Moving

I've come to the (obvious in hindsight) conclusion that building an audience only works if my audience will recognize my name when I publish my writing.

I don't plan to publish under the name Peaches.

(I don't want people to expect a cookbook or a canning manual or maybe a gardening guide and get upset when they get a story about wizards and dragons and and political intrigue instead.)

So I'm starting a new blog under my own name, also on Blogger. It's right here.

I know I haven't been posting. I'll change that, as much as I can. (Four courses this semester. Also working. Also about to be out of a job. Ugh.)

I'll put something up on the new blog tonight.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Green Nail Polish!

My empire grows...

Last week, on Tuesday night, I joined my (semi) local Toastmasters club.

Tonight, I gave my Ice-Breaker (4-6 minute self-introduction). It was terrifying. My dad recorded it, and my voice sounds an octave and a half too high. Think bath squeaky toy.

It was wonderful. I loved it. It would be impossible to find a friendlier audience than an amateur speech club. I was able to give most of my talk without looking at my notes, and when I made eye contact everyone I looked at was smiling or looking right at me. I was able to put my nerves aside and do what I've read speakers should do (like walk around, and vary your tone of voice, and actually have fun).

I got three ribbons! Best Speaker, Enthusiasm Award, and Best Humor. (It's unusual for one person to get more than two.) My wonderful wonderful wonderful evaluator gave me her ribbon for Best Evaluator so that I could say I got four. (Did I mention that she's wonderful? So kind! So clear! So encouraging!) The ribbons are very shiny. I've stapled them into my Competent Communication manual so that I can enjoy the shininess forever.

While I was riding the high of nervous relief and discharged stage fright, I signed up (in a moment of madness) for my second speech. At the end of June. I suspect that I won't get three ribbons for that one, but I'm certainly going to try! (Want more.... Wants it...)

As an extra super bonus, the Teacher semi-pressured me into signing up for Toastmasters and then into speaking the very next week, so I was able to leverage her (minor, since I kinda wanted to anyway) guilt into a bottle of nail polish. I have three colors now! Seven more, and each toe will be a different color!

(I don't paint my fingernails. I chew my fingernails when they grow too long, and nail polish tastes bad. I trim my nails twice a week to keep them to a comfortable length, which doesn't give me much nail to hone my inexperience on. And most importantly, I don't like the feel of polish on my fingernails. But I have none of those problems with painting my toes. I'm sure you feel better now that I've cleared up that mystery for you.)

I'm a Genius

Today as I was walking past my coworker, she called out to me "By the way, I sort of accidentally hit delete on your open document in the office."

In my most soothing tone, I told her, "Don't worry about it, I'm a genius. I'll find a way to kill you and get away with it."

My semi-coworker, (the owner's son), overheard this and said "Nice!"

Doom....

I have to get a root canal.

This is why you should never, ever mention that your tooth still hurts almost a month after your dentist visit.

In fact, you should probably keep your mouth shut when it hurts, whatever it is.

The Teacher would say I'm drawing the wrong lesson from this.

The Atlas

I have a driver's license. This means that if I ask my mom to drive me into the scary big city, she mocks me. Mercilessly. So this morning I struck out towards courage instead of fear and claimed the Austin atlas (okay, Mom gave it to me). I located my (two) campuses. I marked them with x's. I chose the safest and most uncomplicated route to and from school. Mom highlighted it with yellow, because she wanted to color too. I highlighted the long edge of every page that had part of that route on it. (Think seminary mastery scripture.) I highlighted it with pink. Because I hate pink, so I won't use it for anything else. (Following this same logic, purple would have been a very bad choice.)

I, Peaches, WILL NOT BE LOST. Even if I have to memorize the entire atlas.

I hope I don't have to. It's pretty thick.

Children (Part 1): Did you know?

(Context: I was called by one of the women in my church and she asked me if I had found a summer job yet. I said no, I was unemployed but still looking. She promptly asked me if I would babysit two of her sons for two and a half days while she took her daughter to girls' camp. After saying that I was looking for employment, how was I supposed to say no? How do you explain to someone's ear (since we were on the phone it wasn't really to her face) that you never, ever, in a thousand years ever, babysit? Ever. Then she said she would pay me a hundred dollars a day and I was suddenly much less anxious. I accepted the job. I told the Teacher, who had been not-so-subtly hinting that I should find a job. I expected her to be ecstatic and congratulate me on my bravery and determination to Do Hard Things. She did not. She told me they would bake me in the oven and gnaw on my bones. In not exactly those words. I told her they couldn't possibly have an oven big enough for me (I'm six feet two inches) and I'd be fine. In not exactly those words.)

Did you know that kids aren't capable of processing detailed instructions? You can't say "Pick up the towels, wipe down the table, and sweep the floor, and you'll be done." They just look at you like you're Miss Hitler and say "But that will take forever!" However, if you say "Pick up the towels," and wait, "Wipe down the table," and wait, and "Sweep the floor," by amazing chance they've cleaned the entire room all by themselves and- shocker!- it didn't take more than half an hour!

I think children are like robots. They will do what you want them to do, but you have to explain it in extremely simple language that cannot be misunderstood or misinterpreted. And they have no long term memory, so you have to give them one instruction at a time.

Of course, they have an extremely good memory for things like "You can have a snow cone after lunch."

Did you know that children measure things in minutes? I do not have the patience to support and encourage this habit. Whenever they asked me how many minutes until their mom came home, after I had already said tomorrow, I told them "Lots."

Did you know that even though they're in middle school and you're a college freshman, you're actually extremely stupid? And if their mother clearly told you the day she left that they are allowed ONE half hour EACH on the computer, you won't notice when someone who already had their one half hour charges up the stairs to the computer like a rampaging elephant when they hear that the other boy finished his turn. And if you do happen to notice this, and remind him that he already had his half hour, he will assure you that what his mother really meant was that they were allowed unlimited turns on the computer, and each turn was half an hour long. And you're so stupid that you won't wonder why it slipped both their minds to mention it for the last two days. It would have been insulting if it hadn't been funny.

Did you know that even though kids ask you to be mediator, they don't actually need a mediator? They are fully capable of figuring it out themselves. Case in point: I was watching them swim. They kept coming and telling on each other: He's shoving me. He's cheating. He's winning too much. And each time I reminded them that they were thinking creatures with the agency to choose to walk away whenever they wanted to. Okay, not really. What I actually said was "When you stop having fun, you can get out of the pool. Are you still having fun?" They didn't get out of the pool.

Hello Again

After such a long blogging silence, I feel like I need an icebreaker.

My favorite icebreakers are the questions that make people's eyes kind of bug out. I'm not really the gentle chisel and saw approach kind of person when it comes to ice. I like dynamite.

So a question I asked the Teacher this morning, which was completely out of any spoken context but made sense to my own convoluted way of thinking: "Why does a woman become a prostitute?"

So now that you know what my mother has to be ready for every day, here's my question for you: Aren't you glad you don't have to actually live with me?