Jenn Writes

Writing my way through life, one word at a time.

Let Me Introduce Myself.

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So I’m super-inspired by all my blogging friends – I want to have a blog that people read and that makes them think twice about their preconceived notions – both about women in sports and maybe about women in general.  I am not, however, sure where to start.

I guess I should introduce myself.  I’m 31, between jobs at the moment as I have just left my Ph.D program (unfinished) to actually *do* something with my life, and a sports fanatic.   My first passion is the CFL.  I co-host a weekly on-line radio show about the CFL.  I have loved football in all of its incarnations for as long as I can remember.  I also love Open-Wheel racing.  I was 6 when the (then) Molson Indy roared through the streets of Toronto for the first time – I went with my parents and fell in love with the sound of the engines and even the smell of the hot rubber.  Formula One came a bit later but I am no less passionate about it.  I watch baseball, hockey, lacrosse, and basketball when there is no football or racing to watch.

I am also passionate about social media.  I believe that connecting with other people is one of the greatest gifts of the technological age and that social media is an easy way to meet all sorts of fabulous people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.  I am trying to figure out how to merge these two interests of mine – sports and social media.

I’m also intrigued by brand blogging.  I have always been the type of person who, when they find something neat, is more than willing to tell everyone within earshot how fabulous it is.  I also am not afraid to tell people when something fails to meet my expectations.  It seems to follow that brand blogging would be a natural extension of my nature – the question is how do I start.  Actually there are more questions – how do I ensure that I can remain true to my moral code while still doing the job expected of a brand blogger?  I don’t think I could endorse something I didn’t truly love.  How could I, in good conscience send my friends off to buy something I think is crap?  I don’t lie well.  Never have – even as a kid my guilty conscience would get the best of me within minutes.  I want to be sure that I won’t be selling myself to the devil in order to get some free stuff.

I guess that’s enough of an introduction.  I have another post I want to share today so I should get going on that one.

 

Jenn

Stupidity

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Driving home from a meeting tonight I saw some shining examples of stupidity that prove that while Kitchener-Waterloo may be one of the most intelligent communities on the planet, that doesn’t mean that certain individuals don’t bring down the curve.

First, to the charming young gentleman clad all in black who chose to dart out less than 5 feet in front of my car at 11:15 pm in a severe rainstorm: You are very lucky that I was paying close attention to the curbs, knew that there was nobody in my blind spot and had the traction to swerve into the other lane to avoid hitting you.  Yes I honked at you to make sure you were aware I was there.  I think what you meant to convey was “thank you, kind driver for going out of your way not to hit me” but that’s not the message I got when you saluted me with your middle finger.

Second, to the driver who sat on my tail and flashed his (or her – I didn’t take the time to study my rear-view mirror to determine the gender) high-beams at me when I was doing the speed limit in the pouring rain… screw off.  You don’t like the speed I chose, there is another lane.  Yes I know that people routinely go 10-15 km/h over the speed limit on this stretch of road, but it was late, POURING rain, and the amount of standing water on the road was staggering to say the least.  I’ll say this much – blinding me with your high beams is not a good way to make me speed up.  I’m more likely to start tapping out four-letter words with my brake lights in Morse Code (I know that 90% or more of the other drivers on the road don’t know what I’m spelling out but it makes me feel better).

Finally, to the special individual who chose to run the red light on a bicycle, again clad all in black, with no headlights – I get that it was raining pretty hard and that biking in the rain sucks, but do you think your actions might have been just a little reckless?  Apart from freaking me out completely, what did you hope to accomplish?  A free ride to the trauma centre of your choice?  Stopping at red lights is one of the things you have to do as a responsible bicyclist.  Get over yourself and get a light and a clue.

A question

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Why do smoke alarm batteries always die and start chirping in the middle of the night?    Mine started at 3:04 (or at least that’s when it woke me up).  the middle of the night on a weekend is really not the time when I can do much about it other than unwire it (it’s a combined wired/battery backup Carbon Monoxide / smoke alarm) and pull it down and remove the battery.   My landlord replaced the batteries a little under 4 months ago in the 2 detectors that needed them (the others have a nifty 10 year sealed lithium battery) so I’m not sure why this one was chirping every 30-40 seconds and saying what I believe was “Low Battery / French equivalent” in a muffled electronic voice.  Did I mention that this alarm was installed (by the landlord not by me!) in a spot where you have to put a small stepladder on a stair to get at it?  yeah…great design there.  So today I will go get new batteries and hopefully tonight I will actually get to sleep through the night.

exhaustion

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the past week has been exhausting both mentally and physically – how does my body choose to react to the stress?  By making sure I get less than 5 hours of sleep a night.  Sometimes I think my body is engaged in an all out war with itself.  I’m working tomorrow and have band rehearsal but am going to try to get a good night’s sleep tonight so that I can stay awake at band.  Tuesday I’m sleeping in.  Late.

Daddy’s Little Girl

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I am my father’s daughter and I’m damn proud of it.  My dad never shied away from teaching me about sports because of my gender, in fact it became something the two of us had in common when I was a teenager and most of my friends had no real relationship with their dads.   Dad and I love sports and we both love arguing about sports.  We’ll root for opposing teams in a random game just to have something to bicker about.   Dad says he decided that I was going to be a football fan when he and mum knew I was going to be an only child.  They only had one television – so it was going to end up being 2 against 1 one way or the other and he decided it was going to be in his favour.  There is a rumor that my first sentence was uttered in disgust at a certain CFL referee and was “you stupid ref”.   I don’t believe it – maybe my second or third sentence but not my first.  Dad and I would go to Argos games at Exhibition Stadium and later at Skydome and he would point out things I had never seen on television coverage.  As I got older, I started pointing things out to him – the roles had reversed and I was now teaching him some of the finer points of football.  It wasn’t just football either – Dad and I went to baseball and hockey games, and of course there was the annual trip to the Molson Indy in Toronto.  Dad’s company had a Suite and I was there all day on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (but until I was older not on the Sunday – race day – since that was for the adults only)I watched the race from home while Mum and Dad sat in the suite.    I wandered around the paddock on the weekdays and met some of the drivers – my great accomplishment was a t-shirt on which a then-unknown rookie named Alex Zanardi signed not only his name but a phone number.  Since he had signed my back, I didn’t know about the phone number and dad hit the roof.  I watched the mechanics work on the cars and convinced more than one of them to let me help.  I learned that the driver can be as talented as he wants but if he doesn’t have a top-notch pit crew, he won’t be going anywhere.    I still love open-wheel racing to this day – both the Indycar series and Formula One.  One of my favourite things to do on a Sunday morning is get up at 7:45 with Dad and spend my morning watching Formula One racing with him.   I also like attending live races with him.  I love the noise of a live race (though I have always worn noise cancelling earphones to prevent hearing loss) and the smell of the oil and the hot rubber combining.   I watch every race – not just the main events.  I hold my breath and cross my fingers every time there is an accident.  I am finding it harder to watch now that I know one of the drivers in the Indycar series – James Hinchcliffe.  James is driving for Newmann-Haas racing and is the son of Dad’s former boss Jeremy.  It’s very different when you know the family of the driver – it makes them more than a racing car driver – it makes them human.  Yet I still watch, and even though I don’t live at home with Mum and Dad anymore, I message Dad the same comments during the race that we used to say when we were watching it together.

So yes, you could say I’m Daddy’s Little Girl – I will take that as a compliment of the highest order.