Mercy Rules Are Stupid

I was reading about that one Coach McGill whose team won by over a 100 points in some girl's basketball game. I was shocked by the spread in points, but even more shocked by the scorn that he'd received. What the hell was that all about? Because he didn't do all he could to make sure his team scored less points than they did now he's some kind of bad guy?



So, did his team do too well, or did the other team simply not try as hard as they could have? Where's the motivation in getting kids to step up and perform if they know that the other team may beat them, but not by that much? Okay, so you lost, but they only beat you by 20 points rather than 100. That's our mentality?



"Too many people in the world right now allow the youth to not be as good as they can be, allow them to be lazy," said McGill. "Here, I'm giving them an opportunity to live up to the best of their abilities and be proud of what they're able to accomplish. If that's what I'm being blamed for, then OK, I accept it."



It would be nice if more coaches approached sports with this philosophy. Why isn't it okay to be the best, play your best at all cost? Isn't that what the spirit of competition is all about? Imagine yourself in a singing competition and the first person up really sucked. Are you going to go onto that stage and downplay your talent just so that your points aren't too far above the untalented? Of course not! That's just asinine. I wouldn't do it, and I certainly wouldn't ask my daughter to either.



So Coach McGill had a small team, talented but small. Was he supposed to have his team toss the basketball back and forth, keep the ball away from the other team and let the time elapse rather than continue to score? That's worse. If you don't want to get humiliated, play your best and hope you don't get pummelled by a better team...or better yet, don't play sports! Not everyone is cut out for it, but if you want to play, I think you should strive to be better than you are, not worse so that you don't hurt other people's feelings.



According to Cameron Smith, "That commitment to excellence comes at a cost. In this case, it was the ego of teenage girls that was affected by the effective implementation of McGill's personal philosophy. Given that West Ridge is a school for at-risk youth, those egos in question may be even more fragile than most."



Really? So we care about egos of at-risk young girls, and so the answer is to not play hard to win...we should downplay our abilities so that they never realize how bad they really are or how good the other team really is? We are not supposed to be stroking the egos of our youth or coddling them, we are supposed to be building confidence and promoting teamwork. You do that by making them strive as a team and when they are defeated as a team, they will learn how much work they must accomplish to compete next time. You don't accomplish that by asking your children not to do their best in certain conditions, like when the other team is "really" losing.



Give them a chance to catch up? And if they are "at-risk" and their egos are more "fragile" cut them even more slack because we don't want them to be upset. Really? How about teach them the spirit of competition, which isn't about winning or losing as much as it is about learning to cope with the agony of defeat as well as learning to humbly accept the thrill of victory.


Coaches and teachers should do their best and make our youth better by teaching them the skills they need to play better. Don't rely on these stupid mercy rules to preserve the youth egos. Children are resilient, they will learn and bounce back. Seriously, I think these rules are more in place to help repair egos of the coaching staff.



I'm reminded of The Breakfast Club when Andrew mocks his father, "Andrew! You've got to be number one! I won't tolerate any losers in this family! Your intensity is for shit! Win! Win! Win!" I'm not saying that we should push our youth to be the best at all cost, but they shouldn't be asked to give up the fruits of their labor, which is the euphoria in winning from playing their best. Anything less than that is diminishing their self worth. Humility in winning is taught when the game is over, not during the game.

Top 10 Ideas That Are Teh Ghey

10. Approving budgets that include a 50% boost in executive salaries and 0 dollars toward marketing strategies. BP is experiencing the reverse of this right now.



9. Logging into a server where everyone can crack a cheat and level up to the max to see who haz the better skillz. What's the point in experiencing the journey, right?



8. Making Snookie a super star. Why is it so hard to ignore stupid people? We want to make them famous instead. The quickest way to get money back into the economy is to make stupid people rich right? Well, they're the only ones spending money and there's less of them, so that theory isn't smart. Why are they the only ones spending money? BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS AT HOME, WATCHING THEIR STUPID SHOWS AND ADDING TO THE RATINGS THAT ARE MAKING STUPID PEOPLE FAMOUS!!!



7. Giving military discounts to ACTIVE DUTY ONLY personnel. Really? Are you going to turn down a double amputee in a wheel chair who fought in WWII just because his military I.D. reads "retired"? Please tell me you didn't just give that discount to a woman who is separated from her active duty husband (and refuses to get a divorce so that she can secure that active duty military I.D. card) and said husband has managed to avoid combat for the past 10 years despite America having been involved in two major wars!



6. Marriage is just a piece of paper. Really? It's funny what a piece of paper can do. My friend cheated on her husband, never worked a day in her life, took half of everything they owned AND took half of his military pension. Strong piece of paper I'd say.


5. Love is blind. No it's not. Life is just more tolerable when you have someone else with whom to share it. Only 5% of the population is attractive. The rest of us know our flaws. Love is accepting each other's flaws and being grateful that we're each willing to spend our lives together despite them. It's not like we look at each other and see Ken and Barbie! You don't love someone so much that you overlook his or her huge honker of a nose and see a pretty little button one instead, okay.



4. Composing a song that literally spells out something...think "Y.M.C.A." and "Living in the c-i-t-y". Seriously?



3. Donnie and Marie.



2. No need to learn spelling rules. We have spell-check in our word processing software. Okay, than tell me why their are mistakes in this hear sentence that will not be picked up by you're spellchecker.



1. The early bird gets the worm. So? We are not birds and I do not particularly like worms, raw or cooked. Now leave me alone and let me get back to sleep!


Signed,
Teh Ghey Analyst - Why? Because posting a Top 10 list is pretty teh ghey in and of itself. :)

Finalizing My Plot

I've been working on a plot for my novel for the past 4 months and I'm now coming to a final summary and what I believe to be something very workable. Why has this taken me 4 months? Because, I’ve read 4 or 5 books now to try and help me in getting started with my first novel. I hope those authors enjoy the royalties from my purchase. Here’s more of a comprehensive idea of how I discovered what works for me.

How many times do we consider a story in our heads and think we'll just put it down on paper? I do it all the time with short stories. My biggest problem when I start putting my story on paper is that I realize that two dimensional characters are really difficult to work with when writing down a story where you are just explaining this happened, and then this, and then, well...this happened. Not really like that, but pretty close. It's rather painful. When self-help books for writers say to just sit down and start writing, this is what happens.

So then I stopped writing the story. Now I had to consider why someone would do this or that and why another character would react in the way I described in my story. Aren't I being a bit selfish as a storyteller at this point? I'm not giving any consideration to my characters at all, just making them do things that maybe they feel like they wouldn't EVER in a million years respond the way I described. How did I come to realize this though? Enter my 16 year old daughter.

I'm telling her about this story and the interaction between two of my characters and she goes, "The hell? If I were that chick, I wouldn't just sit there and not say anything about her boyfriend being out with another girl the night before, no way! I'd let him have it right then and there."

Okay, so now, two months into my story I have a dilemma, right? How do I fix this situation in my story so that the reader believes the situations? How do I make my scenes realistic to anyone reading my novel? Sure, my daughter wouldn’t react that way, but not everyone is my daughter. Her friend Jenna wouldn't react that way either, but Jenna would respond in a completely different way than my daughter as well as my fictional character. So now what? So now I have to make my characters believable. I have to give them more depth. Back to the drawing board.

Now I have Lenny and Emma. And being that they are fleshed out to be their own persons, I can have them communicate with each other in manners that are completely within their characters and the reader will not put themselves in the place of either character, but can move along the story beside them. Not a major hurdle, but I'm getting somewhere at least.

Now, onto plot. I have my story started, my believable characters, both whom I love dearly at this point. Dammit, writer's block! These are two complete different people here. How is it that they are friends to begin with? What happened to my story? It doesn’t work anymore.

Month 3 - depression, work slows to a standstill, fiction writing class is ending. Time for Christmas shopping, planning events and so on. It's a good thing I didn't have any time for writing. This whole time I'm thinking about the fact that I have no story to create for these two completely different people that are swimming around in my head. Back to the drawing board. :(

Month 4 - brilliance! Both characters will have parallel journeys! One, a journey toward a blossoming relationship with her mother, the other toward the discovery of turmoil in a relationship with her fiancé. The journeys will give me that chance to give them the depth and characterization that I need for my plot to work!

I guess 4 months of trying to figure this out has led me to a more confident and positive approach to story compilation. Call me a newbie, but I'd rather learn as I go than to create something that in the end leaves my reader going, "Huh? So what's the point?" or maybe even putting down the book before finishing the first chapter.

How do you discover your final plot? Do you discover it or do you start out knowing exactly what's going to happen?

Time is NOT Money

This year during the Holidays, I put forth some of my time to help with one of the local Toys For Tots charity events. It was the first year that I attended all of the committee meetings for the annual pig-picking drive for toys. I cannot tell you how much my heart has grown this Holiday season and I believe it is because of this experience that I had.

Not only did we provide food, drinks and entertainment for over 900 guests participating in the drive for more toys, we also helped gather donations and toys for over 1300 families. The amazing part of this whole effort is that we worked side by side with work-release prisoners, categorizing toys and bagging in masses for families throughout the local community. I hoped that the other workers were also experiencing this feeling of euphoria.

It was tedious work, but after the third and fourth bag that I compiled for families with 2 to 3 children of varying ages, I felt like I was the one giving these toys to the families. I carefully chose each stuffed animal, each of the two stocking stuffers per child, each game, book and toy for the appropriate age groups.

As I was stuffing these bags, I became overwhelmed as I imagined the look of surprise on the children's faces Christmas morning. The gift I was giving was only of my time, but I was the one who received the biggest gift of all, this enormous gift of feeling worthy and good.

If you have the opportunity to join a group that works for the betterment of your community or for those less fortunate than you, I strongly urge you to participate. It has helped me understand the difference between obligation and just plain goodwill.


Happy Holidays!

P.S. I didn't get to keep Clyde, but here's a picture of us bonding after a very long day.
 



Reflection: What is Sanity?

I hardly ever think about theme when I'm writing a story. When I start out with a character, I have no idea what that character is going to do. The story eventually comes to me but I'm about three or four paragraphs into it when that happens.

I'll then realize that I'm making something of a big deal about this character, whether it's a good deal or bad one. Then I become attached to the character and want to do more with him or her. I want them to do great things or I want to sacrifice them in some way. Then I start compiling ideas on how I can make the story mean something more than just being about this character I developed.

I look at theme as an overall mood that is reflected in the process of building your story. I can go hours with doing nothing but think to myself. My husband will ask what I'm thinking about and I have to tell him that I cannot possibly relay to him what I'm thinking because then I'd have to go through the painstaking process of explaining the thousand thoughts that led me to my current thought.

That's what I feel about themes. What you have is just a process of all things leading up to where you are in the end, or when someone stops you and asks you that question, "What are you thinking?" It's the same as asking, "So, what's the theme?"

I write so that I don't have to explain my thoughts, I can just say go back and read what I wrote because I can't tell you what I'm thinking now, let alone what I was thinking when I wrote what I did. It will just frustrate me!

Writing keeps me sane. That's always going to be my theme then, "What is Sanity?" It's in my writing, can't you see it?