#demskills

The concept recurred when I was reading through the requirements of an essay later that year: “maximum 2,000 words.” Although its primary cause is probably to preserve the sanity of the teacher and ensure the quality of writing, my mind drifted back to the idea. It made sense, especially as the subject was to prepare us for uni and the bigger world, one where a person had to be self-motivated, fueled by their own ideals and beliefs. In the professional world, nobody wanted someone who had to change “can’t”s to “can not”s in order to drag themselves over the minimum effort line, and the lack of a lower word limit reflected that.

The idea resurfaced yet again earlier this year, when our school sent out a notice of the upcoming TEDx Youth event themed “Vision 2020” hosted at our auditorium, encouraging performers, musicians and most importantly, speakers, to take to the stage. Seeing as I didn’t have an ounce of talent, musical or otherwise, I was more inclined to becoming a speaker. I thought about speech ideas for quite a while then, looking at TED talks, at current events, even at Carmine Gallo’s book, “Talk Like TED” I got a year or so ago. Its table of contents looked a little like this:

Unleash the Master Within

Master the Art of Storytelling

Have a Conversation

Teach Me Something New

Deliver Jaw-Dropping Moments

Lighten Up

Stick to the 18-Minute Rule

Paint a Mental Picture with Multisensory Experiences

Stay in Your Lane

Of this table of contents, the boldened words stuck out to me. Through semesters of Spanish speaking and that Grade 6 autobiography unit in English, it was no mystery how bland my life seemed to be, or how little I managed to capture even of that. Each question in those units had me flipping my mental cabinets inside out, searching for the smallest nugget, the most minute anecdote that was worthy of mention at all. It was clear that I had no story to tell, or by the very least, didn’t know how to look for one.

As for specialities, the utter normalcy of my life seems to magnify by a thousandfold outside of school. The talents my friends possess range from:

Instrument playing/ singing/ outright just opera,

Web design and programming in general,

Badminton/ volleyball/ track and field/ swimming,

Sailing,

Arts, design and calligraphy,

Theatre/ performance,

Rainbow Six Seige (though he’s taking a 6-year hiatus to focus on studies, started the 2nd of April),

And many more extracurriculars I just probably don’t know about because the legends don’t even need to flex about their talents,

and then there’s me. I like Math and Science, but... that’s basically it. I have no lane to stick to, much less anything new to teach.

Although the truth hit me like a baseball bat to the left pinky, I still tried to think of ideas, at one point deciding whether to resort to making a talk narrating the process of finding a topic to talk about. The event is scheduled for the 1st of June, and I haven’t signed up yet, so I suppose the most I’ll be involved in the event would probably be as an audience (if the event is still going on, with all the COVID-19 stuff).

However, the whole experience wasn’t just the baseball bat to the left pinky. Looking at the life I lead, barely finding anything of note to bring up when icebreaking with strangers or planning for speeches, I decided to take a proactive approach. This could all be me cooped up from the quarantine talking, but I’ve got a few project ideas in mind, plans to spice up and add a twist to my state of normalcy. Goals, in no particular order:

Learning:

The NATO phonetic alphabet (alpha bravo charlie)

International phonetic alphabet (the Greek and Latin letters that show up indicating pronunciation in dictionaries)

Morse code (yes there is a cryptography/ linguistics theme here)

The 88 IAU official constellation shapes, names and literal translations (astronomy not astrology)

Talents:   

How to crack open eggs with one hand (because that’s cool)

How to spin a book  (because that’s cool)

How to lockpick  (because that’s cool please don’t flag me thx)

How to play polyrhythms

How to juggle

How to type using an alternative keyboard scheme (DVORAK anyone?)

Improving:

My knifework

My typing speed

I realize that this is a pretty long list with activities that could last beyond my college years, but I suppose I get to dream big, especially with a goal to make my life more interesting. Passerbys feel free to critique, judge, contribute, or copy.

I’m not gonna pretend I came up with this idea (because that’s probably how I sounded before the list). JaidenAnimations had a project in the past where she reviewed all the different varieties of apples at her local supermarket, and Mike Boyd has a major part of his channel dedicated to learning things. (Heck, he’s even got a “5 skills to learn while under quarantine lockdown” video). This idea probably wouldn’t have occurred as fast to me if not for them though I suppose the thought rather naturally came while I was starting a bucket list.