update on yesterday's rant, and more stuff

I remember now what the answering-machine message was that received the compliments and laughs (I changed my message a number of times.)

It started like this: "Hello. If you are looking for a contribution to the charity of your choice, you have reached the wrong number."

There was more, but that was the line that got the best reaction. Like anybody else, I crave those moments; unfortunately I generally only find eloquence via my keyboard, and even then it usually takes a lot of time and editing. One thing's for sure: I can't tell a story verbally, nor a joke.

When I was in school I eventually gave up on oral reports entirely (as I recall, it was 8th grade when I decided that I was done with them). I knew that I would get a failing grade anyway, since I always had; nobody could hear me speak, I nearly whispered, stammered and stumbled over the text that was right before my eyes. So, since I was going to get a failing grade, I thought that I may as well save myself the agony of standing in front of the entire class and making an ass of myself.

I never gave another oral report. Since I was able to ace most tests, or at least come close to it, and did most of the rest of my homework, I did pretty well in school. But no oral reports, no dioramas, no big arty projects. It was worth an occasional singular "F" just to avoid those ultimately embarassing (and disastrous) assignments. To this day, I usually need to have a definitive goal before I can start any kind of project. I don't paint, I don't sculpt; I don't have a wood shop at my house. I do build my own computers; that's a definitive goal.

The kind of school assignment that was a guaranteed "blow-off" for me was the wide-open type; "create a diorama depicting some aspect of" period X in history, for example. Art class was horribly frustrating for me most of the time. Here's a shapeless lump of red clay; show us what you can do. Uh-huh.

As soon as Art was an elective (that would be High School), I elected not to take it. What I did take was Mechanical Drafting. It has served me well; I didn't use it at all for the first 9 years after I graduated, but Ive been using it for the past 14 years. And, I didn't have to do any oral presentations or dioramas in that class.

What is most surprising to me, at this point in my life, is that I write so prolifically today. Back in the ol' school days, I had no more than one essay per year in me; sometimes not even that. Essays and Creative Writing were almost as terrifying as the arty things. My mind was filled with thoughts of nature and technology; animals, fish, insects, birds, aircraft, spacecraft, guns and ammunition, bows and arrows, fishing tackle, bicycles. That's why I majored in math and science in high school, and eventually ended up in an electrical engineering job - circuit board layout. It satisfies my creative yearnings (yes, I've always had those - school just didn't usually provide the proper outlet) while also meeting my technical needs.