I have found that my conversational skills are sadly lacking. I need to master the skill of listening intently, nodding politely, murmuring assent at appropriate junctures, encouraging the speaker to continue talking so that I won't have to. Other than that, I probably need to start working on the whole listening-with-great-apparent-enthusiasm (complete with vigorous and excessive head-bobbing and loud noises of hearty agreement) act. But most importantly, I need to learn when to say what and not fall prey to ill-timed witticisms that others don't find at all funny, or ill-considered comments and questions that are at best tactless, or at worst, offensive. Faux pas crop up every single time I find myself in a social situation, it seems. It's downright embarrassing. One wonders how on earth I'm going to adapt to intimidatingly unfamiliar social environs in less than one month's time if I'm going to put both feet in my mouth every time I open it.
My gadget collection is nearly complete: a Toshiba Tecra M3 laptop (with 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 3 years' international warranty but no bloody DVD multi-write - looks like I'll have to buy a separate external drive), Canon Powershot A520 (the DSLR is going to have to wait...but I can be patient when I want to) with a 512MB SD card, iRiver H10 MP3 player with 5GB storage, two 80GB 2.5" portable hard disks, webcam, Creative TravelSound speakers (courtesy of friends :), Audiotechnica ATH-EM7s, 512MB thumbdrive, assorted cables, plug adapters, rechargeable batteries and a GP Powerbank RapidCharge... I'm hoping that everything stays intact or I'm going to rue the limited local warranties on most of my gadgetry.
I'm currently in the process of breaking in my new laptop... or should it be the other way round? There's always something more to learn about optimising one's computing experience, even at the end user level, where improvements tend to be of a rather frivolous nature. For example, I have learnt how to circumvent copy-protection technology on music CDs to make perfectly legal single copies of legally owned CDs for personal use only. And I finally got my computer to play all those DVDs it refused to play before, due to some unfathomable compatibility issue which has now been miraculously resolved. With decent hardware, the right software/shareware, and the Internet as your helpful guide, you can do almost anything.
words were spilled on Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Comments:
don't worry, i'm not all that good at social situations either... *yet*, i hope.
-Jo
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-Jo
# posted by 
: 12:55 PM
: 12:55 PM
