Say what?

Last night was the first general meeting for the CASG and as a Communications representative in the faculty of Public Affairs I was pleased to go. It was really cool meeting all the other reps, coordinators, chairs that represented almost every facet of Carleton university. Actually I think it's rather amusing to note that since last year, every group I've joined has the same people in it. Not a bad thing, these are people I've worked with and enjoy working with.

For the most part everything seemed in order. Motions were sent out before the meeting to be reviewed and then to be voted on. They were raised, we voted, all good. That is until a new motion was presented that honestly took a good 2 hours. It was related with a current situation that the administration is in, and it was felt that this is an academic issue that the board needed to consider.

More than anything; more than the debates, the questions, the reasoning, the arguing... what it came down to, for me, was the wording. The wording of the motion had to be precise. And that's because I really think we were on the verge of another Shineramagate, which, I think boiled down to the wording of the motion. And this is the inspiration for this post.

Sometimes we (and I should really change that to "Mostly I") have a tendency to miscommunicate a lot of the time. I thought maybe writing things down will be better because I tend to internalize ideas, but this is not true. Fortunately the essays I'm writing this term is forcing me to write coherently. Then I thought maybe I am less of a writing guy and more of a talking guy. This too is not true; I have been made aware that sometimes when I tell a story I lose the context, and instead of a laugh or affirmed nod from the person I'm talking to, the response I get is a look of confusion.

The lesson in this is to always be sure to communicate what you want to get through to the other person, and ensure that they interpreted what you said the way you wanted it to be understood.

An example of this is instant messaging, with those fun emoticon features. I find them helpful, because I can say some sarcastic comments sometimes. Without the emoticons, my sarcastic remarks could be received poorly by the poor soul on the other end of the screen. Although sometimes even emoticons can be tricky to understand. What's the point of a wink? Or tongue-out face? I tend to use those the most. Actually my top three most used emoticons, in no particular order, are:

:) ;) :P

I use those emoticons interchangeably depending on who I'm speaking with and what's being discussed (sometimes if it's the same discussion with different people the emoticon will still change). For example...

i) I'm going to eat a hotdog :)
ii) I'm going to eat a hotdog :P

i) is a response to the question: what are you doing?
ii) is a response to the statement: I'm so hungry.

Okay, so the example had absolutely nothing to do with what I was saying... and I'm actually just a little bit hungry right now... Moral of the story: Words matter. Maybe that's what I should have named this post.