When you have strong opinions, or more specifically strong opinions about your strong opinions, or even more specifically very strong opinions about the strong opinions you have about yourself, you tend to get a little bit of a distorted view of yourself that is disproportionate to your actual abilities.
I am guilty of this from time to time.
I am guilty of this from time to time.
This is never more apparent than with my perception of my ability to sing and dance. In my head, I am the next big thing and/or cast member of Glee, when in reality, I have a reasonable amount of rhythm and can carry a tune (not very far, mind you, but carried none the less).
People (sometimes drunk... usually stupid) will compliment my singing, dancing, or sense of humor, and say outlandish things like ‘have you ever had professional dance training?’ or ‘you should be a stand-up comedian!’ I feel sorry that these people clearly have a devastatingly inaccurate definition of the word ‘professional’ and that they haven’t been around me long enough to find my humor repetitive, annoying, and usually a quote from 30 Rock.
Regardless of how horribly misguided/uninformed these compliments may be, I am usually drunk when I hear them and take them to heart. Then, my ego gets too inflated, and I have to think of my glaring deficiencies to get it ego back to slightly narcissistic. The two most easily noticeable and tragic would be my knowledge of geography and math.
True (sad) story: My friend/coworker were having a ‘I am smarter than you’ moment where we challenged each other to see if we could label a blank map of the US with all 50 states in under 5 minutes. I lost.
I REALLY wish this was an exaggeration. Why Idaho is on there twice and there is ‘X’ where Kansas should be? I’ll never know. This stupidity is real, y’all. I also got into an argument that the continental US had 5 time zones...
Another true (possibly sadder) story: I was so bad in my high school pre-calculus class, I had a friend calculate what I would have to make on my final to PASS the class. I think I needed a 50, and I was still stressing out about that! When I went in to ask my teacher what I made, fearing I would be a 20 year old high school senior in one of the most horrible educational institutions in West Texas, he informed me I got a 52 and I was elated. The bar was set incredibly low and I was never more proud of myself for marginally surpassing it!
PS - I was well into my teenage years before I could fully tell time on analog clocks...
UPDATE: I don't have the world's firmest grasp on the understanding of Daylight Savings Time either... I just got into a heated verbal argument with a coworker about this... I was wrong.
PS - I was well into my teenage years before I could fully tell time on analog clocks...
UPDATE: I don't have the world's firmest grasp on the understanding of Daylight Savings Time either... I just got into a heated verbal argument with a coworker about this... I was wrong.
9 comments:
And I am in... How were you bad at math, i would have never guessed that...
Wow, I'm actually pretty impressed by your US states map. What that says about ME, I don't want to know...
You would think it would come natural. I am horrible at math. I was a rockstar in algebra, but that seemed to be my peek.
Jennifer B - I am a bit worried about your impression... Another coworker suggested we try name the states and their capitals with no time limit, and I almost had a nervous breakdown.
Well, to be fair Illinois and West Virginia do look similar and are close to each other...
Judging by this map, Kansas has either been purged from the continent (as noted by the "x" through it), or we have relinquished our control of alphanumeric language and resorted to one of hieroglyphs, where the state is now represented as a fish. Hopefully, this means the state will finally serve a purpose in the union.
Also, it's "North, to Alaska!" for a reason.
Hi! I'm over here from Jet Setting Diva's Follow me Wednesday!
Hahaha, I'm with you on the Math thing. I was exactly the same way. Past ALgebra, I was useless. I just can't frame my mind around much of anything, and it made me all sorts of sad!
Hey- I found you via 20sb. Anyone who mentions 30 Rock and being terrible at math is a rockstar in my book. :)
I love that you put "Ohio" as Indiana and also how far East you put Kentucky. All those darn states up North really get me...New Hampshire....Rhode Island...etc.
Overall, good work, my friend.
Analog clocks are pretty much stupid heads. If I ever have to tell time on them, I have to sit there and count all, "5, 10, 15, 20..." and like point and use my fingers and toes.
I am however capable of identifying at least 48 states. Bam. I win.
Lorraine
Lorraine - I still do the same thing! It's pathetic. I bought a cute wrist watch just for looks, because it doesn't look very professional to look at my wrist, squint my eyes for five minutes, sigh, and pull out my cell phone...
Also, state abbreviations make me want to murder myself with a rusty railroad tie.
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