Tuesday Won; Wednesday, You’re Mine

smelled bad yesterday. My water smelled bad. I should have taken that as a bad omen and gone back to bed. But I didn’t.

I went to talk to the newspaper staff at a local elementary school, and it was nothing shy of a train wreck.

Note: The kids were perfect. They were attentive and well behaved and not threatened-with-their-life-because-there-is-a-visitor well behaved. They were just adorable kids who seemed genuinely interested in journalism.

No, the train wreck was all me.

I decided to go with the speech about how “Journalism is changing and now you have to do video and Facebook”  that I’ve heard a hundred times. Shoot, I’ve even given that speech before. I was a teaching assistant in college and spoke to numerous classes.

No big deal, right? Wrong.

I was doing good—history of journalism, Q&A, what Patch is. Then, I sort of just freaked. I get nervous in front of kids. They can smell fear, you know. I was trying to go by my notes, but it just kept getting worse and worse. The notes said, “Talk about radio and TV news developments in comparison to the changes brought on by the development of the Internet.”

What I said was, “Who likes Lady Gaga?”

Lady Gaga? Really? The parents are going to really love that. I don't even like Lady Gaga. 

Now, I said this yesterday and maybe if I write it enough, I’ll start to follow my own advice.

If you’re doing something and you think the answer is to keep talking until it makes sense again—stop. That is the wrong answer. More talking is not—nor will it ever be—the right answer.

But I didn’t. I kept thinking, “Jessie, why are you saying that? That’s not what the notes say. Stop! Stop!” while my mouth asked the kid who liked magic if he had ever seen How I Met Your Mother.

Fabulous. Parents are going to love that, too.

Why don’t you go tell them about drugs and smoking while you’re at it?

Then they wanted to talk about video games. The last and only time I ever played a video game was in seventh grade when I would race cars in Grand Theft Auto, the first one, with my cousin and his friend who I had a crush on for years and years. The only thing I could remember was picking up prostitutes in the game. While I did mention Grand Theft Auto (and thankfully they already knew about the game), I managed to not mention the prostitutes.

Students-3, Jessie-1.

At the very end, a kid pulled out a copy of The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Why couldn’t he have brought that out first? I know that book. I loved that book. I had a gerbil that I tried to get to ride a little Hotwheels motorcycle after I read that book. But no, that was in the closing remarks.

So, other than the obvious lesson of “don’t invite Jessie to talk to your kids,” I don’t suppose there’s much to learn from this. 

I still have no idea where the smelly water came from. I don’t know how to talk to kids.

This is a terribly uneventful week. The parade is Saturday and a slew of Christmas events follow, but I guess everyone is just gearing up this week.

We signed up two new bloggers yesterday, but always want more. I’m headed out to an aquarium store today to do an interview followed by one at the Holdheidi school. Check out those videos later.

I want photos of Georgia (or LSU) stuff from around here for a photo gallery this weekend. Send them, please? If not, I’ll just go around taking photos of your flags and tags and stuff. Still, I’d rather have bulldog photos.

Stay warm. No snow today but still chilly winds.