Skyespace

First Blog, First Impressions

I have no idea what I'm doing here. I'll admit it. Posting a blog seems such a responsibility. What to say? When to update? How to phrase it? When to use the impressive vocabulary words archived through years of receiving Webster's "word of the day" e-mails?

The pressure is almost unbearable but I will press on, friends. The contents of my head are currently spilling out on to the unused pages in my Franklin day planner, the backs of fast food napkins, and strips of yellow legal pads, stashed in my desk drawers. If anyone should wonder, they're filed under "Misc." I hope no one goes looking for the Thai food menus in that drawer. So, I figure since I waste so much time in front of a keyboard anyway, I might as well spend some of it organizing and posting these tidbits on the web for all to enjoy (or ignore).

I got an interesting e-mail today. You may recall that a few months back, I attended a "management seminar" in Newport News, Virginia which, I am convinced, is the armpit of the U.S. Hot and smelly and lots of frizzy hairs. At any rate, during one particularly obnoxious "exercise," we were made to write down positive first impressions of everyone we met. I glanced around the U-shaped conference table and had to repress the urge to write "bad teeth" as my first impression for half the people in the room. It seemed that a good deal of the locals were in dire need of an orthodontic overhaul. I didn't drink any tap water the entire time I was there for fear that was the source of the problem.

Keeping with the directive to keep the communications positive, I struggled and strained to eke out a descriptive phrase for these people, many of whom I didn't even speak to. (Didn't want to see those chompers in action).

The lists of impressions were collected by the Shared Accounting Manager and then (nearly six months later!) sent on to all of the conference attendees. Here are other peoples' first impression of yours truly:

*Friendly; communicative
*Fun
*Friendly
*Cut up
*Comedian
*Humorous
*Likes to cut up
*Funny
*Beautiful curls! (I had really short hair at the time?)
*Fun
*Cut up; witty
*Fun
*Great sense of humor (SO true...)
*Sweet
*I love the name, its pleasant much like her personality (aww, shucks!)
*Funny; cute; down to earth
*Comic relief
*Funny
*Funny (Sensing a pattern here...)
*Sweet (How original)
*Fun
*Very articulate
*Outspoken
*Good laughter (Is English this person's first language?)

So now here I sit, kicking myself (can you picture it?) for even trying to be at all articulate or original. I should have just saved myself the time and worked up the following list:

Sally - nice
Jean - sweet
Mary -funny
Bob - nice

Why do I even bother?