Writing Styles: A Personal Blog

I paused my entries to consider my focus with this particular blog and have decided that since this blog is a branch of my “author” website, I’m going to stay focused on my writing journey and promoting my upcoming book publications with this blog. My job on teaching, childcare, and family will host entries on those themes and you can always catch up with me there. https://www.tsladventures.net/blog

I returned to the writing scene with huge ambition after not having picked up a “pen” in eleven years. I have been writing since I was thirteen. I wrote my first book in a five-subject notebook, which I still have today. I was schooled in English in the ninth grade by a well-respected teacher and author, Daniel Hayes, and this inspired me further. Through college and my decade-plus teaching career I wrote multiple manuscripts, queried agents, saw the good, bad, and ugly with snake oil agents, and editors, won a short story competition, published multiple local articles in magazines, and tried my hand at vanity publishing with my middle grade novel Racing the Rope when print-on-demand technology was just emerging. I have read a lot, and researched a lot.

Then came my childcare business, TSL Adventures, and as I developed this passion, I let my writing go. I was also raising kids so it was a busy time. I feel like I have accomplished many more goals with this business than I ever planned. This coupled with life changes, inspired me to get back in the writing game.

I have spent these last two years developing two manuscripts, both with series potential at a time when self-publication and the business development of writing centered around this modality has amazing potential. I’m excited now to be assembling a team of people to work with to get my writing fully realized and appropriately marketed. What’s more, It has been amazing to see how the eleven-year pause has changed my perceptions on who I am as a writer and what kinds of projects I want to invest in.

As my journey continues I look forward to reflecting on the past, present, and future dreams in the industry. I hope even as the best of this is still emerging that I can inspire as I aspire. I know there are a lot of gifted people out there, hoping to make their dreams come true. We’re all in this together so stay true and follow through!

I ventured down to New York City today from upstate today. This is a typical fall trip and first off, it was amazing being free from the vices of covid while in the city. Last time I went we had to show proof of vaccination to get in anywhere and a year later it was like covid never existed.

My thoughts quickly turned from covid to the merchandise hustlers as we traversed the streets and park. I don’t know if “hustler” is the right term, but I’m not sure how else to refer to these multitude of people that independently offer jewelry, compact discs of their latest recordings, prayer cards, and a host of other DIY merchandise to unsuspecting tourists. I say “offer” because they aren’t “selling” this merchandise, per-say. They are sticking merchandise into your stomach as you pass by, leaving you little choice but to grab it, then forcing you to pay for it, the whole time smiling and pretending you are friends.

I have found this practice to be quite common no matter where I seem to be in the world. In Costa Rica it was jewelry and massages. (Yes, they come up to you while you are relaxing on the beach and try to get you to come under the shade of a tree beyond the sands to have a massage). In Greece it was flowers. In Italy it was homemade jewelry that looked to have a one-week shelf life. In Paris you have to deal with the gypsies. In New Orleans I was actually blocked from moving as one of these people knelt down in front of me and shined my five-year old pair of sneakers for thirty seconds while I stood helpless to move. Then after when I placed five dollars in his outstretched hand, he cursed at me, and I honestly thought he was going to attack me as he demanded more money.

On another occasion my wife and I answered the call to have our children sketched by a street artist in NYC. Why not? The sign said $15. Not a bad deal. So we had the kids sit and waited while he sketched a beautiful portrait, then subsequently demanded $75. Of course, my wife fought him off and ultimately gave him half that amount, but it was yet another lesson learned.

The issue I have found isn’t necessarily that there are hustlers trying to make jewelry, shine shoes, sketch portraits, or sell their basement-made cd’s (Yes, cd’s still exist). The issue more often is that they offer a product or service with no price tag, but then often turn menacing if you don’t meet some unknown payment quota.

At the end of the day, the smartest move for a tourist to make when traveling the streets of any city is try not to look like a tourist, keep your hands in your pockets, look straight ahead as you explore, and if someone approaches you don’t indulge them. Don’t look them in the eyes, don’t smile, don’t talk to them, and keep it moving. They’ll move on to the next target soon after. Oh, and keep your wallet and phone in your front pockets, not your back pockets.

Finally, if someone blocks your path and starts shining your shoes, if those shoes are five years old, it’s probably best to slip out of them during the shine and run as fast as you can barefooted to get away.

It’s amazing to think of how little we know ourselves. That cliché expression about living life in hindsight just means that at any given time we don’t know as much about life as we thought, and we don’t fully know ourselves. Why? Because everyday new secrets are revealed that we had not previously known about…pretty much everything, including the essence of who were are.

I don’t know if people change over time as some believe. I think people only discover new things about themselves and put the pieces together about who they were all along and then relish in those new epiphanies. And just when you thought you had a finger on yourself, you discover even more.

So, do we change over time, or is it simply an organic transition from what was not known, to what is now known? Is there a difference?

When I was twenty-two I entered the teaching profession as a square peg, but I never knew I was a square peg with regards to my philosophies on children or education. I didn’t even know what my philosophy was, though when someone asks you at twenty-two what your philosophy of education is, you come up with pretty textbook verbiage to help you sound good, but it isn’t real. It couldn’t be. How do you know? A better question might be, “What is your truth and knowledge, right now?”

We don’t know anything, until we experience life. Until we teach. Until we engage with others. Until we enter a system. Until we have a family. Until we are forced to examine our successes and pitfalls and then analyze why we rose or fell at any given time. Then what? We redefine, bask in those self-discoveries, and then become who we were always meant to be.

My advice is get to know yourself. The you that is you will be someone different next year and the year after, and this is a great thing because ultimately, everyone’s goal should be to discover who they really are and relish in the ever-changing reality, and celebrate when new self-discoveries are made. It may come with consequence with respects to your personal and professional lives, and your trajectory. But before we can embrace the world and those around it in full, we have to have an appreciation that we, as individuals, matter, as much as our individual journey’s matter, perhaps more than the journey we have with others.

Don’t disregard change, embrace it, for it is the new you!

Here we are, almost fifteen years after establishing a business that we had no idea had so much potential. My college friends and I wanted to start a summer camp of our own to keep us busy while not teaching in the summer months. One opportunity led to another and I, personally, was suddenly at a crossroads. Leave teaching or pursue my own business endeavors? Be a cog in a system designed by others, or build my own machine? The latter choice won out.

I knew after leaving teaching that the childcare business had to be more than a single summer camp and an after school program. Little did I know, it probably didn’t need to be. But any rate, because of my hyperactive style of engagement and need to keep pushing boundaries as CEO, one location became two, then three, then four….a decade and a half later we host four daycares, over a dozen after school locations partnered with churches, schools…eleven annual summer camp locations. We have even expanded beyond the local county borders. Great, right? Be careful what you wish for.

Here is the problem. I am guessing it is a problem all businesses that continually expand have to rise above. Controlling the quality of the product while growing. Is it even possible? I haven’t figured it out yet.

We offer a service, so being able to grow while also being able to maintain the quality of the product has been a huge problem because there are so many factors. Most of them have to do with charging others to implement your product because let’s face it, nobody cares as much as the owners about the product. Especially in the childcare industry, where many of the jobs are only stepping stones, or a convenient way for people to fill gaps in their employment record.

So what do you do? Grow? Not grow? If you can ensure quality with a few sites, should you simply keep it minimalistic or try to figure out the puzzle of growing while being able to guarantee product quality?

Franchise businesses may not have to worry so much, as they sell their brand to others and collect a percentage of the profit for each franchise, regardless if their brand is represented well or not with the individual franchise. So, I guess in this case as long as the money flows…who cares.

But, that is not the way a private business with a real mission operates. It’s not just about the money, but about the reputation. What are we selling and is the product of the same quality everywhere we offer those services? If not, how do we reconcile this?

The awful truth is, maybe if you are an individual with a dream, you start small, stay small. Control the product by offering it personally and call it a day!

I decided to explore my thirty year career in today’s entry. Mostly because I want there to be some context when I write about education, children, business, capitalism, parents, and every other topic I have experience with resulting from my professional journey.

I started teaching in 1997. To give you some perspective…it was the year that the movie Titanic graced the big screen. While Jack was courting Rose (up until the point he froze to death in the Atlantic) I was in my initial year of classroom teaching, getting my butt kicked by a bunch urban fourth graders. Titanic actually ended up being an ironic metaphor for the type of year I expected, verse the type of year it ended up being. Yet, all these years later I can look back and have an adult perspective on the situation and realize it was a valuable experience in my life for so many reasons. As not only did it give me a chance to learn about myself as a teacher, but the experience also gave me my first glimpse at a grossly flawed educational system at a local and state level, and an interesting look at how social politics in a place of employment outweighs everything else, including the education of children.

I taught eleven more years at the elementary level…every grade from first grade all the way up to eighth grade math. Private, public, rural, urban, and suburban. I also taught adult education classes at night where wannabe nurses would come back to master basic algebra in order to qualify for the nursing program. Though children are my stronger suit, the adults were pretty fun as well.

After fully realizing that our educational system is akin to kid prison, and that the most enlightened teachers in the field are isolated and ostracized for striving to rise above mediocrity, I left and started my own business, TSL Adventures, which, fourteen years later still thrives with multiple daycares, school-age programs, and summer camps throughout capital region New York.

Of course, there are a billion and one stories to be told along with much commentary about the experiences I have had, and you can sure bet I’ll be telling each one in random order in upcoming entries because as much as my experiences with various bureaucracies, co-workers, and traditionalism have only half-impressed me over the years, one thing that has always impressed me was the nature of children and child development. I have always put this at the forefront of all my endeavors and have met thousands of amazing kids over the years through business, teaching, and other means. So, to find something to be consistently amazed by year after year has been a great pleasure…like writing stories!

So when you see upcoming entries in the areas of all things children, education, childcare, families and business you will have some perspective as to where all of my wisdom and knowledge in these areas stems from.

For now, go watch Titanic and think of me teaching about cells by having children make cell cakes (yeah) just as the boat hits the iceberg. (The cakes did taste good, especially the candy nucleus).

I can’t help it. I have to plug the book I wrote 16 years ago. I hadn’t read it since 2008 so to pick it up and read it again was an awesome journey back in time and when I cracked open the book I wasn’t sure what I would be in for. Me, sixteen years ago. Was I prepared for that? No, but it was a lot of fun.

I’m writing adult fiction now, but when I wrote Racing the Rope, I was a fifth grade teacher and writing several manuscripts for middle grade children. It was who I was back then, and what I enjoyed writing. Also, I was inspired by watching my kids at recess jumping rope. I was also inspired by the diverse and worldly fifth graders I had that first year at the private Catholic school I was teaching in at the time.

In 2006, POD (print on demand) technology was emergent and I took advantage of it. I had my book edited, published, and I sold it to the very kids who inspired it. I also sold 75 copies to a local school district who had me in during their Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser. So, it was a lot of fun. When I wrote it, I didn’t realize Disney was going to be releasing a movie called Jump In with similar themes, but I took that as that as a good sign.

Anyway, I wrote Racing the Rope with my fifth graders in mind and each was a character in the book. Granted, many of the characters were not portrayed in a flattering light. They were sassy, obnoxious, rude, self-centered, gender-biased, and arrogant. So, when I told my fifth graders to try to figure out which character was them in the book, they sought to discover the truth of how I viewed them that year. When they realized who they were, they lovingly yelled at me and we argued quite a bit. Of course, I exaggerated on their most obvious traits for comedic effect, but they observed my point well. My children and I bonded strongly that year, but they were a challenging group. Eleven years old back then, they are now heading toward their thirtieth year! Holy cow.

Racing the Rope tells the story of a boy, Geran (short for Geranium) who crosses gender boundaries when he joins a female-dominated jump rope competition, much to the chagrin of his “all boy” classmates. Though when they find a good cause to gender unite over jump roping, they bond as a whole class to show their love for a teacher’s sick child.

I am more than happy to say that after revisiting the story, I am enthralled to be revitalizing it and adding it to my future roster of proposed publications. It makes me happy because I had written close to fifteen manuscripts during those years, all of which I lost when the floppy disks containing my projects disappeared. Racing the Rope survived, and so it remains as one of the gems of that time period. At least for me anyway.

Feel free to buy it and check it out. Forgive the awful cover art and have fun with the story! Suitable for children ages ten and up. Written for the age 10-12 market.

https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/260561-Racing-The-Rope

As I sat at a restaurant on my own recently, quietly observing the crowd I lost myself in reflective thought. My mind is always racing and my need to keep moving is a base compulsion. Whether in business, writing, conversation, or daily routines, it is an endless feeling of the need to accomplish what I’m doing, and getting on to the next thing. To that end, I only give a specific activity in a given day, a certain amount of time to come full circle before moving on to the next thing.

Some may not enjoy that compulsive feeling to keep moving, but I actually love it because “keeping it moving” doesn’t always mean being on-the-job. I love to slow it down, wake up later in the morning, chill with a cup of coffee, read, enjoy the full moon and the pulsating ocean. When I’m doing these types of things, I’m doing something that helps me reach a goal, even if it is the goal of enjoying the simple pleasures of life. But I won’t sit there all day staring at the stars or making pictures out of the clouds. There is more to do!

That brings us back to the restaurant. Once I paused in my reflections I realized it had been ten minutes and nobody had come to me with a menu, some water, or even an acknowledgement that I was present. That is not all time wasted because reflection is a useful expenditure of time. Yet, I like to micromanage my own time and not let someone or something else do that for me, to the extent possible. Why give up more control in our lives than necessary?

The resolution in this case was that I decided ten minutes was enough time to wait for service, and so I got up quietly and left. Nobody even noticed. This is not the first time I have done this, nor will it be the last. With so many options for dining, why wait longer than you want to wait? We have perfect control in these situations. As such and where possible, I don’t typically wait. I don’t wait in long lines at Starbucks. My mind swirls with wonder when I see someone choosing to wait in an obvious 20-minute line for coffee. I don’t wait at restaurants if servers don’t wait on you in a reasonable amount of time. I don’t wait in grocery lines, opting for self-checkout, even when I have thirty things. I don’t wait in lines of traffic when there is an alternative route that is moving more quickly, even if it means it will take longer to get where I want to go. I don’t work on anyone else’s schedule. I try to shop and get banking, business, DMV, and all other needs done on the computer to avoid travel, lines, and added wasted time. The average person sleeps 25 years of his life, so as a species, we should not consider spending any more time on things that can be done more quickly somewhere or someway else. Or as James Bond once put it, “there is plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.”

Is this impatience? Perhaps. But what is wrong with not being patient if it is quietly (or with noise when I’m on my own venting behind a slow driver) conveyed and does not lead to harm? How patient do we want to be anyway? What does a patient person look like and why are they so patient? You don’t have to be. Take control. Leave, avoid, and look for alternative solutions to save more time.

Keep it moving! The time you save, may be your own.

I am comfortable enough with overseas travel now that I can honestly say, I don’t think I’ll ever book another trip through a travel company again. Not that I actually booked with a travel company this time around. I just bought a Groupon and unfortunately those packages are sold by random travel agencies. They didn’t sell me a tour group, mind you. Tour groups are annoying. All this agency did was book my hotels and flights basically, and then said screw you figure out the rest on your own. Which is fine, but the trip I purchased in Greece was an 8-day excursion to three different locations, two of them islands.

The problem is, the visitation of three locations in Greece is not practical for an 8-day visit. Especially when two locations are islands that require hours long ferry rides…ferry rides that cancel when the wind blows hard. At this point, who knows if I’ll even get back to Athens in the morning like I’m supposed to. So there were numerous problems with the ferry transfers and I spent almost a full day’s worth of travel in the economy section of a ferry boat. Which is actually better than the economy section of a plane, but still not fun.

So, why did this agency sell a tour of Greece to three separate locations given the annoyance that most travelers would have with so much travel in a week’s time? You got me there. I thought these ferry transfers were twenty minute rides, like the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. Lord, I never dreamed they would have put me on ferries that were five hours a rip. And then one ferry didn’t go because it was windy. What in the world? Stop it. Don’t sell a tour of several Greek islands for customers who only have a week. What are you doing? Go to Athens for a week. Go to Mykonos for a week. Go to Santorini for a week. But for God sake’s don’t go to all three in a week.

Listen people, travel is easy now. You can find a place you want to go…research your hotels and book them online. Book your air flight. You have GPS to get you anywhere on foot or by car. You have the Uber app that works most places in the world to get from point A to point B, you have apps that translate, and foreign people all around the world who speak English better than many Americans. You can do this easier than you can probably bake a cake. So, don’t use a travel agency. If you do use Gate1. But, I recommend you do it yourself. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and headache. Because at the end of the day, these travel companies are just agents sitting behind a desk while you are out in the world dealing with all the problems they cause with their nonsense. Most of their workers probably never been further than the local Walmart.

You can always email to and I’ll take you on my next trip….well, okay, maybe not. But, you get the point.

Anyway, I worked for a sub shop company for 6 years of my life. I was aged 16-22. I got fired twice because I was a punk kid who knew everything and I used to jump in the trash, but they loved me so always rehired me. In spite of my transgressions, I was a hard worker. No matter what I was doing, whether it was playing an instrument, running a race, sweeping up trash, or making a sub…I wanted to do it right and excel. (Oddly, this initiative never translated to desiring a 4.0 student ranking in college. That’s another analysis to look forward to) But making a sub! Now that’s fun.

Anyway, while working for the sub shop I was trained in the delicate art of sub-making. A slice of the bread. A spread of lettuce, four tomatoes, a spread of onions, a pre-determined number of meat slices or tuna balls, a pre-determined number of cheese pieces (one strip for American, four provolone, two swiss…wow I still remember), the dressing, the final cut, and BAM! Wrap and load.

Anyway, for efficiency sake, making subs in record time correctly was important to me and the company. Why? Because if you ever waited in a McDonald’s drive thru line pretty much….anywhere…it’s easy to observe that the extra $10 an hour per employee doesn’t buy efficiency. Just more whining. That’s another blog entry too.

It must have been my early knack for offering efficiency in service that drove me to want to be the fastest sub maker in the company. As it turned out, the sub company hosted a huge event at the Marriott, and I qualified for the sub making races. Yahoo! I forget my qualifying time, but I was making a sub in under ten seconds.

First prize was $1000. Second prize was $500.. Third prize was…a golden coke bottle. What? Well, you can guess by the title where I placed, but there is a story for this.

You see, they provided brand new bread knives for the competition. So, on go, I picked up the shiny serrated knife and sliced not only the top of the bread off, but my finger as well, leaving a gash that I temporarily ignored because I was too busy trying to win the race. And guess what…with blood spatter all over the sub and cutting board, I won the first round! Don’t worry, nobody ate the tainted sub.

Anyway, I knew I had to compete in the semi-finalist round so I bandaged up my finger and shoved my extra-long, puffy digit into the glove, and pressed on. Unfortunately, with the bandage hinderance, I was not able to secure my place in the finals. Yet, I did win third place in the company, which earned me the honors of a golden coke bottle along with a couple of stitches.

I still have that coke bottle today (along with a scar on my finger). The bottle and battle scar serve as a reminder that we must never give up. In spite of the blood, sweat, and tears. We must always press on.

*featured picture is not MY coke bottle. I’m abroad so had to act quickly to bind a substitute picture.

Ongoing adventures remind me that from lemons we must make lemonade. In my previous entry I made mention of being left on the side of the road by the taxi driver in Mykonos because I only had cash to pay for half the distance. (You’ll be happy to know I figured out my PIN and now have plenty of cash!).

Today, I was woken from sleep by the hotel manager with a series of bangs on my door. Flashback time. The travel company I booked with (GVV) never provided me tickets for the ferry from Athens to Mykonos, to Santorini, and back to Athens. Keep in mind this was all part of the vacation package. They provided no details of ferry departures, and provided me with no tickets. So, while in Athens, I was woken by telephone to tell me at 6:30 in the morning that someone was there to bring me to the ferry. Since when? There was no time to pack or catch the ride. So she left. I had to make my way by taxi to the port, pay for a ticket that should have been included, and basically make my own way to Mykonos.

In Mykonos, I thought to get ahead of the game by seeing if the hotel had any tickets or any idea when my departure to Santorini was. No idea. I call GVV. No idea. They referred me to Tour Greece. I call Tour Greece and they say sorry and they will send someone with tickets the next day at 9:30. Port departure is at 12:50. Sounds like a plan.

Back to today. The hotel manager bangs on my door at 10:00 a.m. I scurry to the door and he says the 12:50 ferry has been cancelled and I have ten minutes to get to the port to catch the only ferry out for the day. Yes, ten minutes to pack up my hotel, find a taxi, get to the port (a fifteen minute ride), and get on the boat. Apparently I’m the only one that can do math in Mykonos. Of course, nobody ever left tickets at 9:30. Apparently they cancelled all ferries after the early one due to wind.

My only choice…stay in Mykonos. Thankfully, the hotel had the room still available, but I have to pay out of pocket for the night! What’s more, they told me ferries may continue to be cancelled due to wind for the next two days!

As I eluded to in my last blog, nobody cares that I’m stranded. Nobody cares that I had to pay for ferry tickets and hotel rooms that were already paid for.

So, what do I do? Write, relax, sleep, sip coffee and enjoy Mykonos another night…or two…promising that the only complaining I will do is to the travel company to be reimbursed and to my blog audience. Outside of that, life is good! It’s not always good, but when it’s not, power through it.

–Styles

Let’s face it, having expectations of others is the source of all frustrations. As soon as you expect anything from the world, from loved ones or…from anyone, you set yourself up for disappointment.

On my travels I got off a ferry from Athens to Mykonos in Greece and immediately a taxi driver greeted me, which was great because I needed a lift to my hotel. I used GPS to pinpoint where the hotel was so I was aware that it was not an outrageous walk if I had to. So, I had no expectation that I would have a ride, but not disappointed that a taxi driver approached me.

That said, as I was following the taxi driver to his car I told him I only had credit card, to which he informed me that no taxi driver in Mykonos accepts credit cards. The problem was, I only had $20 in cash on me and he had quoted me a $40 fare (which, let’s be real, I knew was a laugh and he was exploiting me, but I wasn’t going to argue). He drove me to a local ATM and I couldn’t retrieve cash as I didn’t recall my PIN number so he ended up driving me halfway and dumping me on the side of the road. I took my bags graciously and went on my way.

When I told others the story, the reactions were clearly shock. Who would ever? I never took that position, personally, because I understood two things about this particular situation. First one, time is money for business people, so my expectation that this person would drive me the entire way at half cost is not realistic. It’s altruistic, sure, and maybe some drivers would have, but not him. No worries. Secondly, I understood that to have an expectation of anyone i.e. that they will go above and beyond, that they care, that they somehow value humanity over their personal agendas, is not realistic. In the end, the one the cares most about you is…YOU. Don’t expect anything from anyone. If you are dying in the street of thirst I’m quite sure that someone will offer you a drink, but if they don’t…do not be surprised. Find a drink on your own.

Once you realize that all you have at the end of the day are your own devices, the less frustrating the world becomes and the more of a strategist YOU will become.

I was never good at team sports and, in fact, always hated them from the beginning. It was my young mind telling me something more sophisticated than I could understand at the time. My feelings weren’t necessarily about the competition because I am a competitor. Nor was it that I was averse to the activity, as I was an extremely active boy.

True, I was never fully aware of the technical aspects of many of the sports I played before age ten, which never helps. In basketball, I tossed a ball in my opponents’ basket. In baseball I struck out every time at bat, and I hardly remember my soccer days. I think I blocked it out.

As I grew older I gravitated more to racquetball and I still play today. What I love about the game, is that it doesn’t require one to be dependent on a team to win. Like tennis, track, swimming, or golf, the sport requires your own effort, skill, and personal endurance to win and if you lose, you have nobody else to blame. In essence, you are competing against yourself as you compete against others. You aren’t some piece of a puzzle. You’re the whole puzzle. I love that about solo sports.

Too much of our cultural practice revolves around trying to outdo someone else, even as a team player. The “best” players on the team make the most money and get the most playing time. The other players on the team are given what they are told they deserve based on comparative measurement. It ultimately conditions “lesser players” to believe their worth is only in comparison to someone else. Henceforth, they stop trying to do better. That’s team etiquette.

In traditional workplaces the key term you always hear is “team player.” Perhaps team sports at an early age is a precursor to prepping kids for traditional job placements where being a “team player” means keeping your job and getting tons of social support. In team sports, it meant sit on the bench the whole time if you are no good, and in the workplace it means acquiesce to the demands of others regardless if you are fulfilling your personal goals or visions.

In looking back, I’m happy that I recognized from an early age that something was a little off for me personally as a young child with regards to team sports and traditional molds, and that I naturally transitioned into solo sports, and left traditional workplaces. Ultimately, I discovered that the the biggest competition is bettering yourself everyday based upon your own interests, merits, and design. I believe life itself is a solo sport, which makes everyday an awesome new challenge to work for and outdo myself, not others.

October 4, 2022

I recently tweeted about my feelings of insecurity over not knowing another language fluently. I’ve traveled abroad many times, and as I began scheduling visits to countries where the native language was something other than English there came feelings of trepidation. Not questions like, will I be taken and need someone with a particular set of skills to rescue me? Will the food be good? Will I be able to navigate the given area in which I’m staying? My biggest preoccupation was regarding communication.

As it turns out, wherever I seem to roam, the language barrier never seems to be a barrier at all. Not because I can point to what I want on a menu and smile a toothy grin, or because I have an understanding of the basic words pertinent to survive, which I can mutter as needed. But because in most places you go the natives not only know their own language, but they seem to have a more than elementary grasp on the English language as well.

Of course, in tourist areas where people come from around the world, it makes sense that the people would need to have a grasp on varying languages. I just have it in my mind that when people come to the U.S. nobody can help tourists who don’t speak English. Not only that, but we tend to get flustered by visitors who don’t speak English. I have been to Disney World many times, and let me tell you it is a cultural melting pot, with guests coming from around the world. Yet, your average worker most definitely doesn’t know French, Chinese, Italian, or Greek.

It could be how we educate our youth in the U.S. Foreign language instruction is an afterthought in our schools. They don’t immerse you in the language, and you don’t even take a foreign language until you are practically an adult. So, maybe our educational system needs to start prepping kids for the C.I.A. or for a job in a tourist hot spot early in life. Then we’ll be prepared as much for our tourists as the rest of the world is prepared for theirs.

October 3, 2022