The Child Whisperer

At the request of my dude Patrick Braxton-Andrew, aka Pibba aka Dookie Monster, aka Stringer Bell, I've decided to pick up the proverbial pen and lay down some tracks (words) to ye ole blog.

What will I write about, you ask? Best believe it'll be up to the nonsensical and utterly random standard I've set for myself in the past. I cannot disappoint the loyal readership I've managed to gather thus far. To all 5 of you... Thank you.

So what's going on in my life? On Tuesday I began my new job as Grassroots Marketing Coordinator for Eurosport and Soccer.com. In what is basically a job tailor-made for me, I will travel about the country attending various soccer events, spreading the good word about how tight Eurosport is, and why everyone and their mother should exclusively buy their life from the company.

As tight as my new job is, that's not what I'll focus on in this post. I'm going to talk about a little incident from my previous job as a tutor. In short? I dog whispered a child.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It had been a long day of sitting around my house surfing the internet, and I was in no mood for the shenanigans of loud children when I arrived at work promptly at 3:17 PM for my 3:00 start time. The kids filed in (read: ran in screaming) at around 3:35, and my day began in earnest. After first shaking down a child for some bubble gum, I proceeded to do absolutely no work for the next 45 minutes aside from advising one munchkin that 4 + 4 was probably not 17.

I had a slight headache, and the vocal emanations from one 10-year-old began to grate on my nerves like 9-inch nails on an amplified chalkboard. He ran up to me and began yelling, and my calm insistence that he lower his tone went unheeded. In a moment of pure inspiration, I quickly reached out, tapped his shoulder with a claw-like hand and firmly uttered the patented "SST" sound of the dog whisperer. The completely befuddled little boy immediately drew up and shut his mouth, unable to process what had happened.

Full of joy, I jumped on a table and crowed with delight, proclaming myself to be THE CHILD WHISPERER (read: I quietly smiled and sat back down, texting everyone I knew about what took place). The rest of my day was happily spent playing football with the kids and generally acting as if an 11-year-old was trapped in a 22-year-old's body. My duty was done, and another child was rehabilitated, properly socialized and able to return to its owners (parents).

The Art of War

I have learned from the greatest. I have read Sun Tzu, studied Alexander the Great and followed in Napoleon's footsteps. I will conquer all. I will be... A warlord.

Naw, but can you imagine if I was like that?

I'm slowly but surely taking over the world. I've conquered most of Davidson, North Carolina, a small part of Charlotte (read: my bedroom, the kitchen, and part of the living room), and I have moderately expansive territories in Chapel Hill. My regime is based on discipline, faith and strength. None shall stand in my way.

Yeah, I was real bored when I wrote this.

Run Baby Run

I went running the other day. In the events preceding my bipedal excursion and during the run itself, I made a series of mistakes. Mistakes that cost me dearly. Let me tell you about it.

From the beginning, I decided to go running after a few things (including an undeserved loss in FIFA) angered me. That was mistake number one. Before embarking upon my journey, I neglected to fuel my body with food, or even water. Another mistake. I also neglected to bring music with me to help pace myself and block out distractions. Guess what? Mistake. Are you counting so far? (We're up to number three.)

By deciding to run under extreme duress and emotional imbalance, I didn't have the mental discipline necessary to pace myself the way I should have. Coming off a serious hamstring injury I've been pacing myself in my recovery, and angry running... not the thing to do. To make matters worse, I decided not to eat or drink before I left, so I had nothing to fuel my running but pure frustration. The first half mile went well until I ran into the bane of my existence when running: people.

For those who don't know me, I am an extremely competitive person. I can't stand to lose, come close to losing, or be perceived as a loser. For that reason, any time I come upon people during a run, I have to either pass them, or run at a ridiculous speed that I won't be able to keep up for more than a quarter mile.

My run was going according to plan until I ran into a man and two women walking on the side of the road. One of the women called out, "KEEP ON RUNNING BABY", further inflaming my competitive instinct. I increased my speed a bit, and gradually kept the acceleration going until I felt I was out of their sight. And then I hit "the wall". Let me rephrase that. Said wall hit ME. I immediately slowed down to a walk, and wasn't able to catch my breath for another half mile. I was finally able to hit a slow jog for the final quarter mile, but my lungs and pride were dealt an irreparable blow.

Next time I'm wearing blinders when I run.