Every day I read my horoscope, usually first thing, and today was no exception. Along with a general caution to watch my words, and the way I set priorities (which is random to others, but makes perfect sense to me) was the warning that, "It doesn't matter how serious you are about improving your life, others may still believe that you're just being extra weird today."
I can identify with this- I've always been a bit different in perspective, and once I grew up I grew into my.....'weirdness'. Let's talk about that- you see, for me, I don't see it as a necessarily negative thing, even though Dr. Carol told me not to categorize myself as weird, eccentric etc. which was her view of them as negative qualities, qualities that kept me from seeing myself as worth of a 'normal life'. It's not that I'm not worthy of a normal life, and I wonder sometimes why a normal life never quite happened for me....but do I try to turn myself into what is 'normal' or do I embrace the life that I have?
I have high goals for myself. I know that I am creative and smart, and that sometimes my brain gets carried away and I have a difficult time 'shutting down' and stopping working once I get started. I know that I hoard ideas like treasure, tend to laugh allot (and kinda cackly, which is kinda cool), don't dress like my age-peer-group, have a different perspective and style in general. I am used to people stereotyping me as the 'crazy art teacher' because it is a stereotype that fits- and I'm ok with that. I do get exasperated when people don't take me seriously when something is important, and I have a strange fear of people thinking I am vain- root of my insecurity is that self esteem is conditional, and I tend to mistrust praise. But, back to being weird.
It's the way I think. I'm not linear, I'm all over the place, pull it all in, mash it up and create something. I jump around and *then* I line it all up pretty- it's curious because the educational technology classes I am taking at ECU support this. Apparently, it is the way computers gather/sort/present information, and it is how we are taught to design instruction- we are all over the board then line it up for delivery. I love that, and I love designing instruction. Yesterday I did another staff development workshop for my art teachers and it was incredible- even though it was a potentially boring/negative topic dealing with something they are naturally resistant to (alignment of curriculum). I also split up my job as county lead- because while I love doing the academic part, the staff development, state meetings, statistics I am awful at public relations, organizing and hostessing events, smoozing with the media and all the 'pretty' parts of the job. So I handed those off to Rochelle (who *rocks* at it- she is the queen of advocacy and public persuasion) and Carol, who is one smart cookie. And I am so relieved-
I need to do more of this. Say *yes* to things I want to do, that I know I'm good at and can do well, and *no* to things that make me crazy. So at risk of sounding vain or crazy, a brief clearing board of the brain:
Make me crazy: parties, social events, business attire, purses, heels, painting letters, telling people what to do, budgets/money, telephones, choosing rules over people, intolerance of diversity.
Good at: research, ideas, presentations, public speaking/teaching, working independently, planning, making things out of nothing at the spur of the moment, linking information, writing, computers.
Now, this is in a work-world context, no so much a personal context, though many of the behaviors carry through. The manz is still trying to understand my concept of fun, which is research/development of ideas and creative work.....but we are working on it ; )
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