Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

BIG BRO

"The J-dogg is in the final match of Blog Madness 2003. Please take a leap over there; and if you think that his entry is worthy of your vote, do vote. Thank you."

edited / added: MATT GOT IN! THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY GRAD SCHOOL -- ENGINEERING COMPUTER SCIENCE -- HEADING FOR A PHD -- T/A POSITION -- GO GIVE HIM SOME LOVIN'!

matty had a couple grad school interviews last week. after “socializing” with a number of the other candidates (he’s applied to grad school programs leading to a phd in computer science). his impressions of the other kids were interesting. matt has a kind of self-deprecating way about him most times. don’t get me wrong. he’s his mom and dad’s “kid” and can turn it on big time if he wishes; but like his mom (mostly), that’s only when he’s aiming to wound (i.e. the person on the receiving deserves it). mostly, matt is really funny, compassionate, interesting, and, well, umm, normal*. that, that normalcy, is one of the best things about him.

i could tell that he was really, really bright when he was an infant. no, really. and because of my theory that you bloggers that read us are pretty bright and interesting people, i’m sure you’ll know what i mean. i hope i don’t sound arrogant. keep reading. it’ll come together.

he (matt) just had this way about him. this intense way of observing everything. and because he never – and i do mean NEVER slept during the day until he was 9 FREAKING MONTH’S OLD (!!!!!) – he observed a lot. i had no idea what to do to entertain him; so i read to him, talked to him, pointed out things to him, exhausted myself. i could give you a lot of examples, but i won’t bore you now. i, myself, find talking about my family absolutely facinating, but i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and spare you all the gory details.

the short story is that his preschool teacher recommended to us that we have him tested so as to be prepared to talk to the elementary school people, so we did. case western reserve university confirmed what we already knew, but we had a piece of paper to give to teachers, along with recommendations on enrichment activities. bill and i had done a lot of thinking and talking about how we wanted to raise our children, and we knew that matt was soooooooooo much more than just really, really bright. i know this is so boring, sorry. to me, intelligence is just a gift. what you ARE is so much more. hopefully.**

which brings me to these other candidates. and others like them. i’m so sorry their parents didn’t teach them what i’m going to try to here.

be thankful for your “gifts.” that’s all they are. gifts. could just as easily have gone to someone else. be worthy of them. do NOT believe that these gifts are what make you better than 99 percent of the population. if you want to be better, do it. BE better. cuz it’s my belief that the more arrogant you behave in trying to separate yourself from the masses, the worse you feel about yourself. and this is all you got. so look a little deeper. i’m sure you’ve got more to offer. join the human race. grow up. you’ll be glad you did. trust me. you will.

i always say (i’ve got a million things i always say – makes my family crazy) that one of the worst things to happen to a person is to know that you, yourself, are the smartest person you’ve ever met.

*normal in the context of OUR family anyway. we can kind of slide in and around normal folks without scaring people. unless they read our blogs, i guess.
*do NOT correct my grammar. i KNOW that’s wrong. don’t care.

Posted by Stacey at March 15, 2004 03:51 PM