Why Is It SO Hard To Vocalize???

I’m gonna go on a limb here… I think my communication skills are virtually inexistent. Over the years, I deluded myself into thinking I was somewhat normal and that grad school made me socially inapt… but it didn’t. I think I just never had any social skills, but I’m just noticing it now. This has evidently been a theme for me this year. Express yourself. Not in the “voice your inner you into the world” kind of crap. I’m not that new age. I mean, express yourself intelligibly so other people can actually understand what the hell it is you’re talking about. Because no one understands me. Not because I’m dark, twisted and emo, but because I make absolutely no sense. I talk in word vomit. I blurt things straight from my chaotic brain and release them into the world, hoping someone likes crossword puzzles… because that’s what you’re getting; like it or not. I don’t talk human. I just don’t. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m blonde, if it’s because I’ve learnt so many languages in my life that I can’t master one or if it’s because I should just admit I’m ADHD, but nothing I say makes it under the concept of clarity. By the way, I had *totally* warned you guys I was an overthinker.

So over the many experiences of this year; some funny, some completely ridiculous and some just downright sad… I came to the realization I need to make sense. I need to start speaking like I write (obviously not blogs, but scientific papers). I need to think before I let the words out of my mind, before they splotch on poor unsuspecting people.

My handicap -not really, but humour me- is not only confined to everyday talk. No it would be too easy, wouldn’t it? My handicap also takes the form of my vocalizing feelings. Words like “I’m mad” just don’t make it out of my mouth. When I’m mad at someone, I circle around in my head, I rant to other people (I’m so so guilty of that) (but I’m not a backstabber, don’t get the wrong impression), when it would be so much simpler to just throw a fit at the concerned person and just get it over with.

I also have an even greater problem with expressing my love for someone. It works okay with my friends (the same way they just mute me out when I start talking “crazy”). We’ve known each other long enough that they either know it or that I’m comfortable enough to say it. No… I mean guys. Earlier this summer, my ex described me as “emotionally detached”. I really had a problem with that. Because if anything I am not. However, I’ve made it a point not to show my tears to men when they break my heart. In my opinion, it would just make me feel worse if on top of dumping me, they would get to have my dignity with it. I’m just that proud. And I also don’t tend to be weak or vulnerable next to them either. Or most people. But I hate to say it… my ex had a point. I can see why he would think I’m “emotionally detached” (it’s so formal I feel like it deserves quotation marks. God I hate that man though… in a love/hate kind of way). Also, earlier this summer I tried to tell a guy that I liked him. It didn’t really go the standard way. I told you: I don’t do things the normal way. The closest I got was “stuff gets lost in translation”, but I swear, it nearly killed me. My friends where like.. “Whaaat? Wait. How does that mean anything.This is not even subtle… This is… Wait…Whaaat?”. Yeah well… That’s just how it is. I just can’t. For the life of me, I can’t. Saying this much felt to me like the equivalent of me running around the streets with my underwear on my head screaming “I love (X)”. No. Just no.

And there I am. I’m thinking why does any of this matter at all? Why do I care so much about these things? Everything boils down to words. Only words. W-O-R-D-S. Yet, I’m having this huge issue… with words. So if it’s something you learn from age 2 and you study it in school and you basically indoctrinated with grammar, vocabulary and spelling… So WHY is it so hard to speak?

My Axis Of Evil

1- Cheddar curds. Tiny. Have no taste. Oddly irresistible. Finished a bag tonight. D’oh!

Prop:

… EVIL.

2- Mug Cakes: should have been called “evil in a box… for 1.79$”

Today at the grocery store… I bought both. I have *no* willpower whatsoever.

3- My neighbour. A man I love to hate and hate to love. *Not in a romantic sense*.

4- Kundera. I both love his books, hate his reflexions, think he’s brilliant, think he’s just stating the obvious; there’s an ambiguity in the effect he has on me that I can’t help but latch on and I’m desperately chasing and trying to relive my first reading of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”.

5- The Oreo ice cream that was luring me at the grocery store today and the ambivalence it still creates in me despite my not buying it.

6- Elisabeth Eaves. You annoy me, but I still love you. (You need a reference to get that one: http://melodyandwords.com/2011/06/20/wanderlust/)

7- Any kind of tv marathon. Not only can’t I resist you, but you fuck up my day the next morning.

8- The Romantics. Both the movie and the novel. Had promise (and by that I mean the basic idea was an interesting theme to exploit), disappointed me (something about the angle, cliche, the prose being a hit and miss) and yet, I can’t let it go. I keep re-watching/re-reading it, trying to gather redeeming qualities that would make me “like” (or dislike) this movie/novel. Sigh…

9- This blog: you’re an annihilating force; you annihilate my willpower to study and get As.

So… That’s all folks!

10 things I’m ashamed of OR guilty guilty pleasures…

*ATTENTION: SURPRISES IN THE LINKS*

1- Sometimes I sing karaoke on youtube. In my apartment. Alone. I know.

2,3- Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. Both on my ipod. I could even sing “You Belong With Me” at a karaoke (in public this time), completely sober, without having to look at the words… But shhh. Don’t tell. Sidenote: I don’t know how I’ve somehow managed to escape the Bieber Fever.

4- Last week’s mirror-cellulite-combination depression. I mean it is depressing when you jog three times a week and go to yoga twice a week and your buttocks and bum look like that. Doesn’t all this effort ever pay off? And yes. I’m that vapid.

5- Two words: Daily horoscope. (I realize how much of a cognitive dissonance it represents given all this science knowledge I’m currently sitting on. So please: refrain.)

6- An irrational fear of math. After working on an engineering-based masters project. I bewilder myself with all these incoherences…

7- The four different flavours of ice cream (don’t even start guilt-tripping me again Miguel) I have in my freezer right at this moment. I’ve brought the concept of emotional eating to a whole new level. And now, I know why my thighs look the way they do (Really. Thank you Miguel).

 

8- Crappy TV. Not just any kind… The really bad kind. Like The Hills, Degrassi, Pretty Little Liars, ER, Grey’s Anatomy and the two-episodes of Jersey Shore I’ve had the misguidedness of watching. It was so addictive I had to promise myself never to do that again. I can’t even begin to tell you how high up the scale of “things that are wrong” this scores.

9- How I giggled like a little girl and hyperventilated as soon as I heard Bradley Cooper speak French. I can’t believe my brain is still thirteen. (Suit yourself and let’s see if you have more self-control than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdsoFZxk7DU)

10- And finally, I have sunk to the ultimate low of watching Twilight. All three of them. And the trailers for the upcoming one. What is wrong with me? *sobs in disbelief* I know it’s absolute crap and yet it’s like this evil evil force… Must… Arg… Resist… Nope. Not happening.

“Contagion” And The Sacred Knowledge

Now that’s a movie I cannot watch.

I made the unfortunate mistake of watching “Outbreak“…  (oh do please follow the link.). Let’s just put it that way… I became paranoid about recombinant viri from then on (virus, singular; viri, plural. No it’s not viruses) . Studying pathology the same semester obviously didn’t help, but anyway, minor detail. Because you know, if you’ve studied biology, that this isn’t an exaggeration. With the amount of air traffic, flight travel time of recirculated air and people each taking off to a different direction, the rate at which a disease can spread is exponential. Of course the virus is fake in the movie. Pff. I know that (actually it’s really a picture of a real virus that they’ve renamed, but whatever. Who’s *that* anal?).

You know what is scary? Scary isn’t a chucky doll running around with no batteries (of course it is, if you’re a chicken like me, but that’s not the point). And scary isn’t a psychopatic weirdo killing a bunch of teenagers with his hook (oh 90′s). Let me tell you what REAL scary is. Scary is the small pox virus being studied in a lab and infecting someone who wasn’t even working in that lab, because of some leak through the ventilation… And that wasn’t a movie storyline. That was 1978 in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_pox) . Whoever told you little things don’t eat big ones (gross translation from French. No pun intended.) didn’t include microbes. So it blows my mind some idiot would make a movie on that kind of subject or that anyone would be stupid enough to consider this to be “entertainment”. I mean, ARE YOU KIDDING? On that note I’m gonna stop. There’s no need in endorsing hypochondria (or medical student syndrome for that matter). But it’s true that being in the medical field changes you. Yes you become careless about the concepts of  ”disease” and “getting sick yourself”… and also paradoxically more paranoid. It’s a really weird combination. So movies like “Contagion” … Yeah… No. I’ll pass (even given the incentive of Matt Damon).

Somewhere In This World

I don’t like to vulgarly display my heartthrobs and heartbreaks (right, I know), but here I am writing about it, somewhat literally (oxymoron) (sorry geek) exposing that stuff. I like to think it’s because I want to share perspective, knowledge, the feeling you’re not alone… I’ve been there too. I promise you I rewrote that sentence several times, there was just no way I was going to avoid the cliche. And then again, maybe, maybe I’m also lying to myself big time and I’m just as narcissistic as John Mayer was (is?) with his tweets (I can never keep up with whether he’s on tweeter or not anymore… and frankly, it’s not really life-defining for me either). Here’s what happened to me today however: I felt that coming from another blog. That “share-the-love” feeling right through those internet channels (I just love internet).

I had mentioned in a previous post, this awful time when I was watching my friendship with my best friend disintegrate in front of my eyes. I won’t say much anymore about it because all the resentment and the hurt I used to feel somehow managed its way out of my life… but the missing isn’t. Because every once in a while I miss her. In a way no one else can kick my butt like she can or tell me to cut the bullshit. No one can just “get it” like she did and no one, no one can replace her. I’ve tried,  it was a really delusional attempt. And I can assure you it’s not one of those, just pick up the phone, walk on your pride thing… It’s just us walking away from each other. Nothing more or less. When we see each other now, yes we still do, we exchange banalities and at the same time, there’s this “I used to really know you” thing going on… God I understand why Miguel thought we were a couple. And we did go through a breakup and believe me: a friendship breakup is 10 000 times worse than a relationship breakup because you’re just blindsided. So anyways, I was trying real hard not to digress as usual. I miss my best friend. Today I found a blog http://thissinglelife.com/ and I was reading and laughing out loud at the library, so much I had to leave. And that voice was so familiar. I read so many posts. I read pretty much all evening. I realized that girl writes, speaks like my best friend. This just makes me happy. So yeah. That’s all. ‘Night y’all.

I’m not crazy… Oh wait… Maybe I am.

You know when you try to convince people you’re not drunk… and the more you try and explain yourself, the more they’re convinced you are? This is this moment for me. Metaphorically. Everyone goes through a moment in their life when they do something so stupid and that shit gets completely overblown because of something totally unrelated… Great. Yeah. I’m making a lot of sense… I’m like that blonde chick talking to other members of her congregation.

Breathe.

Let’s say I have one flaw bigger than the others, one flaw so huge I just cannot be “but you learn from your mistakes and then you grow” because that flaw always gets me in such monstrous trouble, I deeply resent it. So I’m just gonna dive and say it: I am an overthinker (Hi, my name is X and …). Wow that was hard. Please refrain from saying I’m only being a girl, I will *hit* you.

So I saw a word. A tiny minuscule word on a text message and I psychoed out. For my defence, I don’t speak sketchy English, I speak (or I like to think) the proper kind. I even know the dated Shakespeare/Jane Austen kind better than the modern-day English. And I’m French. Which makes a case for my saying a grown educated man should LEARN TO SPEAK normally and not like a fifteen-year old wannabe thug. Ugh. This is the second time it happens with him. I’ve just had it. There. Now that I’ve cleared that…

I misunderstood a word. On a stupid text message. Up to now, it seems trivial. Ahem. Right. Not in my world. This is when you start cringing (I’ll accompany you mentally). I got all confrontational (for no good “explainable” reason and I also realize the irony of my absolutely-hating when guys do that to me). The end result is I basically freaked a poor guy out, because as I realized, *I* had a lingering insecurity about someone else. That he reminds me of. Somehow.

This is great. I have, under your eyes, now officially redefined the meaning of  having issues.

But it’s not just about the word, about the someone else; really, it’s about how everything cannot be simple in my mind about this guy. I don’t know if it’s the way my interaction with this person is, if it’s because we’ll never understand each other’s language (seriously though, learn to speak English- just do) or if it’s me. Maybe it’s me. At this point, I just don’t care. I’m tired. I’m letting go. And fine, I’m nuts. So be it. I’m at peace (desperately trying to be) with his not knowing anything about whatever really went down that day; the mess is in my head. Not his business. Too personal. Don’t feel like sharing. I’m just gonna have to live with being crazy.

Also, can I just *STOP* bumping into him now? I think neither of us is thrilled about it.

Easy As 1,2,3…

I’ve always chosen the wrong people. And the right ones too. Right because they were genuine and kind. Or right because in being so infinitely wrong, they taught me a lot. Yeah… I’ve always chosen the wrong people. Perhaps not in purpose, most often naively, because, from what B. says, “I see the good in everyone, but I let them walk all over me”.

About a year ago or more so, I met someone new. Initially, I admit it, all it was was lust. I would notice the way he moved, he talked, he smiled and he’s really charming. I would notice this slight air of bourgeois demeanour, his easy laugh and just assume that’s how he was. All the time. Uncomplicated. That attracted me. Because I’m so *not* like that. The timing was perfect too. I was hitting a pretty big roadblock in my life at that moment. My best friend and I were growing apart and I felt torn between my love, my loyalty to her and how she made me feel small and insecure all the time. It was awful. I felt like even knowing that fact, I was being disloyal to her. And on a very ordinary day, this guy pops up. I’m in this confused and sad place, he notices and he tries to make me smile. Now, let’s be realistic, it’s so tiny, tiny, tiny… It’s such an inconsequential gesture… but it wasn’t. It acted like a revelation for me. I might have not jumped on the train then, I might have not switched my life around at that moment, but eventually I did. And I like to think that smile had something to do with it. Because in my mind, a thought was born: “I want to surround myself with happy people”. He was happy. He was shiny and warm and laughing all the time. He embodied the term “happy-go-lucky”.

We talked. The more I got a tiny bit of conversation, the more I would cling to it. I would cling to details. The more I would get to “know” him (it was very vague), the more I was shocked, because this grown up boy that seemed so … boyish… actually had really interesting things to say. He didn’t say much, it was the way he said these things. The more I would know, the more I would stand in front of a person who embodied everything I wanted to achieve in life. I grew so intimidated and so shy… and so insecure (notice a pattern? yeah… thought so).

I should have been suspicious. Nobody is this happy, all the time. Obviously. Also, nothing happened between us. Not that way. Nothing happened for many reasons. First off, I have issues… Who doesn’t? But he reminds me of my past too much, he brings up painful stuff to the surface, without even knowing he is however… This gives a very weird situation everytime where I act crazy and he doesn’t have a clue why so he just assumes I’m nuts. I am insecure and unrelaxed around him. You know that bad version of yourself you usually keep in check? Well me around him equals not happening. I think it’s out of fear, out of awe. And I have such a little understanding of  him, that I’m always trying to guess and I always guess wrong. And mini-catastrophes ensue…

He’s not just light. I could have dealt with that. I know shade. I’m more familiar with it. I’m that way. It should have made it easier to deal with something I knew, but it wasn’t. And he also never asked. Because where he’s different is in the how he treats the shade. He doesn’t. He drinks it down, he fucks himself into oblivion, he works, he runs… There’s no problem. Nothing. That aspect of his life is inexistent. At least from what I’ve seen… I hide too, but I also face it full on. I’ve realized it makes me a little more neurotic than the norm, but I also feel I’m more honest with myself, even when trying to lie to others. But I was trying to explain why it didn’t work out, it didn’t happen…  Well, I’ve come to realize this guy is sort of like my catalyst. In true chemistry term, a catalyst is a substance that you add to a chemical reaction you want to speed up. At the end of the reaction, the catalyst is unchanged. So if I put this into human world context, it amounts to saying this: this is someone who brings up to knowledge things I somewhat know, but that lie dormant in me. When I’m in contact with this person, lots of stuff surfaces… for me. But everytime, I don’t bother explaining to him and I don’t think he would care to know (we’re not that personal). He’s left unchanged. I never am.

Morality… For or against?

I’m writing to you from an wine-induced stupor (lucidity?) I had a long day, bear with me…

What is morality? According to the dictionary- because it seems I need to brush up on my knowledge of the term these days- morality  is beliefs regarding appropriate behavior (Thesaurus?).

Well, it’s the twenty-first century and I honestly don’t know what is technically “appropriate”. Do you?

Sometimes I have the feeling we live in a society without values or code of conduct. Just today I was in a class of political anthropology and my prof was stating something I knew too well: our society neglects duties in opposition to its ever-present claim for rights.

Definitions.

A right is something an individual can claim to in virtue of equality, justice, freedom (if we abide to the Chart of Human Rights) or  simply because we “deserve” it…

A duty, in contrast, is what you owe society in order to preserve it. That is, your contribution to a collectivity as to derive a “common good”.

After all, the freedom of an individual ends where that of another begins…

Forgive my digressions, I actually have a point (evidently).

I used to think of morality as something clear-cut, black and white, right or wrong… But as I grow older (and hopefully wiser), things don’t seem to me as obvious as they used to be. People who have been following my blog will remember a comment I made on “cheating”. I watched a movie this afternoon (I was bored and in a dire need of a distraction from my readings). It was called “Last Night”. It recounts the story of a married couple, a man attracted to his co-worker, a female meeting her former love on a night her husband is out of town on a business trip. The distribution is good, by the way. I’ve always had a weakness for Guillaume Canet. What I found interesting however, is the way the movie unfolds (*SPOILER ALERT*), as to contrast emotional and physical “cheating”. If you ask me… personally, the emotional one is worse… Then again. In the movie, the wife doesn’t cheat on her husband, but she’s clearly still in love with that other guy. BUT she tells the other guy: “I gave you up”. I abide to that. I believe in her “honesty”, “morality”. She made a sacrifice. On the other end, her husband has sex with his co-worker (by the way I was very much annoyed by the cliche of the cheating husband. The movie would have been much more interesting had he stayed faithful and his wife had cheated). He feels remorse. He obviously loves his wife, but acted on his attraction for another woman. That other woman (the co-worker) in my mind is a slut (really watch the movie, I’m not lying. She’s a fucking tease). But the bottom line… What is it?

Honestly, I don’t know. If I base myself on my own experience, being cheated on felt horrible. I spent months wondering what had I done wrong.

And then I didn’t.

I don’t know if it was out of wisdom or out of numbness… Maybe I exhausted the subject. Maybe *I* was tired… Everything’s possible.

Today I think differently. I’m in this situation in which, if… *BIG IF*… I was watching a movie about my life, I would think of myself as the slut.

I haven’t cheated or helped anyone to… but the line is thin.

What is cheating? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know who’s really virtuous in that movie. I think the storyline is really good at blurring the lines (this is true of both the movie and real life). I don’t know if I even care about virtue anymore. What is virtue? Isn’t it all just a big waste of time? Isn’t life much more complex than that? The concept of right or wrong? I’ll have you answer the question of sacrificing 10 people tied to a railroad because you’d rather change the train’s course and save a baby from being ran over…

No, I haven’t cheated… but I flirt with a guy who’s supposedly tied. I know it’s “wrong” (I’m a horrible, horrible person), that I’m playing with fire… If he won’t take responsibility: I am. (In theory).

I like  a guy who has a girlfriend. I’m a hypocrite. Or perhaps I’ve changed. Perhaps I believe love isn’t something so definable, confineable anymore. Perhaps, something, in my own experience, made me realize my ex-boyfriend didn’t love me enough not to cheat. I believe there is such a thing as cheaters, but I also believe sometimes it’s a matter of meeting someone different. I have no clue if I am different however. I don’t think I’ll know until I know for sure. Maybe I just want to see. Maybe I think morality… is just a concept. And I’ll shock you… maybe morality… is something that bends.

Then again, maybe I’m really good at lying to myself.

Here’s a trailer of the movie:

Ces écrits navrants

***Disclosure: je réalise l’ironie de mon texte qui sera bourré de “fotes” en raison de mon clavier anglais. Blamez-le, mais pas moi.

Voici un concept que l’on nous apprend en maitrise: comment ecrire des articles qui peuvent être compris par ceux qui vont les lire. Cela semble une evidence, dans le sens ou si vous prenez le temps d’écrire quelque chose, vous esperez que quelqu’un va prendre le temps de vous lire. Sinon quel est le but? Or, et c’est la l’objectif de mon texte, et plusieurs étudiants (disciplines confondues) seront d’accord, il semble que plusieurs auteurs négligent le sens de leur texte pour sa forme. En fait, si je puis etre vraiment franche a ce sujet, la forme est pauvre a part égale (structurellement parlant). Certains auteurs, semblent plus préoccupés par l’apparence de leur etat de connaissance, que par l’elargissement de la votre ou alors l’etalage de leur vocabulaire au meprit de votre compréhension.

Je me tape presentement une perle dans ce genre la. Un texte fantastique, je dois l’avouer. L’auteur en question tente (c’est bien dommage que l’essai ne vaille pas le resultat) de m’interesser a l’anthropologie politique francaise et pour vous dire, je suis tellement deconcentree par le manque de progression logique de son texte, la “complexite” de ses commentaires, que j’en suis venue a me demander s’il sait de quoi il parle. Parlons d’ironie: il cite un auteur et ajoute que le commentaire de celui-ci est elliptique alors que je venais de noter que *son* texte entier est un ramassis d’explications tautologiques. Ensuite, il accuse un autre auteur de ne pas etre original, celui-ci basant sa reflexion sur celles d’autres auteurs, alors que son texte en fait de meme. Hypocrite, va.

MAIS LE POINT REEL DE MON ARTICLE se résume en une phrase (que j’emprunte aussi a un autre):

Si vous ne pouvez expliquer un concept à un enfant de six ans, c’est que vous ne le comprenez pas complètement.

(Albert Einstein)

Quoique celle-ci tape aussi dans le mille…

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Rhetoric

De retour les cocos!!!

J’vous ai manqué?

Eh bien, eh bien, commençons par le commencement. Je vous reviens, après avoir hiberné, cogité, ce que vous voulez… mais je reviens avec plus d’engouement, plus de teigne et une plus grande gueule encore -si c’était chose possible…

Cette année, ça va barder.