Conversation: Part One: Kinetic Conversation

Last night I had a long conversation with my preteen nephew. Almost the whole time we were flinging a stuffed octopus like a frisbee back and forth. It reminded me of countless conversations I've had with my brothers and friends while tossing pillows or occasionally actual frisbees back and forth. It seems to me that there is something about doing things with your hands while you talk that can help conversations be more comfortable.
Even driver/passenger conversations on road trips or talking while doing a puzzle seem like the same thing. Maybe it is simply because you don't feel like you have to be talking the whole time, because you are interacting the whole time in a more distant way, but still interacting. So if you can't think of anything to say, it's not a big deal, you can be silent, or even comment on the way the octopus flipped, or the puzzle piece you are looking for.
However, some types of kinetic conversations seem like they don't work. For instance, when you are shopping (there are too many decisions that need to be made).
As I write this it also makes me wonder if it is a gender thing. If boys are more likely to enjoy kinetic conversation, because most of the example from my own life seem to be with boys. But then again maybe it is more about who I have conversations with. . .

Sound Effects

Quote Walls are interesting things. I've participated in a couple of them, both on my mission. In High school I kept a quote paper for my history class. Sometimes they are just dumb, but other times they are fun. One of the walls I had on my mission was made up of notes written on hot pink sticky notes (I was trying to use them up), I brought the stickies home, so it's almost like I still have that Quote Wall. Here are two of the quotes from them:
"Life is more fun with sound effects." -Elder W.
"Every good day deserves a drum roll." -Me
They are still true. I often find myself clicking my tongue, whirling (supposedly it sounds like a bird), or knocking on walls.
Once when I made a whirling sound one of the people I was with looked around abruptly and asked "What was that?" My roommate answered them "That's the noise Becca makes when she is excited."
When I was little I prided myself on my realistic dog bark (I wonder now, how good I really was).
I enjoy making strange noises, which is actually a little ironic because (1) I'm not musically inclined, and (2) the rest of the time I feel like I try to be really quiet. For instance I hate it when the zippers on my backpack rattle around, or my keys clink together in a big mass. But I guess those are sounds and not sound effects.
Happy noises.

Tests and Patterns

In college I took a basic economics class. I've had better classes. One of the things I didn't like about the class was that the tests were super boring. 50 multiple choice, and that's it. I got so bored taking them. To make them bearable I would skip around, do a couple per page, skip to the end and do them backwards, or do one question per page. They were still boring, I would find myself reading the questions several times before finally focusing enough to comprehend what I was reading. Which means I took longer to take the tests than most people, but I couldn't help it. I was so excited at the end of the semester when the professor said we didn't have to take the final if we had a good enough grade. Hurrah! No more boring tests.
I think it's kind of weird to get bored taking tests, but because I do it made me observe tests more. Like checking to see if the scantron sheets spell BAD or DAD or FAD or BAA. Also, I found it entertaining to try and guess the answer by the way the question and the options were phrased or set up, and then compare it to what I would choose looking at what I thought was the right answer.
That tendency probably would have got me into trouble if I hadn't already learned that sometimes the patterns do not point to the right answer.
When I was in first grade I remember taking a quiz. It was a photocopied page filled with handwritten sentences with blanks. A simple fill in the blank with the answers/options at the bottom of the page to choose from. I didn't read any of the sentences, instead I put the longest words in the longest blanks, the shortest in the shortest. I failed the quiz.
That didn't stop me from looking for the patterns in tests, instead it was my backup method to finding or checking my answers. I never let it be my first method again. At least if I did, it never ended so badly again :).

Leaf Left Behind

This is a painting I did in High School that I call Longing Window. The "ghosts" were originally supposed to be shadows, but my teacher wouldn't let me keep them that way. The leaves in the windows are partially based off of a poem I had written around the same time.

The leaves are blowing;

I dread their going.

Their beauty, their laughter,

their song, and their life.

Never to come back and stay,

to meet me in the crevice.

One by one they fly,

twirling, and dancing in joy.

Sometimes their colors meet mine,

a cruel trick of the winds.

Maybe I'll escape one day,

only to find them farther still,

and out of reach,

along their dance among the trees.

Learning from Books

A couple of conversations I had this week and folding socks brought back a memory.
We were on a family vacation, staying for a couple of days at an Aunt and Uncle's house. My Mom volunteered us kids to help fold socks. While we were doing so we were talking to our cousins. My oldest brother told a cousin a few years younger than him "You learn something from every book you read, even if it is only I really don't like that book."
This bit of wisdom amazed me, perhaps just because I hadn't thought much about it previously. Earlier this week I talked to someone who jokingly (at least I hope it was jokingly) said that reading fantasy books teaches you about how dragons fly, or magic works. Granted you may learn that, but I think you can learn a lot more than just that. I have learned a lot about armor, weaving, and stone cutting from fantasy books, and trapping, history, and corn husking bees from historical fiction. And that is besides learning about human interaction and emotions, and good (or bad) writing from almost all fiction.
Nonfiction isn't the only way to learn.