Posted by Matches on October 30, 1999 at 21:03:29:
In Reply to: Re: To Matches. posted by Tiggy. on October 30, 1999 at 16:47:49:
:: I don't really have what it takes.
: [To do what? Focus on specifics. What exactly can't you do? Write an essay? Do a project? Come up with ideas? Revise for an exam? Attend lectures? Make notes? Read? Find books in the Library? Jot down references? Put two sentences together? Put two paragraphs together? Work with other people? Any of these things? Get out of bed?]
----> I don't have what it takes to succeed in school. To reach even a shadow of the "potential" everyone keeps telling me I have.
: [What does it take? Don't use big embracing words - what actual practical things that you have to do to finish your course, does it take?]
-----> It takes actually doing the assignments. That's all I have to do to get an average grade in school. Do the assignments, take the tests, and that's it. That's good enough for me, but has never been enough for anyone else.
: : And what is "Matches"? Its a long, strange, and fairly uninteresting story...
: [Can a story be both strange and uninteresting?]
-----> Yes. I know, because this story is a prime example. I'll tell it anyway, because I get the feeling that you won't be satisfied until I do. The story is, when I was in the 9th grade, my friend John and I were looking in a huge book full of baseball statistics. We were looking at the individual pitching records, and saw that a guy named M. Kilroy stuck out 513 batters in one season. (That's the All-Time most ever). So we looked up his entry in the book, and saw:
Matt Kilroy Matthew Aloyisius "Matches" Kilroy
I said that "Matches" was a fantastic nickname for someone named Matt or Matthew. So John said he would start calling me that from then on. I didn't make much of it, but he won't ever call me anything else. What was interesting is that when my parents first heard him calling me that, they mantioned that my grandfather used to call a cousin of mine (who's name is Matt) "Matches." I was blown away.
: : Matches - I think of somebody smallish and cute, wistful and endearing. I have a very definite picture of what you look like, and I'm wondering if it's anything like the real thing.
How hard it is to imagine what someone looks like without ever having seen them! I've never put an image to a person I've met online...
I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "smallish". Nor "cute, wishful and endearing.." But as much as you may like to see what I look like in "real life," I would like to know what you THINK I look like...how does one go about placing a physical image to the thoughts and words expressed on paper, and how accurate can it be?