Two posts up in one day. I prefer not to do that.

I’ve gotten up a little early today because I’ve got a lot scheduled and not much time to do it all. Plus I’ve got some self hate running through my head.

There’s this one guy I’ve met a couple of times, I like him, he’s a really good guy- in fact that’s the thing, he’s so good that I can’t help but think “wow, this here is a person that is just better than me. I wish I was more like this guy.”

But then my worse nature kicks in, trying to chip away at this guy, bring him down to my level (or lower). “Hmm, doesn’t smile much, perhaps has issues with self confidence?”

It would be amazing, and probably horrifying, if someone could just go up to me and call me on this. I’d probably suggest they read (pronounced “red”) my blog, and this person could reply “wow, so conceited!”

I need to get taken down a peg or two. Maybe I’m sort of talking myself down a half peg right now. But yes, humility is important. It helps keep your abilities in perspective, it helps you appreciate the efforts of others- you know, humility!

Fortunately, I have had some good lessons as far as that goes. Most of my university career taught me humility, with a special mention going to my experience in the symphony orchestra where it just kept getting pointed out how not good enough I was for the thing. Man, that sucked. And the first year I was only there because they asked me!

The best example though, the one that isn’t tinged with bitterness and embarrassment, is back in grade eleven biology when I said something, I forget what now, and my buddy cracked that I was a “pretentious bastard”. I (clearly) never forgot that, because even though this guy never gave that a second thought, he was probably more kidding around than anything, he wasn’t really wrong.

Uh, about the pretentious part.

I sent him a letter a couple of years later thanking him. Maybe that sounds strange to you.

Since my last post, which I’ll have just posted but wrote a bunch of days ago, I got fairly sick and got better, just like the rest of Toronto. My voice still sounded a bit weird, but almost back to normal. I was at a birthday party last night where I talked too much about really trivial things (par for the course) and have hurt my throat yelling over the music. I probably should have gotten a drink for my throats sake- I mean water or sprite or something.

I played a little pool with this one younger guy. He was encouraging, though it was with that self assurance that comes with actual being okay at pool… or at least knowing full well that he was playing with someone that’s only played a handful of times in his life. It was actually interesting to watch this guy go from an area where he was in control, the pool table, to that of a circle of people talking, where he now flipped to this guy that talked way too much with a bunch of poorly thought out jokes… and now I’m describing myself. Isn’t that wonderful. Fantastic.

Maybe that describes me, but I will happily affirm that my bad awkward jokes are way cleverer than pool guys jokes. His were mostly of the sarcastic-admission-of-hard-drug-use variety… my jokes are usually, you know, Spider-Man related or something.

I seem to feel a bit better now, so I’ll get to work on my reviews. I’m going to ignore that I achieved that feeling by basically chipping away at pool guy like I said I was wont to do. :(