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London Zoo: Good skills learned from bad habits.

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  1.  (5873.1)
    Growing weed in my wardrobe during my school years made me a very handy gardener. I used to make money diagnosing and fixing problems with people's veggie patches/flower beds/ornamental shrubs.
  2.  (5873.2)
    I've skipped so much sleep that I usually don't feel it anymore. The effects of sleep deprivation are still happening to me, but I DON'T FEEL IT. Customarily I get 3 to 5 hours a night.

    It's practical in the short term. In the long term it's awful. Don't do it.
    • CommentAuthorRedwynd
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2009
     (5873.3)
    @Brendan McGinley: I hear that! The worst is trying to get off that particular habit.....urg. Took me three years to get the trick of it, and two years later I still habitually sleep 12-14 hours, then stay awake for two days at a go at least once a week.

    RE: Drunk homing navigation: I want this to turn into a Whitechapel event. PIck a city, a cheap place to stay (a hostel or the like), and a bar on the other side of town, and no one is allowed to travel together.

    And an image thread of the best thing you see on the way back.
  4.  (5873.4)
    I was always worried what people thought about me, and it made my school life pretty miserable on occasions. Then when i was about 16 everything clicked and I stopped worrying, did my own thing, my own way and am now a lot happier!
  5.  (5873.5)
    A heavy work load between uni and paying for uni has taught me how to fake functional human after three nights of no sleep.
    It turns out that reading hard sci-fi offers a better chance of passing your A levels than actually revising for them.
    Most wonderfully of all, smoking cures hay-fever. Fact.
    • CommentAuthorDarkest
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2009
     (5873.6)
    Being primarily an outsider during secondary school has led me to the interesting position of not particularly caring about what others think about me, well the general populace anyway. This has led to the fringe benefit of knowing quite a bit about how the ebb and flow of social stuff happens for other people. Useful now that I have to start living properly now that University is nearly over.
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      CommentAuthormister hex
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2009
     (5873.7)
    Another valuable skill is teaching the youth. I taught my nephew when he was small How To Play With Fire Properly. He's now a welder. (Little pyro that he was, I had visions of him burning down my parents' house. "Children Playing With Matches" is a euphemism for "Children Trying To Burn Down Buildings.") As he got older, I taught him how to drink. He doesn't drink much but he drinks smart. Knows his limit, doesn't mix beer and liquor, eats food, tries not to smoke too much dope. (Although young people today smoke heroic amounts of dope, these days. S'pose I did, too, when I was young.)

    Not Giving A Shit What People Think Of You is a VERY valuable skill, indeed.
    • CommentAuthorWinther
    • CommentTimeMay 18th 2009
     (5873.8)
    I, too, picked up the disregard of other people's opinions of me through grade school, with a minor in Tackling Public Humiliation with a Smile gained somewhere around the time I was dangled out of a second story window for all the school to see.

    Took a keen interest in learning to do ski jumps properly after I broke my right wrist and the right side of my pelvis by... not doing it properly. Or intentionally, for that matter. Also the resulting months of having my right hand immobilized in plaster made me marginally better at performing various tasks with my left. (Which, seeing as I was without lady-friend, included That One. More problematic at first than you might expect. Fucking awkward, really. Or, I guess, awkward fucking. Sorta. If you know what I'm talking about. And I think you do. Yeah.)

    (I'm talking about masturbation.)
  9.  (5873.9)
    doing illegal substances in my car, in parking lots, while in broad daylight has given me almost a sixth sense for when cops and security guards are approaching. and i know exactly how to drive in the least conspicuous way possible to avoid them.
  10.  (5873.10)
    Well I have a sixth sense for when there's going to be a police speed camera or a random breath testing station up ahead. RBTs are problematic because they usually block all streets so you have no choice but to go through and hope you're as sober as you told yourself you were when you started the car.
    Not sure what bad habit taught me that skill, though it could be the years of going to church and the fear of authority that it instilled in me.

    I've missed what could have been some pretty hefty fines thanks to my sixth sense.
  11.  (5873.11)
    I've driven heavily buzzed from north LA to Orange County on New Years Eve night/New Years morning on what must have been the foggiest night of the year. Somehow, i avoided getting pulled over, even though i was completely lost for like 20 minutes of the drive. Thats probably more like than a skill, but I'm still a bit proud of that
  12.  (5873.12)
    also, smoking 'heroic amounts of dope' as mister hex put it, has made me incredibly good at calming people down. i have a friend who has a tendency to get very paranoid when he's high, and this can lead to freak-outs. I can talk him down and keep him calm during these freak outs, while ridiculously high myself.
  13.  (5873.13)
    Oh yeah, and I've become a very quick writer as a result of having to lie almost constantly and on short notice. It's gotten to the point where I can make up whole stories on the spot, whether they serve a masking purpose or an entertaining one.
  14.  (5873.14)
    Living with strict African immigrant parents while trying to live the life of a freewheeling counter-cultural American teen has made me one of the best liars on the face of the planet. Years ago, I had small tells that my father could pick up on, I've now completely done away with those. I can lie to anyone about anything, and this actually makes me one of the best people to give a presentation in a class. I always sound like I know what I'm talking about, even while hungover and completely clueless.

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