What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

04 November 2009

NBC is doing it!!

Advertising for the Olympics, that is. I take that as justification for me to do it, too. :)

So, I was sitting in my college speech class about four and a half years ago. It was our first speech, and "introduce yourself" type thing, and the topics revolved around interesting things that happened on our birth day/month/year. Everything was rolling along smoothly and I already had earned my own grade, and was enjoying my classmates' speeches.

Then, this innocent young 20-year-old man got up, to tell us all about being born in 1984. In the course of his speech, he said (and I am not kidding), "1984 was the only year that the Winter and Summer games were held in the same year."

Cue me, falling out of my chair. Okay, not really, but I did a serious slump. Never mind that I can remember the 1984 Olympics (thank you, Mary Lou!), but these people couldn't even remember both games being held in the same year! It didn't change that long ago! 1994, to be exact, was the first year of separation!

Sigh. So at the end of class, in great Susan's-foot-in-mouth style, I asked, "So, does everyone over 25 feel really old now?" And in unison, the other six or so non-traditional students all answered, "Yes."

At least I wasn't alone. So my cautionary tale is this: When giving a speech, do some research first.

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