When I was in college, at the beginning of each school year I would always joke with my friends that then would be the perfect time to “rebrand.” Most people moving into the apartment complex we had never met, so if we wanted to change something about our personality then would be the time. We would always joke about becoming the person in the complex who throws all the parties, or the person who has a very loud, controversial opinion on everything. The emphasis, of course, is on the word “joke” since every year of college my brand was almost always “only attend social gatherings that have plenty of food, leave early, and spend the rest of your time in sweats watching TV with your roommates and perfecting the lifelong quest of making a non-burnt quesadilla.” Now that another school year is almost upon us, I have been thinking about rebranding. There are a few different ways I’ve thought I could rebrand myself:
Karate Kid: Emmie’s awesome room mom had given her free passes for a karate class for teacher appreciation week, so this summer we went. This would be an excellent time to let you know that I know NOTHING about karate, except people break wooden boards and make loud “Hi-YA!” noises. I wondered on the drive over if anyone had every actually broken their hand trying to break the wooden board, or if I would be the first, and if they would put my picture up on their wall. (Hopefully the picture would be taken before the resident karate master got word of it and was jealous that somebody was finally getting their picture on the wall and challenged me to a karate duel) After one class I’m not quite sure if I can truly rebrand myself as “the karate kid,” and instead might be rebranded as the “please don’t make me stand in front of the class” person, but I do know some self-defense moves, and during meditation time while everyone had their eyes closed I made sure to peek around and check out who all the black belts were in case I ever find myself needing a sensei to aid me in an Ocean’s 11 scenario. I also learned that at the end of the class, everyone bows to each other and says, “Courtesy”, so sometimes I like to bow randomly to people and when they give me a confused look roll my eyes and say under my breath “Oh...must be a white belt.” (Hopefully the fact that I had to google the lowest karate belt while writing this doesn’t hurt my karate street cred)
The Movie Person: After this summer, it’s hard to imagine not rebranding myself as cinematic expert. Tyler and I love to go to the movies, and we always get popcorn. As we all know, concessions at the movie theater are astronomically priced. The popcorn is so expensive that I have often wondered if Cinemark is coating my popcorn with extra butter, or liquid gold. We found a new movie theater in Pleasant Grove called Water Gardens. We were first interested because the price of the tickets was cheaper, but as we got in line to get our popcorn I felt as excited as my 9 year old self when my dad told me he would show my how to use dial up internet if I cleaned my room. This movie theater lets you bring in any bowl you want from home and FILLS THE ENTIRE THING FOR ONE DOLLAR. I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to hug the manager or let him know that they could charge at least 6 dollars more for the purchase, but chose to instead say, “Thank you!”, but not the kind of “thank you!” that you say after getting your oil changed or your groceries bagged, but instead the kind of “thank you” which really means “This is the best day of my life and I will be returning every day to buy myself popcorn for dinner.” I was so excited about this theater that within the next 24 hours I had contacted almost all of my closest family and friends to share our exciting news. (Sure, when we said we had “exciting news” some people thought we had bought a house or were pregnant, but I keep insisting that this piece of news is just as life changing.)
A Tech Guru: I’ve never thought I’m really ahead of the curve with technology. I know how make spreadsheets and documents, and I know how to work my phone well enough to send my sister 30 different Snapchats of me singing “Talk less, floss more,” as I was creating a Hamilton parody while waiting for my dentist appointment. However, I always have to google how to take a screenshot on my computer, and whenever I see the rainbow wheel of death on my mac I usually take a nap or scroll through Instagram in the hopes that “it will figure this out on it’s own.” It was not until I was at the gym that I realized I might be a tech genius without even knowing it. I was biking on one of the stationary bikes with my earbuds in and my phone sitting on the handlebars. As an older woman sat down next to me, she looked at my earbuds and said, “Wow! I need to figure out how to connect those two.” She showed me her iPad and said, “I think headphones connect somehow.” She shrugged, and the conversation was over, but for the next little bit I kept thinking, “Am I a tech goddess?? Am I the only one who knows the hack of plugging the earbuds INTO the phone to hear the music? Am I about to become a BILLIONAIRE by sharing my skills with the world?!?!” But then I looked around the gym and saw that 99% of them were already listening to music through their headphones, so that pretty much ruined my plan to success.
While my knowledge seems to be subpar in each of these areas, luckily I’m pretty good at googling something and acting like it was something I knew all along, which will probably always be my true brand.
Courtesy.
