Another moment of geeking out, to highlight how important small differences in wording can be.
About an hour ago, a coworker of mine has said she was unable to “get on the Internet.” Everyone else had fine connectivity, and she is able to open network documents (meaning she can connect to the office server) so I figured the problem would quickly resolve itself. Just now, thought, she said she still couldn’t “get on to the Internet.”
That seemed odd to me, so I went to her computer and attempted to open Firefox. It wouldn’t open. I opened the Process Explorer and saw that there were about a dozen instances of firefox.exe, and clearly none of them were opening. I force-exited them all, and was then able to open Firefox just fine.
Because my coworker had said she couldn’t “get on the Internet” rather than couldn’t “open Firefox,” I had a completely different (and incorrect) understanding of what her problem was. I’m definitely not blaming her – I don’t know the proper language to refer to problems with my car – just highlighting a minor miscommunication.
I’ve noticed recently that I’m using a lot more emoticons in emails, texts, and IMs than I used to… :-0
I’m not totally sure where it’s coming from, but I think it’s an increased awareness of how limited written communication is at easily and simply expressing emotion. =(
Adding emoticons to short messages can significantly change their tone:
When will you get here?
…versus….
When will you get here? :^)
The former is ambiguous. Am I mad or impatient that you’re not here yet? Eager to see you? Indifferent? The latter gives a much clearer sense that I’m looking forward to seeing you, and not mad about your absence.
At the same time, emoticons – and the more recent trend of graphically subbing in images: 
– feels so casual and lazy; an easy excuse to avoid actually writing what you mean:
When will you get here? :^)
…versus…
When will you get here? I’m so excited to see you!
I think part of the problem is the ridiculous pricing scheme for text messaging, discouraging the use of complete sentences and detailed communication. But texting (and IMing and emailing) are also such easy forms of communication that laziness shouldn’t be particularly surprising.
I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, because I simultaneously dislike the trend to use emoticons over precise language and like their ability to easily communicate the emotional intent of a snippet of text. (-_-)
Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
As I mentioned before, I’m not thrilled with the side effects of lowering my hormone levels to (eventually) be able to deposit sperm. I’m basically at a constant low level of irritation, have been for a little under a week, and probably will be for another couple weeks until I can start bumping the levels back up.
On top of that, I’m currently not talking to my dad (following this conversation; scroll down for it) and just talked with L, my therapist, about all of that. (All of that being what my dad and I had talked about, how I’d felt about it afterwards and since then, and what I can/should do about it now.)
Continue reading 'Augh!'»
Went to the second session of a group for young (<24) trans women at the BYC tonight. The first session, on Tuesday, was extremely frustrating – I didn’t the facilitators did a great job, one person kept telling long, meandering stories, and I felt like I had very little in common with the rest of the group in terms of age (I’m on the older end), class (I’m on the higher end), and education (likewise, higher end).
I do, however, like the facilitators a lot and I think it’s good for me to be in places where I’m being called R. One of the facilitators called me yesterday to see how I thought it went, and we had a really productive conversation, and tonight ended up being a lot better.
The stated goal of the program is to educated trans women about safe sex and avoiding HIV. It’s a pilot program, and if it goes well they may get more funding. Apparently, the trans population – and trans women specifically – have hugely higher HIV rates than other demographics. I’m not having luck finding data online, but the poster at the BYC said that, depending on the city, between 15% and 50%(!!!) of trans women polled were HIV positive, compared with a national level of just 0.6%.
Continue reading 'Groups'»
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