Modern Day Nonsense 3

Happy New Year to Everybody!

Hopefully, your January has been going well so far and you're enjoying this new year.

I have a few entries on the back-burner and some of them will be published before next month.

In the meantime, here is another installment of my series: Modern Day Nonsense

The Disuse of Brain Power and Perils of Technology

People don't take the time to actual think, they prefer to rely on Google instead of using their brain power.

I know that sometimes people genuinely don't have a clue about anything, but for the most part people just tend to be lazy. When I am trying to remember something and it doesn't immediately come to mind; I go through a process of association. I think about items, places, people, moments adjacently related to the information that I'm trying to find. I like a mind puzzle; so it's not a nuisance to me; to go through those steps. I realize that not everybody will agree with me on this, but to those people I would just ask them to give it a few tries and then get back to me.

I grew up during the early digital days; when computers were being introduced to student life, it wasn't a given. Not everybody had computers at home or the latest tech. I remember when they were first teaching us about a new concept called electronic mail. I remember using 'webcrawler', for the first time to search something, creating one of my first web pages, the love affair with whatever was brand new.

 I can recall when a friend was so intent on getting a pager (her mother was really against it). It was truly ridiculous because she did not need a pager at all and to make it even more ridiculous, she shared it with another girl. They had some time schedule as to when they would have the pager. It's still true, the only people who use pagers are doctors and drug dealers and these girls were neither (we already knew who those ones were, they didn't bother to go incognito about it). I still remember what the pager looked like, it was red and had the Tasmanian Devil on it. Utter nonsense.

I recognize how times have changed when I see my niece or my tinier cousins fiddle with smart phones and tablets like second nature. Technology is wonderful, but if you are being honest; you'll admit that a lot of what is produced is useless crap. I don't think we need to do 20 things at once on our phone. How many 'As seen on TV' products actually work? Nobody needs to be plugged in 24/7. We can use technology, but we should use it wisely. 

The Atrophying of Language and its usage

Modern spelling and grammar is atrocious. If you are a part of social media; then you know which 5 in the English language are misused and abused the most. Yes, the infamous 'your', 'you're', 'there', 'their' and 'they're.' I can understand if it happened once while you typing quickly, but when I see it over and over again; it's not a mistake. I'm not here to give a grammar lesson; so I am not going to break down the differences for their separate uses. I know that the younger population is still reading books. As to what quality of books that they're actually reading; I'm not sure. I would hope that the generations that read the Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket series would know the difference. I don't know about those that read the Twilight Series, I can't say because I've never read a lick of them. A recent best seller was the 'Fifty Shades of blah-blah' which I know is not aimed for the young reader audience, but you know that some of those tiny folks can't wait to grow up; so they think that reading a mature book will make them cool etc. (Children, need to be children;  there is enough time for them to grow up!) I haven't read the series, but the few excerpts that I've seen people read are atrocious. I know that the reason that they're so popular is because it's about taboo S&M stuff, but the writing is just terrible. I can't look beyond that and it gives me the same grating feeling as when I've heard somebody conjugate incorrectly. The other day while I was browsing through channels; I came across a show about bartering and one of the guys on it was describing and item and said 'more rare.' It stopped me in my tracks and I actually said 'excuse me?' out loud. The correct description should have been 'rarer.' I can accept it when very young kids say 'gooder' instead of saying 'better', but when you're already well beyond your school days; you really don't have any more excuses. 

One of the things that I recently watched the prompted this section about language, was an episode of Scared Straight. It's basically a show where young kids who are reckless, out of control, desperately need a reality check get sent to jail, in the hopes of snapping them out of their delusion. I guess you can think of it as a boot camp where all those disrespectful kids on those trashy talk shows are sent; after the show has ended. Anyway, they had a segment where they wanted the kids to write letters to their parents, telling them how they've changed  and what they wanted for the future. This one girl's letter was really atrocious ( they actually didn't show it onscreen for very long, but I paused it because I wanted to see what she actually wrote). There was a time where your writing voice/word was different from your actually speaking voice/word. Nobody would actually write 'gonna', 'tryin' or 'I be' etc. The only times where you would use those in writing were to convey a dialect,regionalism or maybe in song lyrics. Reading her letter just made me sad and almost afraid for the future generations.

Abbreviations are getting to be ridiculous. I really don't care for abbreviations, the few that I do use are more practical, such as fwd, btw and seldom use brb. I used to use 'brb' quite a bit when I used to do a lot more chat and messenger. I won't even use the abbreviation for 'laugh out loud', (notice how I didn't even use it!) it's just annoying to me. I am aware that abbreviations are necessary and useful, but sometimes they are counterproductive especially if another person doesn't understand the acronym. Time is wasted in figuring out what they're actually trying to convey to you. I don't have disdain for '1337' because it has established lexicon and grammar and therefore can be claimed as a genuine language.

I know that language is dynamic and not static, but I really sigh sometimes when I hear mangled messes of words that are carelessly strung together.

Outright Rudeness and Disrespect

It's better to be strong and kind =)

Trolling in the comment sections is out of control. I am just disgusted with people when I read such sick negativity. People who do it, have nothing better to do with their time. It's such a pity to pour such energy into something bad when it could be used to do something good, something to better the world. I know for me, I will only comment on something; if I really have something to say, that has a point. I know that anonymity makes people feel like they have more power or like they are invincible, but it's still not an excuse to be a total jerk and a disappointment to humanity.

I don't know if it's worse or not when you see outright rudeness it in public. A long while back I was at take out restaurant with my father and one of my brothers waiting in line when a customer started yelling at the cashier because he didn't think that he should be charged for getting chicken instead of beef in his burrito or whatever. He kept on arguing with her that they shouldn't be charging him more; that it cost the same to raise chickens and cows or some bs. He went on ranting for a few minutes as the people behind him just stood there looking at their watches.  They cashier didn't relent (I'm amazed that he didn't ask to speak to the manager at this point) and he did pay whatever extra for his chicken instead of beef. He continued on saying something like 'You're going to feel stupid when you're thinking about it when you get home and realize I was right... balbhalbalhblahblhalbhalahlhblahblhalhabl.'

 Now, I get that you can disagree with something, but you don't have to get in people's faces to get your point across. He was being extremely rude to not just the cashier, but also to the rest of the people in the restaurant. I'm all about voicing your opinion (obviously =)), but there is a right and a wrong way to go about expressing it.




Have I turned from Jessica Ligaya to Jessica Rooney, yet? =p


Please feel free to leave your thoughts on these topics in the comments section below.


Love,
Jessica

Modern Day Nonsense 2

Hello again, I have another installment for the Modern Day Nonsense series.
I've decided to just write about 3 topics at one time; so I don't go off on too many tangents =p

Lost Skills:

If you read my previous post about Modern Day Nonsense; then you'll recall how I mentioned that we have become overly dependent on convenience and how we seem to be using less and less of our own brain power. I bring this up because these are 3 of major things that I talk about whenever it's about the difference between generations. 

Cursive Writing-

Remember doing these writing drills?

I would have to do some hard research to pinpoint when the cursive skills plummeted, but it was first brought to my attention; when I was in one of my language courses and I was writing down something in cursive and one of my classmates was astonished 'Whoaaa, you still know how to write in cursive?! I've forgotten how to do that.' Another one of my classmates chimed in and said 'Yeah, me too.' Up until that moment; I wouldn't have thought that it would ever be some sort of issue or even a topic, but it is now. 

I remember all of the lessons that we learned in elementary about printing and cursive. Although my penmanship can sometimes be a bit sloppy; if I'm writing too quickly, I know that I still have the skills to write in cursive. There are some cursive capital letters that I often omit for a large print character, but for the most part; I do find it quicker to write in cursive. I'm fairly sure that these skills are still taught in school though and I hope that it's not going to become an endangered art. Typing is much easier and more legible, but it doesn't share the same intimacy and meaning as a true written sentence, letter etc. 

Telling time the Analog way-

I bet you're thinking 'Hey that looks like the clock from Beauty and the Beast.'  =p

Most people today don't actually use analog clocks; some people just wear watches to accessorize or have grandfather clocks in their houses strictly for décor purposes. I know that some may find analog clocks cumbersome and unnecessary, but you cannot deny the history and the craftsmanship. We've become so accustomed to checking the time on the desktop of our computers/laptops, cell phone faces; that we've lost the skill to read an analog clock. I know that digital clocks tend to be more accurate, but think about the idea of not relying on electricity. If we lose everything digital; you might as well have one skill to give you a leg up. I know that it can be confusing to read an analog watch especially; if it's getting close to the next hour or if your watch doesn't distinguish between AM and PM, but keep on trying. =)

Basic Gardening-

Thank you girls, for giving me hope =)

Prior to the industrial revolution, the world was an agrarian society. We lived off of and worked with the land in order to support and sustain ourselves. Even though there is a resurgence of urban farming and interest in fresh produce markets; we still have a long way to go, until everybody regains the gardening skills of our ancestors. During times of war, the governments would often encourage people to raise gardens and conserve all that they possibly could, but when everything was more stable; people would often abandon them. I always appreciate it when I see people gardening; especially when I see people of the younger generation. It gives me a great hope that the spirit lives on. 

I think that most people who've tasted homegrown produce versus some mass produced crop for the supermarket; would agree that there is no contest in flavor and the homegrown always beats the overpriced market stuff. I mean no offense to the farmers, but when you're trying to mass produce it's obviously a game of quantity over quality. You don't have the same flavor profiles because most of the produce cannot be vine ripened or ripened naturally. They cannot do that because they need to ship it from point A to point B. So most of the produce is artificially ripened, it doesn't get the same tender loving care as a homegrown plant.

Gardening is not an easy thing, but it's also not an insurmountable task either. You just need to start with some basics and you'll soon discover that it's not only fun, but also very rewarding. You may even find that your stress level goes down considerably. We all need a moment to relax and get out of the high-speed lane that we're always on everyday.

I hope that all generations will take time to rediscover some of these skills and really remember why they were and still are important. 

Have a happy and healthful day!

Love,

Jessica