I have been wearing red socks all my life. I'm also not what you would call conventional. It was only recently that I was informed that, apparently, these two things go hand in hand.
One day, late this summer, I was at Expo Latino, helping with promo work for a dance company. I was out in the crowd, handing out fliers, when Rick came by to chat. At this point in time, Ryan stopped by to chat as well. (As a side note, Rick and Ryan together make way to much delicious man meat for one woman to handle. Seriously, I think my IQ dropped about 20 points standing between them.)
That particular day, Rick was wearing a pink shirt. Not a bright or vibrant pink, more a pink so pale it looks like a white shirt got caught in the wash with a red sock. Which is what Ryan told him. "Yeah, but I don't own any red socks" Rick replied. "I don't know anyone who owns red socks," Ryan added.
I eyed a both of them and declared, "I wear red socks!". Rick looked at me and said "Yes, but Tara, normal people don't wear red socks."
So there you go.
Life Lesson: Apparently a love of vibrant footwear indicates a propensity for being weird. Who knew?
Recently, I made a trip down east to visit my godfather. He lives in a retirement residence, and visitors can book rooms to stay in. The room I was staying in had tub designed for people with limited mobility. A little intimidating at first, given that the control panel was more complicated than my cell phone, but I found the instructions and was soon enjoying myself.
Now, the tub was the type that you had to sit down in, so I was. But, partway in, I realized I was perched on the seat, not really reclining and relaxing. So, I decided to try and get more comfortable. By my logic, the wet seat would be slippery, and with just a little push, I would slide down it to a more comfortable position.
Turns out, my logic was flawed - it wasn't the seat that was slippery, it was the bottom of the tub that was. I pushed back, and out went my feet from underneath me. My butt slammed down on the seat, bruising my tailbone and jolting my previously injured ribs, and my foot made contact with the faucet, slicing it open.
Surveying the damage, I had to chuckle. Only I could manage such a grand injury in a tub designed to prevent accidents.
Life Lesson: Irony. It will get you.
For whatever reason, the song "I'm Sexy and I Know It" became very popular at my school this year.
Now, there is a certain pair of brothers at my school. One 10 years old, a little more quiet, a nice kid, but fairly reserved off of the sports field and shy with people he doesn't know, and one 7 years old, generally more outgoing, the class clown, always with something to say. Both of their reactions to the song came as a complete surprise to me.
One day in Drama class, the older brother and one of the other grade 4 boys were asked to get out some chairs for a game. The teacher had his back turned, and heard a sudden outburst of laughter from the rest of the class. He turned around and saw the boys up on the chairs, singing "I'm Sexy and I Know It" and doing the 'wiggle, wiggle, wiggle' dance.
A while later, I overheard a conversation between the younger brother and his gym teacher, Cali. "Cali," he said, "have you seen the video for 'I'm Sexy and I Know It'?" Cali told him she had, and with all seriousness he looked at her and said "You shouldn't be watching it. It is VERY inappropriate." A little taken aback, Cali asked him why the video was in appropriate. He said "There's this guy who is dancing, and then he takes his pants off, and he's just in his underwear, and his crotch is really big, and that makes it inappropriate". At this point, his friend (always the voice of reason) piped up and said "Well, maybe there's a potato in there".
Life Lesson: People can, and will, surprise you.
Recently, one fine Saturday morning, I was getting ready for a good friend's bridal shower. It was a warm morning, and I had left my patio door open to get a nice breeze through my place. I stepped out of the shower, wrapped up in a towel and went to grab some clothes.
It was at that point that I realized something was off. There was a magpie in my apartment. It was flopping around, squawking and pooping everywhere. What a casual observer would have seen was me calmly wait until it settled down, pick up one of my kitchen towels, walk over and use it to grab the bird and take it outside where I flung it over the balcony and it flew away.
My mental processes, however, went something like "What the HELL! Why don't I have a man here to handle this! I should be calmly getting ready lovely bridal shower, not running around my apartment naked, trying to capture a frickin' bird!"
Life Lesson: Sometimes life asks us to stand up and prove ourselves, be it in the face of adversity, turmoil, or sometimes random birds.
A couple of years ago my parents moved out to the Island. There were a couple of months between when they moved out there an when I was planning on visiting them, and during that time we phoned each other regularly.
Every time I spoke with my mom, she was telling me about all the great things I just had to see and do when I went out there, all the places we had to eat at. And, she was supper excited about the fresh fish, particularly a new type she had seen advertised but never tried, the inat fish. Apparently, there was a sign my parents drove by regularly that advertised what fish would be for sale when the boats came in and inat was always listed, and it was only five dollars a pound.
That summer I finally made it out to the Island. The second day I was there we drove by the fish sign I had heard so much about, and there it was, inat. Only when I looked at the sign, I didn't see what my mom saw. Instead of inat fish for sale for five dollars, I read it as "In At 5:00". The famous inat fish for five dollars, was actually the time the boats would be in at, in this case 5:00 o'clock.
Life Lesson: Not everyone sees things the same way.
This week, an amazing woman, Alyson Woloshyn, lost her three year battle with brain cancer. Alyson has always been a force to be reckoned with. She had more spirit, drive, and positive energy than anyone I have ever know.
The strongest memory I have of Alyson is a number of years ago when she was running U of C 101 and I was a Student Leader. During 101 training, Alyson taught us the five basic principles of leadership:
Take the initiative to make things better
Lead by example
Maintain the self-respect and self-esteem of others
Build constructive relationships
Focus on the problem/question/situation at hand, not the person
She told us all that we needed to memorize those, that she would quiz us on them when we were least expecting it.We all laughed this off.
Two weeks later, I was walking down the hall near the 101 office when all of a sudden Alyson jumped out from behind a trash can and demanded to know what the five basic principles of leadership were. Somehow, in my stunned state, I got them out. That wasn't the last time if happened.
Beyond randomly scaring the bejeezus out of me and making me learn the basic principles of leadership, Alyson was my mentor at University. She helped me realize that even though I was quiet by nature, that didn't mean I wasn't strong. It didn't mean I couldn't lead and help others. With her support, I grew as a leader, finding my voice and becoming less afraid to use it. During U of C 101 I was One-oh-Wonderful Woman, and nickname that stuck, and was later shortened to Wonder Woman among my family, friends, students and colleagues.
Seeing myself as Wonder Woman, and knowing that others see me that way, I feel stronger, more capable of taking on the world. I want to use all that I have to make things better and help those around me.
Alyson taught me that we are all stronger than we think we are, and that we are all capable of greatness if we are will to let go of fear and really shine.
Thank you, Alyson.
Life lesson: You don't know what you are capable of until you try.
To learn more about Alyson, check out: http://alysonwoloshyn.com/
I believe that you can truly call yourself a physics teacher when you have uttered the phrase "Assume a spherical horse". Or spherical cow, or spherical chicken. Any spherical farm creature, really. Why would you say that? In physics, we make assumptions to make the problems we are solving easier. The problem is, the assumptions often limit the results. Its like that joke where a farm can't get his chickens to lay eggs, so he hires a physicist to figure things out. Later, the physicist comes to him and says "I have a solution to your problem, but it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum",
Turns out, we make the same sort of assumptions in life, too.
I made the assumption that my friends knew me better than I know myself, and that they would be better suited to picking out my ideal mate than I was. How did that go? Well, keep in mind that these are five separate occasions, involving four different friends.
#1. She swears she has the perfect guy for me: smart, funny, talented, artistic. Sounds great, right? She invites us both to a get-together. He shows up with the girl he was dating. Turns out she forgot to check if he was single.
#2. Different friend this time. She sets me up with a guy she met in Salsa class. Nice guy, not unattractive, and hopelessly and obviously head-over-heels for my friend. They got married a few years ago. I was maid of honor at the wedding.
#3. Having found her Mr. Right, this same friend decided to try again. She swears she has it right this time. Everything I could ever want in a guy. And it was true. It just happened that he was also gay.
#4. Another friend told me she knew just the guy for me. Absolutely everything I was looking for. A good friend of hers, someone she could always depend on. We went out once. A week later she started dating him. It lasted over two years.
#5. One of my guy friends wanted to set me up with one of his friends. Nice guy, a little shy, but really smart and sensitive. Met him, got an odd vibe, didn't see him again. What happened to him? He's currently going through a sex change.
So my assumption, or spherical horse if you will, that my friends would be the ones to find my Mr. Right was dead wrong.
Life Lesson: Question the assumptions you make. Don't let them limit your outcomes.
