A student of mine told me that you can hypnotize dragonflies. That is a succinct summary of a much longer conversation.
Join me on a wild trip down Tangent Lane, where I'll distract us from the main topic for a few minutes to --hopefully-- entertain both of us. If not, at least I'll be amused.
Living in a foreign country can be very fun. Conversations are like a wild mix of Taboo, charades, and blank staring. Speaking with Japanese people usually involves partial sentences and gesturing. For some reason I never have my dictionary on me, so life is much more complicated. There is a complex ratio that describes whether a conversation is fun or hair-pulling stressful.
[time available + (difficulty of concepts - vocabulary)] X immediacy ^ importance = amusement level
And that equation is scientifically tested. I pulled it out of a research paper titled "Living in a Foreign Country: Sanity's Breaking Point." It has many other fine equations such as the function to calculate the rate at which patience is exhausted based on the number, volume, and proximity of advertising kiosks in a department store. One thrift store has so many loud kiosks all near each other playing different music so loud it obliterates the minds ability to focus. Only theoretical physics has numbers small enough to describe how fast patience was exhausted.
Anyway, back to my original tangent.
Conversations such as "You can hypnotize dragonflies," over the course of fifteen minutes are quite fun. On the other side of things, you have the "You've been pulled over for a reason you can't understand and the policeman wants information from you that you can't provide and it is 10:30 at night and you still have a commute to deal with," conversation which is not fun at all.
So, to summarize fifteen minutes of partial sentences, gestures, laughs, and astonishment, you can hypnotize dragonflies. You wave your finger in a circle in front of their face. We're not sure exactly why it works, but the theory is that because they have so many eyes, trying to follow your finger makes them dizzy. Once they are good and dizzy, they will step onto your finger (or land on it if you are such a skilled dragonfly charmer that you can bamboozle them in mid-flight). They will sit there quite contentedly for several seconds before they fly away. Oh yeah, and it only works with the brown ones.
I can't wait to try it. I found out about this right before the weather got too hot. All the brown dragonflies disappeared and only the black and yellow striped ones were still around. Now the brown ones are everywhere. If I get a chance to catch a dragonfly I'll definitely let you know.
I know all of you will try too. I'm picturing all of you crouched down wiggling your fingers at something and the image has me laughing out loud.
I've got to find a dragonfly!! We had a cricket in our kitchen for a couple of days....I was tempted to keep it as a pet (like Kelli and her beetle) But then I remembered how annoying the chirping from under the stove is, so we caught it and let it go b4 Toby could eat it.
ReplyDeleteHow would a cricket in your kitchen factor into that patience equation? Is it equal to a kiosk? But....it's not in a store, it's in your kitchen, which would have to change it's value...and would it affect the friendship algorithm???
ReplyDeleteIs there a function in that equation that takes into account whether or not a Justin Beiber song is playing within earshot which then modifies the equation to demonstrate how quickly the situation will descend into a mindless, bloody, Sottish-Soccer-hooligan-style massacre?
ReplyDeleteTo kirst: Imagine that the cricket is accompanied by obnoxious pop music and flashing, epilepsy inducing music videos. At the same time, from the microwave you hear a rock-and roll song of similar caliber, while in the living room, an equivalent din is blaring.
ReplyDeleteTo Bob: There is a function for it, but it is usually omitted due to the fact that in general circumstances, the outcome is immediate.