I'm quiet you know / You make a first impression
The workload begins to pick up for the quarter, as predictable by week 4. It's at storm-on-the-horizon status right now, but I'm anticipating a couple hellish weeks, especially as February 11th draws nearer.
February 11th, by the way, is Love Sucks, Mixed Co's annual winter show. It should be great. It should also be a crapload of work to prepare for, although Matt, our director, assures us we're not really behind schedule with rehearsals, and doing way better than last year's group was at this time.
Friday night we had our winter retreat, at a local member's house in Walnut Creek. It was a pretty excellent time. We rehearsed for a total of something like 7 hours, learning 3 new songs basically and doing 2 solo auditions. Her parents were ridiculously nice hosts, and they put out a bunch of fresh fruit and stuff for us at breakfast.
We had some time to goof off too, and played one of the most entertaining games I've ever discovered. Everybody (except one person, who I'll get to) sits in a circle, and everyone thinks they're the person on their left. They answer yes or no questions, and if their answer is wrong, the person on their left will switch places with them. One unfortunate soul (one of the newbies - they play this game every year) sits in the middle, and hasn't been informed what the rules are, and has to figure out what the hell is going on. It was just unbelievably funny at times. Afterwards the annual winter-retreat group bonding ritual commenced, in which anyone, knowing the rule to the game, could go into the center of the circle and ask whatever questions they wanted to. Learned...some interesting things. All strictly confidential, of course. Heh.
I find honesty is one of my strengths, and at times I guess, one of my faults. I like telling people frank things about myself, whether flattering or not, and I tend to feel really comfortable in situations in which I can be totally straightforward with people. The flip side is I'm really uncomfortable in situations in which a certain kind of tact is required - not that I'm tactless, but I don't like to play any of the social games in which norms dictate that you're supposed to hide your actual feelings or thoughts. Certain friends of mine in particular know about my propensity to say shockingly honest things if you simply ask me an honest question. ; )
This came up in the game we were playing, which I enjoyed - whereas I'm sure that kind of thing makes some people nervous. It's also come up in conversations with friends lately. Such as one protracted one sometime last week about dating and relationships and how to go about them (or not, in my case). Had a variety of insights I won't mention because they weren't that interesting, but definitely confirmed my belief that I don't do well with a lot of social rules of behavior. Like, my friend was telling me that if I want a relationship, I should just go out on a limb and ask a girl out to dinner. Well, fine. Except that I don't really enjoy dating, I'm not terribly interested in the prospect of going out to dinner one-on-one with someone, etc. It seems to me like something that people sometimes do because it's a ritual, it's what you're supposed to do. I think I ruin some romantic prospects by getting to know girls casually, on the friend level. But that's what I'm good at, that's what I enjoy, and I don't see why it can't / shouldn't evolve into a romantic relationship if we both "click" and discover we like each other a lot. Especially since the last real romantic relationship I had did start that way - we got to know each other over a couple months in a class before we started dating. And I think it's funny that whereas I'm really nervous about the prospect of asking a girl out on a date, I'm pretty sure that if some girl I liked asked me straight out if I had feelings for her, I wouldn't hesitate one second to tell the truth. That never scares me, in fact it's liberating to have an excuse to just tell people things.
And in general, not just where dating is concerned, if social norms made it more commonplace, I think I'd have a much easier time going up to someone I hadn't really talked to before and saying "Hey, I think you're an interesting person, I want to get to know you" and starting a conversation that way than going through a roundabout ritual designed to achieve the same goal: getting to know a person. I know that I love situations in which there's an opening for that, in which it's totally acceptable to just start talking to anyone. (For example, the first week of freshman year of college.) I wish we didn't close ourselves off so much the rest of the time, though maybe it's inevitable that that happens as we decide who our friends are and what our social priorities are.
Less rambling. More sleep. Adios, amigos.
February 11th, by the way, is Love Sucks, Mixed Co's annual winter show. It should be great. It should also be a crapload of work to prepare for, although Matt, our director, assures us we're not really behind schedule with rehearsals, and doing way better than last year's group was at this time.
Friday night we had our winter retreat, at a local member's house in Walnut Creek. It was a pretty excellent time. We rehearsed for a total of something like 7 hours, learning 3 new songs basically and doing 2 solo auditions. Her parents were ridiculously nice hosts, and they put out a bunch of fresh fruit and stuff for us at breakfast.
We had some time to goof off too, and played one of the most entertaining games I've ever discovered. Everybody (except one person, who I'll get to) sits in a circle, and everyone thinks they're the person on their left. They answer yes or no questions, and if their answer is wrong, the person on their left will switch places with them. One unfortunate soul (one of the newbies - they play this game every year) sits in the middle, and hasn't been informed what the rules are, and has to figure out what the hell is going on. It was just unbelievably funny at times. Afterwards the annual winter-retreat group bonding ritual commenced, in which anyone, knowing the rule to the game, could go into the center of the circle and ask whatever questions they wanted to. Learned...some interesting things. All strictly confidential, of course. Heh.
I find honesty is one of my strengths, and at times I guess, one of my faults. I like telling people frank things about myself, whether flattering or not, and I tend to feel really comfortable in situations in which I can be totally straightforward with people. The flip side is I'm really uncomfortable in situations in which a certain kind of tact is required - not that I'm tactless, but I don't like to play any of the social games in which norms dictate that you're supposed to hide your actual feelings or thoughts. Certain friends of mine in particular know about my propensity to say shockingly honest things if you simply ask me an honest question. ; )
This came up in the game we were playing, which I enjoyed - whereas I'm sure that kind of thing makes some people nervous. It's also come up in conversations with friends lately. Such as one protracted one sometime last week about dating and relationships and how to go about them (or not, in my case). Had a variety of insights I won't mention because they weren't that interesting, but definitely confirmed my belief that I don't do well with a lot of social rules of behavior. Like, my friend was telling me that if I want a relationship, I should just go out on a limb and ask a girl out to dinner. Well, fine. Except that I don't really enjoy dating, I'm not terribly interested in the prospect of going out to dinner one-on-one with someone, etc. It seems to me like something that people sometimes do because it's a ritual, it's what you're supposed to do. I think I ruin some romantic prospects by getting to know girls casually, on the friend level. But that's what I'm good at, that's what I enjoy, and I don't see why it can't / shouldn't evolve into a romantic relationship if we both "click" and discover we like each other a lot. Especially since the last real romantic relationship I had did start that way - we got to know each other over a couple months in a class before we started dating. And I think it's funny that whereas I'm really nervous about the prospect of asking a girl out on a date, I'm pretty sure that if some girl I liked asked me straight out if I had feelings for her, I wouldn't hesitate one second to tell the truth. That never scares me, in fact it's liberating to have an excuse to just tell people things.
And in general, not just where dating is concerned, if social norms made it more commonplace, I think I'd have a much easier time going up to someone I hadn't really talked to before and saying "Hey, I think you're an interesting person, I want to get to know you" and starting a conversation that way than going through a roundabout ritual designed to achieve the same goal: getting to know a person. I know that I love situations in which there's an opening for that, in which it's totally acceptable to just start talking to anyone. (For example, the first week of freshman year of college.) I wish we didn't close ourselves off so much the rest of the time, though maybe it's inevitable that that happens as we decide who our friends are and what our social priorities are.
Less rambling. More sleep. Adios, amigos.