Joe (Not Joel)

It's strange how much you can learn about someone in a very short amount of time. Like yesterday, I went into the guidance counselor's office to talk about scheduling stuff with him, and then I ended up giving him a 45-second sound byte of my entire life. Basically, it went like this:

"So, what are you planning to do after high school?" he asked. "Well," I replied, "I'm going to go to college, obviously, but after that I want to be an English teacher."

"Oh really? Why is that?"

"I just really like the subject. And my dad was an English teacher."

"That's interesting... Where does he teach?"

"He doesn't teach around here. He teaches in Colorado. At least, he used to."

"Yes?"

"Well.... he... uhhh... doesn't work there anymore."

"Oh. So what does he say about you becoming an English teacher?"

"He's pretty supportive... I haven't talked to him in like four years... soo I don't know exactly what he thinks..."

"Is your mom okay with you becoming a teacher?"

"Yeah, yeah! She used to be a preschool teacher."

Okay, now that you know my entire messy life pretty much, can we end Special Talk Time With Mr. Johnson and get to my junior schedule please? But sometimes its a good thing. Like today I was waiting for a ride after musical practice (and waiting and waiting and waiting) and the person who plays the lead role, Joe, and I started talking and I learned a lot about him. He's a really nice guy, and super relaxed about life. He used to be in football, and now he gave it up to be in musical. He's also in Robos, and gave that up too. So he's super committed to his part (I hope so, b/c he's the main role!). He's also not stressed out about the play at all yet, even though this is his first time ever being on stage in front of people, and it's a week until show. He was telling me about how he used to be so scared about singing in front of people, and now he doesn't care anymore. Some people were also complaining about how he gets special treatment earlier, and he didn't overhear it, but he was telling me that he hates how the directors cut him a lot of slack, and he doesn't want to be given any special attention. (We also talked about some other stuff too. We were kind of talking for a long time. Our rides were taking forever to get there.) So he's just a really nice person. And, he asked twice if I needed a ride home before he finally went to his car. I can see why his girlfriend loves him so much.

So, not an especially amusing post today, but I just thought how it was interesting how sometimes you can spend three months with someone, and barely know them, but at the same time you can sit for thirty minutes with someone and learn a lot, if you're actually listening.