talking yourself up

Often i overhear people having chats about what they've been up to recently. it's probably more because of the fact that i have a degree in eavesdropping - i grew up a single child so naturally my parents and other adults conversations were the most interesting thing at home, that and playstation.

one thing i constantly notice, time and time again, not only in conversations i have with people myself, but also other people's that i overhear, is the amount of things that people say that are sometimes very hard to believe.

i have one friend who is particularly good at this and has it almost down to a fine art, to anyone who doesn't know them well enough that is. it always seemed that this friend always had an uncanny story or amazing tale to tell every time i saw them. at first i believed it all, as anyone would, but as time went on and i got better at reading this person, i was able to, more and more, see through their seemingly 'true' stories. it's not as if they would tell stories of leaping between buildings and saving old women from burning car wrecks, it was more the typical "I saw such and such from that tv show today" kind of mumbo jumbo. the only difference was, was that these tales happened every day and time i saw this person and seemed as though they were being tailored to my interests. 

i'm not kidding anyone, i too figured out the art of tailoring stories to suit an audience when i was younger. everyone goes through a childhood conversation where they realize that by 'jazzing' up their story their audience will think they're 'cooler'. i think some people just don't grow out of it. they then become guilty of plain lieing, instead of childhood white lies and it becomes a disgusting habit. just like smoking, but without the tobacco, paper....well, you get it.

sometimes with his person i even found my own tales that i had told months before were being regurgitated back at me with a slightly different twist. of course i couldn't say anything, that would of made it just too awkward, even if there were times when i really wanted to set them straight for once.

in a weird way i knew what was being done to me, whether or not this was a good or bad thing, and yet allowed it to continue, and still do. i probably do this because the person's stories act as a catalyst for me to make more conversation with that person and i find it easier to allow them to begin with a tale of absolute crap than asking them what they had for lunch. another reason i guess is because i can tell behind those tales of situations far and beyond, is a person who is actually quite insecure, and if i'm able to make them feel that little bit better about themselves just by my expressions of "wow" and "really?!", then, what the heck. but that could be just me being soft.

it seems like this is a very typical new zealand past time. a lot of kiwi's seem to indulge in this dressing-up-of-personal-stories saga and perhaps it points more to the fact that because we are quite modest and seem talk ourselves down a lot (another story in itself), we need moments where we can do the opposite, and feel a bit excited inside knowing that someone is being woo-ed by our story telling efforts, true or not.

think about that next time your BFF is telling you about how they saw Cheryl from Outrageous Fortune at the friday night drags.

x

changes

For a long time i knew i was going to uni. i went to a private school (judge as you will), where university was pretty much just another year of school. so 2007 ended and i had thought i knew exactly where i was going. auckland university was apparently the best, and how was i supposed to know any better? 

so off i trot to auckland university, starting semester 1, 2008. BA in Film/TV & Media, here i come. or so i thought. here i am, 1 year 2 months since that saga began, no longer at uni, working full time at an automotive parts store which is run by a seemingly dirty used car salesman.

uni life went good for the first semester, i really dug myself into what i was doing, managed a few A's in there which kept my spirits up. met a lot of awesome people who were a lot friendlier than expected. semester 2 dragged itself in after exams sucked the life out of me and i was starting to feel the burn already. things started piling up. i got slack. i got slack because i didn't like what i was doing. i didn't like what i was doing because i wasn't interested in it.

i was yet to find this out however.

so new years was fast approaching after 2nd semester exams, of course i couldn't have been happier to have all that crap over and done with. new years 2009 arrived, which i spent with my 3 best friends, and then i wind up back in the lecture theaters of 2009 AU.

i am now a 2nd year uni student. such an accomplishment i probably kept telling myself.

then bang. 2nd week of 1st semester 09 and it hit me. i had been bored since about the 2nd day back. i thought to myself

"what the hell is the point of me sitting in this sociology lecture about criminals when i'm staring at the clock and how crooked the lecturers glasses are rather than what shes actually babbling about".

so stuff it. what really was the point of completing a degree i wasn't happy in. working hours on end of assignments i didn't really give two shits about. and trying to decipher between the lecturers groans and actual speech.

and that was when everything changed. flipped. upped and overed.

within a matter of minutes, i had already decided that i was going to withdraw from uni, get a full time job for a few months, head to europe for another few, and then do what i had always wanted to do, go to film school on the shore next year.

it really intrigues me how we can make such seemingly rash decisions so quickly and so easily one day and not the next. i'd probably be right in thinking that if i hadn't of had that slice of toast for breakfast which in turn gave my brain a bit more thinking power, which in turn gave my brain more will power, then i probably wouldn't have made that decision and would still be at uni today.

people always seem to get themselves into the biggest of pickles and yet the answer is often so clear and right in front of them that you'd think they were stupid for not noticing earlier.

it seems that for so long we have had to make each decision we make in life so carefully, that now we are all so tired of that 'careful decision making process' that we would rather just stay where we are, perhaps suffering, than making that possibly life saving decision. 

how many people do you know that hate their job or hate what they're studying at school or university. people say it all the time, usually with a humorous twist to make the blow easier on themselves, but when it comes down to it, they really mean what they say, or else they most likely wouldn't have thought of it and then had the brains to say it. but you already knew that.

change is often something that many people loose control of. they get behind the wheel of it and then for some reason let go. i think it's about time more of us un-clammed those nervous hands and took control.

or at least, thats what i'm trying to do.

X

Beginnings

So this is the beginning of what i hope to be an interesting interwebs adventure. 

This blog is here to take note and ramble about the many things that we often don't notice in life. Interactions with other people, races, sexes. The way we do all this interests me and so here are some of my thoughts on random things that I remember each day and consequently smash out onto my keyboard. 

here goes....