Wandering down memory lane..

As I've mentioned, last week I had the opportunity to spend two days in my old secondary school.  A place where memories live of the times I was carefree, a massive swat, and perhaps the best days of my life.

Immediately walking down the corridors I could see the old gang sat in the library over lunchtimes, standing under the alcove at break times, the times we queued for lunch and the classrooms we spent countless hours in.  What's more of a shock was the old teachers.  Each looking like 6 years had never passed aside from their hair tinted with grey and their faces ever more lined.

But the old mixes with the new and as I walked around the old corridors, there'd been significant changes.  The school almost reflected the years I'd spent when I was away from there.  It's matured, changed, it's developed and it's got more serious.  Gone are the days of the sport of taunting teachers until they broke down, gone are the days of tantrums and throwing chairs, swapping naked pictures over bluetooth and hiding from the teachers behind rows of heads.  Hello was the fresh clean yellow look of the new logo, not a phone in sight, group tables and after school detentions handed out without a second thought.

Minecraft Project #1: Home Town

I've decided to dedicate my life at present, not to learning a new language or discover my forte but to spend it in front of a computer screen.

It's true.  I have sunk from geek to impossible geek who would rather spend time in a world of blocks than have a social life it appears.

And the product of this?  I've had the epiphany to build my town block for block.  And all from scratch and in the middle of the ocean.  Starting with an area of town that has recently been abolished for residential housing.  But this is the start of my project:-

Forte #3: Flying a Kite

Attempts for my forte have dried up as of recent (been quite exhausted to try anything new!).

However, today my boyfriend suggested finding my forte by playing Minecraft.

Now I'm not too sure what this involves but I'm assuming it means being creative, designing and trying to be innovative with what god has given me - well what the game has....

So I'm going to give that a go and see how it goes but for now my forte #3 though was flying a kite.

I failed so bad.

It was in the air for half a minute before it crashed.  To be honest I was scared at the sheer force that the wind had over it and was just trying my hardest not to let it go...

Needless to say my boyfriend managed to cope with this superbly....

What a show off.
At least I wasn't that shabby at launching it for him...does that count? *hopeful*


Forte Progress thus far:-
Karaoke
Drawing
Kite flying
Minecraft?

Any other suggestions please let me know!

Forte #2: Drawing

It's been about a week or so since I've reported to you on how my finding my 'forte' is going.  And it's going pretty abysmally!

The newest thing I decided to embark upon was drawing.  Sounds easy but really isn't.  I haven't picked up a pencil (and I mean literally picked up a pencil) since the days of Art at GCSE.  So on the morning of the 7th February I marched down town and got myself a sketchbook and new set of sketching pencils (I felt that I might as well start a-fresh).

Here's the result:-

My First Drawing: Coffee Table

Second Drawing: Attempt to draw my favourite childhood toy from recollection. (Actually not too bad in my opinion apart from the rubbish foot...)

Third drawing: Vase

The Boy's Living Room

Conclusion - need a lot more work? And certainly not going to get Picasso spinning in his grave for any good reason any time soon...
However, despite this I have found a new hobby - really interested in trying to develop this now I've bought the tools.  So maybe you'll be seeing more (and steadily less) disastrous results in the future :)

Forte Trial #1: Karaoke

This morning (admittedly it was at 10.30am) I decided to try karaoke.
This didn't go down too well as everyone in the house turned up to wonder what was going on.
The karaoke thingy even said I was tone deaf.

I think we can safely say that my forte is definitely not singing...(or at least this is so early in the morning sans alcohol and using karaoke to gauge it).  Then again it has already been tried and tested on Halloween to a whole pub with alcohol.  Result: Emptied the entire bar.  Even the people who put it on gave me a t-shirt for trying my best...(secretly I'm guessing they were trying to get rid of me...).

Should Everyone Have A Forte?

When you look around you, everyone seems to have a particular strength.  You see actors that have perfect comedy delivery or ability to move an audience with just one look (a recent example being the actor playing Stephen in the BBC dramatisation of 'Birdsong').  You hear note perfect singers and exceptional songwriters.  You read moving books written by authors that have a way with words.  Even in your family you can see the mother that has a way with baking, the brother with an eye for numbers and a father with never-ending patience. But can you really tell what your own strength is?

Surely going by my first few examples it's obviously something you make money from or benefit from.  However, when I think of my jobs of working as a shelving assistant, a receptionist and a note-taking, are my strengths really as easy as an eye for detail and customer service?  And anyway these really aren't career paths of my natural choice.

So the next thing to look at is my educational background.  I have a degree in Psychology, but then I really don't have a scientific mind particularly when there is a need for statistics.  I've also been told I'm not very original (just look at my dissertation/English Language A-Level coursework).

Looking further back to school reports I was always considered strongest at English and my creative writing.  However my grades in English and English Language at A-Level beg to differ and a certain member of the Open University particularly criticised the way I wrote creatively.

In my own opinion I was always amazed by my exceptional memory, but this seems to have disintegrated over time.  I always thought my writing was pretty good but then see above.

So what am I good at?

I figured that maybe I could try and work it out and report back on here.  I think I'll try several different things from drawing/singing/playing an instrument/speaking a different language etc etc to see if I do actually have a forte...wish me luck.