the implicit is becoming explicit.

Is it me, or are all the.. implicit things in our lives becoming explicit?

Every week, I find myself being surprised (though I must say to varying degrees) at the content of the lesson. This week's elearning lesson had been one of the few I've been most surprised at, but this time the surprise only came after I started to think about what had been taught.

On a side note, I'm really glad that I took this module. All 849 points are worth it hahaha. I really feel like I'm actually learning about life here.

Anyway, this week was about face and politeness. But the politeness bit interests me more. At first, I thought it was quite hard to understand what all the maxims were about, and I had to read it through a few times before I started to understand what the notes were saying.

And now, having thought about it, it's because all these implicit things in our lives go so unnoticed that we never stop to wonder about why we do what we do. And it's so funny that there are people out there who actually consider all these things. And if they were to spend one day, maybe even one hour (!), just observing me (or anyone else for that matter) and how I communicate with my friends, I think even the small talk that I consider insignificant and sometimes unnecessary would be something they would take note of!

And as shown by the the examples given in the notes, even commenting on a friend's newly dyed hair fits into one of the maxims. Suppose you're early for lecture, and your friend has just dyed her hair, and she's all excited about it! And when she first sees you, she bounces up to you and exclaims "I FINALLY DYED MY HAIR!!!" And not only being shocked by her unprecedented burst of excitement, you are appalled by the colour choice because it seems to age her by 10 years. Then you try to maintain a calm composure and say "You look.. amazing!" But amazing can be left for interpretation... Then the lecture starts. And that would have been making use of the approbation maxim.

It's really intriguing that all these simple conversations in life have been analysed and studied, and have been given names.

I think this module will really prove to be useful in the long run. Being able to notice these implicit things in life will, I daresay, allow you to better understand a person's character and how that person thinks, and possibly this person's upbringing and culture. So it'll be useful when you have to work with people.

How interesting. (: Hmm. Maybe I should switch from Pharmacy to whatever this area of study is. Haha!!