My Weekend
Jul. 20th, 2011 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationYeah, how about that? It's a little "what I've been doing" update.
Except for not really.
The world, I've found, is divided between two types of people. The 9-5 crowd and the rest of us. (Yes,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yasonablack, this is influenced by what I said in response to your poll) What reason do I have to care if it's the weekend or not? Um, the only thing I can come up with is that on the weekends that means the 9-5 people in my life are available for socializing.
Not that I've been socializing a whole lot. Pretty much the opposite. Last week Hanna came over for a little while - yes, Hanna who told me before I had surgery that sick people and medical issues make her uncomfortable and she just wanted me to know that upfront - if she didn't contact me at all while I'm recovering, please not to take it as her not caring about me or her disliking me for some reason, just take it as her behaving horribly because she's uncomfortable and there's no excuse for that but she just wanted me to know ahead of time. Well, ok, fine, whatever Hanna... except for Hanna's pretty much been my one regular contact with "the outside world" (because I live in the Fortress of Solitude...) and so that's just a little... unexpected.
Um, I'm kind of a control freak (I think I've mentioned this before, yeah?) and I know I'm the type of person to feel easily overwhelmed or even smothered by people who want to help me. It's just now occurring to me that these two things are related. Bevan is awesome about asking me what I want, but then, I mean, he knows me inside out pretty much. He knows how I react to stuff and he's always been the type of person who thinks before he says anything, and he's thinking about how I'm going to react and will only say something if he knows it's going to have the result he wants. This sometimes can mean it can be difficult to get a straight answer from him if it's a tough question, but it also means I have felt so incredibly... well, SAFE and peaceful and okay about being able to do so little for myself. He knows me well enough to know how upset I get when I'm not part of a decision, when things that effect me are done for me, or decided for me, you know, when someone goes HERE I DID THIS FOR YOU and I'm like OMFG DONT TOUCH MY STUFF! That kind of thing.
I dunno. I guess what I'm getting at is I'd rather have Hanna being uncomfortable around me than someone else being TOO comfortable... for example BRAZIL GIRL who I, perhaps mistakenly, talked to yesterday. Bevan reminded me, after my conversation with her, that just because she wants to be friends with me does not mean I'm under any obligation to be friends with her, and if I don't like her, just stop contacting her and there's nothing wrong with that. But... part of me does like her - except for the OMG I HAVE TO HELP YOU part of her, I guess. I mean I was thinking about it just now, while I've been typing out how I feel about control and help and etc, and I can't imagine her coming here. I mean I can imagine it, and it makes me cringe. I think I'd be freaking out that she might start, I dunno, touching my stuff or something. I think that's the personality trait in her I can't stand: she's incapable of respecting the word DON'T. So... she's kinda like my mom. And yes I recognize that this is a clear indication I have issues.
So maybe some day in the future I can hang out with Brazil Girl in some other setting. Like not in my house when I'm unable to stop her from doing... whatever it is that I'm afraid she'll do.
I've found that there are a lot of things I'm afraid of that realistically are not even happening. It's really very interesting how the brain works - it's one thing to acknowledge a logical fact, and it's quite another to actually believe it.
Um, also in the vein of socializing, Brett and his girlfriend came over for a visit last week as well. Brett is someone I met in my Chinese class two years ago - before I went to China. He pegged me as the "smart chick" in the class because I always seemed a step ahead of everyone else, and practically begged me to help him because he was afraid of failing the class. Would he actually have failed the class? Looking back, yeah, he might have. Or more likely, he might have passed the class, with not such a great grade, and then been utterly lost in the next class and not passed THAT one. Which I think he realized. However, what he DIDNT know was yeah, I was a step ahead of everyone else - CAUSE I ALREADY TOOK THE CLASS ONCE. So, smart as I keep saying I am, I'm really rather average. But don't tell anyone that.
So Brett has now surpassed me in Mandarin skills. I think? As the university would measure them, anyway. I mean he has taken two more classes since we had class together, so this year he will be starting the advanced level. He brought me his textbook from his classes last year, cause that's what I'm taking this year (possibly) and I do things like read ahead so that I can do other things like sleep through class - but if I stay in the class, I do have to buy my own book cause both he and I can envision him needing the book at some point for whatever reason.
But being in China really did help to train my English-speaking ear to hear tones quite a bit better, even though since I've been back a lot of that has recessed back into the unused part of my memory for sure. So... I think I can hear Mandarin better than Brett can, but he has a better structural understanding of the language. We also have totally different vocabularies - which is to be expected - but what I didn't expect was that him and Bevan can not really understand each other's Mandarin. After I came back from Disney World with Jason and Minh I joked that maybe my Chinese classmates would think I sounded like I was from Wuhan - cause while I was with them I tried my very best to remember as much Mandarin as I could and to use it as much as I could, you know, to prepare for actually BEING in China and hearing and using it all the time, but also to get ready for my class, and of course they speak what everyone else where they live speaks, the southwestern Mandarin dialect, and at school, well, they teach us to speak how people who live in Beijing speak. So when we were actually IN China, um, I understood pretty much NOTHING in Shanghai, quite a bit in Beijing, and right back to next to nothing in Wuhan. Until I'd been there for a little while, listened hard, asked lots of questions, etc...
So now... I dunno. In order to succeed in school, I'm thinking I'd better try to unlearn, or at least compartmentalize off, everything I learned in China. Cause it's too different from what they teach us.
Or I'm just reading too much into this and everything will be fine, and Brett and Bevan just don't understand each other well because not being native speakers they have a lot of difficulty with accents other than what they learned with.
Which just brings me right back around to questioning taking Chinese in school at all. But that's another post's worth of stuff.
What I actually intended to write about here was more to do with Bevan's friend coming over for the weekend. That's why I started with talking about the weekend and 9-5 people, see? Cause his friend has a regular job, and lives in North Jersey, so the only time they can really get together if they want to is on the weekend. I'd met his friend before, um, but I was sick when we met and I felt sooo crappy I made us come home early from what we were planning to do, so I feel like I didn't make a good impression on him at all. Cause he had wanted to meet me, I guess to see exactly who this girl his friend is so into anyway, or whatever. But, I dunno, I mean it was pretty obvious that I was actually sick, being that once we got home all I did was sleep, so I don't think he thought I was just being a brat or something.
And now... well, now he meets me again when I can do all of NOTHING and Bevan can't go visit him at his place because he HAS to stay here with me - so yeah. I was feeling pretty awkward about that for sure.
So anyway. Bevan's friend is someone he went to school with in NJ but who moved away before they finished high school. So they pretty much grew up together, and know each other really well. I mean, they are close enough for his friend to easily say, hey, you need somewhere to stay? Come crash at my place, no prob, love to have you. Cause when Bevan came back from China, he wasn't really planning to STAY here right then, so he really DIDNT have somewhere to stay, being that staying with me wasn't an option because I was living in school housing.
So what did we do while he was here... um, we watched lots of TV. Cause that's what I do these days. And we did talk. I got to talk to him a whole lot more than the last time I met him, anyway, since the last time I had the COLD FROM HELL and just wanted to be left alone so I could sleep it off. Of course, I don't feel too great right now, but honestly, the worst of it is that I'm usually kinda drugged (like I am right now, if you couldn't tell) and therefor do have a hard time focusing on a conversation (or a TV show, which is why, while I LOVE TV, I don't actually like watching TV when I feel like shit and more often than not it just bothers me)
Anyway, Bevan's friend told me something that has been bugging the SHIT out of me since.
It's nothing mean. It's not like he's been saying bad stuff about me or doesn't like me or anything like that. But he told me I'm very difficult to understand. As in, he has a really hard time reading my lips - because he is moderately hard of hearing - and that I am noticeably more difficult to understand than most other people.
And he didn't just randomly tell me this, either. I mean yeah, I knew he had trouble understanding me - I just figured that it was because he can't hear, that lipreading is kind of hit-or-miss a lot of the time, and I don't know any sign language whatsoever, nor could I really use it right now even if I did - but I didn't realize it was THAT difficult. I mean to me it was just him saying "what?" a lot.
Right. He told me I'm hard to understand because I told him I'm going to school for SLH.
So... UH OH?
I don't think I'm hard to understand, but I've never tried to read my own lips, either. BECAUSE WHY WOULD I???
I mean... how far will I get in my program in school before someone says to me, oh btw Lara, this career is not going to work out for you. You can't teach people to speak, because they're not going to be able to learn anything from you, because your speech is un-lip-read-able?
Yeah. Ok. That's kind of it, I'm out of steam for this post. More later I guess.
Except for not really.
The world, I've found, is divided between two types of people. The 9-5 crowd and the rest of us. (Yes,
yasonablack, this is influenced by what I said in response to your poll) What reason do I have to care if it's the weekend or not? Um, the only thing I can come up with is that on the weekends that means the 9-5 people in my life are available for socializing.Not that I've been socializing a whole lot. Pretty much the opposite. Last week Hanna came over for a little while - yes, Hanna who told me before I had surgery that sick people and medical issues make her uncomfortable and she just wanted me to know that upfront - if she didn't contact me at all while I'm recovering, please not to take it as her not caring about me or her disliking me for some reason, just take it as her behaving horribly because she's uncomfortable and there's no excuse for that but she just wanted me to know ahead of time. Well, ok, fine, whatever Hanna... except for Hanna's pretty much been my one regular contact with "the outside world" (because I live in the Fortress of Solitude...) and so that's just a little... unexpected.
Um, I'm kind of a control freak (I think I've mentioned this before, yeah?) and I know I'm the type of person to feel easily overwhelmed or even smothered by people who want to help me. It's just now occurring to me that these two things are related. Bevan is awesome about asking me what I want, but then, I mean, he knows me inside out pretty much. He knows how I react to stuff and he's always been the type of person who thinks before he says anything, and he's thinking about how I'm going to react and will only say something if he knows it's going to have the result he wants. This sometimes can mean it can be difficult to get a straight answer from him if it's a tough question, but it also means I have felt so incredibly... well, SAFE and peaceful and okay about being able to do so little for myself. He knows me well enough to know how upset I get when I'm not part of a decision, when things that effect me are done for me, or decided for me, you know, when someone goes HERE I DID THIS FOR YOU and I'm like OMFG DONT TOUCH MY STUFF! That kind of thing.
I dunno. I guess what I'm getting at is I'd rather have Hanna being uncomfortable around me than someone else being TOO comfortable... for example BRAZIL GIRL who I, perhaps mistakenly, talked to yesterday. Bevan reminded me, after my conversation with her, that just because she wants to be friends with me does not mean I'm under any obligation to be friends with her, and if I don't like her, just stop contacting her and there's nothing wrong with that. But... part of me does like her - except for the OMG I HAVE TO HELP YOU part of her, I guess. I mean I was thinking about it just now, while I've been typing out how I feel about control and help and etc, and I can't imagine her coming here. I mean I can imagine it, and it makes me cringe. I think I'd be freaking out that she might start, I dunno, touching my stuff or something. I think that's the personality trait in her I can't stand: she's incapable of respecting the word DON'T. So... she's kinda like my mom. And yes I recognize that this is a clear indication I have issues.
So maybe some day in the future I can hang out with Brazil Girl in some other setting. Like not in my house when I'm unable to stop her from doing... whatever it is that I'm afraid she'll do.
I've found that there are a lot of things I'm afraid of that realistically are not even happening. It's really very interesting how the brain works - it's one thing to acknowledge a logical fact, and it's quite another to actually believe it.
Um, also in the vein of socializing, Brett and his girlfriend came over for a visit last week as well. Brett is someone I met in my Chinese class two years ago - before I went to China. He pegged me as the "smart chick" in the class because I always seemed a step ahead of everyone else, and practically begged me to help him because he was afraid of failing the class. Would he actually have failed the class? Looking back, yeah, he might have. Or more likely, he might have passed the class, with not such a great grade, and then been utterly lost in the next class and not passed THAT one. Which I think he realized. However, what he DIDNT know was yeah, I was a step ahead of everyone else - CAUSE I ALREADY TOOK THE CLASS ONCE. So, smart as I keep saying I am, I'm really rather average. But don't tell anyone that.
So Brett has now surpassed me in Mandarin skills. I think? As the university would measure them, anyway. I mean he has taken two more classes since we had class together, so this year he will be starting the advanced level. He brought me his textbook from his classes last year, cause that's what I'm taking this year (possibly) and I do things like read ahead so that I can do other things like sleep through class - but if I stay in the class, I do have to buy my own book cause both he and I can envision him needing the book at some point for whatever reason.
But being in China really did help to train my English-speaking ear to hear tones quite a bit better, even though since I've been back a lot of that has recessed back into the unused part of my memory for sure. So... I think I can hear Mandarin better than Brett can, but he has a better structural understanding of the language. We also have totally different vocabularies - which is to be expected - but what I didn't expect was that him and Bevan can not really understand each other's Mandarin. After I came back from Disney World with Jason and Minh I joked that maybe my Chinese classmates would think I sounded like I was from Wuhan - cause while I was with them I tried my very best to remember as much Mandarin as I could and to use it as much as I could, you know, to prepare for actually BEING in China and hearing and using it all the time, but also to get ready for my class, and of course they speak what everyone else where they live speaks, the southwestern Mandarin dialect, and at school, well, they teach us to speak how people who live in Beijing speak. So when we were actually IN China, um, I understood pretty much NOTHING in Shanghai, quite a bit in Beijing, and right back to next to nothing in Wuhan. Until I'd been there for a little while, listened hard, asked lots of questions, etc...
So now... I dunno. In order to succeed in school, I'm thinking I'd better try to unlearn, or at least compartmentalize off, everything I learned in China. Cause it's too different from what they teach us.
Or I'm just reading too much into this and everything will be fine, and Brett and Bevan just don't understand each other well because not being native speakers they have a lot of difficulty with accents other than what they learned with.
Which just brings me right back around to questioning taking Chinese in school at all. But that's another post's worth of stuff.
What I actually intended to write about here was more to do with Bevan's friend coming over for the weekend. That's why I started with talking about the weekend and 9-5 people, see? Cause his friend has a regular job, and lives in North Jersey, so the only time they can really get together if they want to is on the weekend. I'd met his friend before, um, but I was sick when we met and I felt sooo crappy I made us come home early from what we were planning to do, so I feel like I didn't make a good impression on him at all. Cause he had wanted to meet me, I guess to see exactly who this girl his friend is so into anyway, or whatever. But, I dunno, I mean it was pretty obvious that I was actually sick, being that once we got home all I did was sleep, so I don't think he thought I was just being a brat or something.
And now... well, now he meets me again when I can do all of NOTHING and Bevan can't go visit him at his place because he HAS to stay here with me - so yeah. I was feeling pretty awkward about that for sure.
So anyway. Bevan's friend is someone he went to school with in NJ but who moved away before they finished high school. So they pretty much grew up together, and know each other really well. I mean, they are close enough for his friend to easily say, hey, you need somewhere to stay? Come crash at my place, no prob, love to have you. Cause when Bevan came back from China, he wasn't really planning to STAY here right then, so he really DIDNT have somewhere to stay, being that staying with me wasn't an option because I was living in school housing.
So what did we do while he was here... um, we watched lots of TV. Cause that's what I do these days. And we did talk. I got to talk to him a whole lot more than the last time I met him, anyway, since the last time I had the COLD FROM HELL and just wanted to be left alone so I could sleep it off. Of course, I don't feel too great right now, but honestly, the worst of it is that I'm usually kinda drugged (like I am right now, if you couldn't tell) and therefor do have a hard time focusing on a conversation (or a TV show, which is why, while I LOVE TV, I don't actually like watching TV when I feel like shit and more often than not it just bothers me)
Anyway, Bevan's friend told me something that has been bugging the SHIT out of me since.
It's nothing mean. It's not like he's been saying bad stuff about me or doesn't like me or anything like that. But he told me I'm very difficult to understand. As in, he has a really hard time reading my lips - because he is moderately hard of hearing - and that I am noticeably more difficult to understand than most other people.
And he didn't just randomly tell me this, either. I mean yeah, I knew he had trouble understanding me - I just figured that it was because he can't hear, that lipreading is kind of hit-or-miss a lot of the time, and I don't know any sign language whatsoever, nor could I really use it right now even if I did - but I didn't realize it was THAT difficult. I mean to me it was just him saying "what?" a lot.
Right. He told me I'm hard to understand because I told him I'm going to school for SLH.
So... UH OH?
I don't think I'm hard to understand, but I've never tried to read my own lips, either. BECAUSE WHY WOULD I???
I mean... how far will I get in my program in school before someone says to me, oh btw Lara, this career is not going to work out for you. You can't teach people to speak, because they're not going to be able to learn anything from you, because your speech is un-lip-read-able?
Yeah. Ok. That's kind of it, I'm out of steam for this post. More later I guess.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-20 09:19 pm (UTC)The Japanese I learned at school and the Japanese I use everyday are completely different. The two merge, at least, but there are so many phrases that if I used them in Japan I'd probably get a pat on the head and an 'aawww no one says that, but it's cute that you said it'
I'm lucky to be surrounded by Japanese, so I can ask questions and get the right phrases before I go, but if I was continuing to learn the language via a book or tapes I think I'd be utterly lost when I stepped in the country.
I'm sure you could change the way you speak, btw. Now that you're aware (that is just one opinion, of course. Other people may have no problem understanding you) that perhaps some people may have trouble understanding you, I'm sure you could alter that. There's got to be some kind of book or DVD on how to form your words more clearly, or something.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 06:32 am (UTC)I however will skip the usual line by line commenting that I do and keep it short and sweet.
Oh no! I've turned into one of those 9 to 5 people! Ever since about May I've had absolutely no problem waking up up to an hour before I actually need to get up for work. For someone who hasn't ever been a morning person this is very weird and it happened very suddenly.
Second, it make me very glad to hear that you and B are dealing with everything so well together.
Lastly, while don't take me as an expert on like hearing or anything, but I do have to know quite a bit about it in order to do my job. Consider this, the reason Friend (lets call him F) can't understand you might be because you are a girl. Wait! Wait! No I'm not saying he's sexist, but what I am saying is that if he has more of a loss at a high frequency range then he might just hear you a lot less than he hears someone with a deeper voice. I've seen that issue at work where equipment tuned for a mans voice just wouldn't pick up a woman operator unless she was just about yelling into it.
A coworker of mine has the opposite problem and he just cannot understand another coworker who sounds very James Earl Jones-ish. So I guess, don't worry about it. It could be just him, you might be perfectly understandable to the next person. I think you'll do fine :)