7) Poetry Reading

     Poetry - said to contain the ability to connect with one's soul, with one's inner mind. That must mean my soul is a really sleepy dude, because I kept dozing off at the poetry reading. All jokes aside, I don't particularly enjoy poetry. I find most poetry lulling and dulling. If you were to ask me who my favorite poet of all time is, I would suggest that it is Dr. Seuss. That man is an utter genius!

     I can't say I was too thrilled when Professor Brown informed us that we would be going to a poetry reading instead of having our "relatively" normal English class. I have nothing against poetry, but it bores me. Going through high school, I was repulsed when I had to write poetry for assignments. The assignment would instruct me to write "this number of" lines of poetry in quatrain format along with internal rhyming in "this number of" lines. My brain wanted to revolt! I really disliked having to be able to identify all the different qualifiers and types of poetry. Poetry is really not something I enjoy if you couldn't tell.

     Rewind to last Tuesday night, I had a bunch of Chemistry homework. I didn't end up getting to sleep in any form of a timely manner. I probably went to bed around 1-2 a.m. which isn't a lot of sleep when you get up at 5:30 a.m. From that point, I knew it would be a rough day. I didn't have very high expectations going into the room for the poetry reading, but I came out with my expectations being exceeded.

     I would say that due to my lack of sleep, diluted mental concentration, and distaste for poetry that I didn't enjoy the reading, but I did come away with a more favorable view of poetry. I mean, you can't hope to convert me to poetry with just one instance, it'll take time IF - I doubt it will - it does ever happen.

     As I sat there, I learned that poetry doesn't have to just be something passionate and personal. Poetry can be a story, a history book, and journal. The fact that Arra Ross was able to create a poem from a real-life, historic culture was, and still is, something that intrigued me. It broke the bands of the poetry I grew to understand. This revelation didn't stop me from nodding off during the reading. You have to admit, her soft, lyrical tone was about as soothing as a rainstorm. Now, I didn't actually fall asleep, but I lost concentration, my eyes would gradually close before I snapped them back open. It wasn't the most memorable or enjoyable experience, but I learned something new.

6) Music

     My mom was the kind of person who believed that being able to play an instrument helped improve brain capacity. She would often say to me, "Ya know... when you practice your (insert instrument here), the rest of your homework is going to be even easier." Despite that encouragement, I hated playing the piano. I loved my teachers and I loved going to my weekly lesson. However, when I arrived home I would lose all motivation to practice daily. I don't think I ever practiced consistently.
Now, mind you, I have played the piano for a solid 10 years. My masterpiece, the crescendo of my piano playing career, is that I still remember how to play Hot Cross Buns - whatever that title even means.
     I often got asked by people whom I had just met if I played any instruments. I would casually respond, "Oh yeah, I guess. I've been playing the piano since I was 6. But you wouldn't be able to tell cause I suck at it!" It was horrific. If you got me to do anything else for 10 years (basketball, cooking, homework, etc.) I, I might have been a child prodigy. But alas, when I was 17, I ended my measly, average piano career and tried voice lessons.
     My last piano teacher is actually a professor at Delta so that was pretty cool. He was super funny and chill. I got along with him and looked forward to seeing him every week. I was a little sad to switch to voice lessons, but my new voice teacher was my piano teacher's wife! I still got to see him quite a bit, which was fantabulous. Anyways, voice lessons only happened around 7 times. I remember thinking, "I know that breathing is important, but - uuuhhhh - when do we get to the vocals?" Overall, I was pretty average there too.
    It wasn't until this last summer that I found an instrument that struck me like a chord (see what I did there?). I had a ton of free time, and I was looking for something fairly productive to do with my life. That is when I remembered that a close friend had given me her guitar 3 years ago! When I first received it, I had my brother teach me a really basic song, so I could at least pretend like I knew what I was doing. I lost interest, though, when my fingers started to hurt and I couldn't learn anything else on my own. Now, back to this past summer. I picked up the guitar and started looking on youtube to find some basic chords. I memorized finger shapes, strumming patterns, chord progressions, and a lot of other minuscule but necessary skills. I started writing my own songs. When I started to do that, everything just clicked for me. I won't say I am the best, cause, heck, I'm still pretty awful at it, but I can make some good music. I've built up the calluses and put in the time, and it has paid off. I love playing the guitar, unlike any other instrument I have tried before. It clicks with my soul in a way that no other instrument has. I often hear a song on the radio and then as soon as I get home, I look up how to play it on the guitar. I just love it!
    Luckily, I found an instrument I am decent at. The guitar is wonderful, but I spent 10ish years being awful at other instruments, so it balances out in my opinion. Perhaps, I'll become more than just an average guitar player, but for the moment, I am content.

5) Teaching

               As you may already know, I work for a franchisee company called Engineering for Kids. The name itself is somewhat self-explanatory in the fact that I teach engineering to kids. Up to this point, I’m sure I have taught over 500 different kids in dozens of different classes. I teach them S.T.E.M. based education, meaning Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. It’s literally the best job ever. I get paid to not just work with kids, but to instruct them to build bottle rockets, robots, hot air balloons, and heck ton of other stuff. It is so fun.

               I am now the only employee who has been in the company since foundation. I would say I have the most experience in not only teaching but also teaching any class of the 50+ different themes and types of engineering. My boss and I joke about me being her favorite, so much so that I replace her son within their family.

               That being said, I am by no means a perfect teacher. Obviously, if you’ve read my blog up to this point you’ll realize that every subject is about how I am average at everything. So let’s get into the reasons why I’m only an average teacher and not the best teacher you’ve ever seen, thought I like to think I am.

               I can be kind of a fluff. I love kids. They’re not only cute and adorable but when they catch onto the new concept you’re trying to teach them or they understand a difficult concept, it makes me smile. One of the hardest parts of my job, besides maintaining a 100% happy attitude, is having to discipline misbehaving children. I’ve had several a child with whom I talked to their parents. It’s awkward and I feel like a terrible human being. Kids are cute, but they can be devils too.

In my first fall teaching, I taught a robotics class during the evening at the Midland Community Center. I only had 5-6 kids so that’s really easy to handle. Or so I thought. Now, I have a bit of history as being the employee who has written the most incident reports (reports that refer to something extreme in behavioral misconduct between kids), and it’s not just because I’m the longest running employee. I literally have no FREAKING IDEA WHY it happens to me so much. But back to the story about my class at the Community Center. One of the kid’s names was Saynt, pronounced like the word saint. The class went by fine, no difficult behavior of any kind. Well, I wish I could say the same for the walk back to the parents. One the walk back, I required them to line up single file and to stay where they were within the line. Saynt was first in line. Now, these are kids, mind you, they don’t listen all the time, and I understand that. They wanted to weave in and out of the line, and I was indifferent as long as they were being respectful towards each other’s personal space. However, Saynt was VERY protective of his position at the front of the line. At one point, a kid walked to the front of the line casually walking by Saynt, at which point Saynt……. just socks the kid in the face. “LIKE WHAT THE FREAK IS WRONG WITH YOU KID?” and, “WHO IN THE FREAKING WORLD CARES IF YOU’RE NOT FIRST IN LINE?” and other such phrases ran through my mind. I talked to Saynt right there about his behavior and required him to apologize. I checked on the other kid to make sure he was okay. But – and please don’t tell my boss – I don’t remember talking to the parents of either child. I’m pretty sure both kids forgot within 30 seconds. Boy, I sure do love kids.

4) Cooking

I freaking love food. It’s one of the best things ever. One cannot persuade me otherwise.

Growing up, I had a stay-at-home mom who often cooked homemade food. She would often cook dinner. T’would vary between steak and eggs, waffles and ice cream, haystacks, macaroni and cheese, and many other delicious, delightful meals. From this originated my love of food. In addition to meals my mother cooked, she wanted us to be independent, so she taught us how to cook.

I enjoyed learning how to cook as I grew up. Each member of my family was assigned an evening to cook dinner. My favorite meal of the day was and still is breakfast. It was my destiny to become a professional at cooking breakfast related foods. I would often cook pancakes for dinner, but when I was feeling particularly fancy I would cook plain ol’ eggs! Nonetheless, I considered myself a professional chef.

Okay, so maybe professional isn’t the correct term. Maybe I am more of a chef extraordinaire. Alright alright, the most appropriate term is extra ordinary.

Just a couple weeks ago, I felt the desire to make some good old fashioned macaroni and cheese in a pot. I filled the pot with water, turned up the heat, and loaded the macaroni. I was rather famished, so I used the whole box. Once the water had boiled, and the macaroni had cooked, I added the butter. Mind you, I added a bunch of butter, because, ya know, it’s butter. Who doesn’t love butter? I shredded some pepperjack cheese and added it to the macaroni along with salt, pepper, milk, and crushed red pepper for some wonderful spice. I mixed it all together while still in the pot. I stirred for several minutes in order to get the cheese to smoothly mix with the macaroni. It was to my amazement when the cheese clumped up and failed to mix with the macaroni. In quite a stupor, I asked my mother for advice as to why the two foods weren’t mixing. It was at this point that I was informed, “Jefferson, you have to strain the water out once the macaroni has cooked.” Aaaaand that’s when I felt underpar at being chef extraordinaire.

So there is my experience at being an extra ordinary cook. I can do a lot of the simple things like making a PB&J sandwich, but don’t ask me to make some homemade mac and cheese cause that won’t happen anytime soon.