Tag: Diary

Today’s Daily Prompt states:  “A lively group discussion, an intimate tête-à-tête, an inner monologue — in your view, when it comes to a good conversation, what’s the ideal number of people?”

It all depends on the conversation but I’d say two or three is the ideal number of people. In some conversations, three’s a crowd while in some conversations, even two’s considered a crowd. Well, those conversations you just have to have it to yourself then.

Sorry, my brain’s a bit fuzzy this morning trying to come up with a situation.

Ah, yes, there is no more awkward conversation than when you’re saying horrible things about someone and they are just thirty feet away from you. This happens so often in my home, especially now. I would be sitting right next to mom and in the middle of our conversation, she would start babbling on about how my aunt and cousin did this and how they did that while they are just downstairs within our earshot. I think those are the conversation that should be done alone and no one’s listening.

A conversation that should be done with two or three people is as states in the prompt, a lively group discussion. One of my classes at the moment have something we do almost every other week called “Small group assignment” where the instructor gives us a worksheet and we have to do it on our own in class. When the entire class is finished, we get into groups. The instructor would often asks, “How many makes a group?”

The class will then answer, “Three.”

I agree, three makes a group and it is needed when it comes to discussion assignments and other assignments, three is the ideal number because an extra opinion will be needed to confirm the correct answer or the correct method to get the answer. Four or five, at least for me, is a bit excessive, that is, if you want to start an argument.

Now is your turn, what is the ideal number of people to have a conversation?

I live in a suburban town about 30 minutes or 25 miles from the outskirts of Salt Lake City. I wouldn’t call it a town, really. It’s got 60,000 people and it’s busy and noisy as heck and the traffic can drive a person crazy especially on the weekend and everyone’s trying to get into the mall and we’re trying to get on the freeway. Yup, that’s right, we live right across the street from the mall.

We don’t go there though, at least my mom and I don’t. The clothes there are expensive and the sizes doesn’t really fit us. So on weekends, if we need to get onto the freeway, we take the longer route instead of waiting 20 minutes in traffic to get from our home to the freeway which is about 1.5 miles.

We used to live in Salt Lake County. I don’t say Salt Lake City because a lot of my Californian friends used to get confuse when I tell them I live in Holladay. Wait, I thought you live in Salt Lake City as I would often get in response.

No, I’d tell them, Salt Lake City is actually very small.

A lot of people visiting Utah for the first time, even my relatives, thought Salt Lake City is a large city but if you’ve lived here long enough, you will know that the city itself is quite small and it’s the county that’s large.

Well, by my standards, anyway. The county is actually small compare to the other 28 counties in the state but it is surely the highest populated county in the state, about 1/2 of the state population is gathered there. Anyway, I don’t live in Salt Lake County, I used to, but I live in Davis County which is even smaller than Salt Lake County.

When I did my undergraduate at the University of Utah, whenever people asked me where I live, I’d tell them, Layton. They would be like, huh, where’s that? I was a little confused myself of why people don’t know where Layton was. So after a while, I started telling people I live about 30 minutes from the school but by train and bus, it’s about 1 hour. They were like, wow, you must be getting up early to get here everyday. I’d nod and say, yup.

I live in Utah for about 7 years now and I never really discover any strange quirks up until about 2 months ago when mom mention that she noticed the people here don’t pronounce the “t” sound except when they say “Utah”. I never noticed that and now I hear it everywhere. For example, I hear people call the city I live in “Lay on” when it’s supposed to pronounce “Layton” with the “t” sound. And when you need braces, people say you need to “straigh en” your teeth. Weird, right?

It’s okay, I guess, living here in the suburbs, though I find life a bit boring and annoying sometimes. There’s hardly anywhere to go and the only place I seem to know to shop is Hill Air Force Base. Now, with my ID card cut off, age restriction, I can no longer have access to the base and without a car, life has just become 100% times more boring. It’s almost like constantly being grounded. I can’t even go with mom to buy groceries now because I have to watch my cousin at home.

F.Y.I, mom nor I want to take my cousin to the market because he has a reputation, even at 17, to throw a tantrum if we don’t get him what he wants and frankly, I am terrified.

Today’s prompt asks, To be, to have, to think, to move — which of these verbs is the one you feel most connected to? Or is there another verb that characterizes you better?

To think, that definitely characterize me. Although sometimes, I should just be because I tend to over-think the simplest of situation and end up with consequences.

I think the person that’s at fault for this characteristic might be my mom. At the age of five, she began sending me to chess lessons. Apparently, chess is a popular game that most parents send their five or six year old kid for lessons, maybe to see if they’ve got a prodigy.

Oh my gosh, I still remember those lessons. The instructor spent the first night handing us all a yay-size book that had the basic moves and all the tricks and then we paired up and play while the parents stood against the wall and watched. I don’t remember mom being there but I sure do remember that it was her that dropped me off and picked me up each night.

With that book, you can imagine everyone in that class knew all the tricks. I did too except I can’t apply it because my opponent would see it coming from a mile away. Anyway, I sucked at chess. Even now I suck. I can’t even beat my own self at the game. But a few classes later, I figured out how the other kids got so good. I saw their eyes move all over the chess board, determining their next move and the move after that. I started doing that too but it didn’t work. I still lost. Eventually, mom gave up sending me to lessons.

I used to be a “to be” person but after those chess lessons, it changed me forever. It’s morphed me into a “to think” person. Now, like a chess game, I would think and analyze every situation before acting, not that it’s bad thing but I just wish that I can just do what my instinct tells me and not think about the consequences.