So, how did I get here? (Talking Heads, anyone?)

I'm just wrapping up a fantastic online course, DIY PR offered by The Crafty Chica, aka Kathy Cano-Murillo.  You can find out about her on either of her sites: http://www.thecraftychica.blogspot.com/ or http://www.chicawriter.blogspot.com/.  This course has pushed me to write miscellaneous thoughts in a more public forum and forced me to really think about what I feel is important.  My bio is a product of her course.  She’s provided tons of valuable information—especially for those who have products or services they want to sell or just want to get their word out.  I snuck myself into the course (I paid, of course, but here are all these artists…) because I love her and she’s a wealth of info, super helpful to boot.  It’s kind of like when you walk by a lecture that sounds interesting and you decide to stay—wait, that’s not typical.  How about when you see interesting plates of food sail by you and you decide that you might have to sample some it?  She has her entire e-course laid out by weekly lesson plans and a lot of it sounded interesting.  It well worth it because the course generated a lot of food for thought for me (no pun intended) and some of class members have already experienced growth via Kathy's suggestions--new gigs, etc.  For me, the course and writing a bio also brought up some memories that I hadn’t thought about for quite some time. 

For instance, I remembered how much I enjoyed watching Andy Rooney as a kid.  I remembered watching 60 Minutes with my father faithfully every Sunday evening—we also watched Walter Conkrite report about Watergate on the evening news, but that wasn’t nearly as interesting (mind you, I was in Kindergarten at the time).  Here was a man who could pontificate about soap slivers and what people do/might do with pieces that were too large to throw out but a little too small to handle well.  Sheer genius, I say, sheer genius!  He was probably the kid who asked way too many questions in grammar school and was in constant trouble for it and now he was getting paid to do what came naturally to him—wonder about stuff and opine.  When my parents used to ask me what I wanted to “be” when I grew up I told them an artist.  You can guess how receptive to that they were—“that’s nice but you do need a job that will pay the bills…”  I should’ve told them I wanted Andy Rooney’s job.  I wonder what they would’ve said?  I can tell you the younger version of me didn’t say much in response.  I didn’t really speak up (within our family unit, mostly) until high school and even then I eventually backed down.  It’s that first child, pleaser, peace-maker thing.  These are the family roles that I struggle with.  We all have something, right?  My mom says I’m loud and talk too much, but I’ve certainly made peace with that.  What do you struggle with and can you make peace with it?