Eventually you’ll all come to realize I’m starting to use song titles and modified song titles for all of my posts.
It makes me smile.
Last night was my first day of school. Other than the horrific panic attack on the way to the classroom (that was relieved by going into an empty classroom and “breathing it off”) it went really well. But I know you’re all dying to know what the outcome was. Was I able to keep my mouth shut, my head down, and just get through class?
Nope.
I was so disappointed in myself. But everyone was yelling out answers to questions, it was a communications class, everyone was really into it and they asked me what I’d do if I won a $1M dollar lottery and I could not resist answering, “Hookers and Blow!”
How does your anxiety present itself? Mine presents in the form of inappropriate but wildly funny (in context) randomness. I did explain that I wasn’t the type to gamble and play the lottery and in my mind if I were the type of person to play the lottery I probably would be the type to waste the money on hookers and blow. One woman looked at me strangely and I said, “What? There are male hookers.”
Frying pan into the fire, much? Why yes, yes that’s where I went.
So when the teacher laughed and said, “Yep, this one is trouble.” I couldn’t tell if she meant the funny, enjoyable kind of trouble kids get into on sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver or something really innocently funny, or if she meant the Secret Life of the American Teenager kind of trouble with the emotional train wrecks and bad writing.
Which is really funny because we talked about communication as encoded messages given by the talker that are decoded by the listener and the types of “noise” that keep the communication from being understood. One was semantic noise, which is differences in language. AKA when my teacher says, “This one is trouble” I don’t know her language or personality well enough to decode if I was supposed to smile or just withdraw now because she’s going to flunk me because she doesn’t think I’m funny.
Semantic noise.
Hey, if nothing else I’m learning! Right? That’s the point of school, right? No? The point of school is to transfer to the other college next semester and fast track through so I can start on my Masters in a year? Crap.
Why can’t I just keep my mouth shut?
On a brighter note, I slept like a BABY last night. All the learning about Hinduism and Communications did my brain good. It slept the sleep of the righteous. Of the learned. Of the not-self-hateful. Going back to school – panic attacks or no – was a very good decision on my part. I can feel it in mah bones – and my sleep patterns.
You absolutely have a point there, I have never thought about it like it like that before. You make it sound so interesting. I am going to have to explore this more!