She cannot accept the advice she is being given.
I am not that much of a schmuck. Writing for periodicals, I've developed the habit of handing works over to others and letting them edit them and tell me I'm stupid. I don't take it personally.
I probably should.
But, I've had several superiors look at me, "well, you're handling this well."
No. I'm handling it like I'm supposed to be. Those others aren't writers.
Advice, really, is for the willing, truly. And it's difficult. In accepting advice, we have to admit to ourselves that we aren't confident in our abilities, or that our piece of very personal works is, somehow, flawed. Big steps for the even the most self-assured. I have found when I do get bothered by unsolicited advice, I have to pause and reflect-it is saying more about my perception than the actual advice.
So it comes to this point I look to areas of my expertise that I feel I have assurance.
And I feel that there are a few I am not very confident on.
MOVIES:
Oy yes. My first real, outside of babysitting, jobs was as a video store clerk. And it is amazed me how many people have no idea how to entertain themselves. They would arrive without any concept of what they wanted.
I was amazed how they could feed themselves, outside of some kind of futuristic paste.
So there I was, a nosy teen asking personal questions to find out what they liked, didn't like and I realized, given my penchant to lose myself in movies, I had a knack for figuring something out that was remotely correct. I'm sure I lost the ability over the years, given everything, but I noticed that, at times, watching my nightly TMZ and E! News Daily, editing their thoughts or elaborating for the husOtter.
Heck knows, I even know shit about movies I haven't even seen.
And this is something I've also caught myself being hostile about-when my friends who run blogs are given free tickets to the latest Disney production and use adjectives like, "terrific!" and "excellent!"
Hurts my heart.
EDUCATION:
Strangely, I keep finding that my chosen profession has given me more academic clout than I realized. Yes, yes, yes, I have a degree and all that, but due to a bad location for work, where I was treated poorly, like some unforgiven rabble, I never really thought about what I was doing, making work, rote, negative, and something I turned off when I got home.
Then?
I got a new job where I was used less as a teacher, but more as a specialist, creating adaptations and providing proven research for learning curves for students of less fortunate standing.
People listened.
And, suddenly, I had confidence.
It goes in several directions, too. Surely, an emphasis on my students of which I direct concern, but also, advice related to student loans, reading acquisition, English as a second language, and classroom methodology for both humor and working with adaptations.
Where the fuck did that all come from?
FIGHTING:
No, not, like debating.
Like MMA and Boxing. I'm terrible at the specifics. Names? I can't remember names in real life.
But the actual fight itself.
My friend, when I was single and swinging for the fences, snagged some tickets for a college boxing match and I noticed something. I could read the pattern that was going on on the canvas. The violence was reduced to a chess-match, I could get what they were planning on doing and their energy levels.
This was iterated again when I was at another friend's home (the husOtter is not a fan of hot men pounding the living stuffing out of one another) and he slapped on an Octogon experience and I found myself involved on a level I had not expected.
"He's trying to get him to floor. Look at the legs. He's better at leg grappling. The blonde is overconfident and baiting, but he might have something."
Such observations came from a stranger's mouth.
I've several chances to teach kickboxing and I noticed as I worked with boxers and say to these young ladies, "don't be afraid, breathe, you're afraid of hurting me, don't worry, I have insurance, now hit the mitt...."
THE POWER OF ART:
I'm not a painter, but I'm married to one. My mother was a dancer; my brother a musician.
Fuck he would play the same eight notes over and over again while creating lyrics.
UGH.
But I couple it with my writing.
I get art. Having so many deparate parts of the creative process floating around me for such a prolonged period of my life, I noticed something. I'm not very good at writing--but I'm very good about process.
The process of creation.
No. I don't mean making babies.
I mean the power of art. I have found this approach reaches more of my students than teaching them about grammar and the structures of reading and writing, structures they have failed for another reason or another.
However, when I approach it as art? The whole item changes. Now it's about meaning. Now it's about expression.
That goes for everyone. They can sit and understand the concept, "I'm not understanding what you are trying to communicate. Could you say it a different way?"
And this has helped students, but it has also helped me. I now search for the strengths of the artwork being presented and go from that standpoint.
TECHNOLOGY:
No, no, I'm not a tech head in any way. And, part of my confidence in this area is I've moved to an area that is massively emotionally stunted (Confederate flags, anyone?) but I spend so much time telling everyone, even people I don't regularly working with, how to find the internet. How to Google a response. How to watch a YouTube video.
Tech, tech, tech. But it isn't so much of me knowing branding, but merely being patient enough to figure out the basics before something is really bad. Now, if I had to go with a brand? It's interesting. I used to have a BlackBerry, but, really, before that? A Palm. These two combined showed me how to be flexible with technology. Coming from those two? I moved to my first Android phone...and then my laptop was stolen.
And a friend gave me a Chromebook.
I suddenly knew ALOT about the Google. There I was, my friend basically handing me a computer, and I had no idea what cloud computing was, what all this shit was about.
And then, a few weeks later? The district decided to migrate to an entire Google platform.
My life suddenly gathered meaning.
We're talking rudimentary stuff. But, at the very least, the ability to problem solve and do so, calmly.
THINGS I'M NOT SO GOOD AT:
LGBT COMMUNITY
I didn't choose to be queer. Gay was bestowed upon me for some reason. And after years, if not centuries, I refuse to read, to understanding, to accept my reality.
I did come out in stages and one of my first stages was my geek self. I sat and read the nonfiction tales and the famed tales that were out there in the early to mid 80s. That should tell you something about my perception. And then reading microfiche about the AIDS crisis.
Things were different then.
But I found out, as I grew up-I'm just as screwed up as my non-gay peers. But the main thing was that since this was given to me by some strange fate, my responses on homosexuality were guttural, not learned. Not well thought out.
And that's not always a good thing. My personal experience is only one perspective and I have to admit, I kinda think I had a charmed life in that department, comparatively speaking.
MONEY AND FINANCE
Yeah, any game that involves money? Like Roller Coast Tycoon, Parkitect, Monopoly? You name. I lose. My checkbook is a wonderful mess. Thank FATE for apps and immediate access. That's actually helped on several levels. But, yeah, no. Don't ask me about this stuff.
________________________________________
As I work on this list, I came to the conclusion, really, I don't know much. Or, better, I know something to the point of it being second nature. We all know how to drive. But if you were to ask for the specifics of it? I couldn't tell you.
Had an incident yesterday, as a matter, of fact, where I had to use my bilingual skills with a native signer in ASL. I spoke with the gentleman, a random conversation about a common Deaf program we both participated in and he said something thatI will carry with me.
"Are you sure you're not Deaf?"
I don't know why I would fake my hearing status at this point in my life, but this left me to ask him, "why do you ask?"
"Cause you sign like a Deaf person."
A compliment, indeed, and such flattery might even get you a date. But I realized, too, at this point-I had no idea to even put 'sign language' on this list. I don't KNOW sign language, as in, I don't know the famous people involved in it's institutionalization. But I can communicate it with it. So, yeah, even then, I didn't know that I knew something.
You? What do you know?
Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment