something your not good at

The assignment:
Write about the first time you realized you were bad at something.  (For example, the exact moment you hit the wrong note in the piano recital in the school auditorium in front of everybody else's parents.)  

I’m a poor decision maker. I DIDN’T go into acting. Why? Because I thought it was a career for other people.  What stupid thinking on my part! What had I done my whole high school career? I had acted in the school plays—I had the lead roles and I have loved it!  I had been in speech contests: as a freshman, I earned two I ratings—the highest ranking available. Did I enter any other speech contests?

5 events that have made me who I am

The assignment:  Write about 5 times that have changed your life. This could be firsts or simply events.  Make them about 100 words.

Walking onto the Ultimate Frisbee field, 1992

“Want to play?”  The words were simple, but they opened up a new world. My life can be separated into two parts, BU (Before Ultimate) and DU (During Ultimate).  It’s an ongoing love affair.  Since that afternoon outside the student union in Iowa City, Ultimate Frisbee has been part of my life.

Reintro to writing -- Gotham Writer's Workshop

I'm resurrecting this blog.  I began it when I took a creative writing class six years ago.  I'm taking the same class again.  Here's the introduction:

Nothing unusual about my writing life.  

running may 2012

            As you know, I like to run.  It hasn’t always been thus.  There was a while back when I had knee pain.  So much so that I begged my sister to give the recommendation for a doctor who could give me an MRI in less than a week because I was leaving the country.  Because she knows everyone and she is a powerful person, or because I was just lucky, she DID help me find someone.

Friends

            Dad sent out a short essay that concerned a guy he knew.  Robert Petersen was a cattle buyer years ago who became the President of IBP. 

Slugging Johnson in the gut

Out the corner of my eye, I saw David Bonde, prim and proper with a new hair cut—a straight line across his forehead. He pranced over to the carpet a few feet from the other boys. He took out a brand spankin’ new football card carrying case that housed a gross of cards. A gross was something outstanding at this time in our lives. The only other time we’d ever heard of a gross of something, was firecrackers. And firecrackers are cool. Now, another gross had also made it into the cool category: a gross of football cards.

Wonderland in UK

“Wow, Papa, look at the parking lot!” This was Maxim walking out of the airport hotel on Saturday morning at 6:00 a.m. after 4 hours of sleep. Not to be outdone in the aura of wide-eyed fascination, Oskar looked around with a smile that split his face like a ripe watermelon falling off a truck—pure happiness. Nothing puts an experience in a better light than a child with no inhibitions who has it in his mind that things are cool.

The whole weekend was a trip through wonderland—and the kids had fun, too.