Tag: daily-prompt

Teachers

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
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Just yesterday my friend Larry sent me a text asking if I remembered the names of any of our high school teachers. My first thought was of course I do. My second thought was me trying to remember them and exactly one came to me. My senior year English teacher. Was she influential? She was brutal. Easily one of the toughest teachers I ever had. She kicked our academic asses on a daily basis and I was able to rise to the occasion. My grades in that class were very good. Unfortunately she was the only name I could remember off the top of my head. Mrs Acone.

Larry was specifically asking about our ninth grade Earth Science teacher. Somehow, magically, I was able to come up with it. Now, the very next morning, we get this question? Are the internets reading my mind again? Is this some X-Files level shit here?

Most influential teacher… okay… Mrs Acone is on the short list. Mrs Adams is too. I was in third grade. I was in the second highest reading group in the class. Mrs Adams, for some reason I am not aware of, bumped me up to the highest level reading group. A little bit of faith in a little tiny me and next thing we know I am an A student all the way into my high school career. Well… in every class except math. My math skills went south at some point, but other than that I was at the start of a very good public education career.

One other candidate for most influential requires me to fast forward all the way to my last time around in college. Dr Canning was my Computing I professor. He asked me for my resume one day. At the time it included a mention of attending Northeast Broadcasting School. He jumped on that and offered me a job in a lab he ran. I wouldn’t be doing anything code based in that lab. Instead he wanted me to start a Computer Science department focused talk show on the campus radio station. I took the job. The result was not only a radio show that ran for the next three years or so, it was that I had a peer group in school that I could study with, and a private, locked door lab space where we could meet to study. It was the key to me finishing my Bachelors Degree with some really excellent grades.

So there are a few influential teachers from my very distant past. There are probably a few more I could add but, as implied by the start of this post, I might not remember any of their names.

Shopping Spree

Daily writing prompt
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
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Is this a fantasy type thing? Meaning money is no object, or are we supposed to give a realistic answer.

A realistic answer could have been IKEA, given that we basically just went on an insane shopping spree there in order to remodel our kitchen. It’s a case of blog imitating life… or the other way around, maybe?

For a purely selfish answer, I would go with a music dealer. Guitar Center would be the easiest answer. There was a story the members of Rush used to tell about when they got their first advance from Mercury Records. They all went to the best music store in Toronto and upgraded all of their gear. Neil Peart bought the Chrome drum set, Geddy Lee bought his first Rickenbaker bass, and Alex Lifeson bought his first(?) Les Paul. That’s sort of what I would do. I’d go into the store with nothing and come out with a whole new gig rig. A custom shop Gibson guitar, a high end Fender (or Marshall) amplifier, and maybe a few new pedals.

That’s a fantasy answer, but if I were really going nuts I’d go to a shop like Chicago Music Exchange (is there an equivalent in the Boston area? I’ve been Googling and found a few possibilities) where rather than shopping for new, high end stuff, I could shop for actual vintage gear. Legendary stuff. A Les Paul Standard made between 1958 and 1960 and a tweed Fender amp like a 4×10 Bassman from 1959 or so. The real stuff, not reissues. The stuff that’s worth about as much as a small house. Yeah, that would be my uber-fantasy shopping spree.

Honorable mentions would be someplace that deals in vintage cameras (if such places exist), or books, or records, or cats. Vintage cameras, books, or records, but not vintage cats… that would be weird.

Nope

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
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This is a one word answer kinda deal. Fate? Destiny? Nope. Not this red head.

Allow me to quote a famous philosopher:

I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other; I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff. But I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that there’s one all-powerful Force controlling everything. There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. Anyway, it’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

Han Solo

I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in destiny. I don’t believe in astrology. I don’t believe in fairy tails. I do believe that The Simpsons is able to predict the future, but I don’t believe we’ve discovered the workings of that particular magic as of yet. I do believe that the universe doesn’t give the faintest shit about the little specs of dust called humans. I think it just keeps on truckin’, minding it’s own business and I think we’re all the better for it.

In other words, let’s let Neil Peart chime in.

It’s Just a Phase

Daily writing prompt
Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
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I’m having a tough time coming up with an answer to this question. I can’t think of any phase of my life that was difficult to say goodbye to. Every time some major life period ended, there was something better waiting in the wings to replace it.

High school was replaced with college and even though the first time around in college was a mess, it was so much better than high school.

College the first time ended long before I wanted it to and getting a full time job afterwards was anything but a positive experience, at that time though college was becoming a nightmare and it had to end. I couldn’t figure out how to move forward academically, apart from starting from scratch, so I put it aside for a few years… and then started from scratch.

Graduating from college and moving into a career… you’d think that would have been tough to say goodbye to, but really I was ready for it. I had been a student for a long time and I used to joke that I was really a career student. By the time I graduated though, I was ready for that phase to end and I welcomed what came next.

I was depressed when my 20’s ended and became my 30’s. I didn’t want them to end, but I was already so low that I wasn’t sad to see them go. I was, but at the same time, not really. You know? My 30’s started out bad but I was 36 when I met Jen and 38 when we got married. Once I had started a life with her I was ready for whatever the universe could throw at us. I looked forward to time passing and phases… phasing. I was sad to see my 40’s end, but only because I don’t want to be old. I accepted that I was already old though so it didn’t actually change anything.

So I guess the answer to this question is that I never really had a phase in my life end that I had a difficult time saying goodbye to. Sorry if that’s a lame answer. I guess I am just a super mature dude who is able to roll with the changes, as the song says. Maybe I should pat myself on the back for that.