Today's blog features my daughter, Michaela. She is one of my favorite topics of conversation because of her uncanny ability to be true to herself. Depending on the circumstances, sometimes her true self is dead center of the mainstream, and sometimes it's in a field almost out of sight of the stream.
Last week presented just such an occasion. She started her sophomore year at UF, and one of her classes is a Leadership seminar composed of 20 other sophomores. The instructor asked everyone to write about what their favorite animal is and why. Michaela, telling us this via Facetime last night, said she finished in, like, a minute, and noticed everyone else was still writing for a long time. She considered adding to hers, but couldn't think of anything more.
Finally the instructor invited everyone to share what they wrote. Michaela said the other kids had very impressive and sometimes deep-sounding reasons for their favorite animal. They involved childhood memories of parents or grandparents, or the qualities of that animal, and so on.
They get to Michaela, and she says, "My favorite animal is the reindeer, because in my senior year of high school I found out they really exist. I just thought that was really neat, and I wanted to kinda spread the word to anyone else who was like me and didn't know. [pause] Thank you."
THEN the instructor proceeded to tell the class how a person's favorite animal can usually tell you a lot about that person. All heads swung toward Michaela. So, the other thing I really love about her is her ability to make a very memorable first impression in most group situations.
I used to be a lot like that. It's very liberating to train everyone around you to expect the unexpected from you, so that you don't have to work to hard to fit in. But eventually I was required to learn how to behave like an adult, so now I have my fun in a more orderly and controlled fashion.
My "Michaela Moment" (to coin a phrase) occurred at a Toastmasters meeting a few weeks ago. It's standard practice to fill out a quick little form that the toastmaster (emcee of the meeting) will use to introduce you, should you have a speech or other formal speaking role that day. Things like, how long you've been with toastmasters, favorite thing about it, and something interesting others don't know about you.
For that last item, "Something interesting that people don't know about me:", I wrote, "I have a 12-pound chiweenie." Then I sat back and waited.
When it was my turn to speak, the toastmaster read from my introduction sheet. There was a bit of stunned silence when she informed the group of my 12-pound chiweenie. I looked around and spotted two women looking wide-eyed at each other, so I said in an admonishing tone, "It's a dog. What were you thinking?" [pause] "Thank you."
