In Honor of Week One

Recently, I submitted a story about me and dad and football into an NFL contest to win superbowl tickets.  I don't expect that I will be one of the three people chosen to make a short film and voted on, but I found myself drawn to the question posed: "Why Do You Love Football?"

In honor of the Saint's season opener against the dreaded Falcoons (as my dad would say), I give you an edited version of what I submitted.  Here's why I love football...

Originally, I started going to football games just for the food.  My mom was going through a health phase at the time (carob instead of chocolate, tofu instead of ice cream, granola bars instead of halloween candy), and Saints games were one of the few times I could get away from that and eat some good ol' fashioned junk food.  Somewhere around the end of elementary school, though, it shifted into the thing that my dad and I shared. Sitting in the Dome with a sticky floor beneath us, or at home on the couch with a bag of chips, my dad would yell, and so I would yell.

Dad: "What are you doing out there?"

Me: "Come on, defense!"

Dad: "Get rid of the ball!"

Me: "Where is the pass protection?"

My mom hated it. In fact, she'd told my dad when they got married that he'd have to stop yelling at the TV when they started having kids. Instead, he kept yelling, and I picked up the habit.

I asked questions incessantly: What does holding mean? What's the difference between a tight end and a wide receiver? What's an I-formation?

Pretty soon, high school came around, and I spent the better part of the year talking Saints football with boys on the bus. We spent the fall gnashing our teeth and the winter and spring dreaming about "next year."  The Christmas of my junior year, I asked for a Norman Hand jersey to commemorate my favorite player at the time, a defensive lineman, but my parents couldn't find anything smaller than an XXXL, so I settled for a Joe Horn jersey.  In 2002, I begged my dad to take me to the Superbowl (in the city that year), and when he somehow got tickets, I sat in the end zone, stunned with joy.

I went away to college and watched every game that aired on TV. Katrina hit and the Saints--now suddenly a winning team--soothed some of the aches, filled some of the void. I watched the 2007 Saints/Bears NFC Championship game alone on my couch in my Joe Horn jersey, dad on the phone, snow outside the house, tears in my eyes.

I moved back to New Orleans in 2008, and in 2009, "next year" became "this year." My dad and I, we laughed, we cried, and we texted constantly through games we spent apart. He traveled to Miami with my older brother, and I stayed in New Orleans, wanting to be in the city when we won.  For weeks afterwards, I'd grin when I saw him and ask, "Remember that time when we won the Superbowl?"  I've tasted euphoria, and it tastes like a 16-3 season.

For so many, football is about passion and pursuit of knowledge. That's also true for me, but it goes beyond that. It's about a girl and her father, shouting at a television screen. It's love in four quarters.

Who Dat!

An Argument For Failure

This weekend, I moved up my regular volleyball training session from Sunday at 2 (Saints conflict, obviously) to Saturday at noon.  It was hot, but the worst of the heat was coming from my coach.

Coach: I'm not going to gift wrap things for you any more, Rebekah.

Okay, he says that every week.  But this week, he was particularly hard on me.

Coach: You've got to put in the time.  You've got to make these things instinctual. What are you doing?  Move your feet.

I almost cried today (twice).  I'm no good at being yelled at.  Nobody ever really yelled at me as a kid, and if they did, I teared up and then never did that thing again.  Things haven't changed that much in the last twenty years.  Harsh criticism continues to make me want to cry.  The worst part about being yelled at in volleyball, though, isn't even the yelling; it's the frustration of not being able to easily correct what I'm doing.

I know that I need to move my feet more.  I know that I need to check the other side of the net two or three times before I put the ball over.  I know that I'm too slow sometimes and too fast other times.  But it's not easy.  I still feel stuck in the sand, and I'm still confused by my mistiming.  I ask questions to try and correct these gaps from a mental standpoint, but that rubbed him the wrong way today.

Coach: I'm not going to be there to remind you which shot to take or when you need to jump.  The ball's not going to be predictable every time.  You have to be the one to know what to do.  You have to make the decision.  You were asking if you should swing at that ball more?  That's like saying, 'Should I not have hit that ball at her so hard?'  You should already know the answer to that question.  I'm giving you too much.  I'm not going to gift wrap things for you any more.  You've got to stop being so timid.  Be aggressive.  Show some effort.

Thank God for sunglasses.

I don't respond to tough love well, which is probably why I haven't made it in sports thus far.  Today, I just nodded and looked in his general direction or at my feet.  I tried to speak at one point, but my voice almost cracked, so I just uttered a few "yeahs" and moved to retrieve all of the balls I had mishit.  Silently and sadly.

Coach: I know it's hard.  Learning new things isn't easy.  It's a challenge.  But if I can introduce something new to you every week...

I didn't want to talk about it any more.  "Please stop," I wanted to say.  There's no crying in volleyball, but if you push me, I'll weep like the pansy that I am.

This isn't a criticism of my coach or of his methods.  I bet today's approach works for a lot of people, and most of the time, he doesn't yell.  Most of the time, he's good at both pushing and motivating me.  But today, it just stung.  I'm not used to not being good at things, and when I find myself in that position, I usually peace out early enough to save face.

I wish that I had failed more as a kid.  I always took the safe route, intent upon making sure that I had good grades, pleased my parents/teachers, and did the right thing.  The problem is that life is not always safe.  Sometimes it forces you down paths significantly more dangerous or unpredictable than you expected, and the only way to make it through is by experience.

I'm an not an experienced failer, but I wish I was.  I wish that I had sucked at something important as a kid, and that somebody had given me tough love and made me suffer through it.  That sounds a little masochistic, but I think I'd be a stronger, more resilient person if I had.

As a teacher, I hope for failure for my students, especially my best and brightest.  I hope they crash and burn, and learn that it's not so bad, that they can come back from anything if they try.  I hope that they experience big failures when it doesn't count so much, so that they don't sweat the smaller stuff when it does.

This afternoon, I played a pick up game on the bayou with friends.  I blocked, I hit, I made shots, I passed the ball well.  I was killing it, and I knew I wouldn't be if I wasn't constantly being pushed at training.  You don't get better by staying the same.

There might be a few more tears before I make it to my "aha" moment, until I finally get it.  Until then, I'll keep my sunglasses on and channel Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going."

You Can't Choose Family

Tonight, I stopped by my parents' house to pick up some tickets and find out about game day parking.  Waiting for my dad turned into grading at the table turned into listening to music with my sister turned into staying for dinner.  I had hoped, of course, as all adult children do, that my parents would feed me while I was there, but truthfully, I expected to just steal some cashews or maybe find some leftovers in the fridge.  If I was lucky, I'd get there just in time to find mom putting food on the table. Turns out that mom's out of town, though, but that's okay because whenever dad's in charge, we eat out.

My dad doesn't cook.  It's better that way.

Pizza was the choice and Reginelli's the place (as it always is), so despite being picked up too early from tennis, my brother Matthew was still pretty happy.

Matthew (entering the car, 7:25): Abby, you're stupid.  The tennis lesson was supposed to go until 7:30.
Abby: You told me 7.
Matthew: I never said that.
Abby: Well then, mom said that.  Somebody said 7.
Matthew: You're stupid. (Turns to me) You look like mom.
Me: Thanks?

Well, happy by teenage boy standards.

As my sister astutely observed at dinner, Reginelli's is always good people watching.  There were two of my former students at a table in the back, a woman Matthew and Abby knew but couldn't place behind us, a couple my dad recognized, two kids whose parents had handed over cellphones to keep them quiet, and a skinny guy in a sleeveless shirt wearing a headband as a choker.  Abby tried to sneak a picture of the choker guy without anyone noticing, but the Lakeview Reginelli's is like 800 square feet.  There's no hiding anything.  So it wasn't surprising that despite me powering through a full bladder to avoid passing my students on the way to the bathroom, they eventually saw me.  What was surprising was that they only saw me because Matthew practically shouted "Ms Olinde" as they were leaving.  After we exchanged pleasantries,  they left and Matthew called me stupid.  Because he revels in being as obnoxious as possible.

On the way home, Matthew started singing along to a song on the radio.  I joined in.  Then a Philip Philips song came on, and we argued over whether or not Americans like repetition.

Matthew: It's a terrible song, and it's only got like 86 words, but it's catchy.
Abby:  It's true.  Americans love repetition.
Dad: Do you like repetition?
Me: Where are you getting this information?
Dad: Do you like repetition?
Abby: It's true.
Matthew: Americans also love super-sized cheeseburgers.
Dad: Do you like repetition?
Me: Ugh, I don't even like small cheeseburgers.
Dad: Do you like repetition?
Me: Oh my god, dad, stop!

Then Maroon 5's "Love Somebody" came on.  Abby and I started singing along dramatically.  Dad added in.  Matthew sang purposefully off-key as loudly as he could.  It was beautiful and unplanned, like in a heart-warming car commercial.  Except completely cacophonous and over the top.

Walking into the house:
Matthew: The dog broke a plant.
Dad: What?
Matthew: Jack broke a plant.  Well, actually, the plant isn't broken.  He just broke the pot.
Dad: Oh no, that's one of your mother's plants.
Abby: Okay, I'm leaving.
Matthew: Weren't you supposed to meet up with your friends like an hour ago?
Abby: Yeah, well, it'll be okay.
Matthew: Plans are made to be broken.

[Abby and I stop and stare at Matthew]

Me: Did you mean to make that pun?
Abby: Look at his face.  He didn't mean to.
Matthew: I was gonna take credit, but no.  The way you were staring at me, I thought I'd said a line from a movie.
Abby: Didn't even get your own joke.  That's sad.

Abby leaves.  Matthew finds his computer and locks himself in his room.  Dad goes upstairs to change.

Me: Well, I guess I'll leave now.  ...Thanks for the tickets?

Trouble

Sweet

Trouble

When I Grow Up

There were so many things I wanted to be when I grew up: an actress, a scientist, a singer, a bus driver, a lawyer, a novelist, the head coach for the New Orleans Saints...and yes, even a teacher.  My students regularly ask me why I chose teaching.  There are, of course, numerous reasons why (see yesterday's post), but if I'm being honest, a big one is that it's something I've always been really good at.  To a certain extent, it comes naturally.

The importance of this is not lost on me.  I somehow won a jackpot in terms of intelligence and raw talent; there are so many things that come relatively easy to me--academics, athletics, arts, interpersonal relationships--but in most cases, I've quit as soon as the going got tough.  I will never be a great pianist, a great comedian, a great singer, a great runner, a great artist, or a best-selling writer because I've never stuck with it.  They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something; I simply haven't put in the time.

One of my students summed it up best in a thank you note to me at the end of last year, a follow up to a discussion we'd had at one point about my childhood aspirations:

I like to give myself outs: my coach never invested in me, I never got into a good art class, I just don't have the time to take more improv classes or keep up a daily writing habit...but in the end, it comes down to what I'm willing to put in.  We talk about grit in education a lot these days.  It is the voice inside of you that tells you to keep going, even when things get hard.  It's necessary for success.  Passion follows in the same vein.  A few years ago, I formed a serious "The Voice" habit, and ever since, I think about every song on the radio as though it was a potential audition piece.  I'll never actually try out, though.  Not because I'm afraid--though I would be nervous-- but because even though I love to sing and I'm pretty good at it, I just don't want it that badly.  None of my raw talent has developed into anything remarkable because I simply don't want it enough.  Yeah, it'd be cool to be on TV and have Adam Levine and Usher tell me how great I am (because that's the way things play out in my head), but even if I were good enough (which I'm probably not), I'd never make it because I don't really want to.

Last year, I started playing volleyball again for the first time since high school with a group that sets up nets twice a week near my house.  My attendance for the first six months was pretty irregular, but by the fall, I was there every week, with bells on.  I was also terrible, but I'm a fairly decent human being, so I made friends and people let me play with them anyway.  Time passed, and I got better and better, to a point where I was slightly less terrible than I had been.  The progress felt good, but I was more or less content with my unhurried amble towards mediocrity.

In April, stories of parties and dancing lured me to a beach volleyball tournament in Florida.  Yes, the parties were epic, and yes, it was amazing to be surrounded by tall people (for the first time ever, I couldn't see over the crowd!).  The most surprising part of the the trip, though, was the few hours I spent in a folding chair beside an Open-level court, watching some of the best volleyball I've ever seen in my life.  It was thrilling in the way that serious tournaments often are, but for me, it was also exciting because as I watched, I thought: "I want to do that."  I want to be that good.  I want to be able to pass the ball with control, hit with force, and place with strategy.  I want my sets to float perfectly above the net, and I want to block the other team as though I were twice as tall and twice as wide as I am.  I want to be great.

But I didn't know how.

When I got back to New Orleans, I focused more on my game.  I watched the ball more closely.  I sought out advice from other players.  I signed up for leagues above my level.  But I wasn't really getting any better.  My unhurried path to mediocrity was only slightly less unhurried.

I have always been a student that needed to be taught; my learning process has always been faster when someone else was involved.  I had assumed, though, that getting coached was something that I'd left behind in high school.  It wasn't until someone told me about a guy that ran sessions out at the local beach volleyball courts that I got my hopes up.  I got in touch in late June, and by mid-July, I started seeing him two to three hours a week, working on fundamentals and coordination.  In the first session, he almost killed me.  I literally almost passed out.  But I wanted this, I really wanted it, and I kept going back.  It's the beginning of September, and he and I have been at it for a month and a half now.  My sets are inconsistent but better.  My hitting is still lacking, but I'm learning to make good contact with the ball and make strategic directional choices.  My passing is not where I want it to be, but my footwork is better and I'm getting quicker on my feet.

Coach and I talk a lot during training sessions, more than I expected us to.  I like it, though, because it gives me the space to talk through successes and frustrations.  Most of my frustration comes down to speed of progress; I want to be great now.  I say this almost every week, and almost every week he reminds me that I just haven't put in the time yet.  "Be patient, young grasshopper.  Think about how much better you are now than when we started."

A friend of mine and I were talking recently, and when I told her about my volleyball training, she asked, "Which is your priority right now, readjusting to school or improving your game?"  It took me a little by surprise, and in my mind, I immediately recoiled.  Of course work should be my priority--there were children counting on me.  But she stopped me and clarified, "I ask that without bias...Which thing do you want most?"  My response was almost immediate, "I want to get better."  I don't know where it came from or when, but at some point between April and now, I found some grit where I wasn't expecting it.

I have mostly given up on becoming great at things I'm not already at least good at.  I am almost thirty, after all.  Anyone who knows me knows that this doesn't mean I've given up on learning new things.  Since moving back to New Orleans, I have taken salsa classes and tango classes and improv classes.  I've taken art lessons and voice lessons.  I've played kickball and run road races.  I've started cooking all my meals.  I've traveled to at least five new countries.  But I have not, at any time, planned on being great at any one of these things.  I have always just gotten my feet wet and moved on to the next wading pool.

This time, though, I'm staying put.  This time, I'm putting in the work.  Billy Joel said it best: "You can get what you want or you can just get old."

When I grow up, I want to work hard.  I want to be a great volleyball player.

If the Earth Can Turn Around, Then So Can My Day

Today, the world was against me.  I woke up tired.  I showered way too long, but somehow left the house earlier...but got to work later.  My students were a mess.  My very clear instructions on a quiz somehow still managed to give them trouble.  On top of everything, a fourth grader would not stop trying to convince me that my book about the solar system was wrong.  Look, kid, if the book written by professionals says that comets often look blue, then they probably do.  Just because you think it's wrong doesn't mean it is.  Now get out of my class because you're five minutes late for recess.

Thankfully, I end every day with fifth grade, which means I get to spend the last three hours with kids who don't waste the entire period whining, looking confused, or ignoring directions.  They know exactly what to do.  And because they know exactly what to do, it is painful to spend the first three hours of each day with these barely fourth graders who require constant reminders to use common sense.  Like the conversation below, which happens almost every day:

Me: What grade are you in?
Student: Fourth.
Me: Then why are you writing down fifth grade homework?
Student: Oh.

So many blank stares.  So many.


Fifth grade saved me today.  I was an overwhelmed wreck and on the brink of a minor breakdown by the time they arrived at my door.  They came in, they worked hard, they read directions, and they cleaned up before they left.  Don't get me wrong, I still had to fuss at a few to sit down and issue several reminders to reread directions, but they were really great, and I needed that.  I desperately needed that.

In the end, the fifth graders will always be my favorite.  Not just because they're more mature and have a better sense of humor, but also because I taught them last year.  I know them.  I know their strengths and weaknesses.  I know where to comfort and where to push.  In some cases, I know what they're going to say before they say it ("No, you can't use that bathroom pass right now.  Put your hand down."  "Yes, I'm well aware that he can be annoying.  No, you can't switch seats.").  Today, I spent fifteen minutes talking to one student about stressful things going on in his school life, and it was one of the best parts of my day.  I'm not sure if we solved the problems, but he at least knows I've got his back.

And that is why I love teaching.  I love having heart-to-hearts with kids.  I love joking with them on the recess yard and playing four square with them after school.  I love seeing them learn and grow and change and mature.  Most of all, I love it when they come back years later and gossip with me after school.

In the end, I suppose the fifth graders and students past should actually serve as a reminder that these fourth graders won't be a mess forever.  They'll learn to write their name on their paper.  They'll learn not to wait for me to give them the same directions today that I give them every day.  They'll learn about me, too...and begin to laugh freely at my terrible jokes, if for no other reason than because they know I'll appreciate it.  And next year, they'll be my life savers.

Letter from a fourth grader this year.  He's catching on quickly...flattery will get you everywhere, kid.

2004 Revisited: Birthdays, Journals, and a Vote of Confidence

Last night, as I stepped up to my wall calendar to record which medicine I took that day (because I am basically an 80 year old), I noticed that the next day--that is, today--is my friend Angie's birthday.  It is, of course, an annual event, so it is not some great revelation that there is a day in 2014 that marks the start of her next turn around the sun.  Instead, the greater realization was that this year marks ten years since we've met.  In other words, it's been a damn long time since we were Italy together, getting lost outside Venice or trying to surreptitiously take a picture of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

To some of you, ten years may not seem like a lot for a friendship.  Keep in mind, though, that I spend half of my ten hour work day with people who weren't even born ten years ago, so my perspective is a little skewed.  That's right, friends.  Some of the kids I teach weren't even alive when Katrina hit.  This makes me somehow simultaneously hopeful and depressed.  Cheers to a better New Orleans!  I'll just go count my forehead wrinkles in the mirror now.

I don't have many long-standing friendships worth noting that pass the ten year mark--I met most of my close friends in college--but the few I have carry a special weight.  There's history there.  There's understanding and acceptance and an unspoken acknowledgement of things past, both shiny and tarnished.  My longest non-familial friendship is going on twenty years, and the best part about this elementary-era friendship is how easily we slide back into things when we're together, how easily we forget pretenses.

My strongest friendships are mostly long distance these days.  I suppose that says something about the global society we live in today and the power of social media.  I would like to say that Angie I would still keep in touch were we not on Facebook, but the truth of the matter is, one of us still owes the other a Christmas card from about five years ago (it's probably me) and it's looking less and less likely that the stamp will ever make it to the envelope.  Thanks to cyber communication, we still get to learn about the small things in each others' lives.  I get to see pictures of her baby and dog (both adorable), and she gets to read all the ridiculous (or sweet) things my students say to me in class.  Sometimes, it's hard to believe that we only spent two weeks together ten years ago.  Sometimes, it feels like it was just yesterday that I walked into an empty hotel room in Rome to a huge mess of clothes scattered around the room and thereby learned that I had a roommate for my tour of Italy.  Just thinking about it makes me laugh.  Little did I know at the time that I had just serendipitously stumbled into a friendship that would last ten plus years.

Angie and I hit it off pretty quickly, and we spent most of our time in Italy together.  I know this because college happens to be the one time in my life in which I devotedly journaled each and every day of every week of every month of every year.  I'm pretty sure I was planning on having a life so spectacular that would it would require a highly-detailed, multi-volume biography to capture the extent of my world-changing adventures.  Of course, the crate full of journals wouldn't help much, since most of the entries say things like "Settling into college.  My physics professor is awesome.  My calculus professor is from New Zealand, so her "f"s sound like "if"s.  She's really nice.  My Asian-American Fiction teacher seems cool, too.  My Judaic class seems like it will be informative, and the teacher is nice."  Apparently, three years of intensive writing classes and endless hours of studying for the SAT did not make even a subtle dent in my seventeen-year-old vocabulary.  Amazingly, this singularly-documented period of life also happened to be stunningly less dramatic and cool than I thought it was going to be.  Don't get me wrong, college was awesome.  But not exactly what I envisioned when I left home to strike out on my own...

"August 13, 2003

I can't wait until UVa starts.  I really can't wait to be able to go to parties and events and have boyfriends and make new friends.  I just love music and dancing, and parties will finally give me that chance, although I worry about being around a bunch of drunks.  The only thing I plan to do that might not be conventional is get my ears pierced a second time, right near the first hole.  Not in the cartilage; that seems like it would hurt too much.  I think two holes per ear, like I'll get it, seems pretty cool.  I'll, of course, take it out for church and when I come home, since my mom wouldn't like it.  I haven't told her I'm going to--and I don't plan to tell her.  She would say I couldn't and then I'd have to listen.  I have to plan the timing so that it will be more than six weeks until I see her, so my holes won't close back up again when I take them out."

Yes, as you can read, I was a rebel without a cause!  A menace to society!  A guilt-ridden teenager with a warped sense of the world.

It turns out, upon rereading these journals, that I also had absolutely no self confidence.  There's one point where I likened myself to the main character from My Big Fat Greek Wedding before the makeover.  Being a late bloomer is rough, guys.

By the summer I met Angie, I'd chilled out a little more and taken a self-loving step in the right direction.  While I never did get that second ear piercing, I'm pretty sure that by July 2004, I'd at least moved past the idea that God would somehow be disappointed in me for wearing four earrings to church instead of two.  She and I spent most of the trip side by side, taking in the sights.  There were a few times we split up (mostly when I refused to climb narrow, steep stairways), but we passed the better part of every day elbow to elbow talking about the guy she'd met in Madrid (Pedro) and Matt (a guy from UVa I was obsessed with)...or whatever else came to mind.

Here's us in Venice:

And somewhere in the Vatican: 

I grew up a lot that summer.  I learned how to travel alone.  I learned how to stand up for myself, and I met a lot of people similar and dissimilar from me that gave me a unique perspective on life.  I even bought underwear that wasn't cotton or from KMart.  (I know what you're thinking: wild child.)  It surprises me sometimes to think back on that summer and realize how far I've come and how much we've changed.  I mean, Angie's a mom, for god's sake.  On my end of thing, I'm almost 29, mostly sure of myself, and have finally learned how to evaluate my professors using words other than "cool," "awesome," and "nice."  Maybe I'll have my Big Fat Greek Wedding makeover moment yet.

Audrey Hepburn once said, "The beauty of a woman only grows with passing years."  Angie, here's to ten years of increased beauty and the memories of one crazy Italian summer.  Happy birthday, my friend!

You Can't Win If You Don't Play The Game

This summer was the summer that wrecked my savings.  I was purportedly being money-wise as I began a house hunt, but instead of penny-pinching, I managed to drain my previously well-maintained savings account with furniture, brake replacements, and an impromptu trip to Canada.  My summer job at the Gap paid almost nothing, and my real job didn't restart direct deposits until this past Friday.  To illustrate my financial state most clearly, I very recently put off buying laundry detergent because there was less than thirty dollars in my checking account.  To make matters worse, most of what I spent my money on this summer wasn't even fun stuff.  It was things like oil changes and bills.  Being an adult sucks sometimes.

The result of this impending brokeness and the corresponding stress it created was a hurried mental search for ways to earn more money and restock the savings account I had so easily burned through in a mere two months.  I signed up for an extra hour of aftercare each week.  I started putting in reimbursement requests for everything at work, even the cheap stuff.  I clipped coupons.  I even imposed a 24-hour purchase delay rule for myself so that I had enough time to talk myself out of buying things (or hope I forgot about them).  Scrooge looks a high-roller compared to me.

This week, I went a step further.  At the Saints preseason game on Thursday, one of the commercials advertised a contest for Superbowl tickets.  That particular contest would probably cost me money if I won, but it gave me the idea to start entering sweepstakes online: Winn-Dixie, Best Buy, NFL, HGTV...  If they have an online contest that either pays or gives me football tickets, I'm entering.

My old roommate, Sidney, will probably make fun of me for this because I have, for the last 3-4 years, given her repeated lectures on the very slim chances associated with the lottery.  I once clipped a section out of the paper on events more likely to befall a person than lottery winnings: lightning strikes, shark bites, drowning, becoming president, and my favorite: being crushed by a vending machine.  Yes, my friends, it is more likely that you will be crushed by a metal box filled with high fructose corn syrup than win the Powerball.  Obesity kills.

There is one major difference, of course, in my mind between the lottery and these contests, though, and that is the total lack of monetary entrance requirements.  Well, except for the church raffle tickets I'm buying next week, but that's a donation I was going to make anyway.

Truth be told, I don't know what my odds are in all of this.  I have a history of pretty mixed luck.  I won a wall clock at a charity event once.  I find pretty good parking spots on the regular.  I won my very first game of darts (because darts is a game of luck for me).  On the other hand, I've also lost $20 in a cab, been ticketed for driving 32 miles per hour, and had a glass casserole dish break my toe as I walked into a friend's birthday party.

It's a toss up.  In the end, I will most likely only have the money I've earned and an inbox full of spam.  You never know, though.  You never know.

In the meantime, I'll keep you updated...and I'll steer clear of sharks and vending machines.