234 - Noise

There are very, very, very few times in your life where you will hear the sweet essence of silence. I love going to the beach or the swimming pool and diving into the water just to drown (pun intended) out all the sound in the world for as long as I can hold my breath. It's amazing how much noise can come out of one simple action - for example, each instance my finger pushes a key on this keyboard. Even if I try really hard not to make any noise, there's an inevitable sound emitted when the key rebounds back upwards.

That paragraph was roughly 500 characters, which means there were roughly 500 soundwaves that came out. That's just one action, repeated over and over again, by one person. Now imagine the computer room that I'm in. It's seven in the morning. There is only one other person in the room aside from me perusing a computer. He's typing right now, and it annoys the life out of me. Of course, I'm typing too, but here is why I believe I'm not a hypocrite here.

The other person doesn't only make typing noises. He fidgets too. He thinks he's being quiet, but he's not. I can hear the wheels at the bottom of his chair make slight moves, shifting a little bit here and a little bit there on the hardwood floor. I can hear him inhaling quickly, almost desperately, and then letting out each puff of air steadily, with an air of relief. I can hear him scratching, and I know that the slow, but determined reptition is him scratching his forearm, and that the gentle, fast itching is him scratching his back. I can hear him move his mouse along the surface of the desk. I can hear him sniff.

I am fully aware of the fact that it's impossible to be completely quiet all the time. However, one can strive to be, especially when it's fairly obvious that others in the vicinity are trying to get some work done. This is all almost second nature to me, but I make sure that I'm comfortable in my chair when I first sit down. I see no need for any noise to be made when breathing, and I see no need to scratch at all. I hold in my sneezes, I hold in my yawns, and I sniff only when I'm alone.

And even though some noises are inevitably to be made, I try to do it in a way that is pleasing to the ear. While I'm typing this, I type full paragraphs continuously until the very end, and take longer intermissions between paragraphs. There's no need to stop if you learn how to organize thoughts in your head. Why is there any need to be so sporadic and choppy when you type, that's so cacophonous.

Trees rustle, coins jangle, doors creak and printers sound like they're about to explode. But hey, we have controls over our own bodies. So what if other people are making more noise than you? So what if it's just the sound of you tapping some keys? The fact that it's a small amount of noise doesn't mean it isn't pollution. Who needs to graze the floor when they're walking? You're going to make all that noise just so you can get some gum out of your bag? Who needs to hear rap music come out of your phone when you get a call? No, not everybody wants to hear how you flirt with girls over the phone. And explain to me this: why the heck is it that I can tell the difference, when you're scratching your damn arm, and when you're scratching your friggin' back?!

223 - Being noisy while I'm blogging

I'm writing this post to the sound of Santana's Nothing At All. Not that it isn't great, but it pretty much distracted me so much as I was trying to type what I originally wanted to type. I'm sitting in a computer room here at university, because my laptop hasn't been working for the past few days. This computer room is so great because the lights are always on, the internet access is free, there are no restrictions on online games or anything, and it's always very peaceful and quiet...

...between the hours of 10pm and 6am.

At 6am, the cleaner lady comes along, and I don't know what she's doing, but she makes a lot of noise for something like six hours non-stop. She's always pushing the vacuum cleaner with wheels around, or her little trolley thing that holds her brooms and mops and cleaning stuff, and it rattles inside the trolley, and it feels like she's cleaning the place again and again and again and again. After noon, it's then around ten hours of students coming in and out, talking on their phones, talking to each other, grumbling in frustration at their computers, stomping, coughing, sneezing, ruffling through their bags...

...and I can't bloody concentrate on my blogging during these hours. And right now, this doofus two rows in front of me thinks it's cool to play music loudly. What if I was to watch my American Idol episodes loudly, huh? It's not fair.

Okay, it's Santana, but even though it's good taste, I can't concentrate in the presence of any noise. I just can't.

There are also two guys seated on my right that are chatting about cars. One guy appreciates Lambourghinis for their design, but prefers Ferraris as it suits his personality. The other guy's favorite brand is the Maserati.

If you ask me, my favorite brand of car is Shutthehellup. I can't blog properly, damn it!

134 - People who don't shut up during movies

Sorry, folks. It's been a tiresome week and I've been arriving home at around 10pm every night for the past three nights. Exhausted, your familiar hater naturally goes to sleep. I don't know what else to say. Forgive me.

Today, I was on Facebook and I found a message in my inbox from someone who I used to go to school with a long time ago. He wanted to ask me out to eat dinner, have drinks, catch up, reminisce about the good old days, that sort of thing. I remember our group of friends used to go out to watch movies every Friday. The mall we went to also had an ice-skating rink in it, and I recall that was always a lot of fun before and after seeing a film.

There was one time the class dunce (the one that poured sugar in his mouth) decided to join our group to see a movie. He chose the film for us, a terrible choice in my opinion, as he decided we should watch Bad Boys 2, a bad sequel to an already appawling first movie, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, rated 23% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyway, our group all hated the damn movie, but the idiot in our class loved it. Since we all disliked the distasteful car chases and gun shooting, we started chatting and laughing at the back of the cinema...

...and then things got a little out of control. One of my best friends decided to stand on one of the chairs and stick his hands in front of the projector. Watching a dog's silhoutte eating Will Smith's old rusty yellow car was simply hilarious.

And then this guy sitting three rows in front of us, a white man with thin-rimmed glasses, stood up, walked up toward us, and told us to "either shut up or get the Hell out of the cinema".

And so we all got the Hell out of the cinema.

Yeah, I get it. There's nothing more annoying than, say, a young boy that exclaims "COOL!!!!" whenever Batman or Spiderman suddenly appears on the screen, or nothing ruins a movie more than a young girl that screams, or even cries, after there are loud sound effects. I think it's the worst when any grown adult doesn't understand that he/she has to switch their mobile phone off before the movie starts, people who have crappy ringtones, who have no sense of respect for the people around them, and who talk at an unbelievably high decibel.

Yeah, all of that can get pretty irritating. Those dumb teenagers in the back projecting hand-shadows on to the screen deserve to get flogged. I understand where the guy with the thin-rimmed glasses was coming from. I probably would have said the same thing, if I had the same stinking, substandard taste in movies as he did.

123 - The absence of peace and quiet in the morning

Midnight, a motorcyclist is arriving home late, broom broom-ing on the ground floor.

01:12, the man and the woman next door are arguing about who's responsible for buying the milk. Grandpa went to piss.

03:34, do I hear birds chirping?

04:33, why does the printer have to make such a cacophonous noise when it prints?

04:37, jeez, it makes such a horrible noise even when it scans stuff too.

04:49, grandpa's going to pee again, the heavy breathing, the trickling of his urine into the bowl, the sigh of relief, I hear it all and it's giving me a headache.

04:59, yup, it's those dumb birds, the same old birds singing at the break of dawn every single morning. I wish I had a shotgun.

06:35, great, grandpa's up, watching the morning news, I loathe the theme music of the news, the Morse code beeping, the beeping, the high-pitched, repeated beeping, ugh...

07:14, the bathroom door closing, the sound of my clothes dropping on to the floor.

07:15, water going through pipes, water splashing on to me, dropping on to the shower floor, gurgling down the drain, so much noise...

07:38, Front door closing, front gate clicking, the sound of my footsteps, the elevator doors, sssshhhh...

07:45, Oh, my God, the commotion inside an early rush-hour train is frickin' unbelievable. People chit-chatting, the uproar of the train moving along the tracks through a tunnel.

07:48, baby screaming and crying, mother trying to overpower her in volume.

08:01, students all waiting to catch the bus, talking amongst themselves like they didn't just see each other yesterday. I think I'll take a cab.

08:03, horns are beeping, buses farting whenever they stop, people running, screaming "wait!" at bus drivers who can't hear them, the occasional high-heels pass by, cab arrives.

08:06, taxi driver asking which route I want to take. I tell him the route. Then I tell him to leave me alone so I can close my eyes and rest.

08:08, the meter beeped, price of ride has risen.

08:10, beeped again,

08:11, and again,
.
.
.
.
.
.
08:27, arrived at school, the coins in my wallet are making sounds, I press them down against the soft fabric of my wallet to eradicate the sound. The taxi driver, however, is happy to jingle-jangle his coins here and there, ugh.

08:28, I hate entering school. Apart from all the loud thud thuds of the juniors running, and the female staff's high high-heels galloping through the corridors, there's all the "Hey, good morning!", "How was your parents' anniversary dinner last night?", "Did you do your Mandarin essay?". Grumble...

08:30, the worst noise in the world: the school bell ringing.

It's the morning, for Pete's sake, it's when I am trying to gather myself to live for the rest of the day, and if I can't do that, I basically become crabby for the rest of the day. Why can't my mornings just be QUIET?

111 - "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

What is up with mommies in public who ignore their children's pleas of "Mommy, look outside! Mommy, Mommy, look! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! MOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYYYY!"?

Lord, I loathe these 'darling little angels'. They're so darn cute, and worse yet, innocent, but kids are like the spawn of the Devil himself. I mean, I want to sew their lips together whenever they open their mouths and emit sound. (Huh, perhaps I've said too much.)

I know we're all overworked, and the economy is bad, but really, a simple word of motherly recognition can go a looooong way in keeping the harmony.

Plus, it saves you from other people's disdainful looks. Like mine.

I absolutely abhor these callous mothers.

Or perhaps they're more deaf than they are insensitive and they can't hear their kids' beckoning in actual fact. Their eardrums have probably been shattered from years of adorable high-pitched screaming.

107 - People who eat loudly

When I was seven years old, I spent my winter holidays in Toronto, Canada. I have two aunts there, and one of them once took me to the movies to see The Prince of Egypt.

On the car ride to the cinema, I was chewing gum, and my mouth was open, so my aunt could hear that horrible sticky snap every time my upper jaw and lower jaw moved away from each other.

When we reached a four-way junction, she stopped for a red light and turned around suddenly and screamed at me, and told me to stop chewing so loudly. She looked so angry, and I cried, and I never chewed gum with my mouth open again.

This goes for all food, in fact. I don't slurp my soup. I try not to make those horrible noises with my straw when I've nearly finished a beverage. I don't create nails-on-a-blackboard sounds when I'm using a knife to cut food on a plate. I don't make sucking noises when I'm trying to get all the meat off a chicken wing. I eat crackers, and potato chips, without crunching. I don't suck up long pieces of spaghetti. Even something as simple as gulping water has to be silent as well.

My best friend says that these noises make a meal more enjoyable. The noise adds an acoustically pleasant component to the dining experience.

I think that's a load of bullocks. Eating should be quiet.

A lot of things should be quiet for me. I hate the sound of high heels, and whistles, ruffling sheets of paper, dogs barking, people sniffing, everything.

My best friend jokes that in my ideal world, everyone would be ninjas.

And you know, that is precisely what I want. Don't you think that would be awesome if the world was all as stealthy as ninjas?

102 - People who come into a room and exclaim, "it is SO quiet in here!"

Was...

101 - Singing badly

There's a person in my class who is oblivious to the fact that he is annoying. I preach honesty but I don't have the heart to tell him to his face that he sounds horrible when he sings. I'm absolutely positive he knows I hate his singing. There's no way he can't take the hint. I walk away, push him away, turn to someone else for mercy.

I ignore his singing, I don't join in. I shake my head in irritation, but he seems to think I'm joking, which only gives him greater incentive to sing further because it's apparently funny.

Everyone else in my class can't stand the way he sings randomly around others. They're not songs that everybody knows and they're not songs we typically listen to. He's tone deaf, and he can't keep the rhythm or the beat. He's off key, and can't remember the lyrics or how the tune goes sometimes. He tries to create instrumental noises with his mouth and thinks his whole performance sounds good.

I used to think I sounded good, until someone told me to record my own singing on a tape. Boy, I sounded bad, and I never thought I would sing again. In the past year or so, though, I have a new-found confidence in singing. I believe I can join in with the gang at the karaoke place if I don't lose complete control of myself. Singing is fun, at the karaoke place, if you know you sound okay. But it's not good to sing at school, for Heaven's sake. It's not good to sing when you don't sound good.

The person in my class also has boundary issues, verbally and physically, a whole range of them. When he sings, he sticks his head closer to yours to maximize amplitude, moves his chair closer to you to offer a greater acoustical advantage. Every time he starts singing, I feel my guts twisting because I want to be bold and tell him to shut up, but wow, I have a bigger heart than I initially thought I had.

Do you know anyone like this? Do you hate it too?

87 - Vulgar mispronunciations

Remember how I wrote a post about mispronunciation a little over a month ago? Well, today, the subject came to my mind again, only this time, it was vulgar. What sparked it was a pun made by my friend, while we were watching the presidential inauguration together on the phone. He said he was so excited that he got a "Presidential Erection', a play on the word 'election', of course. I laughed, it was funny to me.

I mentioned in that other post that there aren't many people that speak properly all the time. I know I don't. Some mispronunciations are awful because they're not only embarrassing slip-ups, but they can be vulgar and offensive. Imagine if Obama said 'erection' instead of 'election' during his campaign. Yikes.

All we can do is try to be careful, especially on formal occasions. But we need to take extra care with these words in particular, because these slips of the tongue contain swear words, can be offensive and/or simply don't make sense at all!

Sentence: Mispronunciation

I can't get enough of the city life in Hong Kong: I can't get enough of the shitty life in Hong Kong.
Please sit down: Please sh*t down.
Our little girl has six dolls: Our little girl has sex dolls.
We got him six toys for Christmas: We got him sex toys for Christmas.
That's a really old folk song: That's a really old f*ck song.
Could you give me a clean fork, please: Could you give me a clean f*ck, please?
Foxhounds : F*ck sounds.
Benedict: Bend a dick.
The student used his cork to seal the test-tube: The student used his cock to seal the test-tube.
Do you have an available slot, say, at 5pm tomorrow: Do you have an available slut, say, at 5pm tomorrow?
I cannot live without her: I cannot live without whore.
You can't: You cunt!
I ordered the third sandwich on the menu: I ordered the turd sandwich on the menu.
Everyone loves a good father: Everyone loves a good farter.
Brush your teeth: Brush your teat.
The professors showed us their theses: The professors showed us their feces.
There's a lot of rust inside the car: There's a lot of lust inside the car.
The entire audience clapped: The entire audience crapped.
There are lumps in my mashed potatoes: There are rumps in my mashed potatoes.
The American people elected Obama: The American people erected Obama.
The elections come and go so ever-so-quickly: The erections come and go ever-so-quickly.
The whole wall is made of bricks: The whole wall is made of pricks.

And my favorite three. They are my favorite because I've actually heard these being said:

I have to perform a piece on stage: I have to perform a piss on stage.

The beaches are really nice and hot in Thailand: The b*tches are really nice and hot in Thailand.

Feel free to take a sheet: Feel free to take a sh*t!

80 - BCDEGPTVZ

Could you spell your surname for me, please?

R-I-V—

Sorry, eh, uh, er, sorry, R...?

I...

I...

V...

G?

V...

T?

V...

B?

V!

V?

Yes!

R-I-V...

E...

T?

(hang up)

79 - School noises

I hate the chair noises that create this huge ruckus at the beginning of class when everyone pulls the chairs out from under the desks to sit down, followed by the most annoying fuss at the end of the lesson when everybody gets up again and tucks in said chairs.

I hate the paper noises that rip my eardrums whenever we have to turn the page of the same book or the same bunch of worksheets. Reading through a newspaper generates this annoyance too.

I hate locker noises the most. (1) When people either drop their bag on to the floor so they can get to their locker, (2) hurl it on to the top of the lockers with a massive thud, (3) or violently knee the lockers to balance their bag on their thigh, (4) then unlock their padlocks without the slightest bit of grace, (5) open the locker excessively so that it recoils after reaching its limit with a clunk, (6) ruffle through paper, (7) and lift books up only to drop them again, (8) slam the locker door, (9) fiddle with getting the lock back on again, (10) in addition to any talking, (11) (12) whistling, (13) humming, (14) singing, (15) sneezing, (16) coughing, (17) clearing of the throat, (18) burping, (19) farting, (20) screaming, (21) shouting, (22) laughing, (23) yawning, (24) sniffing, (25) sighing and/or (26) breathing heavily that may occur during their visit to their locker.

Oh, and any teachers in high heels who may pass by.

48 - Christmas carols that aren't sung

It's Sunday. One shouldn't have to be woken up early at all, let alone by Christmas music playing in the living room. I have a three-year-old cousin who comes here quite often. Just to clarify my domestic situation, I live with my grandparents and whenever my cousin's parents, i.e. my aunt and uncle, have to go to work, he gets dropped off here to spend the day. This actually happens from Monday to Saturday but today, Sunday, was an exception. His parents had to go off to Macau to take care of some business, so at seven in the morning, bright and early, my three-year-old cousin was already at my place playing with his toy cars and such.

Two days ago, he and my grandparents put up a Christmas tree. It's nice, it has all the homely decorations that any Christmas tree would have, except for this one: the Christmas lights not only emit light, but they emit sound as well, Christmas carols without lyrics, just the music, like a ringtone. Yesterday, Saturday, I woke up to this noise, even though it was in the living room, even though I had my door closed, even when I angrily tried to muffle out the noise by pulling four cushions and my blanket over my head. I gave up soon enough and spent the whole day in my room. I continued to hear the light-music playing throughout the morning, the afternoon and the evening until my uncle came back from work to pick my cousin up and take him home. The whole day. Was it really necessary for it to be playing the whole day?... No.

My cousin also has this snowman doll that sings 'Jingle Bells' and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' in a voice similar to Frank Sinatra's. I woke up this morning thanks to that noise and it's hellishly annoying because it's Sunday, it's seven in the morning and the sound is coming from a stupid toy.

I hate it when Christmas carols originate from inanimate objects such as dolls and lights.

44 - Sniffing sounds

It's that time of year again where everybody, from your grandmother to your baby cousin, is sniffing (that is literally the case for me where I live). You hear it during meals, in class, in lecture halls, in offices, in the middle of examinations, in the library, in museums, on airplanes, in trains and cars and on public buses and even in the comfort of your home. It seems like nobody is immune to the sniffles during the winter and even if they were, everybody is bound to know the sound of sniffing only too well.

I prefer the trumpet-like blast of sound made by blowing one's nose with a tissue (my grandmother likes to describe this action as 'making dumplings').

Am I right in saying that everybody would vote for "blow your nose or die!" as well?

28 - The sound of high heels

Hmm... what's worse to me? The smell of dog crap or the sound of high heels?

Hands down, the sounds those women make as they trot on those one-legged platforms. I'm having my exams in these next two weeks and today, I was subject to this precise noise while I was in the middle of my first exam (which was the English exam. It's good to know that it's a popular subject, as shown by my poll on the right-hand side). I know we all can recall the unsettling sound of a teacher's heels in particular, as they clop clop clop in the corridors at school. My friend says that female teachers feel empowered and feel like even more of an authoritarian when wearing this form of footwear. Heels don't make sounds that are terribly disruptive, but I know that the sound certainly doesn't help anyone focus.

My friend also said that high heels improve a woman's posture and they make her look stronger, more calm and collected and sexier. Uh, stronger because they can withstand the terrible foot pain? More calm and collected because the high heels disallow them from actually running? And someone should get me the latest Guide to What's Sexy because in what universe are hammertoes, bunions and degenerative joint disease considered sexy?

I actually don't like it when any shoes make any sound. I don't like the squeaking that sneakers do on marble or hardwood floors, or the squelching of wellington boots when it rains, nor do I like the flop flop flop of slippers/flip-flops, or the sound that the chinks on cowboy boots make.

It's walking for God's sake. Why does any noise need to be emitted?

22 - Blowing whistles

I don't know about you, fellow readers/bloggers/haters, but from the deepest crevices of my heart, I loathe the sound of whistles. Unless you're a sports referee, a policeman/woman or part of an orchestra, there is absolutely no need to use such a harsh sounding instrument. I mean, it is just horrible, noisy, cacophonous, inharmonious, uneasy on the ears, you name it, so much so that the ear-splitting, ear-piercing noise, in actual fact and study, causes headaches and mental instability. Oh, why the hell is it a toy amongst young'uns?