Interview the person below you

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Well (this is background information), I've recently been trying to learn how to understand body language (reading books on the subject, observing people more closely, trying to rationalise why a person's body would behave a certain way).

Yesterday, I was at a university tutorial. There were only three people there (myself, one other student and the tutor). Now, whenever the tutor was speaking to or looking at me, he would be making gestures with his hands in order to help communiate his point (as people often do). However, when he was speaking to or looking at the other student, instead of his hands being used as tools of communication, they would often be touching his face, or else hanging awkwardly at his side.

Face-touching is, I have read, an almost universal method of self-pacification that people unconsciously use when they are nervous (I've since realised just how often I do this myself, when before I didn't know about it at all).

So, what I had done here, in this situation, was realise that my university tutor was made nervous by speaking to this student through observing his body language! What a breakthrough!

(I can only speculate, of course, on why he was uncomfortable speaking to this student when he seemed not to be with me)

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What is the time where you live right now?

It's 20h08 here (evening thus and I've just finished my dinner).

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Are you bothered by the fact that the sun 'goes to bed' earlier and earlier in Autumn? (till 21 December)

No.
But understand, I'm in Florida, down near the 28th parallel of Latitude. The sun's intensity and duration are much greater here. It's a tremendous relief when Autumn rolls around and the days get shorter and cooler. I don't mind at all

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Do you celebrate Halloween?
If so, what do you do?
If not, are there any Fall/Harvest-related celebrations you do participate in?

No, I don't celebrate Halloween or any other fall/harvest celebration, coz it's Spring here.

I know I can Google this, but can anyone tell what's the relevance and history of Halloween?

My understanding is that there are lots of evil things roaming about on Hallowe'en because it is (traditionally) the night that the barrier between our world and the spirit world is weakest. People dress up to scare these spirit's away.

I'm not so sure about the whole going around people's doors and taking stuff from them (maybe it's like payment for scaring away the spirits, a sort of protection money (and I know nowadays, when you give sweets to the miscreants to stop them from throwing eggs at your house it feels like that)).

The story of Jack o'Lantern has to do with a lazy but clever farmer tricking the devil in some way into saving him from trouble (I suppose the story changes all the time, but I heard the trouble as being a hanging mob), but then having the devil refuse his soul and so condemn him to eternal wandering (which, I wouldn't think would be worse than Hell?). I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with making lanterns out of turnips or (later) pumpkins though.

This is what I learnt in school anyway. Apologies for any mistakes. I guess you should probably use Google since I'll have missed loads out.

(As a pointless aside, my Granny was born on Hallowe'en, which may or may not have anything to do with my dad's longheld belief that she is a witch ).

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What is your favourite vegetable?

The potato, mostly because of French Fries.

What do you like to eat for breakfast?

i don't like having breakfast, i prefer a bit of soup around noon, or some salad or a bit of yoghurt or a 'croque monsieur' or a bit of warmed up spaghetti or fruit or a sandwich

how many meals do you have a day?

Usually 1 or 2. Once in a while I completely lose my apetite and I'll go a day or two without eating. I've also been known to forget to eat when focused on an engrossing task.



What's the largest meal you've ever eaten?

Thanksgiving. Either that or buffet meals.



Have you ever been in a bellicose mood? Not like being in a mood to troll, and not even being angry, but just wanting to fight or to obliterate random objects, such as blowing stuff up or demolishing other nonliving objects?

Absolutely.
When I was 19-20 years old, I lived in a trashy apartment with some equally trashy young drop-outs like myself. We used to get out of our minds and break/destroy/burn all kinds of stuff. It wasn't about stupid rage or careless criminal activity. It was more like some variety of primitive therapy.

Initially, we tried to pass it off as art. Like the time we found a glass tabletop out by the dumpster: I suggested that we all take sharpie markers and write our frustrations and inner demons on the glass... then smash it to bits with golf clubs.

Another time, we took a nasty recliner chair that we found on the side of the road, carried it up to the balcony of our townhouse, doused it with every kind of flammable liquid we had available, lit it on fire, and shoved it off the balcony into the parking lot below, where it burst into a pillar of flame at least 20 feet high. That should have gotten us arrested, but somehow no one noticed.

There were all kinds of instances like this; variously involving hammers, fireworks, glass, blowtorches, and whatever other implements of destruction we had at the time. I think we were just acting out a lot of repressed stuff from childhood. That apartment eventually degenerated into something out of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".... I'm very glad I don't live that way anymore.

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Do you believe in Karma? (put very simply: "what goes around comes around")

I'd like to believe, but you just got to look around you and at the news and see bad people getting lucky and good people getting screwed without consequence. And i just would find it odd that a supposed cosmic force such as karma picked and choosed who it effects, kinda defeats the whole premise of it.


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What's the longest you've ever driven (by yourself, or with someone else, as a kid maybe on vacation etc)

I do not drive a car myself but nowadays I consider every 'drive' as long for I dislike driving a lot.

Um, as a kid on vacation with my parents and two sisters my dad drove us to Spain in two days and another year we went to former Yugoslavia (Istria), also a two days drive. Hotel half way to spend the night and I think it was about 1200 kms (+/- 745 miles) for Spain and approx. the same for Istria (maybe just under 1200). Those would the longest drives for this chap.

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What vacation (the place and experiences there) you have good recollections of and maybe would like to tell us something about?

when i was around 20, i cycled (with boyfriend) from belgium to portugal and back (and we came back with a cat (kitten), in a basket during the day on the bike, at night it was free, it came back every morning)

what's the longest trip you did on a bike?

I never had a bike to ride.

What do you think about martyrs for their faith?

I think they all deserve the Darwin Award for eliminating their idiot genes from the gene pool.

what did you eat so far today?

Turkey sandwich, potato chips, vienna finger cookies, chicken fried rice, fried dumplings.

(I like this thread, its fun)

What's the longest amount of time you've ever stayed awake?