(( A repost of the entire week of silence as seen on DarkRiver249 ))
Okay everybody, listen up.
I'm actually serious about this now.
Strating today, through this Saturday, I am going to attempt to speak not a single word.
I am going to do this to focus my thoughts and become a better listener. I once read about some guy in college that did this for a whole year, and decided that it might be a good idea—if not at least interesting.
I will also not use instant messenger or make any comments on xanga until Saturday. (This is mostly because I spend too much time online, anyway, and its a good time. It's not really talking anymore than writing notes to friends in school to communicate. I'm only trying to not talk out loud to anyone.) I will however, make posts to keep you updated on my progress.
Speechless: Day 2 (Monday)
Just to be clear on exactly what this experiment is:
first of all, it isnt to see whether I can make it without talking for a whole week. It's to try to avoid talking as much as possible to become a better listener. Just because I messed up once or twice today, it doesn't mean I've failed. It's the first day since I learned how to speak fluent english that i have actually made an effort not to talk for an entire day. There are bound to be rough spots. Some speech is reflexive so there's a lot of willpower that goes into stopping that and that's going to take more than one day to do.
It would be really nice if everyone made an effort to support me and not put me in a situation in which I feel the need to use my voice. I'm glad that it seems that mostly everyone is supportive of this, but there are those few people who seem to need to mess things up, so I ask those people: please don't ruin it for me.
Now for my personal thoughts regarding the experiment.
Today was probably the worst because I'm still in the process of telling everyone what exactly is going on with this whole thing. Although I had been considering it for a while, I made my actual decision relatively impromptu. Maybe a little more planning would have helped, but this week seemed like a good week to do it—and here I am.
As I went through school today, I had to continually remind myself not to speak. Making sarcastic comments about everything has become almost a reflex for me, and having to remind myself not to say anything after everything anyone says is making me realize that I may be a little bit too sarcastic. I have also realized that I am going to have to listen to things much more closely now that I cannot freely ask questions or request that someone repeat something for me—unless, of course, I get really good at sharades; but why waste my time and everyone elses?
I also feel like I'm being a little bit rude. Whenever I would normally say "thank you" or "goodbye" or "God bless you!" out of courtesy in the respective situations, I cannot.
Continue to support me, people. This should prove to be quite interesting.
Speechless: Day 3 (Tuesday)
I'm pretty sure that at least half the people I know know what I am doing and have a pretty good idea of what its all about. Unfortunately, there are still some people who don't get it. I would appreciate it if anyone who is actually reading this log would help in telling people what I am doing—and spread the word to even people that may not be my friends.
Yes, unfortunately, I messed up twice today. It's really difficult to control all this talking that I do involuntarily. It was only twice that I slipped on it today, so hopefully tomorrow I won't at all.
I'm noticing that the longer I do this, the better I am getting at communicating non-verbally—and I mean with hand signals; usually not by writing messages—and likewise, the people that have known about this from the very beginning are getting better at communicating with me: that is, understanding the makeshift sign-language I'm developing, and putting things to me in a way that makes it easier for me to respond. As a solution to things I need to say most often, I made notecards.
Letter jacket fitting today was a bit of a challenge. In the end, about three people were helping me translate to the fitters what I wanted. That worked out okay in the end.
The next challenge is my music lesson tonight. I'll have to tell Dr. Jiang what I am doing before we begin so we can avoid misunderstandings and avoid as much trouble communicating as possible.
I greatly appreciate everyone's support in this. Three more days. We can do it!
As Pratibha told me today: "Knowledge speaks; wisdom listens."
Speechless: Day 4 (Wednesday)
The urge to speak is almost completely gone. I didnt say a word today, and it wasnt hard anymore. For whatever reason, there are still people determined to make me talk.
Today, I mostly realized that a lot of the things people say are entirely worthless. Especially things I would usually say. So for this week, everyone is spared my incessant string of bad jokes.
Whenever I think about being able to talk again, its really weird. Its so strange to go from not talking at all to the same way I was before...I think I'll have ot phase myself back in.
The positive reaction is becoming predominantly attention from people who I would normally irk, and some girls I dont even know have been talking to me upon hearing about it. Thats something for me to consider after this week.
Speechless: Day 5 (Thursday)
Just for the record, I am planning on not speaking for a total of 7 days. I said this was day 4 at school because it is the fourth day it actually made a difference, but this actually started on Sunday (a day where I usually don't talk a lot anyway), which actually makes today day 5. Starting Sunday morning, I will be able to talk again. I will, however, stay silent on Saturday to complete my week.
What I noticed today is that now that I've gone my usual three nights in a row up till at least 1am, I'm getting slightly irritable, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep my mouth shut. I've also noticed that although many people are being very patient with me, those that aren't are really beginning to bother me. Especially since one of them is my dad, who is always upset at me for something anyway...and it doesn't help that I can't communicate normally and he is unwilling to be patient at all.
For some reason, Travis decided to "honor" my silence today in Biology by not talking, himself. It drove him crazy.
Speechless: Day 6 (Friday)
Not really much to say here. Tests and quizzes and the like, and talking was almost entirely unimportant today so it wasnt much of a problem. Until Sarah started trying to take my snacks in Biology after the test, and I wanted to yell at her.
Speechless: Day 7 (Saturday)
My dad and I went to the mall today. Had lunch at Rainforest Cafe. No problems there.
Later in the mall, my dad decided to get drivers ed in a box. My dad got a phone call so I was standing there with the salesman for like 5 minutes. Sometime in the middle of that, he asked me when I had turned 15. I motioned to my mouth to indicate to him that I couldn't speak. So he started speaking louder...like I was deaf.
Ya...I pointed to my mouth, not my ears.
Sweet Speech Once Again
Today was the first day that I was talking again at school, obviously.
Unfortunately, some people actually preferred it when I did not talk.
Still, most are glad to have me back.
==SwimFusion==
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