Before we begin with today’s entry, I would like to make a comment on Saturday’s greatest strengths of the past 40 years. I know that it was not very specific in calling out specific incidents of the past. This is partially because I wrote it in a short period of time and did not edit it at all before I published it. It is also because I wrote it all before I drank any tea or coffee that morning. So I might blame it on the lack of caffeine. However, it might also be because I hate ranking things in order of importance to me. In fact on of my most feared interview questions is something like, “Tell me the single most important or special thing you have ever done in your career relating to children (it’s always children because I am a children’s librarian.” Yuck, seriously.
What criteria define most importance? Is it the thing that has taken the most emotional energy? The most mental energy? The thing that impacted someone else’s life the most?
I made the decision to stay away from mostly calling out specifics in this SWOT Analysis. I am of the opinion that specifics make for better writing and it felt a little dishonest to not call out specific incidents so I decided to share one thing with you all that I am specifically proud of from my teenage years.
Here is a picture of my high school Scholastic Quiz Team. I had to take a test to become part of this team and place in the top 4 of finishers in grades 10-12. I tied for second place. We won the Somerset County Championship when I was in 11th grade. This is the only time in my life that I have won a plaque. I also made the team in 9th grade and 12th grade.
Moving on, as we found out in the last blog entry, I am not afraid to go weird. My husband is usually a big fan of my blog but even he admitted to me that the last one was weird. He also liked it thought because it is okay to try new things out. At first I was afraid to keep going, but here I go.
Here Are 10 Great Things (Weaknesses) of the Last 40 Years:
- I hated every time I ever tried celery or coleslaw to make sure I still didn’t like it. Conversely, I am glad that I decided to try mayonnaise that one time when I was twenty because it turned out to be pretty good. The same thing is true about pecan pie, I never wanted to eat it because I thought it looked gross but it actually is amazing.
- Remembering all two locker combinations in high school. I always really struggled even remembering what locker my gym clothes where in in the locker room for gym class let alone the combination. And Sometimes the I would suddenly forget the locker combination on the locker I used every day for my books in coat halfway through the school year in high school. I may have made the quiz bowl team in high school but I can’t remember a string of numbers to save my life. Combination locks are for the birds.
- Every time I burned myself by accident when I worked at Wendy’s, my first job. There were many I accidently burned myself at work including: scooping french fries out of the warmer, washing hot pans in the backroom, and burning my wrist when grabbing chicken out of the pressure deep fryer.
- Seating auditions in high school band. I always got so nervous.
- Spelling tests. I am a notoriously bad speller. I frequently missed 10 out of 30.
- 9th grade, all of it.
- Every time I have ever played the board game Monopoly
- The amount of my life that has been spent unloading the dishwasher
- Figuring out in first grade that you had to go to school all day, 5 days a week. First grade was so taxing.
- The time I ran out of the special salt mix for my neti pot and neti potted my nose with table salt because I thought to myself “how different could it be really?” (It’s pretty different. I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy).
Tomorrow, I will examine opportunities that I might take advantage of in the coming 40 years, if I should be so lucky to have that amount of time.
Stay tuned!
