trophies, tears, and true love

Each day is full of sonatas in major and minor. Some are easy and some are not so easy. I wish I could enjoy a really good passage over slower paces of time.

I won first place at a Toastmaster‘s Contest last weekend. I will be competing at the division level in a few weeks. I have to credit my music teaching experience to making me a good evaluator. I was touched that the test speaker whose speech I had to give a 3 minute critique approached me and said he found my evaluation most sincere among my competitors.

His comment made my day.

It was my first competition outside the comfort zone of my club. My competitors were experienced and ultra cool in my book. They were also writers with blog and Facebook fan base numbers that got a WOW out of me. I felt absolutely ill.

Me? I’m JNET. I do lots of things and stumble upon different worlds out of curiousity.

My friends make fun of me that I get too busy to even care for a fish. My one and only fish was a beta which I named “Amore Paziente (Patient Love)”. He was great. He was beautiful. He’s dead now. I was busy; travelling, going to rehearsals, doing something.

Back to Toastmasters, competing at an area contest where I am intimidated by the super professional – mortgage carrying – married and adored with children people… I went in as JNET, who can’t manage to keep a fish alive, analyzes things in a not so linear, not so package-perfect, not so corporate suit manner. I improvised and made my comments from a way of being that didn’t quite follow protocol.

I did not know what the standard way of giving a speech evaluation was. I was contestant number one. Lucky me got to do my evaluation FIRST and then was able to sit down and watch every single contestant. They were great… polished… organized… and they followed a formula. I was imagining bullet points lining up besides their heads as they spoke.

And I won… which felt very wonkish wonderlandish.

And I find it hilariously funny that not a single one of my competitors got to see me do my evaluation speech.

My evaluation prep was a brain storm of tiny notes I had peppered a piece of paper with. I made note of thoughts that I wanted to share with the speaker; notes about things that he did well that he may not have been aware of… and of course stating the obvious good things he did so that he may continue those.

Mentors since have approached me to work on communicating more “analytically” as opposed to artistically. I am not sure how to improvise from their criticism.

Create bullet points above my head as I speak?

I cannot say that I am even that type of teacher. I just know that my students get what I say and they show me that they understand in the way that they play for me…. freely, honestly. In a way that makes me listen, hear them, and think… ahhh… I knew that was the way you meant to play it.

Do I want another trophy or am I happy enough giving the kind of evaluation that will move a person to come to me and thank me for speaking from my heart? Doesn’t that show that its NOT an exact formula of speech structure that wins people and trophies?

Anyway, that trophy is sitting in my living room. I’ve been too busy to tell people about the competition. My car had broken down this past week, allergies have attacked me, my schedule is upside down… and OH, for a space of a week, I enjoyed the possibility of being cast in a really cool commerical that might’ve paid my rent for a year. But the client decided to take their campaign in a new direction and nix the script.

I’m never kidding when I say I’m busy.

Trophies aside… what about tears? Tears. MindshareLA totally tanked for me this last Friday. I prefer Thursday night people. Okay, that’s not totally sad…..

This one is…..

My friend made me cry right before my competition. I don’t know if I should be mad at him for being so petty and mean especially at so early in the morning or and to accept that I am really hurt that a crew of people that I spent two years on a project with – just put me aside… without a goodbye… without a “thank you for your contribution.”

and my friend mentioning them right before my competition is something I haven’t quite recovered from.

I’m still recovering from the cruel reality that the world isn’t as awesome in every corner as I had hoped. I am also finding that I don’t really have the callousness to keep company with abrasive people. I think I can be strong but being thick skinned…. eh.

As for Pistachio… ah sigh.. angst, kick the dirt and throw the flowers on the ground and sigh again. I have some bits of frustration I’m working through.

Minding the Castle