This is why I am bad at parties. Luckily I have long-suffering friends who humour me. I can not disengage the "teach, teach" part of my black hole of a brain.
This is how the conversation went round the table last night:
"yeah, we were up at Sumner lake... "
"yeah man, the mozzies!"
"nah, we were up there yesterday and there were none!"
"bullshit! look at my hands!" (bites displayed)
"there's more when it's a hot day, you shouldn't have gone fishing in the sun, ya idiot!"
"actually, I think mosquitoes track carbon dioxide. As you breath more heavily with exertion your CO2 output increases, and particularly if you are breathing heavily and you stop for a rest, the CO2 concentration in the air around you increases. Mosquitoes and other mammal parasites can sense the changes from some distance away... "
(people stop, look at me a little long and say, oh, wow, really? hmm)
....
"so it's your dog then?"
"yeah, she's so cute!"
"oh, who's a cute little doggie then?"
"nice jacket"
"hee hee! yeah, it's cool ay?!"
"won't she get hot?"
"poor hot-dog!" (gales of laughter)
"actually, it shouldn't affect her temperature regulation much at all. dogs can't sweat through their fur and lose heat through evaporation like us. they lose body heat by circulating air around their mucous membranes by panting, and they sweat only through the exposed pads on their feet. so a jacket on her back will affect her about as much as you closing your mouth when you're hot."
(people kind of stop, look at her, look at me. oh, wow, really? hmm)
Aaaaand so on. I need to learn conversational English.
Still, I had fun. And the other people probably had fun. And thank them for not goggling at me. Nothing harshes your buzz like a conversational goggle.
---
On another topic, this is my headline of the day:
"Thailand Expects Tsunamis To Slow Growth"
all the news you've come to expect...
(from nytimes.com, as ever.)
I'm afflicted by a similar problem when conversation topics come into my sphere of knowledge. It's definitely a teacher thing. A gene perhaps? Dormant in some and rampant in others! dum dum DUMMMMM!
happy new year :)
see, you must be hanging round with the wrong peeps there phreq. i'm forever enlightening my workmates with random trivia i learnt at school/uni or thru books. mainly sciencey stuff which a lot of office working type ppl haven't dealt much with. they, like, totally worship my trivia skills!! (that or they're just really polite about it! *lol*).
good you enjoyed nys!
Yeah I do stuff like that... I like to know why and assume everyone else does too! And I'll also say things that connect to the conversation through some book or movie or random meme that most of my friends would recognise and everyone at the tearoom table will look at me and someone will say "Where did that come from?" And I will feel very stupid!
Posted by: Karen at January 5, 2005 08:11 AMWell I found the mosquito bit very interesting. I thought that they liked the damp stagnant water so that's why you don't let water get stagnant.
It's funny how you get comfortable with a group of people & then forget that it doesn't work in other situations. I cracked some joke about leaving Jase for one of my newer workmates (infront of jase) & he got all embarassed & took my wine bottle away cos he's reckoned I had too much. I was like c'mon Xmas would have go it. But he still didn't look sure. Sure enough when I told my Xmas he laughed & nodded his head.
Well I found the mosquito bit very interesting. I thought that they liked the damp stagnant water so that's why you don't let water get stagnant.
It's funny how you get comfortable with a group of people & then forget that it doesn't work in other situations. I cracked some joke about leaving Jase for one of my newer workmates (infront of jase) & he got all embarassed & took my wine bottle away cos he's reckoned I had too much. I was like c'mon Xmas would have go it. But he still didn't look sure. Sure enough when I told Xmas he laughed & nodded his head.
Crap somehow that posted twice. Sorry
Posted by: Chelle at January 6, 2005 08:47 PMThanks
Posted by: Online Home Loans at November 19, 2005 10:56 PM