Author Archives: tim

03 Oct

Careers

Well, after four weeks of this stuff, I’m still not liking my job. So I’ve started thinking up a list of alternative careers for myself.

Stay-at-home husband
Wedding toasts speech writer (so many of them are so bad)
Dog walker (might get old)
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Teaching Consultant (everyone who currently tells us how to teach doesn’t teach, so what the hell)
Writer for This American Life
Director of FEMA
Ambulance driver (I can drive fast, safely)
Plumber
Snarky Video Game Reviewer
Tutor for Madison’s rich and famous (I’ll charge $200 an hour to give the impression that I’m really good)
Professional Triathlete (see Ironman post)
Hero (who then gets paid to do the talk show circuit)
Imogen Heap’s Technical Groupie (we just saw her in concert; she has some fun electronic toys)
Dolphin trainer for Dolphin therapy outfit
Small business and personal web designer
Panelist on TWiT (This Week in Technology)
Chocolatier
Storm Chaser
Motivational Speaker
Cameraman for National Geographic TV or E! Wild On
Apple Computers Product Tester
Public Radio Music Source Staff Picks Picker

28 Sep

Oh my God, Eileen is good at this.

So, my students have been commenting on the poem. They kinda like it. Though they’re also giving some good feedback, which is moreso the purpose. Eileen told me that she should be the one to write the next bad poem cuz I don’t do a good enough job. So I challenged her to come up with something right this minute and she did. Here’s hers:

Her eyes
bored, searching, wanting
Her eyes
tell me a story
Theyre brown
She has nice eyes
Her eyes sigh like the wind
on a lazy summer day
I look into them with wonderment
and think about what might have been.

Wow! Now that’s bad. Almost too bad.

26 Sep

September

I just spent the past five minutes typing up a poem to show to my Creative Writing class. It’s a bad poem; I’m using it as fodder for a discussion on editing and grading. High schoolers are a little put off by the evaluation of their creative work, and understandably so. It’s very personal: a lot of them are genuinely trying to get their hormonally-imbalanced emotions down on paper. So we need to practice critiquing poetry in a humane way. And we also need to talk about grading creative writing. Many of them have this idea that you can’t label poetry as good or bad. So, I wrote the following poem, which I hope they’ll recognize as bad.

September

I dreamt last night
Of a woman named September.
She arrived in a bikini and stood with folded arms.
When I said hi,
she didn’t reply
but stared down at the ground.

The wind and rain outside awoke me,
and I rose to close the window.
But I paused at the sill,
took a breath of the cool, earthy air;
smelled the wet grass, thirsty from the past month’s heat,
and went back to sleep.

Incidentally, it’s a lot of fun writing bad poetry. It’s not quite as rewarding as writing something that’s good — the pleased feeling only lasts for a couple minutes — but it’s a blast. And actually, the above poem is not my best work — meaning it’s not the worst I’ve written.

25 Sep

Ironman Narcissistic Fantasies

A few weeks ago, the Ironman Triathlon took place here in Madison just as it has done for the past three years. I’ve been secretly wanting to do one ever since the Ironman circuit first came to Madison in 2002. Every year that I’ve been in town, I’ve gone down to the finish line to watch the first place finishers come in. They always look surprisingly energetic. This year’s champion, for example, ran into the final strech and then jumped up on a platform and hugged the Ford Explorer displayed there.

I imagine myself coming across the line. Probably not in first place, but perhaps in a surprisingly high-place finish. Maybe then I’d get interviewed by the local papers and TV stations. Maybe I would show such promise that I’d get sponsored and become professional.

When I signed up for next year’s Ironman, I wasn’t put off by the fact that I can barely swim one 50-meter length of the pool before stopping to catch my breath. Nor was I put off by the fact that I don’t yet own and have never owned a road bike. And I certainly wasn’t put off by that stress fracture I got back in high school, or by the memory of the doctor telling me I simply couldn’t log that many training miles per week due to my foot structure.

Instead, I let my narcissistic fantasies fly free.

The first, which I’ve already hinted at, involves my being interviewed after the race as the “local man” who “exceeds everyone’s expectations, including his own.” The quotes in that sentence would be the headline, of course. The story would suck the readers in by explaining how I barely knew how to swim a year prior to competing in this years’ Ironman Triathlon. And it would go on to explain how I’d placed 12th overall, first among Madison area competitors, and third amongst amateur athletes. All this from a man who had never so much as completed one triathlon in his life until three months ago!

On TV, I’d surprise my interviewers by explaining that “No, actually, it’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” I haven’t quite figured out how I’d respond to the obvioius follow-up question, but I have a few options in mind, one of which is “living through a presidential coup in Ecuador,” even though that was not at all difficult but was, in fact, quite fun.

At one point on the bike ride, I will have talked with a few of the other competitors riding the same pace. They’ll have been shocked to find out that this was my first Triathlon. Two of them will warn me to take it easy; I’ll go on to beat those two guys in the marathon.

I’ll have my own “support team” like so many Madison-area competitors. Their shirts will be bright blue and the slogan will be “Storm’s A Comin.” Local News will latch onto the story because the whole day will have threatened the athletes with “potentially race-cancelling” showers and thunderstorms. The members of the support team will include relatives and all of the friends I make between now and then.

As I finally cross the finish line, the announcer will say, “And here comes Madison’s own Tim Storm!” And they’ll play “Everyone Deserves Music” by Michael Franti.

I’ll get offers for sponsorship immediately afterwards from such companies as Apple Computers, XBox, and REI.

I’ll accept.

And I’ll quit teaching.