Listening Project
C July 28, 2005

The following is an actual assignment that I turned in to my business communications instructor. I have referred to it as the best essay in the world. I have included notes in brackets for the benefit of the audience.

Before starting on this project, I found it difficult to appreciate how level I use my listening skills on a daily basis [this is what the teacher probably wanted to hear]. The results are both revealing and surprising [no, they’re not]. For example, listening is by far the least used of my information receiving faculties; it is also the faculty by which the most important information finds its route to my brain [the fact that I am not reading you this essay should tell you something]. Other methods, such as reading and observing, deliver a much larger payload of information, though the information gathered tends to be trivial and mundane. However I wouldn’t want to discount them as valuable methods of communication [because isn’t all information trivial and mundane, really?].

I have a deeply introverted personality, so my results may be far from typical [this is deliberate]. I don’t look at this as a bad thing, and indeed my ability to entertain myself and work effectively have aided me in many occasions [so don’t tell me I’m “anti-social,” you moron]. It may in fact be interesting to see how little time we truly spend using verbal communication [because this will make my essay shorter].

This project was carried out through the entirety of Saturday, June 4th, a not-so-typical Saturday in that I was aware upon waking that I had a research methods seminar all day [required to graduate, not my choice]. I immediately set aside a sheet of notepaper to record my communications, but found that as I dressed and ate breakfast that I had absolutely no need of communicating with anyone [actually, I was planning on making it all up when I sat down to write the paper, and I thought that if I didn’t talk to anyone it would make it much easier]. My roommate was out and his friend passed by me listlessly, and indeed it was not for a full hour that I experienced my first communication of the day [again, this is deliberate].

That communication came as a result of seeing Katrina moments before entering the education center [I wouldn’t have talked to her either, but there was an infinitesimal chance she would want to have sex]. My preference for being alone by no means insinuates that I must be rude, and I returned her smile because I recognized her from my Writing for Managers class of the previous night [and because there was an infinitesimal chance she would want to have sex].

We bantered for several moments about our previous night’s homework and our progress with this essay, and I found myself paying much more attention to the facts I gave and received [if she did want to have sex, I wanted to make sure she couldn’t track me down in the event of a paternity suit]. I wondered how the flow worked in regular conversation, and found that the “quid pro quo” standard generally applied, with neither of us offering more information than necessary given the topic [she didn’t come out and tell me her marital status]. The remainder of the talk consisted of obvious details and existed primarily as noise to fill an empty moment [and as persuasion to maybe have sex with me].

At a few minutes past nine, the instructor entered and began the seminar that would occupy most of my day [notice I don’t say I was paying attention]. It was my luck, good or bad, that he issued a syllabus which he then spoke about, so that I was lead to pay closer attention to the reading than I did to the instructor’s words [because I had no desire to pay attention].

We next performed the same naming ritual as we did the first day of Writing for Managers, going around the class and associating everyone’s name with an alliterative object [this is really retarded, if you’ve ever done it]. This kind of listening reached into more fundamental areas and gained its point through repetition [you idiot]. I could not consider this active listening because it was in no way analytical, though I did fall later in the order, and I did get everyone’s names eventually [I also cannot consider this real listening because then I would have to write more than a single sentence about it].

I think I may have lost interest at that point, or rather become more interested in my own thoughts, because the next thing I knew I was being partnered up with Amanda, another girl from my Writing for Managers class, and don’t remember much of what was said [hey! What do you know! Another girl!]. I asked her what the assignment was and she answered, then also helped me along until I truly understood [I had stopped listening to the instructor, I was in fact thinking about having sex]. This was very important communication [duh].

I feel bad about this [this is a lie]. I know I too often let myself drift into my own thoughts, of how long the class will be and how difficult, and usually I find some way of recovering as I did today [I think about sex way too often]. But what comes into clearer focus is how desperately I have to stop myself from doing this [this is also a lie]. There’s no telling how much more I could accomplish if only I could concentrate on the situation at hand before other, less pressing, matters [by less pressing, I mean girls that are not currently pressing their breasts again me, but I really have no desire to accomplish a whole lot more so it doesn’t matter].

I should also note that I gained speed quickly, and Amanda and I were soon working equally [she was labor and I was management]. We exchanged the same idle conversation as I had with Katrina earlier that morning, and the time passed quickly [she seemed to have a slightly greater interest in me].

For lunch, I went to Popeye’s and then toured the PX [I avoided any situation I might have to record in this report]. I did not speak to anyone except the lady that gave me my chicken, and I sat alone [I also ran into my roommate and bought an Aerosmith video, but I’m going to omit those parts].

Our work after lunch had Amanda and I working more independently, but I had by now grasped how the syllabus related to our work, and was already significantly ahead [Amanda is an officer’s wife, enough said]. It was here that I experienced my most relevant moment of communication of the day, when I had finished writing a paragraph defining “plagiarism” and then cite the source I used [actually, I just copied the definition from someone else]. The instructor offered many helpful suggestions, mostly technical, which I paid close attention to and filed away in my memory [he was being anal about it, but I got by]. The same occurred for the final project of the day, by which time I think I had developed a good relationship with the professor through my courteous responses and ability [to suck up and B.S.].

This gives me to notice two points [not counting that I had not yet had sex with anyone]. First, that communication is essential to building relationships, whichever way it is flowing [probably true, which is why I avoid relationships]. It is the rock on which we build [should one decide to build].

The second note relates to the flow [read the rest of the paragraph carefully and notice that I tell you absolutely nothing you didn’t already know]. I believe there are four types of communication, depending on which direction information is traveling. There is one way communication, from me to the other or from him to me, as the professor was mostly doing. There are times when two people can have a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, which is two way [which I don’t tend to tangle myself in]. Then there are the almost useless moment of conversation that humans are addicted to for the very important reason of building relationships with one another, such as I had done with my first listening exchange that morning [clever, huh?].

At the end of the day, I even found myself reaching out to Amanda by offering facts about myself, such as where I wanted to travel and how I was doing my report [because you never know…]. The communication had no meaning, only served to strengthen a relationship [did not work]. She returned almost as much, and I later wondered why I had done it [sex]. Perhaps it is a drive everyone experiences, and shows even more how good listening skills are important [or perhaps it is a sex drive].

I returned to my home and politely declined when my roommate said he was going out to play pool [notice how I casually dismiss a listening moment]. Ordinarily I would have loved to, but I’d been having some slight indigestion lately and wanted only to go to Starbucks on Itaewan to write this report [ah, postmodern. Very clever].

Which is where I sit now, with my laptop at Starbucks, writing this report [see previous comment]. People are talking all around me, and KISS is playing on my headphones, but I’m not really listening to any of it [because then I would have to add it to the report]. I expect my third cup of tea to bring with it my final listening experience of the night, dulled only slightly through the language barrier, and no less important because it is a one way exchange phrased as a request [last communication experience I actually list in this report].

But then I think, if communication is so omnipresent and vital, can I really be sure it won’t swallow me up again before I go to bed [it doesn’t matter, I’m done writing this essay]? Patterns of speech are flowing around us all the time, sometimes of no interest, and sometimes totally unrelated to us [once again, no real information given]. But, every once in a while something very important happens, something that we can’t even expect [and if you think I’m going to cite examples, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to these notations]. If that is the case, maybe I can find it in me to listen just a little closer to what’s going on around me, and maybe, someday, something will truly strike me [I wanted to end on a note that somehow made it seem I had learned something].

As it happened, that was not my last communication of the night. I ended up drinking too much, staying out until after curfew and making out with a non-English speaking girl on the dance floor. So, I suppose you could say mission accomplished.