On being awkward

Yesterday I realized one of the problems of our generation.

I had to wake up really early because a couple of months ago, a wonderful soul broke into my car and stole my license. So, my dad woke up early with me and took me to the DMV (oh, the delights of being home!) to get a duplicate.

As we were standing in line for the DMV to open, Dad and I had a pretty interesting conversation with the people that were standing in line with us. There were three of us in line,--because we got there REALLY early--one was a man, probably mid forties and the other was a woman of about the same age. We started talking about how it was ridiculous that even though we got there that early, we were probably still going to have to wait in line for about an hour or two (I ended up waiting for five!) to get our issues resolved.

The conversation flowed from the ridiculousness of bureaucracy, to complaining about how our tax money was being cut from the schools and probably being allotted towards politicians' salaries and whatnot, to how Pelco was one of the most successful companies ever in Fresno.

When we finally stopped talking for like a minute, I started to think about how nice it was that we were talking.

And that's when I came to the conclusion, our generation's biggest blessing and curse is technology.

I realized that I hadn't talked to anyone while standing in a line in forever. Not that I stand in lines all the time, but when I do, to take a test, or order food, or something like that, I never talk to anyone around me. And no one ever talks to me. Because we're all looking at our phones. We're always looking at what someone's posted on Twitter, or Instagram, or Facebook.

Even if we don't have anything to look at. We've pressed "Refresh" more times than we can count. We scroll past the same posts over and over. Mostly because we have this idea that talking to someone we don't know is AWKWARD. What the heck does that even mean? I don't think I ever even used that word until after Napoleon Dynamite came out.

Things are only awkward when you make them awkward.

Talking to someone you don't know doesn't have to be awkward. You could actually come to learn something new. You could make a new friend. You could brighten up someone's day. And even if you don't, you could always gain a little more faith in humanity as a whole by learning that somebody else doesn't appreciate PSY as a faux-artist.

Maybe if we stopped obsessing over our virtual selves, we could learn more from life from the experiences of others every day.

So here are my suggestions to make all this awkwardness go away:

1. Put your phone away. Unless you're really bored in class because your teacher is reviewing what a proportion is, and you learned about proportions in fourth grade. (And maybe even then, you should probably be paying attention because when they explained it in fourth grade, you might have been busy folding up a cootie-catcher or something.)

2. Have the courage to talk to people. Compliment someone because of their cool shoes, or sweet watch, or awesome Proenza Schouler dress back from the days when they had a collection at Target. Maybe they're carrying a book; ask about it.

3. If a stranger makes a comment to you or tries to spark up a conversation, answer with more than a one-syllabled answer.

4. Be open-minded about the ideas of others. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. You don't have to like everyone's opinion. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean it has to be WWIII.

And that's all. Let's learn what we can while we can, right?

Distractions

Finals are this weekend!!!

Which naturally means that my mind will focus on anything but the things that I'm supposed to be studying.

So, I really should be studying, but one's brain can only handle so much ochem. That is, in my case, a minimal amount.

Instead, this is what I'm thinking.

I don't know why I find this so funny. Probably because my Ochem TA showed it to me a couple of weeks ago. He was the most wonderful TA ever. Ryan Byrne Cook. If you ever see this (which you probably won't) know that your funny videos made me want to come to lab every day. and I don't even like cats. they make my nose itchy. and they make me sneeze a lot. That's a distraction for ya.