This is part of a letter I wrote to my niece this morning on life lessons I wanted to share.
Good morning Jilly,
It is a beautiful sunny morning in Arizona, though the errand your Aunt and I have to go on is not sunny. The husband of a friend died and we have to go to his memorial service. These are the people in our writers chapter you will meet when you come to visit. I was writing earlier. Tomorrow we have two meetings, both in Barnes and Noble. The first meeting is our critique group. We help each other with our writing. The second meeting is for our book festival next year. It is mostly the same people.
I am going to tell you something about public speaking. You can read about it all you want, but eventually you have to do it. It is like swimming. You cannot be a theoretical swimmer. I gave up my Toastmasters membership after nineteen years. I treasure what I learned, but the writing does more for me and it was time to move on. That happens in life. This leads me to a life lesson I am going to teach you, to try and prevent you from learning it the hard way. You will not be good at everything, but learn all you can. Your Mom and I told you when I was there how hard I had to work in school, because it did not come naturally to me. First, I am going to tell you a story about public speaking. I hated it, to be honest. The first time, a committee chair asked me to speak to what was called a small group. There were fifty people there. I was terrified. Then, my job required me to speak to community groups, mostly senior citizens. At the Senior Citizen center, they have oxygen for the seniors. It is bad, if big hulking former weighlifter me passes out. Try and imagine the article in the local newspaper. So I joined Toastmasters. I never thought I would stay nineteen years. I stayed because I was still getting something out of it.
I hated diagramming sentences in English class in school. Now, I wish I had paid more attention. I write, so grammar is important. Your Aunt Elaine and I joke about being grammatically challenged. She has been writing longer than I have. When you write, everything you learn is filed away. You just never know when it will come in handy.
Now, I am going to ask you four questions:
1. What do you like most about school?
2. What do you dislike about school?
3. What are your goals?
4. What motivates you?
Good morning Jilly,
It is a beautiful sunny morning in Arizona, though the errand your Aunt and I have to go on is not sunny. The husband of a friend died and we have to go to his memorial service. These are the people in our writers chapter you will meet when you come to visit. I was writing earlier. Tomorrow we have two meetings, both in Barnes and Noble. The first meeting is our critique group. We help each other with our writing. The second meeting is for our book festival next year. It is mostly the same people.
I am going to tell you something about public speaking. You can read about it all you want, but eventually you have to do it. It is like swimming. You cannot be a theoretical swimmer. I gave up my Toastmasters membership after nineteen years. I treasure what I learned, but the writing does more for me and it was time to move on. That happens in life. This leads me to a life lesson I am going to teach you, to try and prevent you from learning it the hard way. You will not be good at everything, but learn all you can. Your Mom and I told you when I was there how hard I had to work in school, because it did not come naturally to me. First, I am going to tell you a story about public speaking. I hated it, to be honest. The first time, a committee chair asked me to speak to what was called a small group. There were fifty people there. I was terrified. Then, my job required me to speak to community groups, mostly senior citizens. At the Senior Citizen center, they have oxygen for the seniors. It is bad, if big hulking former weighlifter me passes out. Try and imagine the article in the local newspaper. So I joined Toastmasters. I never thought I would stay nineteen years. I stayed because I was still getting something out of it.
I hated diagramming sentences in English class in school. Now, I wish I had paid more attention. I write, so grammar is important. Your Aunt Elaine and I joke about being grammatically challenged. She has been writing longer than I have. When you write, everything you learn is filed away. You just never know when it will come in handy.
Now, I am going to ask you four questions:
1. What do you like most about school?
2. What do you dislike about school?
3. What are your goals?
4. What motivates you?
posted by CactusCorner at 12:19 PM
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