B: Hey, do you know this guy (referring to me) does engineering too.
A: (looks at me, but then turns to B) Oh yeah, what major does he do?

Let me explain what just happened there. B just introduced me into the conversation. A acknowledges me and has questions (represented by the grey broken arrow), but instead of conversing along that grey path, he continues the conversation along the red arrows, which only end up at B. B then repeats exactly everything A just said to me (via the blue conversation arrows). I could, at this point, create a solid conversation path to A, but because it was B who asked me the question (even though on A's behalf), I am socially obliged to reply to him via the blue conversation. B then relays exactly everything I said to A. This awkward conversational echo continues as B continues to mediate between me and A until the conversation goes on to another topic where I am once again left out of the red. Awkward.

This also happens when you order at the drive-thru at McDonalds. The Driver, the Passenger and the Cashier are all in hearing distance of each other. But the conversation nevertheless must proceed like this:

C: Hi, how may I help you?

D: Hi, can I get a big mac please.

C: Would you like anything else?

D (to Passenger): What do you want?

P: A cheeseburger

D (to Cashier, even though she perfectly heard him): A cheeseburger

C: Do you want chips with that?

D (to Passenger, even though he perfectly heard her): Do you want chips with that?

P: Yeah

D: Yeah

C: What size chips do you want?

D: What size chips do you want?

P: Medium will do

D: Medium will do

C: That'll be $10.50

D: That's $10.50

P (to D): That's a fucken rip off! I'm not paying that!

D (to C): ....well, you heard him.

* KeepOnWriting

I have all these ideas that I have in mind for future blog posts, but these ideas are more like bullet points vaguely swirling around in my head, and I don't seem to have the time lately to put these ideas down into well constructed sentences and paragraphs.

It usually takes a couple of weeks from the idea popping into my head to me actually typing it all down into an entry. Those thoughts would usually just 'stay' in there 'till I bothered to write it all up. But lately I've started writing them all down into...well, I would call it a diary, but that just sounds gay. I'll just call it a book.

The first page was written when I was thinking of writing about sixbillionsecrets. The second page was written while I was on the train. 

As you can see, the pages are nonsensical and all over the place, which evidently means I'm the only one that'll be able to understand it. This book/journal/gay diary isn't secretive or anything. Most of the stuff I write in here will end up on this blog in its complete form some time in the future. I just needed somewhere to write down my thoughts before they get lost in the already crowded head of mine. And that's how I came to title this book "KeepOnWriting"

OK, not everything in this book will be about future blog posts. I also use it to draw rough sketches of things that I want to draw up when I have free time. This page here illustrates how much I want an electric guitar! Particularly the Fender Standard Strat. The cheapest one I've found goes for $809. And I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it! I could easily afford it and was actually thinking of spoiling myself this christmas. But I think I'll hold off this year and instead get myself a decent steel string guitar instead. I haven't been playing the guitar long enough to warrant a full fledged electric machine.



The moment I wanted a Strat was when I saw this video clip. The guitar work in this is so in your face, but in a melancholy way. It's subtle throughout the song, but it guides you through the entire lyrics (which in itself have a huge impact) until it picks up for the crazy guitar solo around the 3:40 mark where the emotional impact just sky rockets. For the 2 minute solo, it sounds like the guitar is really crying and...man...it's just so awesome.

* Saw 3D

Just went to watch Saw 3D. What I saw in Saw was really....such an eye sore. I saw people getting sawed, which sure made my adrenaline soar, as what I saw in Saw sure made me sore in places where the people were getting sawed. I sure wish I never saw what I saw in Saw. What I saw in Saw was, for sure, one of the worst thing I've ever saw, but sure not as bad as when I saw Jersey Shore. I also wish I didn't fall off that see-saw (totally unrelated incident, but the fall sure made me sore)