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mercy_angel_09I don't have anything particularly interesting to write about today. We had the last Bollywood night before Maria gets married last night, watching the Bollywood equivalent of the the Peter Sellers film After the Fox. It was...interesting. Not great, but not horrible either.
We chowed down on curry, rice and flat bread, watched the movie, and then indulged in Hawaiian Punch flavored jelly beans. When the movie was done we talked perfume, fairy tales and cosplay.
Nothing overly exciting.
When I came home I found my husbands books in disarray, as usual, with Ender's Shadow being in the bathroom. My guess was that he was sore after exercising and had taken a soak in the tub in hopes of alleviating some of that pain. The shower curtain was drawn back and his towel was still damp. Seems like the most logical answer. I refuse to acknowledge option two.
This, of course, got me thinking about when we read Ender's Game back in high school. The forward in Ender's Shadow notes that Orson Scott Card never intended the first novel to be a young adult novel, and was surprised when so many kids started reading it and teachers using it in English classes. He makes a few other observations about the series on the whole, about how the last three novels aren't as popular with the kids and so on, and I started thinking about when I had read the book as a freshman in high school. It was good. I liked it, but not enough to want to read the rest of the series or even purchase a copy of the book for future personal enjoyment.
It had been an assignment and not necessarily a bad one.
I don't even remember why we were playing charades. I think it had to do with how well we knew and understood the characters in the novel. When my turn came up I approached my teacher (a future ex-boyfriend's aunt, surprisingly) and drew the character I would have to act out.
I got Petra.
I'm pretty sure I made the Rage Guy face. Good Lord, how was I supposed to act out Petra?! She didn't have any distinguishing features. She didn't have a physical tick, like a way she held her arms or a certain gesture that she made all the time. She was a girl. She kicked a lot of ass. THAT. WAS. IT.
I took a deep breath and stood at the front of the classroom, my team mates all leaning forward in their chairs, anticipating my sure to be brilliant act of mime. All I could think was, "Holy crap I'm going to flame out HARD."
It is important to note now that when I was a freshman in high school, I was in the process of growing out my hair. It was long (not as long as it was in my senior portraits, but still pretty long), probably to the middle of my back and on that particular day, I had it up in a ponytail.
That ponytail saved my ass.
I stood, mind racing, heart thudding against my ribs, as I tried desperately to recall ANYTHING that stood out about Petra besides the fact that she was a girl and that she kicked a lot of ass. I drew a blank, but knew I had to do SOMETHING.
When I get nervous, I play with my hair. So I flipped my ponytail with one hand, and then assumed the position of shooting the crap at whatever was in front of me, because that was all I could think of for Petra.
Shooting stuff.
"Petra!" one of my team mates called out only a few seconds later.
I froze and turned to him, mouth agape. "YEAH!" I cheered.
A nervous tick had saved my ass in charades.
I resumed my seat as my team took another point (I don't recall if we won or lost, all I know was that my only turn was over and I was more than happy to get back to guessing), as my team mates congratulated me on my brilliance.
"Nice move flipping your ponytail like that. I don't think we would have gotten her without it," one of them told me after I sat down and had taken a deep breath.
I nodded dumbly. A nice move? More like a knee-jerk nervous reaction, an unconscious gesture to show that I was totally terrified and out of my element. And it had saved my butt and given my team a point.
But what the hell. For one day a nervous tick made me a hero.
We chowed down on curry, rice and flat bread, watched the movie, and then indulged in Hawaiian Punch flavored jelly beans. When the movie was done we talked perfume, fairy tales and cosplay.
Nothing overly exciting.
When I came home I found my husbands books in disarray, as usual, with Ender's Shadow being in the bathroom. My guess was that he was sore after exercising and had taken a soak in the tub in hopes of alleviating some of that pain. The shower curtain was drawn back and his towel was still damp. Seems like the most logical answer. I refuse to acknowledge option two.
This, of course, got me thinking about when we read Ender's Game back in high school. The forward in Ender's Shadow notes that Orson Scott Card never intended the first novel to be a young adult novel, and was surprised when so many kids started reading it and teachers using it in English classes. He makes a few other observations about the series on the whole, about how the last three novels aren't as popular with the kids and so on, and I started thinking about when I had read the book as a freshman in high school. It was good. I liked it, but not enough to want to read the rest of the series or even purchase a copy of the book for future personal enjoyment.
It had been an assignment and not necessarily a bad one.
I don't even remember why we were playing charades. I think it had to do with how well we knew and understood the characters in the novel. When my turn came up I approached my teacher (a future ex-boyfriend's aunt, surprisingly) and drew the character I would have to act out.
I got Petra.
I'm pretty sure I made the Rage Guy face. Good Lord, how was I supposed to act out Petra?! She didn't have any distinguishing features. She didn't have a physical tick, like a way she held her arms or a certain gesture that she made all the time. She was a girl. She kicked a lot of ass. THAT. WAS. IT.
I took a deep breath and stood at the front of the classroom, my team mates all leaning forward in their chairs, anticipating my sure to be brilliant act of mime. All I could think was, "Holy crap I'm going to flame out HARD."
It is important to note now that when I was a freshman in high school, I was in the process of growing out my hair. It was long (not as long as it was in my senior portraits, but still pretty long), probably to the middle of my back and on that particular day, I had it up in a ponytail.
That ponytail saved my ass.
I stood, mind racing, heart thudding against my ribs, as I tried desperately to recall ANYTHING that stood out about Petra besides the fact that she was a girl and that she kicked a lot of ass. I drew a blank, but knew I had to do SOMETHING.
When I get nervous, I play with my hair. So I flipped my ponytail with one hand, and then assumed the position of shooting the crap at whatever was in front of me, because that was all I could think of for Petra.
Shooting stuff.
"Petra!" one of my team mates called out only a few seconds later.
I froze and turned to him, mouth agape. "YEAH!" I cheered.
A nervous tick had saved my ass in charades.
I resumed my seat as my team took another point (I don't recall if we won or lost, all I know was that my only turn was over and I was more than happy to get back to guessing), as my team mates congratulated me on my brilliance.
"Nice move flipping your ponytail like that. I don't think we would have gotten her without it," one of them told me after I sat down and had taken a deep breath.
I nodded dumbly. A nice move? More like a knee-jerk nervous reaction, an unconscious gesture to show that I was totally terrified and out of my element. And it had saved my butt and given my team a point.
But what the hell. For one day a nervous tick made me a hero.
