Things I'm Not Very Good At.......

• Scuba diving -- It's just unnatural to breathe underwater. We've been told all our lives not to do that. I tried to learn many years ago; really I did. We only went down a few feet in a lake, and the people who were on the bank watching our air bubbles said I took two breaths to every one of the other person's. At that rate I figured I could never go down very deep anyway, unless I hauled about 5 spare tanks of air with me, so I said screw it and stuck with skydiving.
• Skydiving -- I could jump out fine, and most....a lot.....some...... of the time I could land fine, but I just could not hook up with people in the air. And that's sort of what it's all about in the skydiving world. Having 66 solo jumps (okay, a few of them were attempts at 3-ways, but most of them were solo) is sort of like riding in the Tour de France with training wheels. There was that one time that I couldn't find my ripcord..... And on my 13th jump, when I was so freaked out by the number 13 that I wound up hanging upside down under a perfectly good canopy.... And my last jump, when I jumped with a jumpmaster and he was earnestly trying to convey something to me in freefall. I kept getting closer to him, trying to understand his wide eyes and his hand motions. Seems he was trying to tell me to "PULL!!!!!!!!!!!" He pulled my ripcord for me, the ultimate embarrassment in skydiving.
  
• Hiding my emotions -- If I like you, you'll be able to tell. And if I can't stand you, you'll be able to tell. And if I'm pissed off or excited or depressed or angry or worried or pensive or confused you'll be able to tell too, because I just cannot hide my feelings. I would be great testifying under oath, but I would be terrible at poker. Except 3-card poker, where it really doesn't matter if you jump off your stool because you got a straight flush.
• Keeping my desk clean -- It doesn't matter if I start out with a pristine desk and can actually see the wood (or whatever my desk is made of; I'm really not sure), in no time at all it will be covered with stacks of papers and books and tardy slips and lunch order forms and print-outs of every draft of a project I'm attempting to post on my wiki. I occasionally make an effort to put everything in file folders, but pretty soon they're scattered all over my desk too. I rarely lose things; it just sometimes takes me a while to find something specific.
• Keeping my house clean -- Don't get me wrong, it's not filthy or anything. I keep the laundry done and actually fold it (most of the time) and put it away (all of the time if it gets folded), and I wash the dishes every night, and I make up the bed every morning. We don't have clothes lying all over the place, but we do have a considerable amount of clutter. I sweep and vacuum and mop occasionally, but not every week. We tend to put things down in the nearest place, and that is often the kitchen table. Luckily the table seats four and there are only two of us. That means the other two places hold neat piles of mail and other stuff that needs to be dealt with but just not right away. The piano also lends itself to things getting put on it, like the instructions and the stand for the Wii. At least they hide the dust. Sort of.
  
• Getting to school on time -- That's a new one. I have always been the kind to get to school at least 30 minutes before I had to be there. The most punishing school schedule I ever had required teachers to be at school at 6:50. And I was usually there at 6:20 or 6:30 at the latest. Now I don't have to be there until 7:45, and I've been rolling in around 8:00. It's not that I'm lazy or I'm watching television or wasting time, either. It's that I usually convince myself that I can do JUST ONE MORE THING before I head out. Grade one more online assignment. Read one more blog. Try the slalom ski activity on the Wii Fit one more time. Crochet one more row. Read one more page in a book. So I cram all this activity into my morning, and then when I should be making last-minute preparations for departure, I'm getting in the shower. Then it's make-up, hair, dress (if I don't have to throw ironing in there somewhere), and oh crap, I need to make something for lunch. When did I turn into this person? I feel guilty, and it's not even like I'm shirking my duty or anything. Our students don't report until 8:45, so I'm not leaving them standing in the hall waiting for me or anything. I keep telling myself I'm not going to be late, and then I just can't make myself stop whatever I'm doing and get going.
  
• Asking for help -- I'd rather kill myself trying to do it alone, thank you very much.
  
• Multi-tasking -- Uni-tasking is often more than I can handle. I used to think I could multi-task, but either I've changed or I was just lying to myself. I did once manage to transpose a piece of music to a different key WHILE I was playing it on the piano AND harmonizing during a church service, but that was a fluke.
  
• Saying the right thing in stressful situations -- I can always think of something brilliant that I SHOULD have said, but the necessary words just don't come when they should.
• Giving advice -- I can listen and sympathize, but I really suck at telling people what they should do in a given situation. I don't know if it's because I feel unqualified based on the sheer number of screw-ups I've had in my life or if I don't want to be the one to blame if things don't go well.
• Knowing when to end a blog post.