Guess who?

Well maybe 'guess when' would be more appropriate =)
No use in dwelling over the past, so I'll just let my consciousness float and see where it will take me this time around.
First of all, I'm intensely proud of the score on my exam Chinese: 96% is what I would consider really good. There is however something that troubles me: it seems I am the only one in the class that go a score remotely this good. Most people stayed well under 70%, so if it gets even harder (read: more characters to know by heart), some of them may fail to make it to the next grade. This is quintessential, because besides me liking the lot of 'em, it may also bar my options of making it: there simply may not be a fourth grade if not enough students hang in there!
But I'll just worry about that later - mostly =)

What else is up? I finally got to talk - if only for 3 minutes or so - to wan laoshi. In those 180 seconds, she managed to tell me that she had slept bad, because she dreamt about her mother because she had been pushing thoughts on the whole situation to the back of her head.
There you have someone who seems in need of 'letting it out', right? Unfortunately my conversational skills (and, admittedly, my fear of people in general) choked my throat on the idea of suggesting we go for a drink and chat a while. I'm constantly wondering if I'm being intrusive. My mind is playing tricks on me again: layer one is thinking about her and all of her troubles a lot, and is very keen on just lending a shoulder. But then layer two (or the little devil/lawyer/devil's advocate on my shoulder) is saying: nah, you're just being curious, and you dislike curious people. Meet layer three: oh, come on, don't make it so hard for yourself: Ilse just told you: everybody just wants you to listen, you like her, and even if that idiot on your other shoulder is somewhat right, who cares: your intentions are good.

Am I just turning a thought on someone I like and who may like my support
into another complaint about being me? Oh, I can do that, can't I? This IS my
blog, right? And even my website from way back in the WINA-days says I'm an
egotist. So in fact I don't even need an explanation for doing it. There is
definitely a reasoning error in there somewhere (which in turn reminds me of the
wonderful movie of the immortal (at least half of them so far) Gaston and Leo
where Gaston proves time and again that 7 x 14 = 35. Half our globe can't even
say where the error in his reasoning is!!) but what the heck: On with it
anyway

Then fourabee (technically, it's probably threeabee, unless you wish to interpret my nickname as just my cathedral-shaped spiritcontainer) kicks in: isn't it very awkward to talk to someone of whom you know ehrm... a lot and then again not? Will this not harm (change?) your relationship with the man who bridged two branches of maths? And didn't you promise yourself to make/take more to time for family matters? How in heavens are you going to fit that in? You already missed too many fitness classes. When I think of it, fourabee is probably that guy that I always drag along some three feet below.

When I think of it (and I have done so a lot, lately), all my troubles are about my lack of confidence in myself.
I want(ed) to overachieve in my job because I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough
I'm awfully scared of people not liking me: I lie awake wondering if Ilse is simply staying with me out of habit, and wonder while riding to work if my best friends are starting to hate me because of me.
Then of course, that is only enlarged by the fact that that fear is preventing me from giving the proper attention to my friends, and people in general: no, I will not phone him right now, he may be busy and that would be disturbing and then he'd never talk to me again. No, I'm not going to have a long conversation over MSN right now, because I may say something that he wouldn't understand and before you know it, we'd be flaming. Ah, let's avoid that person I know in the supermarket: they don't want to have a chat with someone who is not good at chatting: we'd both feel bad.
Finally, there is the overshot countermeasure: I'm so uncertain of about anything I say, that I have to convince myself while talking. This makes me hard to bear in any conversation where I feel ill understood: I get more stubborn than a female donkey at that time of the month, and I know that my voice, body and other language start to radiate that the person(s) I'm having a discussion with, are not only wrong, but their hair is the wrong colour and their children are also wrong. Even when everybody in the room thinks that the world is a ball, I will act like they're the greatest idiots in not thinking that there still is a chance, technically and very unlikely, granted, but still a chance that the world is a giant salami. I'm quite certain that (besides initial slips of bodyparts like brain, tongue and occasionally genitals) nobody will have heard me say that the world is actually a salami, but I know from experience that they will tell anybody else (or me when I have calmed down) that they DID hear me say that, and that they felt insulted by my so-called self-assuredness. If you remember Alf from TV-show: he'd have the ideal bit of laughter to fit here.

Oh bloody complaints! I just neede to get some of this off me. Actually, the last days were quite nice. I did a great job on my job, managed to spend time with Prutske and the Prullabees (that name doesn't sound very positive, but I'll just leave it for the sake of inspiration), enjoyed the marks on my kaoshi, read some Rumo, saw engulfing episodes of Lost (followed by the horrific constatation that my Ally McBeal downloads ended up being synched in German - there is just no way that I can imagine these crazy funny little people talking like Rammstein), took action to get out of the house again, arranged people to come build our bathroom (it was hell at the time, but I was very proud afterwards of my salesman's skills in making people come up themselves with what I wanted them to do - I'm aware I can do that, but I always fear these conversations because I'm ethically unsure whether this should be done; fortunately, in this case, it was the same to them and all the better for us. Three cheers for me then, eh?)

Well, I don't have a lot to do, but Ilse will appreciate it if it is mostly done by the time she gets home, so I'm off. I plan on having more time later on this week (friday should work out...)