Days 16 & 17 - Ups & Downs
Feb. 1st, 2008 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic16. College
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
The summer after L. and I got together, we were hanging out at another mutual friend's house, R., along with most of the regular crew of guys and I think R.'s new girlfriend. R.'s mother had a friend over, and they were watching us as we ate and debated in the dining room. I was being fairly quiet that day; R. & company were very opinionated consumers and reviewers of indie music and movies -- a few of them write for magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone now -- and I found it more comfortable to listen than participate when they got going, while L. mostly inserted biting bits of commentary and insults. Apparently -- L. told me this afterwards -- watching this, the friend said to R.'s mother that L. could do much better than me.
(I was quite surprised and offended, although after a while it became sort of funny; my friends and even a few teachers were always wondering what I saw in him. We each saw quite a lot. That was part of why we fit.)
17. Elementary School/Middle School
Fifth or sixth grade, our enrichment program did a unit on Voyage of the Mimi, which I only remember in pieces. At the end, we took a field trip to ... somewhere on Long Island, I don't even recall, but wherever it was had some big wooden boats we explored, and a guy showed us how to wear a wetsuit and SCUBA gear, and on land in a hut there was some kind of demonstration of how to quickly and properly tie up rope on a fixture, maybe for when you're hauling in a ship. The demo turned into an activity/contest, where kids on the trip were chosen two at a time and challenged to tie the rope as we'd been shown as fast as we could on a pair of the fixtures. I volunteered or was chosen (I suspect the second), and to my surprise I turned out to be really good at it, and beat whoever the other kid was. I remember the onlookers being surprised and laughing and maybe cheering me on, watching this little girl whipping the rope around the ties and winning. I remember it being like a dream, where you don't remember learning what you need to know and you're suddenly being put to the test, except instead of panicking and failing, I did it as if it were an ingrained habit. A crew was there from the LI news station and filmed it, so my family watched the news that night to see if I made it onto TV.
no subject
Date: Feb. 2nd, 2008 04:40 am (UTC)I was in kindergarten, I think, or maybe I was a little older, but not by much. I needed to pee so I headed for the bathroom where I found my mother cleaning the toilet. I crinkled my nose and declared I never wanted to clean a toilet in my whole life. My mother told me I'd have to one day and I insisted I never would. "Well, it's not going to clean itself and I'm not going to come to your house to clean for you," she told me. I said she wouldn't have to because I'd be rich and famous and I'd hire someone to clean my toilets and hers, so she wouldn't have to either! She sneered and me and said, "You'll never be able to afford a maid."
17 - Hidden talents
I've never been very big on video games. Most of the stuff I play is in the puzzle/strategy category. Every once in a while I venture into the realm of platform games but that's really about it. My nephews, on the other hand, are huuuuuuge fans of gaming. They love racing games, fighting games, first-person shooters... Any kind of action game, really. And I love watching them, but I'm just not much of a player. I am, however, a sucker for my nephews so when the oldest one (12 at the time, which made me 14) begged and begged me to play against him, eventually I agreed. He picked Tekken 3 which is a fighting game that he'd just gotten a few weeks earlier. I'd never even watched him play it. Everyone was prepared for me to have my ass handed to me.
Yeah, no. I totally whipped his butt. I didn't even need time to get used to which buttons produced which moves. I just got in there and K.O.'d him like it's what I was born to do. XD Honestly? You really don't need to have any kind of gaming talent or knowledge to kick ass at fighting games. All you need to do is button-smash and have better rhythm than the person you're playing against. Trufax, folks, you heard it here first.
no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Feb. 3rd, 2008 06:35 pm (UTC)Anyway. I wonder what would happen if we played a fighting game against each other. I bet it'd be LOLarious and tons of fun to watch. XD
no subject
Date: Feb. 5th, 2008 03:22 am (UTC): ) I think you're right that it'd be LOLarious. Maybe we'd tie...
no subject
Date: Feb. 5th, 2008 03:22 am (UTC): ) I think you're right that it'd be LOLarious. Maybe we'd tie...