Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder

Dear friends,

I have a problem.

A psychological disorder, to be precise. This is not a joke, it is a serious entry, really. Do hear me out.

I have Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder. No, it does not really exist, it's a term I made up. If I were to provide a definition, it is 'being excessively sensitive to the semantics of language'.

There are 3 components to this disorder which I will go through in turn - excessive semantic activation,  oversensitivity to irregularities and overinterpretation of emotional content in language.


1) Excessive semantic activation
When you see the word 'deliver', what do you think of? If you said 'mail', 'parcel', 'a speech', they would all be fairly normal responses. It's natural to think of these relevant associations.

 How about when you see the sentence: 'I went to the post office to deliver the mail' ?Now, with the relevant contextual cue (post office, mail), the word 'deliver' seems unambiguous. The sentence is a straightforward one, right?

Not for me. 

Because of my excessive semantic activation, what goes on in my head is something like this:

" deliver the male? deliver = give birth? deliver mail? letters? Post-it? post office as in lead office? de-liver? removing a liver? removing the liver of a male? "

It's like my brain disregards any contextual cues and automatically provides every possible interpretation of every word in every combination.Not just that, but it also generates homonyms (words that sound similar, such as male and mail) automaticallyAND even breaks up any possible compound word.
For a simple sentence like that, my brain refuses to cooperate but instead goes on at 5 thoughts/second and floods my mind with these semantic alternatives. 

This could be why I love wordplay/puns so much, because I naturally see the world as such. I immediately interpret the secondary meaning of an ambiguous sentence before the primary meaning. I see the pun before I see the original meaning.

This excessive automatic interpretation, more often than not, is annoying rather than helpful. People say I am 'damn lame', 'corny', etc. (When I see these words I immediately think of being handicapped, maize, btw) and think I'm trying to be funny or something. But it's not like I want to. My brain is just wired to BE like this.


2)  Oversensitivity to irregularities
This are a grammatically incorrect sentence.

The above is an example of an irregularity in the English language. Because we have our rules of grammar and syntax, anything that violates them is an irregularity.

It's natural to pick up on such errors. Heck, it's even essential to do so, such as when we are proofreading our assignments.

However, for me, such errors do not just stand out. They jump out at me. No wait, they dont just jump out, they jump at me and double punch and roundhouse kick me in my face. I think staring at a grammatically incorrect sentence for a long time actually makes me feel more uneasy than watching a needle enter my vein. I'm not exaggerating.
Seeing a blatant grammatical error is like having a splinter in my thumb; a sharp rough stone in my shoe; a pesky housefly darting around my face. Make that a dozen houseflies; I just WANT to do/say something about it.

It's not that I want to correct you. I want to correct IT. Call me grammar nazi or whatever, but it seems more like a specific instance of OCD. I am flooded with the thoughts of the bad grammar and how it should be right, and I am compelled to act upon it by telling you.


3) Overinterpretation of emotional content
When someone says 'Thanks alot', it can mean many different things.

If he says it with an exclamation, a smile on his face, he is probably feeling very grateful.
If he says it grudgingly, looking at his shoes, he could be forced to say it or just saying it for manners.
If he says it with a sneer, he's probably being sarcastic and doesn't really mean to thank you.

In face to face settings, you can interpret what the person means by such cues or tone of voice, etc. My problem already begins here - Im VERY attuned to pick up the slightest of cues. And this is of course not always accurate. Perhaps you were exhausted and your "thanks alot" was lacklustre. But I will pick up immediately on the underenthusiastic reply and my brain starts firing away: 'is he being sarcastic? Why? Did I do something wrong? What did I do?'

Of course I don't act upon this all the time. Often after going through this mental checklist, I decide that there's no reason to believe that it was something on my part that went wrong. So I don't go into panic mode.


In online/text messaging it gets worse. Now, gone are the visible cues, and all you have are words. Words that have absolutely no contextual cue whatsoever besides the very syntax and semantics they possess in the sentence.
Imagine how I interpret things like 'Go away'. Does he mean 'haha go away la' or 'go away you #$#@(!@ i hate you'.

I can't think of more examples but the layman's description of this is 'I am a sensitive person'. Yes you may not mean to hurt me with the things you say but you do. I just try to repress it. Damage control. But my brain moves faster than I control it.


~~

If you have read to this point without just scrolling down from the top without reading anything, I extend my hand to shake yours. Because you have taken about 5-10 minutes of your time to understand me. And I appreciate it. Thank you.

And the circle is complete... well not quite

This is a very short post about my modes of communication.

I used to have THREE distinct ways (almost 4, if you consider the 4th one to be counted (read on) ) of travelling to NUS, and now with the Circle Line opening fully, I have SIX distinct ways to travel to school!!

And the thing is they all take about the same time!! So it's not a clear choice at all! Often I decide just by what I 'feel' like taking. Sometimes it's because I'm going to Science so obviously I won't be going to KRT when I can go directly to Science.
 But yea, introducing, the SIX ways I have to travel to school  (using public transport duh, I'm not talking about like using aeroplane, bicycle, running, crawling, walking backwards, sailing etc)


1)  Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront. Then take Bus 10
PROS
-Once the train clears Dhoby Gaut, sometimes I'll get to sit until Harborfront, not always though. Most of the time after Outram there'll be seats.. but it's just one stop.
-10 is a relatively long bus ride (20-30 mins) so can have a nap. Sure got seats (90% of the time, sometimes single decker then suay)

CONS
-Bus 10 takes 10 million years to come, so time taken is dependent on waiting time.
-It stops at Kent Ridge Terminal (KRT) which can be far from certain classrooms, and far from Central Lib (CL)

1a) Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront. Then take bus 30, and a few other buses that only stops at Heng Mui Keng Terrace
PROS
- Much higher frequency than Bus 10, thus shorter waiting time (sometimes 3 of each of these buses come and not even one bus 10 comes)
- Awesome if you're going to Biz faculty

CONS
- Only stops at Heng Mui Keng Terrace (Outside Biz), so it's a 10+ min walk into Arts

2) Train from Boon Keng to Outram Park, change to EW line, take to Buona Vista, then take Bus 95
PROS
- Slightly faster than option 1
- Stops at CL, easy access to everywhere

CONS
- 95 can be a bitch to get on during peak hours. Can miss 1-3 buses in a row cos they're ALL FULL
- Have to walk quite far to change to EW line at Outram Park.

3) Take 151, direct into NUS.
PROS
- Straight bus, can sleep for damn long
- Ends up directly in NUS, stops at stop right outside U Town

CONS
- Have to walk quite far to the bus stop from my house. (About 5+ mins further than the MRT station)
- Takes longer than 1 sometimes

4) Train from Boon Keng to Outram Park, change to EW line, take to Clementi, then take Bus 96
PROS
- 96 apparently comes often enough
- Can get seats cos 96 is from the terminals

CONS
- Takes longer than 2 (I think)
- Cannot go to Science directly
- I've almost never taken this route before (well the few times I did was because I was meeting ppl at Clementi first)

5) Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront, change to Circle Line to Kent Ridge, then another bus down to Arts
PROS
- Can take the cool new Circle Line
- Lights of Circle Line train very bright

CONS
- Takes longer or about the same time as all the previous options
- Must change so many times
- Lights of Circle Line train very bright

6) Train from Boon Keng to Serangoon, change to Circle Line to Kent Ridge, then another bus down to Arts
PROS
- Fun to try new routes

CONS
- Long walk from Serangoon NEL to Circle Line
- Takes slightly longer than 5 (I think, according to my mathematical estimations based on Train times on the board)


Truly, the tyranny of choice. Some options are good, but too many is terrible.

My dramamama group

By popular demand, I will blog about my lovely dramamama project group.I will be as ambiguous as possible so as to protect their identities and avoid being picked up by Google or anything, but if they (my group members or people in question) do come here it should be pretty obvious who I'm talking about.. oh well.

Before I go into that, I have to apologize for not blogging much! Meh. I will try to blog more k. Try. Anyway most (if not all) people who read my blog follow me on Twitter anw, so it's not like you have to keep visiting here to check for new blog entries, can just see my Newsfeed! I always tweet when I have a new blog entry.


SO ANYWAY. On to the story. For this particular module I'm taking this sem, I have a group project. My group originally consisted of 6 members. 3 of them are irrelevant to this story so I will just talk about the other 2 of them.

Drama 0.5
We exchanged numbers after the first lesson so we could arrange a group meeting online. After some email discussions and SMS discussions, we arranged to meet on a particular day. We met, discussed, etc and throughout this whole process, Girl B could not be contacted nor did she reply our emails. She was missing from the entire first week.
(we later on found out she gave us the wrong number.. but still.. not replying emails? o.0 )

Drama 1
Guy A was the appointed 'leader' of the group (randomly chosen by tutor). He was a Year 3 Pol Sci major and seemed pretty knowledgeable based on my interactions with him. He carried out his 'leader' duties fairly okay... let discussion.. etc.

Then one day, out of the blue, on the day of a crucial meeting which we would be discussing the direction of our group, he suddenly texts us:

"Hi guys, I think this may come of a sudden shock to u all and also very douche that (it) is last minute. I'm withdrawing from school. A lot of bullshit is happening in my life right now and I need to clear it up. Hope u guys can understand and sorry to leave u guys hanging. I'll speak to --- abt this soon. Thanx and sorry once again"

Indeed I was shocked, and obviously frustrated as this threw us out of rhythm. But it's a typical case of 'shit happens', so just have to move on and accept my 'suayness' to have a school-quitter in my group. He explained it fully and apologized and all so ... nothing much we can do!

So I more or less stepped up as the new leader and directed the group (I always seem to have to do this otherwise the group just stagnates.. that's why I hate group work), and we carried on with our project.


Drama 2 (minor)
Everything was going fine, we just completed our class presentation (unrelated to our project), all 5 of us. We were clearing up our mini-deadlines accordingly.

Then came the first sign of trouble. It wasn't apparent to me yet, but something was wrong. Let's say our group's topic was about Cats (it's not, but I don't want to put the actual topic here)
So according to our work allocation, me and Girl B are supposed to find movies about Cats and do some analysis about how Cats have changed or been represented.

So Girl B submits to our compiler 3 movies which she said was about Cats, but does not elaborate in any way.
Thus our compiler asks her to elaborate more, otherwise she won't be able to link it with everyone else's work. So Girl B then proceeds to just copy paste a paragraph from the journal article which she got all 3 examples from without bothering to summarize/paraphrase/explain it.

On further examination, I found that one of the movies wasn't even about cats at all - it was just a show about animals. Girl B clearly did not even bother to read it properly and just pasted everything to us without processing.

Drama 3 (main story)

So I pointed it out , and she never corrected nor addressed it. Then out of the blue, she sent us an email:

Hi, 
Sorry for last min notice. But I won't be continuing with this project group for this semester due to some personal reasons. 

WTFF. Naturally, after losing one group member, and now losing another one, in the most ambiguous way possible ('some personal reasons' ?? ) , I was super frustrated and annoyed and curious. Not to mention that the deadline is in 2 weeks time, so it's bloody irresponsible of her.

And note that she said 'won't be continuing with this project group', not that she would be dropping the module or leaving school or what. So I was thinking, how can lidat one? Can just quit the group??

So I texted her and pressed her for the reason. And she finally replied with this:

"Basically I didn't really agree with the topic to begin with and as you can see I don't agree with a lot of things that the rest of our group are insisting on. I don't wanna risk my grades so I decided to do something about it. I need my grades to do honours. I'm either joining another group or doing it alone."

(bolded text is bolded for a reason, you'll know later on)

My first thought was - BITCH. You 'dont want to risk your grades' ??? Implying that we suck and thus you don't want to stay with us la!

But the next thought was like, how can she just quit the group just cos she felt she didn't agree with us? So the solution for group conflict is.. to quit? Is this even allowed? (btw, she never voiced her disagreement to the group at all so we had no idea)

So I asked her if she told this to our tutor, and she said yes, she discussed with the tutor before coming to her decision. So I thought ok, so the tutor knows her reasons, and has allowed her given the circumstances.
It seemed pretty reasonable to me, though abit douchebag la, but if really so desperate and you really believe you can do a better job yourself, then I can understand.


Several days later, I sent an email to my tutor to officially inform her that Girl B has left our group, and I also wanted to confirm that Girl B will NOT be allowed to return to our group if say later on she realized she can't do it herself and wanted to join back. I was worried the tutor didn't even know abt the situation then ... it's not fair to my group if she could just last minute tag along!


Lo and behold, after an email exchange, I found out that there was more that meets the eye.

First, my tutor only knew that Girl B wanted to quit my group because "she was uncomfortable with the topic the group was doing " 


Nothing about the group conflicts, nothing about her needing grades for honors and hence not wanting to risk it with our sucky group ( being sarcastic here. -_- got me how can be sucky HAHA. just kidding. ) My tutor did not know the full reasons at all. Girl B was totally smoking me when she said she told our tutor everything alr.

Next, my tutor actually told her this:

"she needs your group's permission before she could leave and I said this to her in the presence of others who she wanted to work with. Also I had asked her to formally email me and you all so that there is transparency in the whole matter and I am aware of everything. However, I received no mail from anyone. "

Girl B obviously did not ask for our permission in any way, she just INFORMED us that she was leaving, totally disregarding what the tutor had said. And clearly did not make it very transparent - she didn't even explain the reasons for her leaving at all. The rest of my group members are in the dark as to why she left.

Looks like when she said 'I decided to do something about it', she meant she's going to be a lying bitch. Right.

So anyway, I've just sent my tutor an email with the full details of this situation, and also hinted that the girl should get penalised in some way (haha):

Me: "It just doesn't sit well with me a student can behave in such a way by withholding information from the tutor and her group and making her own decisions and get away with it scot-free. "

 And there you have it. Story of my life.