I grew up with the local Art Center as my Latch Key facility. Weekend activities where art classes, ones I took or one's my parents were teaching. In the summers, when we weren't creating something, we could be found participating in something on the Native American reservation or in the vegetable garden with my mom or out chopping down trees for our winter firewood. I was exposed to so many different forms of art, creativity, and cultures by the time 13! I was lucky.
I also played with algebra, experimented with numbers and wondered how equations were made, then solved. I'll admit they weren't hard problems by any means, but I had a very basic understand of how to "solve for X". I also loved story problems. I was fascinated how they all went together and solved for something at the end. Don't get me wrong, I hated doing the ones my teacher gave me... Those were like, hard!!!
But, I never could spell. Oh how everyone tried... EVERY ONE! The teachers. My parents. The tutors. I would spend HOURS on different techniques all in an attempt to master that elusive skill "Spelling" ... Yeah, never got it. (I'm sure that if you follow this blog, you're not at all surprised!) In high school, it was common practice for me to yell a random word throughout the house to have my mom respond with the correct way to spell it. Through college, my housemate and I repeated that same exercise. (Yes, it did catch some people off balance when they experienced it.) Hell, even currently it happens in our household. Except now, besides Totally Joyful responding, my 14 yr old step-daughter replies too.
Today's society puts a strong emphasis on spelling or grammar. There are memes all over social media complaining about how Wrong it is... (And here I am excited when I accidently get a big word right!) Society almost completely judges a person's intelligence by how well they can put letters together or do math or science. These skills seem to be the only ones that matter. I've had people judge me for my lack of spelling prowess. It kind of hurt... And that's ok, I know I'm damn good at things they have no clue about, like discovering patterns within occurrences or deeper understand human reactions.
I recently heard a podcast talk about "Being Unique". They explained spelling and why that's not quirky nor fun nor filled with personality. It's because the public likes when things aren't perfect, they like when there is a realness to it, but, they do not like it when something is broken. Spelling is a word that is broken. A broken collection of letters. Kind of an interesting way to look at my nemesis.
I guess...
Feel free to judge my professionalism on how well I put letters together. Judge that person's post by the spelling, don't bother to look past it to the meaning of their statement. By all means, let our problem get in the way of you enjoying your day....
Or, know that it is not our intention to mess up. Truly, our intention is only to open our souls and share our life with you...
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