every once in a while someone will call me an overachiever. my response to that is, WOAH there, let's not get carried away with big words quite yet. no need to make assumptions and label them as fact. let's set the record straight, i am not an overachiever, i am just a simple gal with a high level of common sense. i'm smarter than the average bear and therefore i have been able to ride the success train to mediocrity fairly smoothly. alright, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but let it be known that i consider my laziness one of my most beloved traits, and i am out there to destroy any vicious rumors that are trying to discredit that fact.
i have a feeling the root of this rumor stems in my childhood, more specifically i am going to pin point it to that very first diorama project in elementary school, and then every similar project there after. and for those i have my father to thank.
my dad is actually a pretty cool guy. hopefully he'll read this, and then i'll be off the hook for the one time my friend said, "hey your dad's really smart" to which i replied without hesitation "not really." it's rare for someone to admit, and i maybe i'll regret it greatly later, but my dad actually does seem to know everything. seriously, it's creepy, in a good way, because at the same time it is extremely helpful. despite the fact that he lives in LA and i in SF i count on him to solve my endless problems, probably not the best dependency to have, but hey, at least it's not drugs. anyway my dad LOVES to build things. i can remember the twinkle in his eye when there was a new diorama project on the horizon. missing the connection? well i'll give it to you plain and simple:
remember back when that kid brought in their giant, perfectly to scale, foam carved, faux grass and moss covered, complete with miniature trees, animal habitat, and set it down next to your shoe box and play dough disaster? well that was me. the girl that made your diorama come to life and scurry away in it's own embarrassment.
my dad lived for dioramas. he was always so much more excited to them than i was. this was serious business. never once did i turn in a project in a shoe box, that was too simple. no we had to construct our own box shape from a larger scrap of cardboard. i can remember many a trip to the hobby train stores to pick up some moss and trees, shredded tissue paper just wasn't going to cut it, and i honestly had no idea that industrial spray glue was not something everyone just had lying around in their garage. despite the fact that my dioramas always looked far superior to anyone else's, as a kid i was always embarrassed to turn them in. i hated all the attention and envy i got from all the kids. i remember begging my dad to just do one project in a shoe box....please please can we make this one look crappy? oh kids just do the darndest things!
in fifth grade, we had to do some sort of diorama project on animals, and mine was a panda. well my dad got this great idea that we build the habitat in a box that closes completely, and then we poke a small hole in it. this way we can put in some panda pictures, and when everyone squints through the hole, it will look like they are three dimensional. i have the admit the finished project was pretty effing cool. i took it to school, and i am pretty sure my teacher had no idea what to do about it. i mean i got at A, it was awesome, and she understood that as well. but she put everyone elses on display and made a point to hand mine back and take it home. looking back it makes sense, because from the outside it just looked like a green box, but of course being as sensitive as i was i took it completely personally. the politically correct thing the teacher should have done was just kept mine up there, and i wouldn't have known the difference. but my fifth grade teacher was not very politically correct, among other things.
it was projects like this panda diorama, and my ninth grade three dimensional leafy sea dragon, that i am sure people have seen and assumed over achieving must be my thing. so let's straighten this out, moral of the story is, apparently my dad loves making dioramas. and what kind of a daughter would i be, to deny him that joy? so really, i'm not an overachiever, i am just a great person.
wow it seems i even learned something from this post.
