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 4^th 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