The Starving Analyst

At the tail end of my freshmen year of high school I realized something, I was a fucking loser. I spent most of my time with video games and my friends, and no time on academia or myself. Not wanting to have the repeat of failed grades and low self-esteem I decided I would join a sport. This would force myself to spend time on my grades, so I could maintain my GPA to compete, and in turn would take away my idle time from Nintendo and place it in personal development. Not knowing anything about sports, and my lack of hand eye coordination, I decided to join the swim team. It also helped that a lot of my friends, and the girl I had a crush on at the time were already on the team. There was only one problem, I didn’t know how to swim. On top of that I had a brush with drowning 3 years prior that kept me out of the water. Despite my reservations, on the final week of school I marched myself into my counselor’s office and told her for my schedule next year I would like 6 th p...

I went to the grocery store this past week. My 3-yr.old was in the shopping cart playing with the packages of food we would purchase, and my 1-yr. old, fed up with shopping, sat in the child seat of the shopping cart wailing uncontrollably. As we stood in line the 3-yr. old joined the chorus of complaining his younger brother had been the conductor to. I tried to get them quiet. I tried forcefulness. It didn’t work. I next loving encouraged. Nope. I tried entertaining them, funny faces, high fives, the whole works. I think it made it worse. I began to use my trump card of threatening: “When your mother gets home you boys are in for a spanking!” They smugly looked at me and continued their complaining. Having exhausted all my known resources I turned my attention to the tabloids, which where conveniently placed in eye level, in hopes that my children might quiet down from my inattentiveness. In a short time, I became distracted. As I read the covers of the royal baby bump,...

This past weekend I found myself with my wife and kids at a small park. My 3-yr. old, an expert on parks at this point, ran amuck on the playground equipment. He flew across the monkey bars, down the slides, and over the sand. My 1-yr. old on the other hand is not so quite accomplished as his brother. He required assistance the entire time. Whether it was going down a slide, up a platform, or through a tunnel, I needed to be there every step of the way helping him when he needed it. Eventually my 1-yr. old decided that he wanted to do things on his own, so knowing the value of learning I allowed him to do just that. I still hovered around in case something would happened. At one point I sat on a bench a short little distance off while he attempted to ascend a slide to reach a platform above him. With each step he took forward he would eventually slip, fall on his face, and slide back down to the beginning. Despite these setbacks his 1-yr. old spirit would not be broken. S...