Grace's Dilemma -- Hollywood or New York?

One of my friends (Phyllis) complained that I never blog anymore -- not about the interesting stuff like embarrassing situations or my kids getting into trouble, etc... All I ever write about is books and book reviews and France. Of course, I am obsessed with books and France, but my kids are still a major part of my life. So here's a blog about one of my kids...
In January, Grace stayed home rather than going back to her college in far away New York. I want her to finish college, but having her home was so nice. She took classes at the local community college -- theater, ballet, communications, nothing too strenuous. She got a job at a local French restaurant and has learned that she gets bigger tips if she speaks English with a French accent. The tight black skirt also improves tips. She performed in the chorus of a local community theater production.
As April bloomed, it was time to find another college where she could attend and finish. She applied to four colleges and was accepted at all of them. We visited Ohio State where she could continue with her French and languages major. The campus and the program just didn't win her over.
She and I together visited one of the campuses about 15 minutes from home. As we walked onto campus, I commented that it reminded me a lot of her college in New York. She agreed.
"Why didn't we look here?" she asked.
Mostly, cause they don't have a swim team and at the time, Grace was planning to swim in college.
Grace, now 21, has decided to change her major to theater. That has been a big struggle for me -- not that I have that much say in it. But I think majoring in theater is like sowing dandelions in your green lawn. It's going to be a lot of work for something you may or may not succeed at. I have no idea whether Grace is a good actress. I have no idea whether she can succeed on Broadway or in Hollywood. But who am I to say don't go for your dreams?
I always wanted to be a writer, but  I can write after the bloom of youth has faded. For actors, youth is pretty much a necessity. So I gave Grace my blessing to major in theater but asked her to pick another major too, like communications. She agreed.
 My cousin, who was a successful actor, appearing in movies like Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and  television shows like Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle, cautioned that having a back up means that you won't throw your heart into acting.
I didn't change my mind about the double major though.
So as we toured the campus, they said the tour didn't include the Communications building which was a little way down the road. We said we'd like to see the building and they called ahead to alert the secretary we were coming.
The secretary took one look at Grace, 5-foot, 10-inches before her platform pumps, an insouciant scarf draped around her neck, her brown hair falling in a curtain down her back, and said, "Oh, I see you're here for Broadcast."
Grace and I both looked at each other.
Grace said afterwards that she felt like saying, "Well, I am now."
The chair of the department came out into the hallway to talk to Grace and was explaining some classes then said, "But that's really for the writing side of things, not Broadcast."
"Grace is a pretty good writer too," I threw in there. After all, Earl and I are both writers and pride ourselves on the fact that we may not have passed along math skills but our kids can write.
Then as we continued on the tour, one of the broadcast professors came into the hallway to meet us.
"I'll take over from here," he told the secretary. "I can see she's here for broadcast."
After we walked out of the building, we looked at each other and said, "Why didn't we ever think about this before?"
Theater and broadcast journalism seem like a perfect match. Grace will have to learn how to operate the cameras, to edit, to direct, to read the news, to covers sports and other stories. Hopefully she can find a fabulous internship in New York City that allows her to work on news during the day and try out for shows in the evening. The auditions alone would be hugely helpful.
So now Grace is registered to attend a new college only 15 minutes away and even closer to her work. She's still debating whether she'll live on campus or get an apartment for the school year. She's taking some more classes at the community college this summer, and I'm praying she can finish by the end of next summer, but in the fall of 2014, I'll have another kid headed off to college.

Talent in the Eye of the Beholder

Talent is an amorphous thing. What I see as talent others may not, and vice versa.
We started talking about art and talent at work the other day. The Writing Center where I tutor college students is located in the library. Along one wall of the library, on the walk toward the bathroom, a student artist currently displays her paintings. And frankly, most of them are bad.

I don't think the student is young, since many of the paintings have dates on them from the early 2000s.

"Maybe if she painted only landscapes," I suggested to the other teachers in the Writing Center.

"No," my friend Vivian said shaking her head. "Someone just  needs to take her brush away."
We all laughed, but it's true. Someone, somewhere encouraged this person to keep painting and try to make a career of painting.
"It's just a shame someone wasn't honest with her to begin with," Vivian said.
But talent is like that. Someone thought she was good at painting and now that's what she is.
The dogs in the one below especially bother me.

What do you think? Would you be honest with your friend, child, sibling if he/she didn't have talent in the art, music, writing, photography field?

Anything's Possible

Listening to a radio program tonight as I fixed dinner, the author of the book The Genius in All of Us inspired me. David Shenk talked about things like: there isn't a math gene that makes some people good at it; child prodigies are excellent at their talent compared to other children, but not usually compared to other adults. And all of these skills are things that people learn through practice.
They try; they hit a wall because they don't have the skill; they learn the skill; they go back and succeed.
Truly, isn't that, plus a drive to succeed, all that any of us need.
The ideas this author talked about encouraged me as a mother, teacher and a writer.
I've seen that drive and skill seesaw in Spencer. He loves basketball. The more he plays, the better he gets. He needed a different body type so he spent the summer lifting weights to give him more bulk under the basket. Of course, he's lucky that he's tall. No amount of working out could have added the height to him. Spencer doesn't believe that he can play basketball in college, but if he continues to work at it, who knows? This book says talent is developed, not innate. The example the author used was Michael Jordan, who was not supposed to be as good at basketball as his older brother. What was his name again?
As a teacher, sometimes I feel that students are so disadvantaged they can never catch up. Just last quarter though, I had a student, Paul, in his 40s. He'd been in the military and he was taking my English 101 class. His first paper was bad. He couldn't write in complete sentences. I handed back essays and I gave a speech to him and other struggling students. "The resources are available to help you pass this class if it's what you want." and "It's always easier to move forward now and to pass rather than to take the class again." Paul spent the quarter getting one on one help for each of his essays. By the time we wrote the in-class final, he was writing in complete sentences and his essays were unified. He decided to focus on English and he learned the skills that he never had when he was a teenager in school.
As a writer, well, people have always told me I was a good writer, and that might have been my downfall. Because I already believed that I was good at it, I haven't worked on it the way I should. Now I find myself looking at sections of my novel and I envision slashing through them, rewriting them. I picture the scenes and wonder how I can help the reader see the same thing in my head. I have submitted my manuscripts and had them rejected. That means my choices are to stop writing or to learn more skill sets that will help me succeed.
This book puts to bed the argument of nature versus nurture. Everyone can do anything if they are willing to put in the time and have the opportunity to learn the skills.
Photo from Amazon.com