An Inspiration.

Last night, my Daddy performed at the Quippings event.

I don't think Daddy realises how powerful he is on stage. When he's performing, up on stage, at the centre of attention, he gets this focus which is incredibly attractive. Even when I know he hasn't rehearsed, he sounds practiced, calm, in control. I know this isn't how he feels about it - he's always anxious about performing. But somehow, when the show starts, it's all locked away, and us on the outside see nothing but his greatness.

And despite how much he worries about it, he's a great writer. He has that amazing ability to express his feelings and emotions with the simplest words, and still make it sound deep and passionate. He writes like he speaks, which is always great for Spoken Word performances, and makes his performance that much more easy to follow.

To be honest, I don't think I'm ever as proud of my Daddy as when he's on stage, aura ablaze, wowing the crowd with his words. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, considering how many other people keep wanting him to perform for them.

And I'm really more than proud, to be honest - It's genuinely inspiring. Words are my creative fount - Speaking and Writing are where I make my money, and it's something that I know I've always been good at. More recently, I've had the hardest time trying to bring fingers to keyboard and start being creative again, not just with this blog but with fiction in general, just trying to stretch my creative muscles again. However, after last night? The words are flowing, as you can see here. I'm writing enough that I'm actually queueing posts so they don't all come through in one fell swoop. I think I might actually have the passion right now to really start writing and not looking back.

I guess we'll see how many days in a row I can keep typing...

What I bring to the Table.

This afternoon, me and Daddy were taking a trip out to see my parents, and we started talking about a topic I'd been musing about for the last few days, on and off - the curious imbalance between literature for leaders, and literature for followers, in particular how there's very little out there about how to be a good follower. It's an interesting question that I'm sure I'll come back to, maybe in a separate blog, but as we talked about what makes a good follower, we came to the topic of what that follower brings to the table - often a good follower has a large breadth on knowledge, and can bring many disparate knowledges to the table.

And so, I figured, what better time to write a post about what sort of things I can bring to my Daddy and other prospective players? What can I do for you? Among the skills I have:

• I can fix computers. I know how to troubleshoot both Hardware and Software problems, and get computers back to working state.
• I'm quite good at arithmetic, and enjoy working with numbers. I have no formal qualifications, but I'm capable of balancing books and doing quicksums in my head, even with fairly complex figures.
• I know a lot about banking, and money. I know a great deal about how the banking system works, and even have a AFSL Tier 2 Qualification, which means I can give advice about your banking.
• I have a fantastic phone manner. I can man phones for people and leave the caller feeling great at the end of the call. I can perform important calls for people, should they be unable to do so.
• I am proficient at simple massage. I can help relieve tension and help pain to an extent. I'm no expert, but I can do it, and I enjoy it!
• I can cook. My repetoire of by-heart recipes is minimal, but I am more than capable of following recipes, and I can usually make a good meal first time.
• I have a good knowledge of civics and general political matters, as well as general history. If you have a question about why the world works a certain way, I can usually give you an answer!