On appearances and the importance of confidence
So we had a choir concert last week. It went well and we got some good feedback. I've played at, I dunno... maybe hundreds of concerts possibly, but I've never before taken part in helping to organize it. There's quite a lot to be done, I never quite realised how much work goes into it besides preparing the music.
I had a bit of a mishap while we were clearing away the extra chairs after the concert. It sounds quite stupid and clumsy, but I managed to accidentally knock my lip on the edge of a chair while I was stacking them, or maybe I knocked the chair on my lip. Well either way it was one of those moments where little birds fly in a circle around your head in cartoons. It hurt quite a bit and there was blood. Good thing that I had a hankerchief in my pocket, because otherwise I imagine that my face would've been quite a site by the time that I got to a bathroom and a mirror to see the damage. For such a small wound (maybe a centimeter long) it sure bled quite a bit. So half of my upper lip was all swollen and I had a bandait on it, which looked utterly stupid. There was also a wound on the inside of the lip, but thankfully those heal fast. I think that I looked like a victim of domestic violence. I got a lot of sympathy from my choir friends, and because I don't place much stock on appearances I still went to the after party and stayed until very late. xp
By the time that I headed home I had taken the bandait off, so I didn't really get any weird looks on the commute. Mainly it's just about your attitude. You'll only draw attention to yourself by thinking and acting like you're ashamed or umcomfortable with how you look. I had a perfectly good explanation for the bloody scab (rupi) on my upper lip. So what if it looked bad. You just need to hold your head high and act like there's nothing out of the ordinary, and people won't give you a second look. I'm quite used to going about my life with my scarred face (due to the acne). I've long since stopped thinking and acting like it was something to hide or be ashamed off. And it does affect how people see you and how they behave. People will respect you, if you carry yourself with confidence. And it comes from the inside. What you look like on the outside is irrelevant. It's about how you think and how you see yourself. People will react to that. Sure there are some sorry souls who will look down on you, for not having a perfect face of some such nonsense, but I consider it to be a perk as it helps me ween out the people who are not worth my time. Why would I want anything to do with a person who would disdain me for having a medical condition. Good riddance I say.
I've been thinking about these things lately as there was this guy in one of my classes whose face, half of it, was several degrees a deeper shade than the other half. It had a bit of a reddish tint. I never got a good look because he did all he could to hide that side of his face from view, but I suspect that he had been in a fire and had gotten a scar from that. When it was time to present homework at the front of the class he would stand so that only his good side faced the rest of the classroom and during lectures he sat on the far edge of the classroom so that nobody sat so that they'd see that side of his face. I felt sorry for him, not so much for how he looked all though I'm sure that he's got quite enough of bad first reactions from people and people staring and so forth, but more for how he went to such lengths to hide his face. And he did it so naturally, that he's probably had a lot of practise at it. It's such a shame, because when he talked he was quite brilliant, but that's not what people will remember of him. They'll remember how ashamed he seemed to be of his face. By trying to hide it, he draw attention to it. Maybe some people would've gawked, if he had faced the classroom head one when he was presenting homework before the blackboard, but I'm sure that they would've gotten over it.I've been playing a new game called Legend of Grimrock. It's an indie Finnish game and it's quite nostalgic as it's a grid based dungeon crawler. I'm on level 8 at the moment and quite stuck as there's a deathly battle with a dozen poisonous mushroom type of monsters. I had trouble with just two of them on level 4. Over a dozen of them at once is a death trap. But I've figured out that I just need two keys from that room and to get out with at least one of my party members still alive and I'm good to go. I'm not going to be able to beat the monsters at this point. I'm just getting the hang of beating ogres, but they still scare me so bad that I'm constantly watching over my shoulder when I hear them stomping somewhere in the game. The puzzles in the game are awesome. Some of them are so hard that I have to cheat with some Internet help, but sometimes even that won't help so I've resorted to drawing maps of some of the portal puzzles. I also like that the gear is what you're able to find. You can't buy anything ingame and holding on to old junk is irrelevant as you can't sell them anywhere, and you won't be able to carry everything with you anyway.
I have two fighters, a thief and a mage in my party and it's been working fine so far. Anyone who's ever roleplayed will know the importance of a well balanced team (or played any computer games where such things are important). I was watching Avatar the other day and any roleplayer could've told the people in charge of the avatar program that it's pure folly to have only mages in your team (mages being the researchers). You need to have more diversity and get a broader skill base.
I had a bit of a mishap while we were clearing away the extra chairs after the concert. It sounds quite stupid and clumsy, but I managed to accidentally knock my lip on the edge of a chair while I was stacking them, or maybe I knocked the chair on my lip. Well either way it was one of those moments where little birds fly in a circle around your head in cartoons. It hurt quite a bit and there was blood. Good thing that I had a hankerchief in my pocket, because otherwise I imagine that my face would've been quite a site by the time that I got to a bathroom and a mirror to see the damage. For such a small wound (maybe a centimeter long) it sure bled quite a bit. So half of my upper lip was all swollen and I had a bandait on it, which looked utterly stupid. There was also a wound on the inside of the lip, but thankfully those heal fast. I think that I looked like a victim of domestic violence. I got a lot of sympathy from my choir friends, and because I don't place much stock on appearances I still went to the after party and stayed until very late. xp
By the time that I headed home I had taken the bandait off, so I didn't really get any weird looks on the commute. Mainly it's just about your attitude. You'll only draw attention to yourself by thinking and acting like you're ashamed or umcomfortable with how you look. I had a perfectly good explanation for the bloody scab (rupi) on my upper lip. So what if it looked bad. You just need to hold your head high and act like there's nothing out of the ordinary, and people won't give you a second look. I'm quite used to going about my life with my scarred face (due to the acne). I've long since stopped thinking and acting like it was something to hide or be ashamed off. And it does affect how people see you and how they behave. People will respect you, if you carry yourself with confidence. And it comes from the inside. What you look like on the outside is irrelevant. It's about how you think and how you see yourself. People will react to that. Sure there are some sorry souls who will look down on you, for not having a perfect face of some such nonsense, but I consider it to be a perk as it helps me ween out the people who are not worth my time. Why would I want anything to do with a person who would disdain me for having a medical condition. Good riddance I say.
I've been thinking about these things lately as there was this guy in one of my classes whose face, half of it, was several degrees a deeper shade than the other half. It had a bit of a reddish tint. I never got a good look because he did all he could to hide that side of his face from view, but I suspect that he had been in a fire and had gotten a scar from that. When it was time to present homework at the front of the class he would stand so that only his good side faced the rest of the classroom and during lectures he sat on the far edge of the classroom so that nobody sat so that they'd see that side of his face. I felt sorry for him, not so much for how he looked all though I'm sure that he's got quite enough of bad first reactions from people and people staring and so forth, but more for how he went to such lengths to hide his face. And he did it so naturally, that he's probably had a lot of practise at it. It's such a shame, because when he talked he was quite brilliant, but that's not what people will remember of him. They'll remember how ashamed he seemed to be of his face. By trying to hide it, he draw attention to it. Maybe some people would've gawked, if he had faced the classroom head one when he was presenting homework before the blackboard, but I'm sure that they would've gotten over it.I've been playing a new game called Legend of Grimrock. It's an indie Finnish game and it's quite nostalgic as it's a grid based dungeon crawler. I'm on level 8 at the moment and quite stuck as there's a deathly battle with a dozen poisonous mushroom type of monsters. I had trouble with just two of them on level 4. Over a dozen of them at once is a death trap. But I've figured out that I just need two keys from that room and to get out with at least one of my party members still alive and I'm good to go. I'm not going to be able to beat the monsters at this point. I'm just getting the hang of beating ogres, but they still scare me so bad that I'm constantly watching over my shoulder when I hear them stomping somewhere in the game. The puzzles in the game are awesome. Some of them are so hard that I have to cheat with some Internet help, but sometimes even that won't help so I've resorted to drawing maps of some of the portal puzzles. I also like that the gear is what you're able to find. You can't buy anything ingame and holding on to old junk is irrelevant as you can't sell them anywhere, and you won't be able to carry everything with you anyway.
I have two fighters, a thief and a mage in my party and it's been working fine so far. Anyone who's ever roleplayed will know the importance of a well balanced team (or played any computer games where such things are important). I was watching Avatar the other day and any roleplayer could've told the people in charge of the avatar program that it's pure folly to have only mages in your team (mages being the researchers). You need to have more diversity and get a broader skill base.