ending words with a zed.

as of recent, i've found myself doing things that i'd be far too lazy to do before. or perhaps too terrified. it may be some new found inner working or perhaps just being around shanise or maybe something different altogether, but it certainly is something.

one of these examples is improvisational comedy. for those of you unaware, back in my high school days i had the chance to take part in an improv troop at my high school. twas a fun venture that was quite fun while it lasted. at least for me. maybe not for everyone else, but they can write their own blog entries...

so last weekend shanise and i went to a local improv show by comedy sportz. (note: sportz, not sports. thus making it funny, or unusual.) i always loved doing improv back in the day. maybe it's the fact that i became lazy or whatever else, or maybe a busier schedule, but when i came to college and didn't find a troupe to join readily available i just didn't bother with it anymore. and now, for whatever reason, it's been five years since i've done any improv (outside of a myster dinner i did last year). but watching this show somehow awakened my love for the stuff, and i'm now signed up for their workshops. on one hand, it'll be fun just because it's a place to just play around doing improv. more importantly, though, is that the way they do 'auditions' for the proper troupe is seeing how they like you during said workshops and then, if you make the cut, inviting you to keep going and so on.

so we'll see what happens. i'm going in with the intention to try to get in since otherwise it seems a little silly to just go to workshops, dig? but at the end of the day, whether or not i do get in it should be a good time. we'll see. we'll see...

quando quando quando.

"do one thing everyday that scares you."
-eleanor roosevelt

in other words, you should be going out of your way to do frightening things everyday. i think eleanor was on to something. as of recent, i've been trying to implement this little gem. in lots of ways.

we'll assume that 'to scare' can be defined as instilling fear. the merriam-webster dictionary defines fear as "an unpleasant, often strong, emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger." danger is defined by the same source as "exposure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss." therefore, in order to fulfill this advice, i need to do something that the excites anticipation or awareness of potential injury, pain, harm, or loss. when i map it out like that, it's not so hard.

using the preceding as our jumping point, if i do one of the following things a day, then i'll be following eleanor's words of wisdom.

• correcting people.
  
• cooking something that i'm not experienced at cooking.
  
• doing most anything in front of large crowds.
• doing things i've claimed to be good at.
  
• submitting applications.
• participating in competitions.
• dancing.
• looking down from heights.
• trying particularly foreign foods.
  
• giving presentations.
• showing people personal works (music, writing, etc).
• going into particularly dark places.

now, of course there are many things on this list where saying they scare me is a bit of a stretch whereas others are a bit more unnerving. eating a somewhat frightening foreign food is nothing close to looking down from heights. and heights aren't near what other things may be. however, everything on that list at the very least make me uncomfortable. and at that, many of them are things are things i do pretty often, and even enjoy doing. again, foreign foods are always fun. they still can make me a bit uncomfortable. that's the whole point, though.

it is my belief that eleanor advised this because we're simply a big bunch of sissies in far too many ways. indeed, i am often nothing but a big sissy. and how does one cure one's self of sissiness? by making his or her sissy self face the music. eat a bug, sing to a crowd, and go cliff diving.

and so i shall. sooner or later.