Things You Wouldn't Expect

There's some funny little quirks of life.
I mean, not the "oh, wow, freak rainstorm" sort of thing, but the types of advantages that I get without meaning to. The random mood swings (upward) I get when I do something... that I wouldn't expect.

Like NaNoWriMo.
Believe it or not, but I get motivated in November. Really motivated. Not just for writing- though that's a biggie- but for all my school. It's only the 6th and I've already finished one math review and I'm working on a miscellanious exercise and I got a really high score on my first DBQ and I've read half a WC chapter, and I've made an effort to print out my biology lab  and I might even get to critiquing something and I've practiced piano a ton and I've memorized nearly the entire Beethoven Sonata I'm supposed to have memorized by Thanksgiving and which I have to have perfect by January.
It's crazy.
But awesome.

Another one of the weird benefits of things is from D&D.
You'd think, "wow. That's a fantasy Role Playing game. There's going to be no real life benefits." But... there are! There are many!
Like the fact that I can talk to people much better now than when I didn't play D&D. Why? Because I was the only one who decided that the elven king needed a comprehensible report, and therefore had to come up with how to basically sum up the entire past D&D year (in D&D time- actually just about three months) in language he could understand, while projecting my voice over the nonsense of all ten of my fellow players.
Or the fact that I'm much more logical now. After once having to go deaf because I messed up a puzzle, I think about things a lot more now. I always remember to search the ceiling. I don't just assume that because someone looks like they're a good person means that they are.

Or playing piano.
I mean, of course, there's the obvious advantage of being able to play an instrument. And the fact that pretty soon I'm probably going to start teaching piano- causing myself to actually have a source of income.
But besides that.
Ever notice that I tend to sit up very straight?
That's because you look stupid when you hunch over a piano. Seriously. I'd show you a picture of me hunched over the piano, but I don't actually have one at the moment, so I'll show you one where I'm sitting up more or less straight.

Yep. That also happens to be me in my Halloween costume- that's at my Halloween recital.
Like I said- I'm not perfectly up and down yet, but I'm getting here!
Secondly?
Hand eye coordination. I have it. Not only because I knit, crochet, sew, and do needlepoint (People don't usually assume that I'm a home-ec-y sort of person... heh... I'm not... I could be if I wanted to, though), but because of the piano.
Why?
Because when the music says "Bb" you want to be able to play a Bb and not a C# or a regular B. When you're playing a F Major scale, you don't want to slip up and play an F minor. You can't always be looking down at your fingers when you play, unless the song is memorized. So, hand eye coordination is important.

Another thing with an unexpected aspect is writing. I enjoy writing. And it gives me so many benefits.
First of all, I can write much better. (Upcoming post, by the way.)
Second of all, I have so many more new, good, excellent, amazing, intelligent friends. And the friends that I had before are so much better, because we both write. Huzzah for common interests!
Another good benefit is the fact that when you write, you research. This doesn't just mean reading and stealing quotes to use. It means that when I'm writing a book that takes place during the Salem witch trials, I learn about them. I figure out what names were used. Why the hysteria began, where it began, how it began, how long it went to, what sort of people were persecuted, why they were persecuted, how many people died, how they died, what sort of religions were popular back then, where Salem is, where the different town locations were (old maps are good for that), what the prisons looked like, how people spoke back then, what they believed in, and so on.
I sort of know much more about the Salem witch trials than most people my age. And that was when I was 12, writing my first book. How many 12 year old girls can tell you exactly why, when, where, and how the witch trials began, why they continued, how many people died, what the statistics were for people who died in jail and people who were executed, and why they ended?
Exactly.
The other unexpected benefit is that you learn to watch people. Why? Because, and I'm sort of paraphrasing my friend Mikel here, the characters that are based off of real people are far more realistic and 3D than are characters who you just come up with.
So, you watch people. And you watch them. And you describe them. And you learn how they feel and why they feel, and why people act the way they do, and what the different types of personality types are, and how various people types would act, and what sort of weird habits people have, and how to tell if people are lying, and stuff like that.
It's quite fascinating.

Or blogging.
You learn to write better, sure, but there are, as usual, unexpected good things that happen.
The ability to not offend. The ability to accept with grace the fact that people are going to get mad at you. The ability to navigate Blogger's quirks and devise ways to post comments even though Blogger apparently doesn't want you to. (Hint: try a different internet browser.)
And... My personal favorite...
Shameless Self Advertising! Before I started blogging, I considered self advertising to be... well... a bad thing! You should wait for people to refer you to others, right? Wait for people to discover your talents.
...Ha.
No, blogging has taught me that if you want people to read your stuff, you have to be out there, participating in blog carnivals, and shoving your writing in peoples' faces, and putting your link up on forum blog rolls, and telling people about it, and then mentioning it again, and saying stuff like, "and, as I mentioned in my blog post, which is here: (insert link)" and so on.
Thus the "Shameless" part.


Anyway, this is a really long post, so I'm going to end it here...
Kudos if you read it all. :)

Shout out to Sandy: Hi! *hugs* we all love you. :)