Whee! I got laughed at by total strangers today!

Well, classmates, but people I didn't know, nonetheless. I suppose it all starts with laundry.

I had gone far too long without doing laundry. Because it's very difficult to get a washing machine in the evening or over the weekend, I decided to wash my clothese while I was in class today. Unfortunately, my only pair of non-superformal pants that I hadn't worn were my stripey Nightcrawler pants, so I decided to wear those to class while my jeans were in the wash. I should have known the effect they would have on me! I've found that while wearing them, they magnify my natural dorkiness quotient 400%, which is always dangerous. Alas.

We were having a quasi-review session in my Communications class, as the teacher had to be somewhere else, so the TAs were going over old material and covering some things we hadn't yet touched on. One of these was focal length and lenses in film and photography. However, when talking about the "flattening" effect of long lenses, it was obvious to me that many of the students (and in fact, the TA as well) didn't understand the concept. So I piped up with an example of wide angle and long lens used in tandem, Hitchcock's Vertigo, and described the effect achieved by zooming out and moving the camera towards the subject at the same time, keeping composition the same but changing focal length. But with every word I said, I could feel the class thinking "What the...?", so I wrapped up quickly and retreated into my coat, like a turtle. The whole class laughed a "What did she just say and why did she say it?" laugh as I repeatedly facepalmed, much to the amusement of those around me. "Because everybody here has seen Vertigo" a fellow DMDer said with a grin. "Well, they also use it in Lord of the Rings..." I said in a small voice.

So three cheers for dorkiness! I had an incureable grin all the way back to my dorm. It's so healthy to laugh at oneself every so often.