Monday, January 30, 2012

Awkward Silence

You ever find that there is a break in a conversation where you feel as though you need to keep talking, but there is no way to continue to talking without feeling as though you are rambling? I guess that we all have moments like that at some point in our life. I'm not entirely sure as to what it is that makes those situations as uncomfortable as they are, perhaps it is that at that point, you realize that several people were actually paying attention to what you were saying, or that the other people in the room may have stopped doing whatever it is that they were doing, and it almost feels as tough their several several people watching you, waiting for you to say something else.

I guess that moments like that are awkward because you feel that people might be criticizing what you've said. I, in fact find this silence one of the two most awkward things about talking to people. The other thing is actually talking to people. If you were reading this post hoping for some advice about this, I am not sure that I am the right guy to help you, as I sometimes go out of my way to make awkward social situations, and the rest of the time accidentally create them.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Medical condition

 Yesterday I went to the hospital to find out about the results of a blood test that I had done a while back. This blood test was done to determine whether or not I have a the same medical condition as my brother and my dad. Their suspicions were confirmed, I have an uncommon genetic disease known as "hyper IgE," or "Hyperimmunoglobulin E syndrome." I am not overly educated on what this condition does exactly, but what I do know about it is that it involves having a higher amount of a specific antibody referred to as IgE, and there are several negative side affects of this. Specifically, less of an effective response against infections and diseases. I am not sure how long it takes for this disease to actually start causing me problems, or even that it will, for that matter, but one should be aware.

 My dad has had this condition his whole life, and it has been in more recent years that it has actually started to affect him from what information I was able to gather. My younger brother, however, has had this condition directly affecting him for a large portion of his life. I, however, have not gotten very ill in a long time, and when I have gotten ill, my immune system has been most effective. However I will be starting up treatment soon, I think, that will prevent me from contracting some very unpleasant diseases. As confident as I may feel, the truth is I am somewhat more at risk than most people my age of getting a deadly disease or something like that.

 I suppose that what made my parents wonder if I had this condition was the fact that I look so much like my dad. A large amount of my facial features I have inherited from him, combine that with skin problems when I was younger and the fact that my baby teeth took a long time to extract themselves. All of those were signs that I may have had this condition. The fact that my brother has it as well defiantly made the possibility even more likely.

 I am not sure as to what I should expect when the treatment starts. I suppose needles will be involved, I don't like needles being poked into my flesh. It stings. But I suppose it will be necessary, in order to get the antibodies required for the body's defense. Oh well.

 On a lighter note, I am finally done the midterms! Which means that I am half way through the school year. I have a mixture of emotions towards this, both sad and relieved. Once the school year is done, I can relax somewhat more freely. On the other hand, school allows for a constant to be maintained in my schedule, a reason to go anywhere at all. Oh well, that still isn't for several months yet.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The first writing

 I am starting this blog to try and get my thoughts in order in my day to day life. In addition, this will get me ready for when I need to do writing projects. My problem is generally that I have trouble writing out large sections of writing material. I generally am unsure of what to write, so I often just stare at the paper, unable to write, and wander away. In fact this is a perfect example, right now I am actually rather stuck for what to write and went to play with the camera feature of my laptop. But this is why I am doing this.

 If I can write things often enough, then I get the practise I need to be able to write short essays whenever it is needed. If I can manage that, then I will be ready for the finals for grade 12 and eventually university, when I get there. Of course I will need to actually keep doing this fairly often.
 As it stands now, there is no schedule in place as of yet for when I will post these, but I am going to try for at least once a week. I foresee that the rate of these being written will increase as it goes on for a period of time. If I can, I will eventually be able to write through almost any distraction: television, video games, loud noises directed in my ear, so on and so forth.
 The subject matter that will be covered here will be, really, whatever happens to be going on in my life, so long as I find it interesting. At least interesting enough to write about, anyways. I should be able to find something at least once a week that is interesting enough to write about. If I am unable to, well, I will have to try to figure out something at that point in time, should it come to that.

 I hope that this project goes well. It probably will go well, yeah, it will. This will work, quite well in fact. So long as I don't forget to do this. My future in the educational system is dependent on this.