Talking

This whole post is recycled from an assignment I had at my vocational evaluation, where I was to find an opinion piece and respond to it.

THE ARTICLE

I agree with a good bit of this article. As a member of Gen Z in my late 20s, I often go entire days without speaking to anyone except my parents, whom I live with. Some of this is explained by aspects of my unique situation. My chronic pain makes it difficult to get out and spend time in public. I am also autistic, so what many deem to be “normal conversation” could feel very alien to me. Even so, I can be nervous to speak to people when comfortably at home.

There are a few things this article fails to consider. One is that society itself has started to actively discourage conversation. On the phone, it is often difficult to get through automated systems and AI voice agents to find a real human being to speak to. There have been many occasions where I desperately want to talk to a real person to solve a problem but find I have not been given that option. This makes me think it’s all generations, not just Gen Z, that are trying to find ways to avoid conversation for the sake of “efficiency.” 

The article states, “Young adults who have given up their smartphones or set them aside for many hours report more sleep, better friendships and more face-to-face talking,” but I know that, at least for myself, this would not be the case. Perhaps I would get more sleep, but my amount of conversation would decrease even further. I think the article is discounting how many young adults don’t have friends who live near them. 99% of my friend group is made up of people I met online, and who live in different cities, states, and even countries. If I gave up my smartphone, the only people I would be talking to are my parents. Group calls on programs like Discord are quite common among Gen Z. Some of my best evenings recently have been spent watching pro wrestling or bad movies with my online friends through screen sharing. It would be nice to have more friends I can see face-to-face regularly, but that’s simply not possible for me right now.

In general, I think Gen Z can feel that when they do manage to speak up, their voices are easily discarded. The same thing happened to Millennials over a decade ago. Articles were written about how they cared about frivolous things and didn’t hold the same values as the generations prior, and now we are starting to get similar articles about Gen Z. I think this article is well-intentioned but comes from the perspective of someone who doesn’t quite understand the day-to-day realities of young adults these days.

I might be done

Just not really sure if it’s worth committing to a post every day if 80% of them are gonna be me saying I don’t have anything to post about. Maybe I could switch to one a week or something? Not sure. Will sleep on it.

I have had a bad day

and I don’t want to post anything so this is my post.

saw a dog today

 

It was good to be able to go to physical therapy today. I feel much more relaxed and I will hopefully have a good night’s sleep. My physical therapist brought his dog who he hadn’t brought in a while and the dog is named Fitz and he’s so cute and it was good to see him. I included a picture. I hope you like it. Have a good night, world.

honk shoo mimimi

I’m really starting to get bored of these evaluations. A lot of these forms and tests are really repetitive. I’ve answered the same questions about what my skills are about five times. And I’ve got nine more sessions! I’m not sure if there’s a set number of things I need to complete and if I finish I can stop early, or if they’ll keeping giving me stuff until the time is up. At least I have physical therapy tomorrow. 

I don’t like this word

At this diagnostic vocational evaluation, they use a lot of old paperwork and programs. Because of this, I have read the term “mental (r-slur)” quite a few times over the past week or so. It’s funny. There was a brief period of time where everyone was starting to get that we shouldn’t use that word, and now I’m seeing it everywhere again.

A lot of neurodivergent people claim we can use it in the same way black people are allowed to use the n-word, but I just don’t think they’re equivalent. No one calls anyone the r-word unless they’re insulting them. There’s no reclamation if you’re never using it in a casual, friendly conversation. It’s just a different type of slur, and I’m really annoyed that it’s being thrown around all the time again. It’s outdated. It’s childish. Grow up.

Wrestlemania IX

 

My friends and I just watched Wrestlemania IX. It’s as bad as everyone says it is! Though there were actually two pretty good matches. I liked the Headshrinkers vs the Steiner brothers. Scott Steiner pre-Big Poppa Pump is so funny looking. Mr. Perfect vs. Lex Luger was also good. I also think Razor Ramon vs. Bob Backlund could’ve been good if they’d been allowed to go a little longer. But man, everything else stunk. Shawn Michaels vs. Tatanka doesn’t sound bad on paper but it was incredibly slow for some reason. Doink vs. Crush sucked because Crush sucks and nothing happened except for the ending. Ted DiBiase and IRS vs. Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake? Suuuuucked. The Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez is infamously bad, but at least it was funny. And of course, the main event was just a mess. I hate Hulk Hogan. I hate him so much. 

Really Good MS Paint Cats I Drew as a Kid

 More nostalgia, folks. My mom pulled a lot of stuff off our chunky old family laptop, and that included a bunch of cats I drew. These cats are so funny. They're so 10-year-old. Which makes sense, because I was probably about 10 when I drew them!

 

i think this one is GIMP actually

snow

I don’t know. There’s snow tomorrow. I have no thoughts in my brain to say right now.

100%

 

This was a pretty empty day for me. I was supposed to have physical therapy yesterday, but they had to cancel. That kinda sucks because those three days at the evaluation were pretty hard on my back. And then next week I have four days in a row! Or maybe not, actually. It’s supposed to snow a ton here tomorrow afternoon so that might end up being cancelled as well. 

Today I donated a bunch of old clothes to a thrift store. Everything I donated was because it was too big now, which is kind of cool? The working out has worked! But also, I hate shopping for clothes and now I need new ones.

Today I also jumped into a call where the wrestling group chat was watching a late 2000s Argentinian wrestling show called 100% Lucha. It was really bad but also awesome. I am including an image of Hip Hop Man who had a shockingly good match against Dick Togo. There was also a match between a bus driver and a taxi driver where the loser lost their license. And there was a guy who was a fly. It was cool.

Awesome Stuffed Animal Videos Made by Child (Me)

the dynamic duo

I rediscovered some old videos, from when I was maybe 8 or 9, of me wiggling around my stuffed animals in front of a video camera in order to make them dance to music. It seems to have all been High School Musical music. These videos are just kind of adorable. It's also funny to remember what some of these stuffed animals were named. I heard baby Jules say that the husky was named Greymist and I thought oh YEAH, that WAS his name! Here is a clip from one of those videos. What a cute kid.