Writin this Speech

Do you feel my blog has been stale this week? I do. It’s always a matter of opinion of course, sometimes I write shit I hate, and the people say “hooray.” Other times I write shit I think is fun, and people say nothin. The other thing is that my podcasting has taken center stage in my mind, and blogging has become like the middle child… the jan brady.. of my internet activities. Not sure who the Cindy would be.

But let’s focus on the task at hand. This is intro week for new international students in Amsterdam, and yours truely is the keynote brotha this afternoon. I’ve scribble-typed a speech that I don’t much care for. I never follow what I write anyway, I just say whatever comes to me when I’m on stage. Same thing with my podcasts, I jot some notes, but I still basically make it up as I go along… that’s my WAY.

So what would you, gentle reader, say to them? Imagine… a bunch of Spanish-Australian-Thai-Indian-Nigerian-Canadian-Mexican-Americans, who might be studying in another country for the first time ever, what would you tell them?

I know what I’m not going to say. No bullshit about this being the “TIME OF YOUR LIFE” I hate that shit. There are so many GREAT times in one’s life, I hate when they point at the 20 something year old college students and say “enjoy it while it lasts” as if the rest of life is one big drag. If you spend your whole life daydreaming about the good-ol-days when you studied abroad, my advice to you would be to stop everything right now, and make some changes, cause you must be going about it all wrong.

The fact is, most of the shit I can tell them, they have to learn for themselves. I can’t stop everytime I see someone with a map or someone with questions, because I’m not allowing them to grow on their own if I do. It shouldn’t be my job to tell them what to enjoy and how to enjoy it, my job should just be to say hello, offer some little advice about restaurant choice or daytripping (with or without the drugs). Otherwise I should just remain the WATCHER… the scribe… who observes and appreciates, but allows young fish to swim as they wish.

Oh.. and I could definitely recommend REBEL DAD RADIO to them, not to mention remind them about ANTI visiting New York RIGHT NOW.

Today’s Sounds: In Over Your Head Podcast