Friday, June 26, 2009

Experiences

My thoughts about Flood the Five conference, which I taught with two of my favorite speakers and an intern from the organization I speak with (in no particular order... kind of like the conference itself)...

- Nylons are evil. I had to wear them all three days of the conference, and I ran them the very first day, and then had to cleverly hide the runs the rest of the week.

- My gift is in the UNDER TWELVE YEARS OLD category. Which is a good thing, because, I was the only one who preferred the Beginning Public Speaking kids.
(Story:
I was running a group of 12-15 twelve & up kids and they all HATED ME. Two of them ran as soon as they realized I was their instructor. Another two spent the entire time trying to tell me that they were older and therefore way cooler than me. I had one defense, though... my twelve-year-old sister Joss with her high-heeled shoe.)

-It is so much fun to do something out of your comfort zone with a bunch of people who are also pushed out of their comfort zones. Seriously. Cowardice loves company, but courage requires it. It was a blast to work with all but one person who had never done anything like this before.

-Giggling is for late at night. Quick story here:
A
friend and I were really, really, really tired after the second day of the conference. We hadn't seen our other friend all day or much in the past three weeks and we'd been running things together all day. We were a disaster waiting to happen. We decided we missed our other friend. We decided we should find something to tease him about.... but we couldn't think of anything. So we wandered around the sanctuary talking about how much we'd missed our friend and how we needed coffee (or tea, in my case.) As we wandered, we noticed that our friend was trying to fold down a table. And struggling. A lot. He was getting very frustrated with it, getting to the point where he was holding it upside down and kicking it.

(Editor's comment: Just to clarify, this friend is absolutely great. He is a genius. Truly. It's scary to talk to him because he's too smart for his own good. He WON Impromptu speaking for our forensics league for the whole country, and placed in Extemp and debate. REALLY smart. Just table-challenged.)

My friend and I glance at each other, and that momentary glance illuminated our thoughts all too clearly. We were thinking:

(insert echoey thought sounds)

He is a genius, but he can't fold tables.

And in a moment of sheer insanity and utter exhaustion, we simultaneously began to shriek. Hysterically. Couldn't stop laughing.

AND IT WASN'T EVEN FUNNY. We were just tired.

This lasted until the table folded and we saw that our friend was glaring at us viciously, which, despite his usually calm and gentlemanly demeanor, was a sure sign that we had three seconds to shut up or he would hit us both. Hard.

We stopped.

-Some kids are hilarious! One of the speech games we did was a group interpretation - where a group of kids act out a story together. My group did Jack and the Beanstalk. But we had really, really random things happen, like:
We double-cast Jack and Jill. Jack was played by Jack and Jack Be Nimble. Jill had her very own stunt double. It was amazing.
Our narrator was Rappin' Red Riding Hood.

Go figure.

- I have the sweetest friends ever.

-One of the cutest things I've ever seen is to watch two generally private people completely brag their little sisters. It was so sweet.

-Stretching yourself is a good thing. It was so neat to be trained by Mrs. Moon, who founded the organization sponsoring the conference, but the real learning and the real experiences took place when I was actually out there, figuring out what works with shy kids or how to focus 13-year-olds. It was in growing past the fact that I either used to or still do have (I can't decide which ) an irrational fear of teenagers. It was in the experience.

Loved it! Hopefully I'll have a brain and then I can write something deep and profound...

Maybe.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

My Decision

....I will not be wearing nylons again for a long, long time.








(aka, more complete post coming when I have a brain.)

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Noah

Drip. Drip.
I do not understand the water
That falls like a birdsong on my face
You say it cleanses
Then why is the dirt pouring on
Me?

You chose me. You chose this
Dark creaking beast to be my Shelter
In a long storm. I didn’t
Choose it for myself.
Why me? I am not
Good or Beautiful and I did not
Know you then. I hardly know you now.

Unworthy is a good word.
It’s who I am right now in the face of
This Great Flood that threatens me
But somehow, you protect.
How is it you could love a fool like me?

Is this who I am? More than just the
Earth on my face or the water in my hands,
I am made in your image
These eyes are to see destruction and live
These hands to cradle in love like you do
This heart to beat like yours
Is this who I am?

Unworthy is a good word.
But that is not who I am.

(This poem was up on Real Teen Faith earlier this week, but I decided I'd post it here too. I have too much to do to come up with something new with my poor decrepit old brain right now.
Note to self: Do not make the mistake of telling a Type A person that you are Type A and are the only person in the state the week before you're hosting a conference. It doesn't work out well. Sparks of illumination, C.
P.S. The conference mentioned there is the Institute for Cultural Communicators Flood the Five conference. I get to help teach, which is both scary and exciting. It's fantastic - and, if you live in my state (CO) then this is an excellent opportunity (Don't let the fact that I'm teaching scare you away - to counterbalance my inexperience, we'll have some wonderful speakers, including the debate National Champion from a few years ago). Check it out at: http://www.instituteforculturalcommunicators.org/.
Sparks of illumination, C.)