mirrored mannerisms

Went out to the New Downunder hotel again last night ($4 crownies! and a chess board). We ended up watching the gratuitous antics of the housemates. It was unnervingly addictive.

Today, we went to have Yum Cha at Shark Fin Inn in Keyborough (highly recommended), and ended seated at a place next to the wall length mirrors on the side of the restaurant. As I was staring at this mirror, and at my self, something that I had pondered came back to me. For my whole life, most of the time I see my face would be in the mirror. Every morning, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, I would be faced with... myself. I'd get used to my own features, my own looks, where everything lies on my face. And this, I realised, was completely different to what other people saw. Your mirrored reflection gives you a left-right reversed image of your features. Though your face might generally be symmetrical, I came to realise that on closer inspection, it isn't. There are subtle differences here and there, freckles, the way you smile, the position of the eyes. Your mental self image is just not the same as what the rest of the world sees. But who is right? Which is the real you? Your real image? I think, it is for this reason, that at times when I look at myself in a photo (one of the times you see yourself from other people's view) that I don't always look right, or feel that its just not me (or that maybe i'm just having a bad hair day). But it is in fact this image that other people see as you.

I generally spend a lot of time watching people, when they speak, when they're listening, when they're walking around the place. It can be funny sometimes when you notice that some people have their own individual repeated mannerisms in movment and speech that they use all the time. Some might have a saying or phrase, some might have a way they walk, or move about, and some might have their own way of greeting people. Most times, these seem normal, at least not out of the ordinary, but at other times, it can just make people look silly. And, of course, I realised, I must have my own little intricacies and mannerisms. Me, I think I nod too much. When different people are being spoken to, they go 'uh huh', 'yep', just stare, or whatever. I just nod. Everytime I'm in that situation, I get this urge to nod, like a high frequency, low amplitude nod, but I feel that's just my way of telling the other person that i'm listening. And then, I realised that this might look ridiculous to others. So, I've recently tried to stop this, or at least nod less often, and tried other ways of acknowledging, like saying 'yep' or something. But of course, these habits are hard to change, and so I guess it will only be with time that I can see what will happen.