Thursday, July 5, 2012

Lots ‘O Excuses and Underestimation


Listening to: Catcher in the Rye - GNR
Mood: On.

Hey Folks. Sorry for the disappearing act I’ve been pulling for the last week. It’s been a rather crazy week. Here’s what’s been up.
  1. I have been having an epic battle with the evil stomach virus of colonic doom that will destroy all of your gastric endeavors and possibly steal your soul. I live in India. As the stereotype goes, India is a champion at producing intestinal chicanery. Even being super careful, we still have rounds of this nonsense every once in a while. We have a water filter in our house that may or may not be able to destroy the newly found god particle, it’s that high tech. On the other hand, I brush my teeth with tap water and eat street food. I just can’t say no to the street food, and going into the kitchen to brush my teeth all the time just ain’t happening. Not to be too disgusting, but think bad Mexican, mixed with bad Indian, mixed with bad sushi. It’s that kind of an epic virus and it’s exhausting. It’s almost impossible to eat, because I know what will happen in a few hours.
  2. I have launched project piano lessons. I am meeting my second student this evening. There have been many documents to prepare, supplies to be ordered, panic attacks to be had that people will actually let me teach their precious sponge-like minded children, advertising, etc. I’m still terrified, but now I’m in (proverbial) balls deep and it’s time to swim. I’m hoping this will turn into an entrepreneurial after school care venture on a much grander scale than just giving lessons.
  3. My part time contracting job from the US has slowly been taking over my free time. Don’t get me wrong, I love the money, but it’s doing some serious eating time into my writing time. A colleague took a break to pop out a mini-me, so lots more work is being funneled my way.
  4. We have been busy not celebrating the 4th of July. Here’s why.
  5. Daddy G has been getting ready to hop on a jet plane and head off to the US for a few weeks. I am much less than enthusiastic, but I look forward to all of the bribery items he has been told to bring back with him or not to come back at all. I am so excited about the coffee syrup. I know, I’m a cheap bribe.
  6. We’re planning a train trip to my inlaws place in Hyderabad after Daddy G comes back. I am super stoked.
  7. Sandalwood is filming a Kannada film right outside my back door. Yesterday and today they were doing a fight scene with some goondas. Too cool to watch. The director shouts nonstop into a microphone, not a megaphone, which is really funny. Stay tuned, I'll have to put up some pictures of this soon.


My thanks to Rusty who so graciously noted that every once in a while people need to take a break from blogging. As I told him, I’m a binge blogger. I can’t help *it people, I learned it from the red wine. I tend to do one ginormous brain dump and write about 4,000 words in a sitting and then wait for the tank to fill up again. I write 5 blogs on a regular basis along with fiction stories, so some days I get so exhausted from writing I swear that I will never write again, but then the bug bites again, and I’m back at it.

This piano lessons/business project has been in the works for about a month now and has really gotten me thinking about what I am good at and what I need work on in order to be successful in a business venture. It also has brought on some thought about being underestimated. The reasons this came up are varied, and I’m not sure I even want to explore this further. To keep it simple, Daddy G had some doubts about my ability to handle people in a business setting. I guess this is fair, because I’ve never had a professional job in my life. This isn’t a new theme for me, I’ve been underestimated for a long time. In fact, it’s been consistently one of my mom’s favorite topics.

I am an incredibly focused person in some regards. In other things, I don’t give two flying fig newtons.  If I don’t find something important, I probably won’t do it. You think I can’t cook because I do it differently than you or you don’t see me specifically do it myself? Good for you, enjoy your illusion. If I do find it important/worth doing, it’s best if you just get out of the way, because I am getting it done, come hell or high water.  The thing is, I don’t try and convince people that I’m capable. I know what I’m capable of, and I don’t really care much if anyone else recognizes it without proof.

Aside from finding it mildly irritating, I don’t really mind it all that much if a person doesn’t think I’m capable of something. I know it’s childish, but it always makes me insanely happy to watch someone’s face turn incredulous that I did in fact do what he or she thought I couldn’t do.

In fact, I’m rather glad I tend to not listen to what other people tell me I’m capable of. To be sure, I do listen to Daddy G. He knows me better than anyone else on the planet, and he does understand how I tick and that I do occasionally try to tackle too much at one time. Anyone else? I really wonder why they’re telling me I can’t do something in the first place.

I’m just going to keep dancing to the beat of my own drum over here and achieving the things that I want. If you want to continue being surprised about it, I guess that’s your prerogative. Just try not to look surprised when I end up doing exactly what I set out to.

Becky

5 comments:

Rusty said...

Epic post. Try not to think of them as excuses but reasons. Life happens and you should never apologise for it.

I think having many projects are a good thing. I like tinkering in different mediums such as blogs, stand up, etc it gives me time to exercise the old noggin and challenge us creatively. As long as you have fun it is never a waste of time.

Unless you are watching survivor. That's a waste of time.

Becky said...

Thanks Rusty. Here! here! to the reasons and not excuses.

I'm all about the 10 different projects at once. Life is short, you barely have time to do what you want, might as well double up.

Thanks for the tip about survivor. ;-P I'm going to go out on a limb and extend that to all reality TV. What a waste of good brainage.

Gossip_Grl said...

Nice post and I agree, you have to think of you first and do what you know is best for you. I have a.d.d so too many things at once is like total Fail for me.

Kinley Dane said...

You write 5 blogs and fiction? How in the world??? I find one tiny, little blog completely consuming!

Hope your stomach decides to play nice again! Have you tried keeping a water bottle in the bathroom for teeth brushing? That's what I used to do.

Becky said...

Gossip girl - very good point. It took me years to stop soliciting anyone and every one's opinions about things. Now, if I get an opinion fine, but I definitely don't need buy in from anyone. It's fabulously liberating. :-)

Kiwani - I can't figure it out either. I have an organizing "thing." I can't just write everything in one blog, I must separate them out into logical categories. OCD anyone? Most of the time I don't write all 5 in one sitting. I do two or three one day and then the rest the next day. Or you know, the next week, I'm definitely not able to do them all every day! Like I told Rusty, I get all of this stuff floating in my head and it just has to be let out.
Thanks for the tip about storing water for brushing in the bathroom. Such a logical thing that I completely missed. Where did you stay that you needed to do this?