I'm having one of those nights where I just can't stop thinking. I hate it! I know I need to sleep, but I just can't bring myself to fall asleep. Anyway, I decided to turn on the ol' laptop and just write myself asleep. I kept thinking of random experiences that I haven't thought about in a long time.
The first was probably the day my mother must have realized that I would be a person that thought I was funny, when I truly wasn't. In my first grade class (Mrs. Peterson's class at Shelley Elementary) we each had to have our parents help us fill out a form about ourselves. We each took turns doing a sort of show-and-tell about ourselves where the teacher read aloud the answers our parents had written in response to the questions on the sheet. I remember clearly that there was this one kid who had scored a big laugh with his answer to the "What's a funny experience you've had?" question. I really wanted to get a big laugh, too. So when my mom asked me, I really wanted her to write about when I had accidentally let one of my shoes float down a river that we were camping by. I was sure it would get laughs. My mom, being the kind lady she is, tried to convince me to go with a different story, but I was determined to get my big laugh from the shoe-mishap. The only thing I remember about the day my sheet was read was that absolutely no one laughed at my story. Ouch.
Another random experience that came to mind was probably the day my mother must have realized that I was kinda prideful. During the summer after 5th grade I went to a summer camp called Clear Creek that is run by my local school district. My mom worked there many summers, including the summer that I attended. It was a fun experience, but I remember feeling a little like I didn't really make very many friends. At the end of the week the counselors and teachers (including my mom) announced those who had won various awards (the most squirrels caught in our coffee-can traps we made, for example; which may sound weird, but that was a highly prestigious award for Clear Creek!) and announced the winners of Mr. and Ms. Clear Creek. The girls all voted for Ms. Clear Creek, and the boys all voted for Mr. Clear Creek. It was supposed to be whoever was friendly, and helpful, bla bla bla. I think you get it. The kind of thing I was ALL about winning at that age. I really didn't expect to win it though. They announced the winners, and alas, I had not won Mr. Clear Creek. So we all packed up and left, and I rode home with my mom instead of riding with the other kids on the bus. As we neared my home town my mom turned to me and said, "Oh, you won Mr. Clear Creek. You tied with the other kid." She handed me the medal. I was shocked, but then my surprise turned to confused anger. My mom had told me in a very matter-of-fact tone, like it wouldn't matter to me. I was very upset that she hadn't announced that I'd tied with the kid in front of the other kids and demanded an explanation. She explained that she didn't think it was a good idea to give it to me because the other kids might think that I just won it because she was a teacher there. I was mad! I wanted my recognition! I now of course can see that she was probably right, and I should have just taken it as a compliment that the other kids had voted for me. But I didn't see all that then.
Another experience that came to mind was the day I think I realized that I would go to great lengths to maintain my ability to procrastinate. I love sleep. I really do. I'm not good at falling asleep, but once I do... oh boy, I take it and RUN with it. (I run in my sleep?) My senior year in high school I had a 12 page research paper due in my English class only about 18 hours after I really started working on it. In what has now become almost a typical fashion for writing papers, I stayed up writing it ALL NIGHT LONG. I didn't sleep at all. I printed it only minutes before leaving for school. I looked even more zombie-ish than usual and had many comments affirming that fact from my friends. I had never done something so crazy on a project so big. But now I almost always count on getting very little sleep the night before a paper is due. (Perhaps that's why it felt appropriate to start writing a LONG entry on my blog tonight?)
Today I kind of came to a realization, too. I realized that while Rand-o-mania set a new record yesterday (according to my Google Analytics) for the most visits in one day for my blog (185), Just Ridiculous Polls had 8 visits yesterday. (5 of which were me.) So, I'm thinking that I may need to just stop posting on there entirely. Or I could just put an occasional random poll on this blog. Anyway, Just Ridiculous Polls is in a sad state, because I've tried really hard to attract traffic to my blogs, but it's only seemingly worked for Rand-o-mania. My one-day record for most visits to Just Ridiculous Polls is 18. Whoohoo. Yeah, I think I overestimated peoples' desire for stupid random polls to grace their lives each day. Or (as proven by the first story) it could just be that I'm not as funny as I think I am and no one wants to visit a blog full of random polls that just don't make sense. Anyway, I'm sure I'll continue it on for a while, but come time for school... Just Ridiculous Polls might go the way of Random Combos and Tiny Observations. (See way old posts in my archives.)
Well, perhaps I could sleep now that I've written a brief novel. K, see ya.
Addition: So the whole stupid whatis230 thing turned out to just be the Chevy Volt, which has already been announced for a long time. What the heck is the deal with the secretive ad campaign??! How obnoxious. Yes it is indeed a car with the potential of getting 230 mpg. Big deal. It will be too expensive for me in the first place I'm sure. That's that.
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