My weakest muscle

Last night one of my public relations professors spoke to my living community about life in the public relations field. Bill shared his own experiences in the field, suggested ways to hone our skills and encouraged us to find and focus on a niche. He also emphasized developing our strengths and not freaking out about our weaknesses.

I was relieved to learn that my future isn’t completely dismal because I’m not Miss Super PR Girl.

I’ve finally accepted that my skills in design and layout are lacking. I can stare at a computer screen for hours and try to make a publication look professional, crisp and modern. The end result? Possibly one or two text boxes and a lot of sent e-mails.

I admire those who can joyfully spend hours at the computer and make several fliers during that time. Their creative instinct with design and layout is fascinating.

Words offer me the creativity and freedom I can’t find with pictures and clip art. I’m honing my ability to link several words and phrases together to tell a story and deliver a message. I don’t know why, but pens, paper and books excite me more than photo albums or clip art ever have.

I salute those who can tell stories from images and angles. You have a creative muscle that may always be my weakest strength. In the meantime, please pass me the dictionary and thesaurus. My muscles are aching to work-out with the words.

Give me grammar or a red pen

I don’t understand why people often speak and write with poor grammar. How do they do it and not groan afterward?

Yes, spoken words are usually less grammatical than written words, but that doesn’t explain why a person would want to flaunt their ignorance.

How do they derive pleasure from abbreviating words so much that there is practically no meaning nor intellectual backbone to them? Why not just stick a sign on your forehead that says, “Yo I speak dumb (n I wanna b dumb)”? That may be harsh, but it seems they’re setting themselves up for failure and making it much more challenging for others to recognize their potential and capabilities.

I think that no matter what you’re saying, you’re communicating effectively. You’re communicating the message you want others to see and think, subconsciously or not. If you broadcast yourself as an idiot, don’t be surprised if people see you as one.

Perhaps I love grammar too much, but sometimes it’s a challenge to not whip out a red pen to edit and revise others’ words.