quick update

Like nightfly, I'm busy these days and don't really have much time for updating.

My spring break is next week which is good because I really need some time off (and I need to do my taxes), and it's reached the point where some of the students are just at the giving-up point, they're so tired.

And another person - this time the choir director at church - has been diagnosed with cancer. Cancer, eff off already. If you were a human being you'd have been put to death for mass murder long ago.

I'm also dealing with a few slightly difficult people in other areas of my life and it's annoying me. If I piss you off so badly, why don't you just ignore me? I never understood some people's need to seek out other people who bother the hell out of them just by their existence. I tend to avoid people who rub me the wrong way (when I can), so I just don't get it.

Like I don't get people who argue for the sake of arguing. I used to know someone who, if you said to them, "It's a nice sunny day today!" they'd start arguing, either trying to convince you it WASN'T, or that there was something abnormal about the sunshine ("Global warming! It's global warming!") or whatever. Fortunately one of those people I used to have to interact with on a regular basis has moved away, but that is just something I DO NOT GET - sometimes, when people talk, they do it because they want connection. A lot of times when I say stuff, when I make small talk, it's because I'm looking for someone to validate what I'm saying or to connect.

What I'm not looking for is this:

Me: "Hey, it's a nice sunny day out today!"
Them: "What? What's so "nice" about it? And it's been sunny for over a week! We're not getting any rain - this is probably the start of a drought."


Me: "Say, do you want to go out somewhere and grab lunch?"
Them: "Where? I don't eat at any corporate-owned places. And most of the places around here serve too much food; it's bad for you."

Me: "Did you see that news story on topic X on network Z last night?"
Them: "Oh, I never watch Network Z. They're totally biased. And I can't believe anyone cares about topic X; it's just being presented as a distraction to keep us from thinking about what's REALLY going on in the world."

That kind of thing. Actually, now that I look at it, I realize it's not that different from the "Autorantic Moonbat" applet that some people have had on their blogs. But I've seriously known people like that - maybe not as extreme, but people who can't talk without arguing. Like, if I said I was reading a novel by Dickens and that I was enjoying it, they'd present a list of reasons that sounded like it was designed to make me feel inferior for actually LIKING Dickens.

And I guess that's the rub for me. If I said, for example, "I'm enjoying reading 'Tale of Two Cities.'" and they said they did not, I'd want to know why they, specifically they, didn't care for it. Not what some literature prof at Harvard said, not some kind of postmodern argumentation on the subject. And likewise, I'd want them to be willing to listen to my reasons for enjoying it - rather than trying to force me into some defense of Dickens as an author or of my choices in literature.

Because, I don't really have the energy for arguments most of the time.

I wonder if this is a personality-based thing? That there are some people who mainly want to connect in their conversations and some who mainly want to spar? And if sometimes a lot of interpersonal conflict comes when, for example, someone seeking connection is dealing with someone who wants to spar?