The Day I Sharpened My Pencil.

I once dated a little douche. Let’s call him Tod, for he now goes by the name of a stationery item. I remember how Tod used to say “I depart from home at nine.” The reason he used “depart” was obviously because he thought it made him sound cool and clever. Leave, dude, leave. Which is what he did. Unluckily for us, however, there are too many Tods around. They’re all over the Internet; some have started blogging, others are even writing books.

You see, I like words. A lot. Which is why I can understand the temptation to add “big words” to your speech or writing. That said, using words for their own sake makes you sound pretentious. Contrary to what some may believe, using pretty words on paper does not make you look pretty. Adding words does not add credit to what you are trying to say. If they do, then you are probably misunderstood.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am not promoting the use of “nice” as a universal adjective. Of course, there is no such thing as a complicated word, in my opinion. There are such things as unnecessary words, however, and these are the ones that make you sound like a douche (or douchee – this obviously applies to girls, too).

Speaking of all things douche, let me tell you about Language Puritan Tod and the impassioned anguish little Tod feels when he finds the word “unfriend” in the dictionary. “Blasphemy! Who are these imbeciles, and why do they undignify the language so?” LOL. So, angry little Tod goes on a language rampage and becomes: The Grammar Nazi. Tod writes and complains about the ignorance of people with no concept of grammar: the audacity, the effrontery! Oh, the mortification.Then, while lost in a thesaurus, Tod forgets his full stop

It’s not just a full stop Tod forgets at times. In a conscious effort to sound regal, Tod drops his post vocalic r. Really, don’t /fɔːs/ it. As British as you think it sounds, Tod, we all know you’re not. Also, you’re accidentally dopping it all the time and it’s idiculous. Your effort at trying to fake an accent is also a big mistake (on your part, mostly). I understand you’ve spent a total of 92 days, 8 hours and 23 minutes in England, but still.

You see, when Ronan Keating sang about how “you say it best when you say nothing at all”, I think he was onto something. Since taking his own advice was the best thing he ever did, let us learn from him. What I’m trying to say is, my dear supercilious Tods, perhaps you should depart from your airs and graces, and think about saying something meaningful. How does that sound?

Laptop, laptop, on my desk, 
I think I’m better than the rest.
That’s why I hide behind a screen; 
to make people think I’m smart and lean.

  – Famous Poet

2011 has been quite a remarkable year for said Famous Poet. As a self-professed avid Facebook user (for all the obvious reasons – namely scholarly), F.P’s thorough online interaction study throughout the course of 2011 has led to groundbreaking results. Online browsing and interaction has in fact proven that a person’s personality and online profile may not be directly proportional to one another. This may come as a surprise, especially to those who are honest enough to express their sentiments outside the comfort of their own desks. 
 
Over the past month, I’ve been busy gathering data about my little Internet study and pondering my pseudonym as “Famous Poet”. Now that I’ve made it public, I can take it from here without sounding the least bit contradictory.
 
I am who I want to be. Online, that is. I am at liberty to present myself selectively in any way desirable: kind, loving, generous, friendly and able to copy and paste this from the horoscope section. I can create my own little world (or farm), I can update everybody on what I’m doing, showing off my eloquent use of the present continuous. I can have virtual conversations with virtually interesting people, I can criticize people I’m too much of a coward to face, I can become the social-antisocial. In the outside world, however, I don’t carry an ‘About Me’ section and a baggage of 1000 friends I can communicate with simultaneously.
 
Have our impressions become so carefully crafted so as to erase any form of accurate evaluation by others, or do they serve to promote our opinions about ourselves? I understand that carefully constructed sentences are often better at expressing what you intend to say. However, hiding behind a monitor in order to say something you would not dream of saying in a face-to-face conversation is as ridiculous as trying to photoshop yourself. A Facebook account should simply induce conversation, not dictate it. Your profile, then, should serve as an extension of your personality. Not vice versa.

With 90% of our opinions based on first impressions, I sometimes wonder: are we self-engrossed, or engrossed in Facebook? We frame our lives and place utmost importance in its depiction, but what do our Facebook friends think? I’d like to think we’re more than just a display picture, or at least some of us are.

 

Despite the fact that my boyfriend bears a startling resemblance to Jesus, I’m not exactly what one would call “religious”. That said, this whole “organized atheism” vs “organized religion” is getting a little old (not to mention contradictory). Just as much as I hate being told about religion, I hate being told why I should not believe in it. Shoving atheism down one’s throat is like shoving religion down another’s (for lack of a ruder comparison). Quite frankly, considering I can think for myself these days, it’s a little insulting. So please, stop preaching to the converted (or unconverted).

I’ve realized some atheists talk about Jesus more than your average friendly Christian. I don’t talk about goblins, simply because I don’t believe they exist. Sure, I may crack a goblin joke or two once in a while, but that’s pretty much it. So, really, if you’re that adamant about the non-existence of God, stop talking about him. It’s a little ironic being exactly like the people you condemn in my opinion, but I won’t shove that down your throats.

Soon we’ll start seeing propaganda posters like “Keep calm and believe in Atheism”, “Atheism saves” or even something like: “It’s not cool to believe in an imaginary fool”. Despite my innovative imaginary posters, what I’ve just written is still relatively uncool. So, before you complain about how people should keep their beliefs to themselves, perhaps you should practice what you preach. Atheism: otherwise known as a non-belief or an irreligion; not “let’s do the exact same things as the Church, but change “Jesus” to “Nothing”. 

Of course, while I’m fairly sure/hopeful that everyone has the best intentions in mind, please remember some of us don’t need saving “from perpetual doom/ lifelong ignorance” – either way, they’re pretty much the same. Catholics’ attempt at educating me through limitless Bible readings, prayers, and valuable opinions based on the aforementioned have failed thus far, but as a reward, I pray to my goblins: please don’t let anyone bombard me with scientific articles dismissing any religious belief. 

Do keep the jokes coming, though.

You know how men always bitch about women being bitchy? Well, this time they’ve got proof. I recently came across an article which cited “scientific evidence” to back up the claim that women are genetically bitchy. Now, perhaps it was the bitch in me that got a little offended, but either way, I wasn’t entirely convinced. 

The first study was conducted to demonstrate “how hostile women become when confronted with a member of their own sex.”  In a nutshell, a couple of women were put in a room when an attractive blonde wearing provocative clothes walked in. The same woman walked in wearing different clothes a bit later, and the reactions were significantly different (as you would expect- from a man, even). Apparently, women made bitchy comments when the woman was dressed sexily, but no one really bothered commenting about Plain Jane. This is a fairly realistic situation, I suppose. But does the study say anything about what the women in the room looked like? Sometimes it boils down to envy, which may lead to bitchiness. So does this scientific study also prove that women are genetically envious? What would men do? It’s not the first time I heard a man asking who a woman slept with to get to the position she’s in (pun intended). 

I have three brothers, one of whom has the sharpest of tongues. He gets it from his momma, and so do I, but that doesn’t necessarily prove anything does it? I have met men who pass the bitchiest comments about other men and women. Comments that have the potential to make me cringe, even. So, really, does sex have anything to do with it? Some of my gay friends are also super-bitchy. Is that genetic, too? Or is it a reaction to the bitchiness they have to endure? 

Another experiment conducted by a certain Dr Vaillancourt asked women who they would most likely be friends with. The fact that most chose the digitally altered “size 16 girl” makes me wonder what shallow study subjects this doctor chose. How exactly are these studies classified as being scientific? Did they scoop a piece of tongue tissue and study its genetic code? I don’t think so. Dr Vaillancourt attributes the results of this study to the fact that “we want to eliminate competition”. Well, Dr, everybody does. Survival of the fittest is actually a not-so-recent phenomenon. 

It is often assumed that the pretty girls are the bitchiest, but something tells me the people being studied weren’t exactly Bella Donnas. A friend of mine has a theory about how pretty girls are always the nicest. I could rephrase that as “ugly girls are always the bitchiest” but that would make me sound bitchy and automatically imply that I am, in fact, ugly. Quite frankly, in my case, bitchiness is a bit of a hobby at times. I don’t do it to hurt anyone, I just say things because I think they’re funny. Must be my genetic sense of humour. So, if my genetic code says “short, with freckles and a dab of bitchiness” it does not mean all women are short and freckled. 

When I was younger, I used to wonder how many combinations and tunes I could come up with. There are eighty-eight keys on a piano, seven basic notes and seven octaves plus a minor third. How many of them are actually possible? Now, I do not think of this as a rhetorical question; if someone could kindly work out this problem for me I would be forever grateful. But until then, I will wonder whether music is infinite, whether words are infinite, whether anything is. That said, I will also take the “failed musician in me” into consideration.

Really though, with a world of seven billion people, how is it possible that nothing is ever repeated? I once read that a good artist is one able to hide his sources. I’m not sure I agree, considering nowadays we call that plagiarism. I’ve also heard that one should be able to emulate and surpass. So, technically, if I take your idea and tweak it a little— who’s the bigger man? (Not me, of course, I am woman. Woops, stolen/adapted from ad).

Of course, there’s a fine line between influence and plagiarism. Or is there? I’ve come across plagiarised songs, plagiarised speeches, plagiarised articles, theses, and even plagiarised Facebook statuses (excluding the “I’m off to shower” and “OMG it’s raining” ones). One could even argue (and we all know they have) that Facebook itself is plagiarised. That said, any social networking site is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, I suppose. But then again, isn’t everything?

Take Britney’s new song Criminal, for example. Doesn’t the part where she says “And this type of love is not rational— it’s physical” sound a lot like Supertramp’s The Logical Song? There’s one combination that’s been used before. What about Martin Solveig & Dragonette’s recent hit, Big in Japan? With an over-used title, plus what sounds like Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha beat, the song is likely to be a success. I’ve just given two examples I came across recently so as not to mention the classic “plagiarisers” everybody seems to know and love (to condemn).

What about cover versions? Do they represent the fact that people are running out of combinations? If one has had the time to “tweak” the original, does that make it better? The same concept applies to fashion: how is doing/wearing something that was done before now considered innovative? Perhaps the genius lies in the discovery. Or the reception. Right place, right time. That kind of thing.

There’s also the concept of intertextuality, wherein meaning lies in the relationship between one thing and another. Different mediums; borrowed and adapted conventions, all contribute to a deeper level of meaning. Not to mention the influence of personal interpretation. With an ever-growing medium of sources, however, hasn’t everything become bound in an intertextual web? That said, I’m pretty sure all this has been said before. Let’s just say I’ve added auto-tune.

With the influx of artistes and elites all around me, I have started to feel like a nobody. I’ve figured that unless I focus on elongating my vowel sounds, criticizing everything I come across, sounding enigmatic and pretty much knowledgeable about things I pretend to be interested in, I will be forever doomed. Oh, the horror, the horror (the latter is an (overused) quote from Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness)! Oh, but if only I could delve into the complex mind behind that blurry, forty-five degree angle photograph of the intellectual.

I am actually lucky enough to know quite a few people who I consider to be extremely intelligent. By this I mean literary, musically/artistically talented, creative, well-read, streetwise, inventive etc. I do not mean “those who regurgitate everything they read or study as though it were common sense”. Then again, Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences pretty much sums that up (please note I am cleverly and not so subtly drawing attention to my sources so as to sound knowledgeable and well-read, too).

When I was at University, I sometimes felt I was not up to a certain standard. Perhaps I hadn’t read the “classics”, which would make me somewhat of a charlatan, I suppose. Apparently, unlike other exemplary students I did not know everything. I still don’t. And while I do have a degree, I am also aware it does not necessarily imply intelligence. Some of the stupidest people I know have one.

Why can’t intelligence come with a touch of humility? Funny how these supposedly clever individuals often make for the flattest conversations (unless you’re taking the piss, then it’s just entertaining). Why can’t people put forward their ideas in simpler ways, instead of using BIG words to convey SMALL, worthless and recycled ideas?