Getting the most out of odd moments

A friend of mine has the odd habit of carrying a small note book and a pen wherever he goes. Curious to know what he was doing with them one day I followed him.

He was at the dentist's waiting room clutching a numbered piece of paper. The room was full of people-mothers lulling their babies, young bucks brushing away some invisible specks of dust from their shirts and elders flipping through the old magazines stacked on a partly broken table.

Time was not moving fast enough for them to be called in by the dentist. My friend took out his note book and started writing down something which I could not see. While others were growing impatient, he appeared to be the master of the situation. He used to look at the passing scene and jot down something briefly as if he was doing some investigative reporting.

One day we tracked him down to his modest house down a narrow lane in the suburbs. There were many such note books stacked neatly on his table. When asked what he was doing by keeping note books he hesitated at first. When pressed, he reluctantly came out with the truth.

"I'm learning English conversation. These note books carry snatches of conversation I've heard over the years. Although I've a smattering of English, I'm not a good speaker. So I started collecting snatches of conversation first as a hobby and then as a useful tool in learning a foreign language."

Although all of us may not be inclined to carry note books wherever we go, it serves two purposes. In the first place it helps you to get the most out of odd moments. Secondly, it helps you to learn something new by only listening to others.

Waiting is a terrible task in modern society. People are so busy these days that they are not prepared to wait even a moment unnecessarily. However, we have to wait at the dispensary, dental surgery, bread queue or even to enter a public convenience. However much we dislike waiting, we are compelled to wait for certain things to happen.

During such odd moments of waiting some of us stare at the ceiling fan or the butterflies in the picture hanging on the wall. Knowing that people find it difficult to kill their waiting time, some dispensaries have installed television sets to entertain the patients. But how long can you watch a TV programme without getting bored to death?

Then there are certain other places like big private hospitals where they play music over the public address system to soothe the weary patients.

As time and tide wait for no man, we have to find something useful to do during such odd moments. If you add up those odd moments in a particular year you might get a staggering number of days simply wasted in waiting. Like Athenians who filled every moment with meaningful action, we too can do something useful while we wait.

Like my friend you might carry a note book in which you could jot down snatches of conversation-just to learn English. Similarly, I've heard of a young business student who used to carry a small French phrase book. Later he became so proficient in French that he got into a chain of hotels managed by a French firm.

During our schools days one of the teachers advised us to read all the sign boards and copy them down in a note book. One of my colleagues who was a bright spark took the advice seriously. Here are some of the entries from his note book:

"Long hair causes short tempers."

"Smoking is injurious to your health."

"Bite corner for broasted chicken."

"We make antiques for sale."

In his latter days, he went a step further and started copying bits and pieces from magazines and newspapers. here are some of the most interesting entries from his note book:

"Benjamin Franklin was of a vicious disposition and early used his talents to invent maxims and aphorisms calculated to inflict suffering upon generations to come. Nowadays a boy cannot follow out a single natural instinct without tumbling over some of those everlasting aphorisms."

"By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying-

Lady, make a note of this;

One of you is lying."

"An epitaph:

"here lies my life: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest. And so am I."

"Dr. Louis E. Bisch examines the case of the hypothetical men who start across a street on a red light and get in the way of an oncoming automobile. "A" dodges successfully and "B" stands still, "accepting the situation with calm and resignation." "C" hesitates, wavers, jumps backward and forward, and finally runs head on into the car."

The last entry quoted above from his note book would baffle you as what was right or wrong with "B" and "C". You might call it instinct, but the Freudians would call it "complexes." If you ask a behavioral scientist, he would say, "conditioned reflexes." Meanwhile, a physiologist would say, "deficient thyroid!"

By keeping a note book you can also collect many maxims, quotations and beautiful phrases used by writers. A reader once sent me some of her notes which are worthy of publication:

"Do you know that the English language contains about 490,000 words? But only two words end in "shion" (cushion and fashion). And only two words have all the vowels in the proper order: facetious and abstemious.

"Victor Hugo, the renowned French novelist had the habit of asking his servants to steal his clothes so that he could not go out and had to continue writing."

Pablo Picasso as a young poverty-stricken lad, kept himself warm by burning his own paintings."

"King Charles I minutes before he put his head on the block told Bishop Juxon: "Remember."

What the Bishop was to remember has remained a mystery to this day!