My friend told me that if you visualize yourself doing something enough, you can acquire that skill. It's in her education psychology textbook so it must be true, right? Naturally, my roommate and I made a list of all the skills we plan on acquiring using this method. (Megan and I obviously have very different ideas of constitutes a skill and what constitutes an activity... singing vs. flower arranging... telekinesis vs. bartending.) Nevertheless, if I keep to my visualizing exercises, I should be singing, dancing, and eating fire on Broadway as a cover for my secret life as a mafia boss by this time next year.
The television show Friends has become a staple for my friends and me. We've gotten through four seasons just since Christmas. It has been decided that I am, undoubtedly, Phoebe--that's P as in Phoebe, Has in Hoebe, O as in Oebe, E as in ebe, B as in Bebe and E as in "'Ello, Mate!" I'm always ready with a ridiculous answer or a brilliant analogy that people eventually come to understand (lobsters... they mate for life).
There was this one episode where Phoebe discovers that Old Yeller actually dies at the end of the movie. Every movie she watches for the next few days end up having a terribly depressing ending--"Pride of the Yankees? The guy gets Lou Gehrig's disease!"--so Monica gives her It's a Wonderful Life, figuring that it will cheer her up. Phoebe doesn't have the patience to finish the movie because it gets worse before it gets better. IMPORTANT LESSON HERE FOR SARAH. Patience and practice makes perfect. Sometimes, you have to sit through crappy things before you realize how much you love Donna Reed. I need a little more patience in my dancing, with my parents, my friends, my typing skills, everything. I guess we all do. Thank goodness we have someone as funny as Phoebe to show us that. In the mean time, while we are practicing our patience, we can visualize perfect pirouettes until they happen!
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The strength to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.
-Reinhold Neibuhr
Wolfpack goes to Swan Lake.
Thanks Birthday Fairy Godmother!
