Week 3: Highs & Lows & Mysteriously Irrational Beings
 |
| Photo credit: u/cualina |
Today, I bring you three stories from my weekend in Paris of young adults making choices and decisions in ways I do not understand. One that made the experience better, one that worsened the experience, and one where I'm so afraid of such a minute comment, that I offended some of the girls because I didn't say anything at all.
#1: The More of Less
My favorite works are the ones that are executed, the ones where I say "good enough." I've had two on the podcast recently, and even though they aren't NPR quality, they're not bad, and one of my friends even said it's not "shit" anymore and I have to change my title ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Outside of my work, this applies to my time spent in Paris. Sometimes it was spent doing things I enjoy, and sometimes it was spent planning, and only through the eyes of irritation of someone else, was I realized there is a balance between planning and executing.
It's 9 o'clock on a Saturday. Regular crowd rushes in. There's 30 people standing next to me, really grumpy that they had to wake up. Suzanne (the tour guide) shows us around; she's nicer and more enthusiastic than the entire group combined, who was searching for excuses to complain, like not being able to go to Notre Dame because of the fire. More on that later.
The tour ended around noon; the kids who signed up to go to Versailles went to Versailles and I stayed behind with the UD ladies and a friend called Soho (yeah we all know). All of her friends went to Versailles, and being the closest friend of hers amongst the remaining people, we spent the rest of the day together.
---Characterization of Individuals---
She hadn't yet known the UD ladies, so I told her their names and tried to introduce her, but she felt awkward and weird about it. I found that surprising because they're all really nice, but I could empathize with her. They are very close. Jackie is enthusiastic about even the most mundane stuff (which is awesome!), Michelle is the only one that knows French, Julia probably wins the award for making the most rational decisions, and April is really good at smiling and accepting the world as it is and making the most of it. Together, they form the Angelics (angel... angelic... angelics). They're definitely girls: they watch chick flicks, wear make-up, change their clothes mid-day for no practical reasons (aka it makes them feel better), and take lots of pictures, but they are fun to spend time with.
It's hard to characterize Soho. We've had one relatively deep conversation about what girls can do to guys and what guys can do to girls, and where the line is. Basically, nobody knows. Don't ask a girl to hold her hand: that's wimpy, but don't kiss a girl until you've spent 10hrs/week spending time with each other. Once she kisses back you must kiss awkwardly several more times before you can start making out, but only by using metaphors and euphemisms to suggest that you want to do so.
Call it wimpy, call it safe, call it innocent... Soho stuck out her tongue at me, tilted her head, and smiled one time on a bus to Stonehenge. I looked at her in confusion, and even though it was small, I could tell she was offended. I didn't know what that meant. Does sticking my tongue suggest we want to have a long romantic relationship of kissing on busses in front of other people?
 |
| The first thing I thought of. |
She would later teach me that I can stick out my tongue as a friend without suggesting I'm Miley Cyrus and want to tell the world "I want to stick my tongue in yours and exchange bodily fluids."
So, I took Soho and helped her get acquainted the angelics. I didn't get the angelics's side of the story, but Soho felt "weird" and I'd imagine the angelics also felt a bit "weird," but to a lesser degree. More apathetic to Soho.
---Back to the Story---
It's Soho, the Angelics, and I. We go to some market where there's girly girl stuff like rings and jewelry and rocks and things I don't care about. Soho tells me she's really hungry, so I act as the intermediary and tell the girls Soho is hungry. They say that they want to get food in 45 minutes or so, but I know Soho is hungry now, so I tell them we're going to grab a quick snack now.
We'd spotted a Chipotle earlier, so we went there to grab Chips and Quac to tie her over until the girls are done spending money on stuff I don't care about. We see the girls come back; they are searching for places to eat, so we leave the Chipotle after a nice long conversation about Paris so far, and go with the Angelics to buy lunch.
Side note: I need a nickname that includes me with the Angelics: the London Squad (it's the nickname of our group chat).
---Side Story---
When the London Squad first arrived in London, I had a disagreement with the Angelics. The Angelics would spend time carefully planning out where they wanted to go eat lunch. There was this one time where the Angelics and I tried to go to a pub (where there are lots of here). I was like "let's just walk in a direction until we find one we like," and they went with it for a total 2 minutes when we passed 2 pubs that were too classy, expensive, or was more of a sandwich shop than a pub.
I realized this and would later tease them later that night, but they had spent more time searching Google for a pub that they liked rather than just walking for <10 minutes to find one. Once they did find one, look at photos, and reviews, we still spent 5 minutes walking to it, and in total, we had spent ~10 minutes determining which pub to go to. Was it a big deal... not really, but last Saturday was awful.
---
After Chipotle and reuniting, we basically spent 45 minutes walking around trying to find a place to eat. I don't know how long it actually took the girls to find a place to eat because Soho and I left at the 45 minute mark. I was proud of them for not referring to their phones, but instead, they kept wanting to find Suzanne's recommendation that none of us remembered (because it was in French). If I value my time at $10/hr, which I do, I could have eaten at any one of the numerous sandwich shops, and Soho and I did exactly that. I told the Angelics Soho and I were going to split up and go get a Sandwich in the most polite way possible, but I didn't want to eat lunch so we could go climb the Eiffel Tower or see Van Gough in Musée d'Orsay.
And because we gave up this loss aversion (already spent 45 minutes finding lunch), we had a great $6 sandwich and saw Musée d'Orsay and I made a couple of memes and Soho and I had a nice afternoon.
There is a study where children and adults have to build a tall statue given various objects. You'll have marshmallows and tooth pics for example, and you'll have 15 minutes to build something tall out of those objects.
Children are usually the winners... but why? It's the adults in who sit and plan out how to build the structure in as great of a way as possible. You'll talk about physics, science, whatever.
The children do something different. They just start building, and when something doesn't work, they say start over and do something else. The children are the ones who hit the ground running and in this case, they are more successful.
In writing, art, or anything which requires insignificant amounts of money, execution and failure usually yields better results and is more fun. Walking around and discussing where to eat was not fun for anyone. The $6 sandwich wasn't the most amazing sandwich I ever had, but it let me move on to other things and eventually take a nap.
Sometimes, less is more.
Sometimes, less words on a blog post means more time for other things - like going to work.
So long for now.
It's Soho, the Angelics, and I. We go to some market where there's girly girl stuff like rings and jewelry and rocks and things I don't care about. Soho tells me she's really hungry, so I act as the intermediary and tell the girls Soho is hungry. They say that they want to get food in 45 minutes or so, but I know Soho is hungry now, so I tell them we're going to grab a quick snack now.
We'd spotted a Chipotle earlier, so we went there to grab Chips and Quac to tie her over until the girls are done spending money on stuff I don't care about. We see the girls come back; they are searching for places to eat, so we leave the Chipotle after a nice long conversation about Paris so far, and go with the Angelics to buy lunch.
Side note: I need a nickname that includes me with the Angelics: the London Squad (it's the nickname of our group chat).
---Side Story---
When the London Squad first arrived in London, I had a disagreement with the Angelics. The Angelics would spend time carefully planning out where they wanted to go eat lunch. There was this one time where the Angelics and I tried to go to a pub (where there are lots of here). I was like "let's just walk in a direction until we find one we like," and they went with it for a total 2 minutes when we passed 2 pubs that were too classy, expensive, or was more of a sandwich shop than a pub.
I realized this and would later tease them later that night, but they had spent more time searching Google for a pub that they liked rather than just walking for <10 minutes to find one. Once they did find one, look at photos, and reviews, we still spent 5 minutes walking to it, and in total, we had spent ~10 minutes determining which pub to go to. Was it a big deal... not really, but last Saturday was awful.
---
After Chipotle and reuniting, we basically spent 45 minutes walking around trying to find a place to eat. I don't know how long it actually took the girls to find a place to eat because Soho and I left at the 45 minute mark. I was proud of them for not referring to their phones, but instead, they kept wanting to find Suzanne's recommendation that none of us remembered (because it was in French). If I value my time at $10/hr, which I do, I could have eaten at any one of the numerous sandwich shops, and Soho and I did exactly that. I told the Angelics Soho and I were going to split up and go get a Sandwich in the most polite way possible, but I didn't want to eat lunch so we could go climb the Eiffel Tower or see Van Gough in Musée d'Orsay.
And because we gave up this loss aversion (already spent 45 minutes finding lunch), we had a great $6 sandwich and saw Musée d'Orsay and I made a couple of memes and Soho and I had a nice afternoon.
There is a study where children and adults have to build a tall statue given various objects. You'll have marshmallows and tooth pics for example, and you'll have 15 minutes to build something tall out of those objects.
Children are usually the winners... but why? It's the adults in who sit and plan out how to build the structure in as great of a way as possible. You'll talk about physics, science, whatever.
The children do something different. They just start building, and when something doesn't work, they say start over and do something else. The children are the ones who hit the ground running and in this case, they are more successful.
In writing, art, or anything which requires insignificant amounts of money, execution and failure usually yields better results and is more fun. Walking around and discussing where to eat was not fun for anyone. The $6 sandwich wasn't the most amazing sandwich I ever had, but it let me move on to other things and eventually take a nap.
Sometimes, less is more.
Sometimes, less words on a blog post means more time for other things - like going to work.
So long for now.
