Quirky quirks!

Quirks. Everyone has them. Sometime irritating, sometimes endears but downright funny to watch most of the time.

There are some quirks about myself that I am consciously aware of. I’m sure that there are several more obnoxious ones that my friends and family are just too polite to say out loud! :P

One of them is my inability to completely contain the ‘world’ inside my head. This ‘world’ is a continuingly expanding universe in my brain that has been evolving ever since I was in like primary school or something. It all started out as me fantasying my very own cozy tree-house club where I can hang out and order pizzas everyday. It soon evolved to something like the “Hardy Boys” where my advisories range from school jerks to evil masterminds determined for world domination.

The current ‘world’ is what you might typically find in a military-obsessed heterosexual male who watches a bit too much sci-fi and reads a lot of fantasy novels. Throw in a little anime influence inside and BAM! My very own space opera where I control the storyline. I control the direction of the characters. I control the music. Basically, playing God in my very own head. Heh heh.. Loaded God-complex, cock it and pull it!

Anyway, this has effect the way I’ve carried things every since I could hold something in my hands without dropping them! Textbooks to me are like rifles. I’ll grasp the edges like as if I’m holding on to an assault carbine, complete with my index finger “off the trigger” (for safely purposes of course) and my thumb twitching up and down to “select the mode of fire”. If I’m holding on to something tubular, it will usually be my very own grenade launcher and I’ll periodically “reload” it by “breaking open the top to insert a round”. I associate my schoolbags as if they are my “standard issued combat poncho” with everything I need to survive “behind enemy lines”. A seemingly innocent object such as a TV remote could mean “space frigate” in my mind and sometimes I’ll “fight them ship to ship” with the DVD remote controller! Throwing away Coke cans is like tossing a hand-grenade down the hatch of an enemy tank. I’ll pull off the “pin”, open the dustbin and shout “Fire in the hole!” while sprinting away for cover. I’ll carry around my guitar as if I’m brandishing a LAW rocket launcher and I’ll even kneel down to “take a shot” at a speeding Kancil!

When no one is looking (or if I’m with someone who is quite used to my particular quirks), I’ll walk around as if I’m some kind of “Special Forces” soldier, moving in a caution combat stance with my weapon raised, poised to take down some “tangos/terrorists” (or hordes of charging aliens depending on which planet I’m currently on) in an instant. This is probably due to the amount of Counter-Strike (and lately a lot of FPS computer games) I’ve played. I’m pretty sure the security cameras in stairwells all around the Klang Valley have caught me on tape attempting to “breach a doorway”.

In a nutshell, just imagine a boy who hasn’t really grown up from playing “Cowboys and Indians” in public. My buddy Sean, who knows more about guns and shit much more than me could always tell when I’m acting out my little world (he even joins in sometimes!) Imagine two fully-grown university students “covering each other’s backs” while stalking around campus grounds. It’s a mystery why we don’t have girlfriends… :(

Although this particular quirk comes about when no one is looking or among friends, subconsciously it has influenced the way I speak sometimes. Don’t be surprise if I sometimes greet people with a curt “sir?” or “ma`am?”

Another of my quirks would be the way I pronounce certain words. Coming from a national school background my “England isn’t very tall”. A fact that my dad and Mark notices (and corrects) all the time! There are times when I talk way too fast for people to understand especially when I’m trying to describe something. I also got this habit of repeating stuff twice in a row especially the punch line in a joke or an insightful observation.

I also have this quirk where I like to pick inside someone’s brains. If I’m visiting a house for the fist time, I’ll really take a long look around. Family photos, decorations, the design on the ceilings, kitchen appliances, all of them can tell me a little story about my host. While having a conversation with a stranger, I sometimes have this habit of asking personal questions out front. I guess I just like to know how someone ticks, that’s all. Makes me feel like I can understand others better.

I’m also a little “neat-freak” as compared to others in my family. It is not like I have the constant urge to mop and disinfect my surroundings but more on if I put my hand where I can’t see it, I will find the thing I’m looking for without actually looking. Unfortunately, my family (with the exception of my mom who I think I take up after in terms of mental faculties) is kinda messy. Take my car of example. Inside, it is very neatly Spartan. But whenever my dad or elder sister takes the car, there always seams to be more leaves and dirt on the floor mats. The mirrors are misaligned and the windows have more smudges on them. And for some reason, my dad decided to move furniture inside my hunchback car a few years back. The window tints now bear ugly scars all over! Worst, when I reach behind for the steering lock, it is not there! I turn around and it’s on the other side of the car! Aieee!

Ok, fine. Maybe I’m a little too nutty on the whole neatness thing. But I rather suspect that my dad sometimes deliberately messes up the car’s carpets and hides the steering lock under the seat just to get a raise out of me. He will go like “Hello?! This is not YOUR car. This is the MY car seeing that I paid for it. I can mess it up all I want. You are just the driver.” My family really knows how to push my buttons sometimes.

Another quirk of mine? Procrastination! The bed always looks so nice just to lie in whenever assignments are due. Take this blog entry for example. It is now 4.38am on a school night. Woo pee doo! Which leads to another bad habit of mine. Sleeping in lectures. Comrade Procrastinator is strong!

To me, humor is very important. I believe sometimes it is not what you know, who you know but just simply on how you say things. I’ve observed that many misunderstandings and conflicts can be avoided with some common sense and quick talking. Humor is like… the Indian accent. Pop it in and the tension's gone! (Ala Russell Peters). Sometimes, the humor I produced is kind of obscure so I rather suspect that most of the time people are just laughing at my funniness out of courtesy. :(

But really, I am a funny guy and humor is my primary icebreaker. I rather like doing the whole sardonic/deadpan humor thing. Sometimes though, I may have accidentally offended certain people in the quest to make others laugh. A bad quirk of mine that I am currently trying to correct.

I really like walking around. Let me sit down or run about but don’t force me to stand still. I really can’t! I rather walk for miles than stand up for five minutes. Pacing about sort of like helps me to piece together a solution for a particular problem I’m having. It also gives me my private space to think about stuff, as many people do not like to go walk walk!

Well, its kinda late so I guess I'll shut up for now. I hope Mr. Dogan doesn't mind me sleeping in his lectures... again.

"Apathy is always funnier than ignorance."