Every time I watch a new movie, read a book, or hear a song, I start wondering how the writer came up with the idea. Lots of scenarios run through my mind. Are you an insane psychopath if you write a screenplay about some ingeniously twisted murder plot, or are you just creative? And, I mean, who or what prompted the lyrics, "I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouche! Scaramouche! will you do the Fandango?! "
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| Some German guy thought of this one.... |
2. Will that person remember this ten years from now?
You know how you can completely forget huge events in your life-- the first time you failed something, perhaps, or (hypothetically) the first time you told your husband you loved him. Birthdays, graduations, first days, last days... they just seem to disappear. And yet, you can vividly remember the shortest, simplest, most mundane moments. For me, I can clearly recall a particular bike ride down my street. I can also remember walking down the hallway at school one day, deciding that my favorite color was green. I remember the day my 7th grade English teacher asked me to run an errand.
And so I compare myself to others. I wonder which small moments they remember (and which big ones they might forget, too). Is Valeria going to remember the time she taught herself how to play "God of Wonders" on the recorder in third grade (Like I remember how I couldn't play anything and I pretended to at the All Children's Choir performance)? Will Gabriel remember any of the frustrated conversations I've had with him in the hall (like I remember the one time my teacher called me out because she thought I made fun of a girl's glasses (I didn't))? Will that kid on the street remember that I gave him cookies and my granita when he asked me for money?
| Hopefully these aren't the memories my students remember forever! |
Do you ever stop and think something like, "I wonder if anyone else has ever ordered the falafel sandwich, with a skim latte, and apple pie for dessert. Maybe I'm the first!" or, "Am I the only person who has ever dreamed about being Dr. House's Spanish Teacher?"
Well, I do. I think those thoughts a lot.
| Hola, Sr. House. Hiciste tu tarea hoy? |
4. Can I say that in Spanish?
Whenever I have time to sit and think (lately that means my bus rides to work) I end up replaying conversations in my mind, or predicting those that are yet to happen. Inevitably, those conversations morph into Spanish, as if my mind is testing me. So I sit there, with my silent Spanish conversation, until I come to something I don't know. Then I rack my brain for some possibility that I have learned that word sometime, and I try to dig it out of some dark, dusty, mental filing cabinet. That only works occasionally.
Usually, I won't remember those Spanish speeches later and I'll forget to look up my mystery words. But sometimes they come back to me at random moments. Like the other day when I asked Daniel, "How do you say "tornado" in Spanish?" because I had remembered a time, 4 years ago, when I translated for someone and wasn't sure if simply pronouncing "tornado" with a Spanish accent was correct. (It was!).
5. Am I actually some sort of color blind?
I'm particularly sensitive about this one. As the most artistic one in my family, I believe that I should be credited with having specialized knowledge of colors. And yet, my mom, sister, and years later, my husband, have all accused me of colorblindness. I stand firm in my belief that we do not see the colors any differently, we simply disagree on the color's name. So what if you might choose to call fuscia purple, when I see it more as pink? Maybe, for you, chartreuse is yellow, but for me it's mostly green.
And yet, after Daniel, who did not know about my previous family battles regarding colors, told me I was colorblind, I began to doubt myself. Could there really be something different about the way I see colors? I really don't think so. Well, I hope not.
| Chartreuse |
| Chartreuse |
| My Favorite Chartreuse |
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