Respecting beliefs

  Hello bloggers,

  For the next few blogs I while be writing about awkward times with my religious family.  I will include the fore-story in each.

fore-story:

   My grandmother was as catholic as one can be.  I was forced until I left to go to church.  I told her numerous times I don't believe in organized religion.  This meant to her I was going to hell.  She forced me to attend her church service all the time.  She couldn't really force me to go considering she was 4'10 but I have a lot of respect for my elders and I do what is asked.  At this church they played live christian music, preached in the enthusiastic style, and put hands on to heal and pray.  I am not religious by any means and attending these services were the most awkward times of my life.  These are a few of the stories. 

  At the church the head priest had my grandmother convinced that he could communicate with god.  God would also tell things about people to the priest.  During the service god would tell him things about the churchgoers about whats going on in their lives and what they should pray for.  Sometimes he would call out certain people to go in front for hands on praying.  The kind of hands on praying you see in the crazy commercials or the ridiculous portrayals in movies.

  One particular time the priest had his palm on a mans head and everyone circled around muttering simple chants.  I got pulled by the arm up there by my grandma who was FURIOUS that I had any resistance. So every one is chanting arms around each other and on the guy being prayed for.  I am chillin in the group not saying a word and just looking at everyone freaking out.  Then the guy starts speaking jibberish and they all legitimately believe he is speaking in tongues.  At this point I couldn't help myself from laughing so I had to almost push my way out of the circle and go to the back of the church.  My grandma followed me then an argument occurred  and I walked out. 

  What can you do in this situation. Gotta respect granny, but I find organized religion ridiculous.

Bathroom Barmy

  Barmy is actually a word by the way.  I was thinking today about a good topic then when I entered the bathroom during a break for class I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of such an obvious choice this week of blogging.  BATHROOMS!  It hit me as I was entering the bathroom during the break of my two hour long English class.  Bear in mind while reading this that I am not a creepy looking or intimidating guy.  I enter first and there are four possible standing receptacles.  One is two low and it's on the far right, so I choose the one 2nd to the farthest right.  Like so    (O   O   X    o) X being me.  So then two of my class mates enter behind me.  Normally when this situation arises the next person up  will skip a receptacle and it's a done deal.  The complication comes with the third person, being forced to pee next to someone else.  Because we all know if there are open receptacles and a guy comes up and starts peeing next to you, it aint right.  Its just like unspoken guy code to just not take the receptacle next to someone.  So, the 2nd student walks in and goes straight for the toilets behind the receptacles.  Kinda unexpected but no biggee, but then i hear him start urinating.  So this threw me off a bit.  Then the third guy does the SAME THING.  Then I was mind fucked.  Was I missing something?  Since when did people start peeing in the toilet stalls when there are open receptacles?  So I finished and I got out of there.  I looked at them when that got back into class and we had an awkward tension moment.  Why did they not take the open ones?  I still do not know.  But next time I am going to stand in the middle during break so I don't get lonely while peeing :P

Too Awkward to analyze

   In one of my classes, the same one mentioned in my earlier blog, another awkward student has emerged, so awkward that it makes the class more entertaining.  There is a fellow student that has Autism spectrum disorder if I am not mistaken.  The student is very outspoken but it wasn't really annoying because he is actually quite funny.  Later on, keep in mind this is the same class as the ruthless pro-life animal killing girl.  The student starts talking about some really personal stuff.  Now I was feeling really awkward at this point I didn't know how to react, then I looked at my classmates and saw their reaction.  Same as me.  The kid said at one point that his father told him he was glad he had his disorder.  The girl says "Well that's just not right at all."  I don't think my professor knew what to do either.  He was kind of just nodding his head up and down muttering "yeah" sometimes.  The professor is really soft spoken and says like and ya know constantly.  It's actually a pretty fun class even though it's an English class.  It was fun to see how the other kids reacted a few just put their heads down.  But then we moved on and it was a pretty normal two hour English class ><

Good english

  Hello fellow bloggers,

  Recently I have been looking for awkwardness in my every day life to write about.  I found that when I am looking for it, it does not happen for me at all.  So, I actively have been trying to produce it.  Staring someone dead in the face while walking by and say nothing.  Or doing a cartwheel before passing by someone.  Stuff like that but it doesn't really create any awkward situations sadly.  So I stopped trying.  After the day I stopped trying I was in the lunch line waiting for my horrible school ribs.  Two asian girls were in front of me speaking what to me sounded like korean. (I watch a lot of korean pro starcraft if you were wondering how I could tell) So it was their turn to get food, and the first one passes by and her english was pretty rough.  The two lunch ladies could not figure out what she wanted so she ended up pointing.  The next asian girl that was up said what she wanted and it was still pretty rough, but not as bad.  When she got her ribs the lunch lady said "Good English."  Now, she did not say this with hurtful intentions, she meant it as a legitimate compliment.  Granted, she probably hurt the other ones feelings for not being able to communicate what she wanted to them, AND the better speaker might have been offended because saying good english implies (at least to me) that her english was noticably bad, and since she did better than the other deserved a compliment.  Again, taken back by the ridiculousness of the situation I started laughing hysterically.  I got my shitty ribs though, there were fantastic even though my meat to bone ration was probably 20%.  But do you guys find that to be racist or demeaning eve n though it was said with good intentions?  Or is it my natural affinity to the hyper-sensitive-post-slavery feel in america these days?  I don't know, but I feel it was. 

Short but sweet.

  I was in class today and I was having a boring conversation with a boring group mate.  Later another group has to present a television ad that implies for sympathy.  They play the heart wrenching animal cruelty add with the tear jerking song and showing frames of the sad looking animals.  This is where is gets slightly awkward.  The girl my group says aloud "I don't know why people care about animals being killed when we still allow abortion." the end.

Names

  I don't believe I am the only person out there who has a hard time remembering or storing names.  I have thought about why I am terrible at this recently a lot.  I have discovered that when I meet people and go through the manly manshake or suave compliment when meeting women, I don't pay attention at all to what they say their name is.  Anyways, on to the awkwardness.  At my graduation party a while back I was introducing my girlfriend to most of my relatives with relative ease. :P  When one of my more distant pair of aunt and uncles came up, my girlfriend said "Hello I am danie and your name?" And looked at me expecting to know it and introduce them.  I had no clue.  I was standing there for the moment that felt like eternity waiting to give up my bluff that I knew there name.  However, my Aunt and Uncle introduced themselves.  I still don't remember their names.

No deal, howie.

  You know the difference between actual friends and acquaintances right?  Friends being the people you have hung out with before, and prefer to hang out with. An acquaintance being someone you just been in a class with or forcibly met through a friend or relative.  This is where is gets awkward.  When you see these people on campus or randomly bump into them there is an awkward tension where you an this person do not know eachother are there.  Until I see this other person and I don't know if I should go up and say hi, because I don't really want to but it seems impolite.  There have been times where I know these people have looked at me, but do nothing about it.  That is the tension.  I also believe this is where acquaintances die when you stop acknowledging the other person.  Anyways, the No deal, Howie.  Title came from getting dissed on by an ex-acquaintance.  In the lunchroom at my school I see said acquaintance in the food line.  We made eye contact, so when i'm passing by to go sit down I say her name and wave.  To my suprise she looks at me and turns around.  I was so shocked at the audacity of the situation I just laughed, and got laughed at by people standing behind me.  I had done nothing to this girl to be treated this way.  I am not an ugly fellow and she was by no means a looker.  I can't even begin to overanalyze this situation so I am going to chalk it up she was having a bad day.