I Happen To Like To Communicate.

I don't, but not always by choice. 
It's like involuntary showing 
mysterious wisdom. 

I am one of those people who constantly feel I have a lot to say, about most topics. I enjoy to be opinionated, I thrive when I get to ponder and wonder about how different standing points could, perhaps, look upon the matter, what their reaction to situations would be like, or how access to resources or different stages of life impose lifestyle. I am one of those people who think I can add something to just about any topic talked about.

I don't really get to air my comments to others much. For some reason I get interrupted a lot, and instead of claiming my space, I tend to withdraw. I speak up because I have this eager thought I would hate to let common sense burn out inside of me for never to be uttered. Only to find my own words just fade out in the buzz of other, louder voices.

As alarming it may sound, and this is totally true: I have not yet, after 28 years, had a proper conversation with my in-laws. That's right; I always end up listening, and then my husband interfere and pretends he is talking for the both of us. Most times he does, because we agree to a large extent, but still; even him.

Then, when I come across people who listen to me, I get so startled I forget every name, event and even word I am about to say. Many times I am left with this bitter taste in my mouth that I didn't get to express what I really meant. It just comes out the wrong, stuttering, insecure way. And leaves my partner in conversation just.... totally confused.

Like... at a Christmas party I told a woman that: "You have been bugging me through this entire holiday!!! You keep popping up as a possible connection, and I must have sent you like 20 invitations on Linkedin."

The poor woman tried to excuse herself, for not having sorted out her Linkedin profile for years, and that she had several profiles... some not active, but she would get it sorted now that her son was at home.

I, on the other hand, sounded like a pathetic idiot, who couldn't take no for an answer. I guess pure luck saved her from adding me. Of course; now that she has sorted out her profiles, she is not accepting me. Not sure I would either.

I would probably be holding a restraining order if we lived in the States, and I wouldn't blame her.

On that note: it is a woman I enjoy being around a lot! really! I just have to figure out how to fix our relationship back to friendly.

Just because of that, blogging is a perfect forum for me. This is where everything I got on my chest can be expressed, with a hint of eloquence, without me feeling muffled or that I say something nobody really cares to listen to. I don't steal anybody's precious time by forcing them to listen to my rambling on.

Here I can talk uninterruptedly knowing whoever reads what I write do so by free will and no obligation, no strings attached... ok, so it has happened I send a link or two to somebody I feel could find some entertainment out of reading what I wrote about this or that. But it is still volunteerly for them to actually read it.

At least they will get the notion I know something about something... if not anything else, I know words.

In spite of having a blog with no other agenda than the one I present above (or below, in this case):

There are so many blogs out there. This is mine. I don't expect it to be particularly good, but it is my life and my thoughts on life and the world as I see it.

Having a blog gives me the opportunity to explore, amuse, challenge, provoke and maybe even look upon values and morals with an unexpected twist.

It is an egotrip where I get to post my own opinions, in my own words, and I get the satisfaction at least I uttered them out there, for anybody to see... if they care to.

That being said. I really don't get a lot of comments or sharing of my blog. As much as I tend to bloom in the spotlight of attention on facebook, the blog has become a different matter. Not everything I write is entirely true: I maybe exaggerate or understate, but there is always a core of some truth. My truth.

Since this is a lot more sincere than my successful facebook-life (mind you, my display of an alleged successful life, in spite of my humble 140+ friends), where likes and clicks and sharing is a huge part of being active, I think I would be intimidated if I got too many comments displayed in public here on my blog. I don't mind them, by all means, I love them! It means I have hit some sort of nerve, and getting them is probably just a matter of getting used to. (Read: Feel free!) Like Chris Brogan once said: “If you accept all the praise, you have to accept all the critics.” And that's fair.

I do enjoy the emails I get from you, and I do try to reply them all. Maybe not right away, but shortly.

I just read through what I just wrote, and I have to say: who am I trying to fool?

Everybody knows that positive feedback is like a drug: you just crave more and more of it, and more often. And after a while you start to get discontent if nobody gets to see what a raging (moderate) success you are.

But then I think to myself: I will never have 50 000 followers on my blog, I will never be a top notch commercial blogger, but I do feel like I get my voice out there. I show how I feel about things, and state my opinions, without being interrupted, and that is still, to me, of the greatest value. (And that is why, when I feel very strong about something, I write it down and send a link, or email, to my husband...)

Because, after all, just like Tom Foremski said: “Blogging is a communications mechanism handed to us by the long tail of the Internet.”
And I happen to like to communicate... just not very good at it live.

Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)

Just for fun....
This is a classic English poem containing about 800 of the worst irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation.Will Snellen wrote a PDF version using the phonetic alphabet. You can hear some of it pronounced mostly correctly by "JimmyJams" in the video The Chaos Of English Pronunciation by Gerard Nolst Trenité on YouTube.

Or you can go to this site, for more information.

Here we go!

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   Pussy, hussy and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??


Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!