am i?

I have this friend who I consider to be a very close friend. Or at least I did until something very bizarre happened.

I was invited to a party, I was one of the few non-family members that were invited. I thought I was being a good friend when I tried to help her serve the appetizers etc.

I was wrong.

The next day, when I called to tell her how fabulous everything was, the food, the drinks… the whole party, she said something very strange.
She said, I’m saying this because I love you, but I will never invite you to a party again. You annoyed me. You kept coming into my kitchen and you were always in my way. I hated it, and I couldn’t handle it at all.

I was so hurt. Then I became angry. Then just plain sad…

I haven’t called her. And neither has she called me…
I’m not sure who is wrong anymore.

It lead me to remember a quote…

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?”
~ Albert Einstien

Am I?

old joy

I taught an advertising class for a communication college a week ago, and I was faced with a bunch of 21 year-old wannabes.

I remembered how I used to sit in the back of my class, writing chits, making fun of my Anthropology professor, as she struggled to speak about some random tidbit of irrelevant information. And now, here I stand before a class of fifty students, all looking at me up and down, all wondering if I am good enough to even teach them.

But I tried to be cool. I tried to talk in a casual tone.

I remembered again how my communication class used to make fun of this fuddy-duddy advertising woman who would take our class. She had no real knowledge of the profession and her entire personality annoyed me. And then again, there I was whining on about the importance of knowing what you are selling to a bunch of blank-faced children.

I tried to make it as interesting as possible; I tried to sound less like a “teacher”.

I remembered how my frustrated Math professor would yell and scream for me to ‘get up and get out’ of his class, only because I was a backbencher who made a lot of people laugh. And then there I was, watching a young boy in a green scarf surf on his laptop, while all his friends giggled around him.

It took all I had to ignore him. But after about an twenty minutes of his nonsense I pointed at him and said, “You, guy in the green scarf, if you are not interested in this class, please leave because I am not interested in having you here either…”

And with that one sentence, everything I was trying not to be, I became. I became ‘Ma’am’. I became the woman they asked ‘can I go to toilet?’

I became a fuddy-duddy, advertising professional. I became old.

But for the first time, I was very, very okay with it.

poor poor you...

There is truly nothing more pathetic than a desperate creative person...
Truly nothing...