Friday, September 15, 2006

Astonishment

Today I was astonished.

Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it isn't.

Today it was not.

Normally I am not astonished. I assume the absolute worst thing is going to happen in every situation, and it almost always does.

But today I made a mistake. I assumed that human nature was basically good. I don't know where that came from.

Anyway, I was just looking at the cast sheet for "Reckless", and I saw I got Tom Jr. Jesse came over and looked to see that he got Dr. S. At this point, he asked me who I was. I answered "Tom Jr."

He turned to me to speak. I assumed it'd be something along the lines of "Congratulations". This was my mistake. I thought human nature was basically good.

"I thought I did a better Tom Jr. than you," he said.

My brain shut off. I was astonished by what he said. And I was also astonished that I was actually astonished. I hadn't felt surprised in such a long time.

When people are surprised, generally they go into a sort of defensive mode. It is why girls scream when the lights go off or when someone scares them.

I might've punched him right there if my brain worked that way. Luckily, it doesn't. It went searching for an insulting reply. It came up with one shortly, and I prepared to say my line:

"Maybe that's because you don't know you suck."

I never got it out.

Gabe, standing next to me, sensed that I was about to say something immediately. He jumped in quickly, saying "It's probably because we were smaller than you."

My brain turned back on. I remembered that Jesse was my friend. I smiled and agreed with Gabe.

The funny thing with this story is that Jesse is right. He did do a better Tom Jr. than me. I don't know why my brain does that.

Anyway the moral of the story is that you should always set your standards so very low that you assume that basically everyone is a lazy, evil slob.

Wait no. Cynical is my thing.

I guess the moral of the story is that I should either learn to control myself during astonishment or just maintain my level of cynicism.

That's better.

Oh yeah. The picture I took myself. It's called "portrait of a carnation". Basically I just opened the aperture alot, letting in tons of light.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

pretty picture.
Question: Have you ever read the comic Pearls Before Swine?? i think you should because it is DEFINATELY ur kinda comic. if you read it you'll see why.

Anonymous said...

ya know you're really ripping off of tim's blog. which is really obvious. i mean, the picture thing? common! think of your own stuff!

Anonymous said...

Tim photoshops pictures. Sam takes them. There is a distinct difference. Tim uses existing pictures and modifies them. Sam takes what's in front of him and uses creative angles and such to take very nice pictures. Thus, he is not ripping off Tim's blog. Seventhly, there's a picture of a protein in front of me. At least, I think it's a protein. It has carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in it. Now I'm curious as to what it is. It was just sort of sitting there on the desk. Someone drew it out. GAH! This is going to annoy me.

Oh, yeah, nice picture.

Anonymous said...

For anyone who is interested, it's one of those organic chemistry drawing thingies.

Anonymous said...

I FIGURED IT OUT! It's a picture of caffeine...which probably means that it's not a protein. I dunno. Is caffeine a protein? No, it's a DRUG! DON'T get ADDICTED to it!

Sam Austin said...

I know it's lame to comment on you're own blog but i just want to address Jen's comment:

It is from flickr, because for some reason my computer doesn't upload pics directly to blogger. I upload my pics to flickr and then use the URL of the pic for the blog.

and jeff, thanks.

Anonymous said...

your welcome, oh, wait, you ment the other one. ok. Nice picture. Very nice.

Anonymous said...

Thank God for Gabe, right?

Maybe cynicism isn't the
Congrats on your part- I'll be calling later to say hi.

I set your picture as my background but it didn't work. too white- it looks weird all stretched out. Can you take another one for me- a flower or something and email it to me?

ok. have a great day!

Abby said...

HAHAAA, that's funny (the Snake at the Prom thing). whose idea was to have it at the zoo? won't it smell kinda funky?

and are they gonna announce it when the tryouts/auditions/whatever are coming up?

Anonymous said...

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Ali said...

picture of a carnation

hmmm wonder what it's supposed to be

JK (i really hate people who say that in normal conversation. i say it sarcastically sometimes to annoy people cuz i say it like "JAY-KAAAAAYYYY!" bwah.)

Anonymous said...

awww that's a really good picture. u should do my photography hw for me cuz i suck at it.

and uhm... so are u mad at jesse or no? that confused me... and uhm... that was weird of him to say...

and

yea....

idk....

weird...

and do u want to do my photo hw for me?

oh, i'm prolly comming to guys and dolls tombot btw.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Carissa, I saw you!!! Umm, great picture. The whole photography thing reminds me of my brother. *Tear Tear* Congrats on getting that part!!! My sister got Rachel. Hmmm. I hope I can have the lead someday when I go to Conestoga. I don't know this Jesse. Oh well. Randomness is amazing. Sorry about "Jesse" being a jerk. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

maybe he didnt know what he was saying...