Schpeech Impedimentsch

I am one hundred percent convinced that some of the best times I remember I'm going to hell for taking such joy in. Seriously. There's no way that God is too busy doing something else to notice, and I just have these awful mental pictures of a Father Time look-a-like with a halo 'tsk'ing' and scribbling furiously in an enormous book while Saint Peter sits in dimly lit corner, perched on his workbench, dubiously fixing the most impenetrable looking padlock you've ever seen. Regardless of the mental images though, they remain my fondest memories and inspire endless giggling every time it comes to mind. Besides, I'd rather keep telling myself that we all do things that probably make God wonder if he set his goals to high for humanity.

To anyone who has ever been on a team of some sort, you'll know what I mean when I say there's just a random bond that a team setting creates with people who would otherwise probably have nothing in common or not really spend the time to get to know each other. This is how my club soccer team was in high school. The goofy shit that we cracked up about amazes me, but also feels so natural to look back on and chuckle. We were an enormous, dysfunctional family. A few of us in particular hung out together all the time - literally. We did everything together, and looked for fun everywhere. In one tourney in particular, we were playing our arch rivals. We hated this team and it was always a great match. We were all in defensive positions for the team, so our bond transferred onto the field quite well, and also made the team fun. In this particular instance, the game was tense. We weren't playing poorly, but we weren't winning either, and everybody on our team could feel that pressure. There wasn't any laughing going on that game, and we were all perfectly in tune with what needed to be done on the field and we were just trying to execute on it.

At one point, their team got possession and was coming down the right side of the field on an attack. One of their girls got through several of our teammates and was gunning towards our goal looking to send the ball to the opposite side of the field so they could try to score. All three of us looked at each other with a look of understood terror as we watched this scenario unfold upfield, and immediately went about our business. Right as we were falling into place and getting ready to stop this one of their players flew down the opposite side of the field screaming "cross it! CROSS IT!!" This doesn't seem like a big deal, but she had a speed impediment. She had the speech impediment that made "s" sounds come out like they were being pushed through tin foil. So the phrase swimming pool would be hell for this girl, and would later become a phrase that my horrible friends and I would repeat over and over through gasping laughter. Schwimming Pool. Another fun one was Indianapolisch Coltsch. Fun times... I'm sorry, God.

Unsought Meaning

Sometimes I wonder why the things that seem to give me the most meaning in life come from exteral sources. Regardless of how perfect the revelation is I usually end up asking myself, "shouldn't such inspiration come from within?" Its like I'm biting off of somebody else's truths. I find inspiration and meaning in the smallest things, and I wonder why these instances of clarity can't come to me more often. I heard this tonight, and loved it. Bitten or not, I think its beautiful.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

I've also remembered this since I was forced to memorize it in 9th grade Honors English, oblivious to what this could possibly mean at the time, but somehow never being able to get it out of my head:

INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Funny how much meaning we can find in some things...

Professional Kindergarten

I always told my family and friends growing up that I could never teach gradeschool, and that, in fact, I could never teach anything less than college or graduate classes because I would end up killing either my students or myself. That would inevitably draw some disapproving looks, but at least I was confident in the fact that I knew myself and could be honest about my shortcomings as a self-professed perfectionist loner. With all of my horrible people skills in mind, I decided to enter into Business school in college and study something that would immerse me in Excel spreadsheets, Outlook, and a played down version of 'TPS reports' that wouldn't make me want to chew on glass. I secretly prided myself on the fact that I was going to do great things within my hugely ambiguous, amateur notion of what "business" was, and felt an almost maternal pity for those who were sentencing themselves to a life of servitude as educators, hospitality agents, doctors, etc - they were always going to be so... needed.

I graduated college with not one, but TWO degrees, and promptly went to work for a computer company whose most successful spokesperson has recently gone down in history as the guy whose stoner antics propelled an entire market to spend billions by just saying, "duuude!" I was big time. I worked hard, got promoted, and was all of a sudden a people manager a month after my 24th birthday. I used to scoff and roll my eyes at those infomercials that obnoxiously boast "so easy even a child could operate it!", wondering how those people became so obtuse as to associate their product with the intellect of a five-year-old. Now, after over 18 months of people management experience in one of the most high-stress environments imaginable, I realize that the joke's on me. I may not be in a classroom, but I have a whole team of five-year-olds. The only problem is that they range from ages 20 to 43, and until now I never thought to have smelly-good markers or felt boards with fun cut-out shapes to keep them interested and productive at work.

So now I am totally convinced there is some sort of hidden brilliant management tip I can find in those infomercials. How is it possible that one can make something so simple to understand that a child could completely understand and operate?! At least if they didn't understand after the 19th explanation I could tell myself, "they're kindergarteners, and they're five." The problem I find myself currently in is that my Kindergarteners are 30, some with real kindergarteners of their own - and I just really don't think they're intellect levels should rival one another. Alas, the similarities I'm seeing in this work and my sister's several years of teaching kindergarten are astonishing. Here are some fun examples:

• They ask every 15 minutes if its time to go home yet
• They'll delete emails before even reading them and then get mad at me when they don't know what I'm talking about in meetings
• Every time they don't want to do something they miraculously have to pee
• They only have to ask me something when I'm on the phone
• They have coloring books to keep them entertained while on the phones and have actually fought about who stole the blue crayon

Occasionally, I look around and wonder how I could have been so arrogant as to think that my corporate America life would be so much different than this. At least I know I could always make a career move into teaching if this whole corporate America people-management thing doesn't work out for me. I mean hell, I'll already have all the smelly-good markers and coloring books.

Satan has a new ice pick

I have a blog. That sentance in and of itself is enough for me to know that modern advertising is horrifyingly successful. Is my fortress of nonchalance and strategic exile from all that is Emo all for naught? Have I betrayed my efforts to remain so cooly uninterested in everything hip for this?

See, it's in this sort of instance that one would hope for a moment of blinding clarity so as to brilliantly articulate through writing what the answer to that not-so-rhetorical question could possibly be... so of course I have to admit that the only thing coming to mind for me is a befuddled, "uh-uh." I imagine you'll learn that about me as the time and pointless writings continue - blinding clarity and I aren't the best of acquaintences.

I should have known a blog was next in line for me - just like so many others my age who were uncharicteristically drawn to the lure of the nameless internet. I never thought I would be so transparent to the marketing powers that be as to join in the trendy rush. We should have known, gang - hell froze over with the iPOD, we've just gotten used to the temperature.