Social Awkwardness

Has anyone ever actually noticed how much of our thought process is devoted to avoiding awkward situations? Let’s take a moment (or two) here to give a good fist bump –no – a kick-ass HIGH-5 to the parts of our psyche that want to avoid any kind of awkward encounter like it’s a plague. Let’s face it, that’s a pretty tough job!

A good friend of mine constantly loves to point out how incredibly awkward I can be. I suppose I’ve gotten mostly used to it by now, so I delight in making him feel like an upside-down turtle whilst I revel in his misery. Usually this kind of situation arises when I whip out one of my amazing(-ly corny) jokes that I most likely first heard from my Dad. Yeah, I’m talking about those jokes. The ones that, upon hearing for the first time, make you inwardly cringe and hope that no one whose friendship you value was around to hear it. Maybe I just want others to experience the kind of shit I have to put up with at home; either that or for whatever reason I actually find those jokes hilarious. Probably a mix of both, but mostly the latter.

Example:

Friend: I’m hungry

Me: Hi hungry, I’m Laura. [I’m holding back a good giggle until after the joke has sunk in]

Friend: ......... [gives me blank stare] ..... You’re such a fucking loser.

I then proceed to laugh at my own joke (which I do.. A LOT.. okay I pretty much laugh at all of my jokes) and simultaneously agree with his enlightening statement.

At this point I have just accepted the fact that I will continue to have awkward social encounters, and while I am completely at peace with this, I realise the anti-awkward part of everyone else’s brain will generally want to avoid contact with me at all costs.

Don't touch my candy stash.

The other day, while reading through other blogs, I made a list of a whole bunch of things I could blog about that happened to come to mind. Good thing I did because, reading the list now, I didn't remember half the stuff. I finally made the decision to write about what a greedy little grinch I can be. The first step is admitting it, right? haha.

As a child, I would seriously go ape shit for pinatas. I mean, I got to whack the crap out of something and it bled delicious, sugary morsels of aweseomeness. What kid wouldn't enjoy that? And sometimes my Mom loved me so much that she would even put loonies and toonies in there so I could spend all of that on even more candy. Can you say awesome?!!

Anyways, I was the Birthday girl, so I presumed that meant that I could do whatever the hell I wanted and no one could say shit about it. The parental units, on the other hand, were not on the same page. All of the kids got to take equal turns at hitting the rainbow-tassled donkey thing, and of course it always seemed like my turn was the shortest. At first I was a little bit peeved, I mean I've always had a desire to destroy stuff, so it wasn't really my cup of tea to give everyone else a shot at releasing the sugary goodness from the belly of the beast. But being a child genius and all, I immediately took advantage of the opportunity to grab as much of the loot as I could. Basically, when a friend of mine managed to bust that donkey open, the entire back half of the thing fell down and all of the candy was still inside it! Can you guess what I did next? Yeah. I bee-lined it to that donkey-ass, grabbed the entire thing, and ran away with all of my precious candy.

I tried to place myself discreetly out of view of the other kids so they wouldn't be able to see how I totally jipped them of their spoils. I felt extremely proud of myself. I basically snagged enough candy and small change to last me for a couple of weeks at least! I was in heaven! But, alas, all good things must come to an end. My Uncle came up to me and explained that I should share with everyone since I'm getting all the presents and all. Bullshit. The birthday girl should get everything! That includes the donkey-ass filled with candy. Seriously. Whatever though, he ended up tossing handfuls of it off the balcony so it would be evenly distributed among the other sugar addicts in attendance. Being only about 5 years old (I think), my grudge only lasted until we all took inventory and began the serious business of trading for our favourites.

The other story that comes to mind is when me and the fam jam (Mom, Dad, siblings) were all in the van together (I have no recollection of where we were going) and my Mom was handing out some cookies that she had. Me being so small and everything, I naturally ate a bit slower than my older brother. When he finished his cookie, he looked to our Mom and asked if he could have another one, except that there were no more cookies. I was completely aware of the cookie situation, so I knew that my delicious cookie was next on the ‘sharing is caring’ list. Rather than be the nice, 'sharing is caring' sister I am (usually) today, I promptly stuffed the rest of the cookie in my mouth before Mom could pressure me into sharing the rest of it. It was a damn good cookie, and I felt no remorse whatsoever.

The really funny thing is, I never really stopped looking for ways to get the most of the things that I love, mainly my favourite foods. Still to this day, whenever I am enjoying a delicious snack, I will naturally avoid walking past any friends or family members (especially Dad) that will proceed to steal what is mine to enjoy. I know everyone has done something like this at some point, so I don’t really feel bad at all. =)

A little bit about myself.

I've been a long time fan of anything point-form. Simple. Easy to read. No need to look up different connecting words, or ways to string together and arrange my incredibly random thoughts into a coherent paragraph. Basically the lowest maintenance form of writing; right up my alley! So here goes a dandy little list of Laura:

• I am 17 years old and I just finished my first year at University (with flying colours, i might add) studying Human Kinetics (also called Kinesiology). Now I know your thinking, WHOAH NOW you are not old enough to be done your first year already! My answer to that is, I am basically a genius so I skipped a grade way back in the day.. which was a Wednesday by the way..
• I have a seriously hard time choosing a favourite anything. Ever since I decided I would be more open minded about things, i really can't choose just one favourite. It's like I'm shunning everything else, and I can't go around doing that! There are too many great things! But as far as colours go I'm really loving reds, purples, and grays lately. As for music, Lady Gaga is truly amazing but I seriously have a huge variety of music ranging from Tool and Metallica to Jack Johnson to Taylor Swift to Billy Joel to... well I think you get the point.
• I know how to play the piano, guitar, trumpet, and saxophone. Not very well.. but I held my own in band and can play some simple songs. Also I am (usually) capable of creating pieces of art that don't look like they were done by a colour-blind fourth grader, and I like to think I can take some pretty sweet pics.
  
  

not so bad, right?

• I have 2 older brothers and 2 older sisters, but only one of them is a full sibling, the others are half siblings. This is usually a point of confusion when I try to explain to friends and strangers that the weird white girl next to me is in fact my sister (I am of filipino-german descent, so there isn't exactly a close resemblance to my freckled friend)
• Yes, I do love the karaoke. Unfortunately, the perfectly pitched voices I hear when the fam jam busts out the Magic Sing completely skipped my branch of the family tree. Much to the dismay of others around me, this does not stop me from belting out a good tune.
• I like to think that I have great common sense and a general ability to complete a variety of tasks that life may throw at me. For example, I can put together any kind of 'furniture-in-a-box', build a nice campfire, and even install a ceiling fan properly. I take pride in my handy-ness.
• My huge crush on a boy in highschool led me to make ridiculous amounts of baked goods just because I knew he would always come and ask for some.
• I have never had to go to the hospital or had a nose bleed.
• I chose the title of this blog because I can cause some serious awkward turtle moments, and I often speak too fast when i'm nervous and completely stop forming coherent phrases.
• I absolutely LOVE reading books and watching movies because in those moments, I can lose myself in that amazingly fictional world.
• Waking up from the dream in which I won the lottery was probably one of the worst, most depressing moments of my life. Seriously. I was having a conniption fit of happiness in that dream.
• I shudder every time I see Rob Pattinson... I think he was seriously hit with the ugly stick REAL bad..
• I wish I had Kate Hudson's hair texture.

Well I think that's a fair amount for now. I'm sure a lot more of myself will be revealed in the future because, honestly, I really enjoy telling people how amazing I am.

Hopefully the first of many.

Hi, my name is Laura.

A few days ago I decided to enter the blogosphere. I took my chances at browsing the Blogs of note and was delighted to find quite a few great ones. It always baffles me how talented and charismatic people can be. These bloggers somehow manage to turn everyday events into a witty, sarcastic goldmine for people like myself who spend way too much time in the Internet. It's like that one great story people have that they absolutely LOVE to share with others. You know, the one with the punch line that never fails to crack a smile into even a usually stern face. Or the story about one of the best airhead moments you can remember.

For example:

A few years back my Dad asked me to call Dell Support and get them to walk me through fixing some computer issue. The techie began by asking me to please make sure all of my windows were closed. A strange request, I thought, since I never knew open windows could affect a laptop's performance...(can you see my train-wreck of thought there?)... Nevertheless I looked around with a slightly confused look in my eyes, and to double check I asked my Dad 'All the windows are closed, right?'. He immediately returned the confused look and I swear I could hear the techie silently laughing hysterically at me through the phone. I finally remembered that when you open something on a computer, it is also called a window.... *facepalm*

Thank god only my dad could see my face of pure embarrassment... At least I managed to fix the problem without any other.. hiccups..

Anyways, I was saying that I was truly amazed and how these bloggers can really make every post that 'incerdibly hilarious true story'. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like a perfectly scripted movie scene.

Unfortunately I don't have that same type of skill. *sigh* But here goes my very first blog post! I'm hoping that they will only get better as I go along.