My friends bring out the sotong in me

When I was in school, one of my nicknames was "sotong", the name for cuttlefish in Malay. Sotong is synonymous with not being on the ball, hence the saying, "blur as sotong". In fact, when they drew a caricature of me in school, they put a prominent question mark on top of my head to emphasize my sotong-ness.

Hanging out with my school friends this last week brought it out in me again. It is interesting how different people bring out different aspects of your personality because I've almost forgotten how blur I actually am. When I am at work and with colleagues, they think I am the model of efficiency and fountain of information. When I am on holiday with Smole, we fight about who gets to read the map and figure out what's going on. When I am with my old school friends, suddenly I become a true blue blur sotong.

And the sotong-ness has carried over somewhat because I am still out of it. I threw out my contacts solution with the contacts still in them twice this week -- once into the toilet and once out of the window; I spilled tea all over myself and the carpet and the chair yesterday; I even flopped magnificently at boiling hard boiled eggs! What's up???

I have a theory. Just as in the Taoist concept of yin and yang, where opposites complement and bring out the best in each other, I am blur because my old school friends are so remarkably talented, and that eliminates any kind of female rivalry, and so we can get along and be good buddies. That's my theory anyway. ;)