Talking About Talking

Some people love talking and have trouble listening.  I have the opposite trouble, especially in groups.  It is extremely common for me to be in a group of people who are talking and listen intently to the ongoing conversation and be perfectly content without even realizing that I haven't said a word throughout the whole thing.  Of course, the rare times that I do feel the urge to add my two cents to a conversation I find that I am so focused on trying to get a word in that I stop listening as intently and then get annoyed if I can not find the opportunity to speak.  I am usually much more talkative one-on-one, although I am also probably worse at listening one-on-one. It is usually dependent on the other person and their talkativeness.  If they like to talk a lot, I'll let them talk and just listen.  If they don't talk at all then I probably will not talk very much either.  I probably sound like goldilocks right now, but I'm comparing talking instead of porridge or beds.  Goodness.  Perhaps I enjoy writing on here because I have the ability to talk as much or as little as I want without interruptions and also spend most of the time doing my most common activity: over-analyzing myself.

 

In Iraq I discovered that when I try and multi-task my ability to hear decreases.  I didn't realize that until the potty-mouth contest started the last month of the deployment and someone would be shouting a swear word in the TOC, but I would be so wrapped up in what I was doing that I wouldn't hear a word.  MAJ P was actually the one to point it out because he had thought I had really good hearing until I started the contest.  The truth is that I didn't hear 75% of the things said or discussed by the guys, but I would read their body language as well as the obvious fact that they were whispering to each other and pick up that they were making some sort of less than wholesome comment. 

 

This post is truly pointless and I have no idea why I stayed up writing it. 

 

Best moment of the week:  Finding out I am going to be the UAV platoon leader.

Worst moment of the week:  unlike last week, one single moment doesn't stand out.