(no subject)

I've been reading Charlie this book called "The Math Wiz". It's about a boy who is really good at math, but terrible during "PE" i.e., Physical education, Sport, or Gym class. In the book he is upset because he is always picked last when choosing up teams (and I can't help but wonder if there is a class all Gym teachers go to where they learn how to be as insensitive and cruel as possible)

I liked the book because it was about a boy who was good at maths like Charlie, but always got picked last in gym class. I have no idea if Charlie has suffered that humiliation yet, but I know I have, and it got me to thinking.

When I got to high school, I finally found a large group of friends, and it turned out they, too, had suffered the humiliation of standing all alone in the gym, waiting until the last team captain rolled his or her eyes and said "I guess I'll take (insert name here). My college friends were comprised of the same sort of people, and that helped me get over the trauma that had been Gym Class grade school through junior high.

Since people on flists are also comprised of a bunch of people who share similar interests, I was curious as to how many of you had the same sort of experience - were you chosen last? First? Don't remember and don't care to? So, I did a poll. (I love polls)

[Poll #518569]

(no subject)

I've been reading Charlie this book called "The Math Wiz". It's about a boy who is really good at math, but terrible during "PE" i.e., Physical education, Sport, or Gym class. In the book he is upset because he is always picked last when choosing up teams (and I can't help but wonder if there is a class all Gym teachers go to where they learn how to be as insensitive and cruel as possible)

I liked the book because it was about a boy who was good at maths like Charlie, but always got picked last in gym class. I have no idea if Charlie has suffered that humiliation yet, but I know I have, and it got me to thinking.

When I got to high school, I finally found a large group of friends, and it turned out they, too, had suffered the humiliation of standing all alone in the gym, waiting until the last team captain rolled his or her eyes and said "I guess I'll take (insert name here). My college friends were comprised of the same sort of people, and that helped me get over the trauma that had been Gym Class grade school through junior high.

Since people on flists are also comprised of a bunch of people who share similar interests, I was curious as to how many of you had the same sort of experience - were you chosen last? First? Don't remember and don't care to? So, I did a poll. (I love polls)

[Poll #518569]

Memory Meme (Meme-ory?...No)

Gakked from bookgrrl

Five random memories from your childhood. One for each sense.

Sound: The sound of the dishwasher running. Every night, after we kids were tucked in bed, the last thing my mom would do is run the dishwasher, and I would fall asleep with it humming in the background. It was comforting, the sound of routine, which is all any child wants, really.

Taste: Campbell's Chicken and Stars soup. Total comfort food, and what I generally ate when I was sick. Just tasting it today brings back that dreamy feeling of sitting on the couch in jammies in the middle of the day, a tv tray in front of me, and some show I'd never get to watch otherwise blaring away.

Smell: Cantaloupe. Every summer we would go to Ocean City NJ where my grandparents lived. One summer, and I can't remember which one, we stopped on the way home to pick up some fruit at one of those farm stands. On the way home, the trunk got so hot that it totally killed the cantaloupe that was in the trunk, and for the rest of the summer our car smelled faintly of cantaloupe. To this day that sweet, fruity smell takes me right back to the summertimes of my childhood.

Touch: Beach again. Stepping onto the beach when the sand was so hot you couldn't stand there for more than a second. We made it a game, seeing who could stand there the longest before lifting up the foot and hopping onto the other one and eventually racing down to the stretch of beach closer to the ocean, the hot sand giving way to cooler, wetter sand the muddy sand that squished between our toes as we went into the ocean. Then there was the jetty - a collection of rocks that made a sort of pier in the ocean, designed to keep the beach from eroding or something. We would climb all over those rocks, warm and rough and slippery by turns, and pretend many things, from being shipwrecked survivors to visitors to an alien planet.

Sight: Leaving my grandparent's house at the shore. My grandfather would stand outside, next to the little ornamental street lamp that was in their yard, and wave us off. I would be in the 'back back' of the station wagon, waving at him as we drove down the street. The last time he did this was the last time I saw him alive; he was ill with cancer and passed away when I was 10 years old. I can still see him standing there, smiling, and waving good-bye.

Memory Meme (Meme-ory?...No)

Gakked from bookgrrl

Five random memories from your childhood. One for each sense.

Sound: The sound of the dishwasher running. Every night, after we kids were tucked in bed, the last thing my mom would do is run the dishwasher, and I would fall asleep with it humming in the background. It was comforting, the sound of routine, which is all any child wants, really.

Taste: Campbell's Chicken and Stars soup. Total comfort food, and what I generally ate when I was sick. Just tasting it today brings back that dreamy feeling of sitting on the couch in jammies in the middle of the day, a tv tray in front of me, and some show I'd never get to watch otherwise blaring away.

Smell: Cantaloupe. Every summer we would go to Ocean City NJ where my grandparents lived. One summer, and I can't remember which one, we stopped on the way home to pick up some fruit at one of those farm stands. On the way home, the trunk got so hot that it totally killed the cantaloupe that was in the trunk, and for the rest of the summer our car smelled faintly of cantaloupe. To this day that sweet, fruity smell takes me right back to the summertimes of my childhood.

Touch: Beach again. Stepping onto the beach when the sand was so hot you couldn't stand there for more than a second. We made it a game, seeing who could stand there the longest before lifting up the foot and hopping onto the other one and eventually racing down to the stretch of beach closer to the ocean, the hot sand giving way to cooler, wetter sand the muddy sand that squished between our toes as we went into the ocean. Then there was the jetty - a collection of rocks that made a sort of pier in the ocean, designed to keep the beach from eroding or something. We would climb all over those rocks, warm and rough and slippery by turns, and pretend many things, from being shipwrecked survivors to visitors to an alien planet.

Sight: Leaving my grandparent's house at the shore. My grandfather would stand outside, next to the little ornamental street lamp that was in their yard, and wave us off. I would be in the 'back back' of the station wagon, waving at him as we drove down the street. The last time he did this was the last time I saw him alive; he was ill with cancer and passed away when I was 10 years old. I can still see him standing there, smiling, and waving good-bye.