The Groves

The Groves

Sunday, March 27, 2016

In Defense of Emojis

Okay, maybe this is a really dumb post and one I'll completely roll my eyes at in ten years, but this is something I've been mulling over for a while and I feel like it's something I need to express.

The other day (a few weeks ago, really) a friend posted the results of his "ISideWith" quiz. Several older members of his family wrote scoffing comments along the lines of "bah, millenials" (which is another thing entirely that I won't even get into today). One of the comments following a comment about how 'millenials are going to destroy this country' was saying, "At least they have their [sic] emogies!"

At the time I was too irritated by their attitudes about millenials and politics that I mostly ignored that comment, but the more I thought about it later, the more it bothered me. What's wrong with emojis? Why have they been met with such seeming vitriol by older generations that they use it as fodder for mockery?

While I will certainly admit that many members of Generations Y and Z may not be the best at communication, especially of the face to face variety, I do not think emojis are inherently bad. In fact, I think they can be a great boon to us in the age of digital communication, where tone of voice and facial expressions are stripped away. They are the younger generations' way of injecting emotion into an emotionless situation.

Take, for example, the following sentence. "Haha, that's hilarious." If I include a :) or even a 😂, my meaning of sincerity is more clear- I do in fact find this hilarious. But let's say I want to be sarcastic (a common occurrence for me, which should be shocking to no one). I could say, "Haha, that's hilarious. 😐" That simple little 'face' completely changes the tone of my sentence! In some cases, an emoji on its own even expresses my feelings more accurately than words really can- like the heart emoji, or the 😍 emoji, or even 😢.

So yeah, go ahead and mock my generation for using emojis/emoticons/whatever you want to call them. But at least we know when we're serious. ;)

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Lamentation for Spring

First of all, I have a confession. I'm tired of winter. Yes, I know. Your mind just exploded.

Maybe it's just because my ski pants went missing/were stolen pretty close to the beginning of the season (I have no idea what else could have happened to them, I am distinctly certain they were in my locker), but I just don't feel that jazzed about skiing this season. I have other ski pants that I can wear when I have to ski for work, but they're too small which makes them really uncomfortable. It's just been a major bummer for me, because I REALLY loved those pants, and finding ski pants that are long enough for me is next to impossible, especially once the season has already started. And I had finally built the perfect ski outfit (yes, extreme vanity) and I got to wear it skiing all of 5 times before the pants disappeared. I dunno, it just kind of got things going on a bad note. I know I shouldn't let something as silly as a pair of ski pants affect me that deeply, but I'm really bummed, and skiing with an atomic wedgie is just not that fun.

I think I also kind of burned myself out working so much over the holidays. At one point I worked 13 out of 14 days (and my only day off was Christmas, which I'm sorry was not very emotionally relaxing), which was great for my bank account but rough for my emotional health. Generally around this time every year I get REALLY sick of waking up early. I'm sure there's some sort of correlation between the sun rise time and whatever, but the last two seasons it's happened at roughly the same time. It's like I only have so much "early waking willpower" and it has run out. In the summer I get to sleep on a schedule that works a lot better for me, and the fact that we're only two months away from that is killing me.

Plus, second confession, I can't ski powder. I don't know if I've just never been taught properly or what, but I just don't think it's that fun. People at Alta are generally shocked to learn this, and look at me as if I'm some sort of alien for working at Alta when I don't even like to ski powder. Whatever. More for the rest of you.

I'm also tired of wearing a lot of clothing. It shouldn't be particularly surprising to anyone that I actually like shorts and t shirts better than just about anything.

I'm sure that once the end of April rolls around I'll be sad to see the ski season go, as usual, and come September I'll be champing at the bit again (I know, LIVE IN THE NOW), but right now I need some more free time, and some warm sunshine. I need to be able to open my windows and clean my freakin' house. (It's really bad right now. I don't want to talk about it.)

So, to forget that it's winter (and definitely to forget the giant storm headed our way, which I have very mixed feelings about), I've been focusing a lot more on trailer renovation. We bought our flooring (I'm pretty sure it was the very last flooring of that kind in the entire state, hahaha) and picked out our laminate. We'll order it once I figure out how much we need, which will come later. I'm getting pretty bummed about this storm, because it means more snow to melt that I have to wait for, and I've been really chomping at the bit to get moving on this renovation. But I suppose another hurdle we have to deal with is waiting until "bulk pickup day" when my neighbors can finally get rid of this gazebo thing that they bought last summer and then didn't properly care for (so now it's been completely destroyed and is just trash). Oh well, I guess it just gives me more time to start collecting all of the things I need for renovation, like actually purchasing the laminate, getting the fabric for the seating (and also possibly the custom camp chairs I'm considering making to match the trailer? I dunno. Perhaps that's just too ambitious), and a SEWING MACHINE. (Any recommendations?)

In the meantime, please enjoy the laminate we picked! Hahaha.

It's really light and subtle, which I dig, but it still has enough aqua to look really nice with the curtains. It's a surprisingly "chameleon" color- with blue things it looks more blue, and with green things it looks more green.