I am following my fish.
Jan. 21st, 2004 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elsajeniI imagine the future as a place very akin to the present. I know that I should imagine colonies under bubbles on Mars or the Moon, hovercars that run on a renewable fuel source, time travel or FTL travel or something, especially as a science-fiction fan and a lover of such stories, but I don't believe in it. After all, a man from 1900 could probably look at a 2004 Toyota Avalon and say, yes, that's an automobile, and I can look at the earliest of Fords and say, yes, that's a car. The future will just be our same world, but perhaps a little dirtier, and perhaps a little less green.
I want to enjoy the hell out of college, become a junior high school English and creative writing teacher, inspire more than a few students to read, write, and become teachers themselves, write a great deal, finish Azaleas and get it published, also write and get published the various other things I've been planning and a thousand others, retire from teaching to become a Unitarian minister, preach well and truthfully, retire from the ministry, live in Prague, live in Venice, live in London, and live in a tree.
Of those things, I expect to enjoy the hell out of college, become a junior high school English and perhaps creative writing teacher, write a great deal, perhaps get a few things published, finish Azaleas, and retire from teaching to become a minister.
I dream about being one of my various literary heroes, a hobbit or a pirate or Huckleberry Finn or similar, and braving everything -- rain and floods and fires and people trying to kill me and being attacked by hyenas and being teased by vicious roaming packs of thirteen-year-old girls and not being able to find a restroom and having my shoes stolen by my lover -- and looking behind me at all of it and laughing with the sheer joy of being alive, and eventually accomplishing whatever small quest it is that I have set off on, and then embarking immediately upon another.
My most noteworthy trait is my tendency to turn everything that happens around me into a story, or at least into a fragment of story. This is probably why I began to collect quotes. A good quote is, in and of itself, part of a story. When you see written down somewhere a quote like: "Yes, Marc. I have to make vinegar." -- Rob, or "Have you ever bounced a bag of birdseed off the incarnation of an idea?" -- Laura Nielsen, or indeed "Ung! Me, Tarzan! You, don Juan!" -- me, it is a story, although not fully told.
I am most proud of my writing, in general. However, if you're looking for the single event, the single moment in my life when I have been more proud than ever before or since, I would have to say that it was my second black belt test. I'd failed the first one and the Grand Master had stood me and two or three other people -- the other people who'd failed -- up in a gym full of a hundred and fifty people desperately glad that they weren't us, plus the family and friends that had come to watch them, and he'd given me and the others a spectacular dressing-down. So I'd gone and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced, and six months later I stood up in front of my own academy, every single person there someone I saw in class every other day, someone I would be seeing every other day after the test, whether I failed or not, and started the test again and didn't fail.
I want to be famous for writing. Enter Captain Obvious, stage left.
The meaning of life is to live.
This philosophizing brought to you by Dream, Dare, Do, a horrendously-named Girl Scout program for which I have to write a personal vision of my life. Also by the letter L, because I vaguely remember a Sesame Street song, "The Letter L," which was set to the tune of "Rebel Yell."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my English class has almost finished King Lear, and it is becoming rapidly apparent that Shakespeare's favorite line of dialogue was, "Oh, I am slain!" Three characters remain alive. We are two pages from the end. In those two pages, two of those still-living characters will bite it.
TO DO: Stop being a sissy and write back to Emma.
I want to enjoy the hell out of college, become a junior high school English and creative writing teacher, inspire more than a few students to read, write, and become teachers themselves, write a great deal, finish Azaleas and get it published, also write and get published the various other things I've been planning and a thousand others, retire from teaching to become a Unitarian minister, preach well and truthfully, retire from the ministry, live in Prague, live in Venice, live in London, and live in a tree.
Of those things, I expect to enjoy the hell out of college, become a junior high school English and perhaps creative writing teacher, write a great deal, perhaps get a few things published, finish Azaleas, and retire from teaching to become a minister.
I dream about being one of my various literary heroes, a hobbit or a pirate or Huckleberry Finn or similar, and braving everything -- rain and floods and fires and people trying to kill me and being attacked by hyenas and being teased by vicious roaming packs of thirteen-year-old girls and not being able to find a restroom and having my shoes stolen by my lover -- and looking behind me at all of it and laughing with the sheer joy of being alive, and eventually accomplishing whatever small quest it is that I have set off on, and then embarking immediately upon another.
My most noteworthy trait is my tendency to turn everything that happens around me into a story, or at least into a fragment of story. This is probably why I began to collect quotes. A good quote is, in and of itself, part of a story. When you see written down somewhere a quote like: "Yes, Marc. I have to make vinegar." -- Rob, or "Have you ever bounced a bag of birdseed off the incarnation of an idea?" -- Laura Nielsen, or indeed "Ung! Me, Tarzan! You, don Juan!" -- me, it is a story, although not fully told.
I am most proud of my writing, in general. However, if you're looking for the single event, the single moment in my life when I have been more proud than ever before or since, I would have to say that it was my second black belt test. I'd failed the first one and the Grand Master had stood me and two or three other people -- the other people who'd failed -- up in a gym full of a hundred and fifty people desperately glad that they weren't us, plus the family and friends that had come to watch them, and he'd given me and the others a spectacular dressing-down. So I'd gone and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced, and six months later I stood up in front of my own academy, every single person there someone I saw in class every other day, someone I would be seeing every other day after the test, whether I failed or not, and started the test again and didn't fail.
I want to be famous for writing. Enter Captain Obvious, stage left.
The meaning of life is to live.
This philosophizing brought to you by Dream, Dare, Do, a horrendously-named Girl Scout program for which I have to write a personal vision of my life. Also by the letter L, because I vaguely remember a Sesame Street song, "The Letter L," which was set to the tune of "Rebel Yell."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my English class has almost finished King Lear, and it is becoming rapidly apparent that Shakespeare's favorite line of dialogue was, "Oh, I am slain!" Three characters remain alive. We are two pages from the end. In those two pages, two of those still-living characters will bite it.
TO DO: Stop being a sissy and write back to Emma.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-21 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 03:33 pm (UTC)+ Brian
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-24 08:48 am (UTC)Boo.
Date: 2004-01-30 06:50 pm (UTC)I have to wonder if you remember me. Quite likely you do, because HEY LOOK, I was one of those people watching when you tested. ;D Name's Amy Vaughan, shared class: gym, period forgotten, grade: sixth. Etc. Hey, that was unnecessarily dramatic, or something.
Anyway, the thing that finally convinced me to say hi was your retelling of your blackbelt test. I don't know if you remember, or if you had left by then, but -- I failed mine at first, too, and then stayed a first dan for far, far too long. It certainly encouraged me not to fail the next test in front of the Grandmaster.
Looking back on those days -- hey, I'm proud of you too. Proud to've known you, as well as to see you've retained your wonderful sense of humor and way with words. Ever considered taking TKD back up?
Amy