In which I procrastinate

[Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pride to present to you the product of an uninspired evening: a 2 149-word series of digressions. You have been warned.]

Given my looming exams, I've spent a foolish amount of time tonight reading Websnark. That and the fact that I'm blogging probably indicate how procrastinationy (that's a word now) I'm feeling tonight. (Incidentally, CURSE THIS HEAT.) Note that these facts do not accurately reflect how nervous I am about the exams I have next week, for nearly three weeks.

Incidentally, if Jordan and/or Louise are reading this, I do hope that the fact that I'm having unhealthy amounts of leisure time isn't rubbing the difference in our exam timetables into your faces. Think about the fact that I'll be sitting through exams while you're relaxing! And/or that your summer break is (at least) two weeks longer!

This isn't really going to be a coherent blog post — in fact, it was going to be a tweet, right up until about three seconds into a swig of water shortly after my shower. (I was going to joke that that number wasn't pulled out of thin air, but one of the English texts I was revising today features a character possibly rendered obsessive-compulsive by the fact that his divorce essentially took him out of his daughter's life, so on second thought that falls into Dude Not Funny territory at the moment. Yes, this parenthetical comprises most of the paragraph — what of it?) Anyway, this is really more a quick succession of various digressions.

So, Websnark. Awesomely well-written, talks a lot about webcomics (do note that that reflects the authors' interests more than the conceit of the blog), what's not to like? I was going to place a link to a particular Crowning Post of Awesome (in terms of quality of writing) here, but given that that'll likely render the rest of this blog post unread, so it gets to go at the bottom instead. Bleheheheheheh. (As I think I've successfully trained Pris to complete this quote, she can do it for me. Bleck! Oh, wait. Dammit.)

I think I'm going to need to find a way to curtail my infovorous tendencies, though. (In-FOV-or-ous? In-FOE-vore-ous? There's a theory which suggests that when information is set in front of us, we're practically programmed to devour it all. Hence "infovore". This poses a problem with the advent of the interblag, which renders more information than we'll be able to process in our entire lives several keystrokes and/or clicks away.) What was I saying..? Oh yeah. My tendency to archive binge (that is, the ENTIRE thing, as happened with Questionable Content, Sam and Fuzzy and Scary Go Round, to name particularly long-running comics which I have read in their entirety) will prove downright dangerous when mixed with a blog mainly written by a dude who (a.) writes really well, and (b.) tends to write a lot. As in a lot. Case in point: he needed to submit a statement of intent to marry because his now-wife was from another country. A single statement would have sufficed; instead he submitted this. Oh, and (c.) said writer has been doing this since January of 2004. Anyway, it seems to be a good thing (for my free time this summer, that is) that I don't read the majority of webcomics about which he posts. Although the fact that he finds them good enough to write about may mean that I will spend most of this summer archive binging them instead.

Several short digressions that have sprung from that paragraph:
 I realise posting this is, in a way, surrendering my Grammar Natzee licence, but what is the difference between "that" and "which"?
 In spite of the fact that my favourite corruption of the word "internet" is "interblag", I find myself using "interwubs" instead most of the time. And, when the alternatives are taken out of a vacuum, "interwubs" comes out on top in funniness. Must resolve this issue. (Digression of a digression: curious that "interwubs" is absent from that xkcd. Was the term not around back in 2006? [Digression of a digression of a di—OK, I'm just messing with you. Did your face contort in horror?])
 My inner Comma Party member of the Grammar Nazi parliament (yes that is a horrible extended metaphor and yes I am dropping grammar here deliberately for effect) twitches at "Oh yeah". 'Course, "Oh, yeah" just looks pretentious. Wait, that's half the reason why I am a Grammar Natzee. Hmm.

OK. Topic two. A bit of wangst ahead, apologies in advance.

You might have noticed that the register of this post is (as far as I can tell, anyway) significantly higher than my norm. (Although I hope that the tone isn't too far removed from said norm; a blog that isn't fun to read is a blog that isn't read, y'know?) Something that I've noticed about me — and something that I dislike intensely about me — is that in a good deal of my conversations in meatspace, I end up emulating the verbal mannerisms, so to speak — nonstandard tones, bits of vocabulary, et cetera — of one or more people I'm talking to. As in, beyond just being more snarky with people I know better and the like. Gratuitous examples of each follow.

There's a person I know who has a habit of ending regular sentences with a rise in pitch, instead of a drop, something most people reserve for questions. (This person shall remain nameless as no-one who reads this blog, as far as I know, knows them, and I don't want anyone to define them solely by this paragraph.) Unsurprisingly, this often makes the person seem very unconfident in what they say, and perhaps, with a little extrapolation, spineless. Not that they are either of these things. I caught myself emulating this in a conversation with them.

Second example won't be as awkwardly anonymous , as (woo alliteration) in this case I'm the only one that can come out looking bad. Term 4, 2004; first term of year nine. Extension plus two people were at Bigga for the infamous Pine Bluff camp. (Good times, good times. Who came up with Cardamon, again? Memory's saying Nish or Tam. Hmm.) I had been on good terms with Jordan for about a month (a by-product of actually talking to him. No, "GIVE ME BACK MY EFFING PENCILCASE/BOW/CELLO/CELLO CASE" doesn't count). Basically, my point is that I had known him (properly) for a short enough time that his nonstandard vocabulary stood out. And yeah, a lot of it worked its way into my own vocab. Which is fine, except I (according to the memory) began sounding a bit too much like him. This culminated when, at the top of an abseil in the Genolan Caves, something triggered the phrase "not cool, not cool". As in, I said it in unison with him. UNISON. Cue me feeling creepy, and, if my memory serves me correctly, cue him dropping said phrase from his own vocab. Ironically, the phrase sums up that moment perfectly. So yeah, not cool.

Interestingly, this isn't always the case. I've noticed that I don't do this with verbal mannerisms I actively dislike (hence the constant surliness I display around my brother which I am attempting, and failing, to remedy), nor does this happen (as far as I can tell) on IM. Which might make this Websnark-influenced elevation of register an anomaly.

In any case, this is one thing which I hope will diminish and die as I'm forced out of my comfortable bubble next year.

Topic three is thankfully pretty much wangst-free.

In an IM conversation (because "convo" just feels wrong in a written context outside of IM) with Jordan last week, I mentioned that the purpose of this blog has shifted somewhat. In my first post, I stated that I was recording events because I was sick of forgetting almost everything that happened in a given year.

Although the act of recounting does presumably reinforce an event in one's memory, my intent was to have a set of dated journals which I could reread to better recall a year. That probably won't be happening. I ended up on my second blog post ever a few weeks ago, and frankly, it was downright painful to read. It's like finding an old floppy with your homework from year two on it. (Yes, I have done just that. I have, amongst other things, a report on the digestive system of cows sitting on my hard drive. No, you can't have it.) Everything about it — phrasing, tone, heck, even content at times — makes you want to bang your head on the nearest wall.

The fact I feel this way about my posts of about eight months ago suggests that in eight months' time, I will have a similar response to this post. (I shudder to think of my future reaction to the first posts.)

Anyway, I think this is one of several factors which have led to a rather severe drop in enthusiasm towards this blog. My erratic update schedule notwithstanding, I did have constant "I need to set aside time to blog about this" moments for the first part of this year. Several things happened. The subject of this section, of course. Year twelve. And perhaps most importantly of all, Twitter.

Ah, Twitter. I joined out of interest shortly after taking note of the badge that Jeph Jacques has over at Questionable Content, and have since become all but addicted to the thing. (And dragged a friend into it along with me, who then proceeded to drag several of her own.) It's basically a microblogging service: whenever you have something you want to share, you can submit a 140-character "tweet" via computer or mobile phone, which then shows up on your profile, and the Twitter homepages of people who are watching you (ie. friends). Said people can then reply if they want, although it's considered bad form by some to carry out what are essentially IM conversations via Twitter. As an added bonus, if a person you're watching replies to a person you're not watching, that update doesn't show up on your homepage.

What Twitter presented to me was an opportunity to share any events of my day which I deemed notable, without devoting the hours I need for a blog post. (No exaggeration.) Net result is that I now tend to consider events tweetworthy rather than blogworthy, and when I do remember I have this blog, half the time everything I would have said has already been put on Twitter. Although Jordan has (correctly) pointed out that the archiving of tweets is pretty lackluster, the fact that I'm no longer intending to reread blog posts makes that a moot point.

Which brings me (in a hugely longwinded and distracted way) to the main point of this topic. In my first post, I said that wanted to post some musings about life, religion, ethics and similar topics here, something which, eight months later, I have yet to do. I don't think I ever grasped just how much time would be needed for such posts when I raised the idea: they'd essentially be a whole bunch in-depth Theory of Knowledge essays.

(Digression: this coming from the dude who loved ToK from the very beginning, and ended up essentially choosing it for his extended essay as well. Seriously, Theory of Knowledge has been one of my favourite subjects over the past two years, coming out just under German because it's hard to top a subject where the best thing you can do is chat. Albeit in a foreign language, but chat nonetheless.)

I presently have two potential topics sitting at the back of my mind: (1) profanity, and (2) judging people by their spelling and/or grammar. In order to save content for these future posts, I won't elaborate on the topics, although Jordan can rest assured that I should be settling on his side for the latter topic. Just.

In case you're convinced I'm just suffering from late night incoherence and can't possibly mean what those paragraphs seem to say: yes, I am intending to write essays during my post-high school break. On a subject which I never need to study again. I deny all charges of masochism.

It would seem that I have successfully procrastinated away the rest of the night, so I'd better get some sleep so I can get to the library early tomorrow and begin my penance. Here's the promised link to that awesome Websnark post. Fair warning: it's almost three times as long as this post has been (6 201 vs. 2 149 words). While totally worth it, yes, it's going to eat even more of your time; depending on your reading speed and available free time, you may want to schedule time for it or pretend I never linked to it in the first place.

Final digression: is it just me, or did the register of this post drop as I wrote it?