Comments | bironic: Days 7-9

bironic

Days 7-9

Jan 23, 2008 11:36

thirdblindmouse and I ended up chatting a little bit about children's books in the last post, which made me remember this one. Does it ring a bell for anyone? ETA: Found! Ha, the cut text turned out to be the title.

7. Kindergarten

( Five Chinese brothers... )

memoryfest iii

Comments 31

8. Public speaking/performance thewlisian_afer January 23 2008, 19:51:14 UTC

This memory's only from about five years ago, but that's okay.

When I first started college, I took an acting class. Overall, I did abysmally. I was told repeatedly that I'm very good when it comes to subtle facial expressions and nuanced performances, but that was not what this class was about. This was about stage acting and the professor made no bones about it -- I am clearly not a stage actor. I can only memorize a scene or two worth of lines, I don't (can't, but we didn't actually know about the medical reasons behind my lack of voice resonance at the time) project my voice well enough, I'm utter shit at blocking...

HOWEVER. There was one assignment where I completely blew everyone else out of the water. We were working on enunciation. The assignment was to memorize The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe and perform it to the rest of the class who would be sitting in the very back row of the theater. The professor put slips of paper with emotions written on them into a hat and we each had to pick one. Whatever we picked, we were ( ... )

9. Lulz, the stupid shit we say to crushes thewlisian_afer January 23 2008, 19:51:53 UTC

When I was in fifth grade a friend of mine moved away. Her little brother Adam was a year younger than us and I had a huge, embarassing and totally secret crush on him. On the last day of school before their move, I went up to Adam at the end of the school day to say goodbye to him. "Good looks-- er! I mean! Luck! Good luck in your new school!" I said. Judging by how on-fire my face felt, I'm sure I turned so red it bordered on purple.

Re: 9. Lulz, the stupid shit we say to crushes bironic January 23 2008, 20:06:17 UTC

Ha! That is classic.

Re: 9. Lulz, the stupid shit we say to crushes thewlisian_afer January 23 2008, 20:13:00 UTC

I totally walked away thinking something to the effect of, "Fuck you, Freud." XD (Yes, I was already a huge psychology geek all the way back then. hee)

ignazwisdom January 23 2008, 21:48:37 UTC

"7 Chinese Bros." is an R.E.M. song! I think Michael Stipe got confused and added some brothers.

bironic January 23 2008, 21:51:04 UTC

Apparently that is a re-telling of the Five Brothers -- or rather, of the same folktale that the Five Brothers was based on. How interesting!

phinnia January 24 2008, 00:53:26 UTC

I think I remember that story about the five chinese brothers - I may have it, actually, because a few years back I picked up a compilation of children's lit that I'm pretty sure has that story in it. :-D (Yes, I'm in the process of replacing the books I loved most as a child. I had to buy the Narnia books, and the Little House on the Prairie books, and a few other isolated ones including this particular compilation. Plus things like the Lorax and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I make no bones about it, these are for ME, not The Boy - it drives me batshit crazy when I see parents using their kids as excuses to do things or living through their children. But that's another tangent entirely ( ... )

bironic January 25 2008, 02:13:41 UTC

Eep. Sounds like ... not at all fun.

Procrastination, definitely. Mine developed towards the end of high school and has been getting worse on and off ever since -- even for fic writing, which is (supposed to be) for fun.

Also, oral presentations are horrible. Just horrible. I get so nervous when I don't have all the words in front of me.

We had groups for reading, and, later, for math; actually, all the classes in the grade would swap classrooms for math, whereas for reading, the groups would just break off in turns within the class.

nicocoer January 24 2008, 06:48:52 UTC

Let's see. . .

In elementary school, out at the Trailer, I had (and still have to this day) a copy of The Big Red Book of Fairy tales. It was a good day- meaning that either Rick was out of the house or my mother would be home early- and so I was attempting Angel food Cake. Attempting being the key word. It was blue, and I had used way way too much blue food coloring. I was reading as I stirred, and I ended up spilling food coloring all over Has Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.

In 9th grade I attended Christian Life Academy- I know, WTF, but it is indeed true. In English we had to write a piece that described a place, I think, and so I read this (saved in a post from January 28th, 2003):

"When I close my eyes, I'm taken to a small beach on Mt. Dessert Island, a beach which has somehow avoided the spoils visited upon other places on the island by the tourists. People call this calm place Hunter's Beach ( ... )

bironic January 25 2008, 02:17:48 UTC

Ha! Oh, the irony.

I remember watching a presidential inauguration on a small TV in the gym of our elementary school. Or perhaps it was middle school -- I think it was Clinton, because I'm picturing the saxophone, but the timing's wrong; my memory's all mixed up.

Your essay was very meta and descriptive. :) Fandom approves.

I've never tried reading and cooking at the same time (other than reading the recipe). Hee. I'll take the blue food coloring accident as a moral.