Personal question

Just been asked by a friend:

**What skill do you wish your parents started drilling into your head from birth? Would you have liked to have been fluent in French by five, been a tap dancer by ten, sketched the Mona Lisa by seven or sailed the channel by six?

All deep-seated wishes accepted, especially if it has resulted in crippling adult trauma and reed-thin self-esteem.**

For me, language, I'd fucking love to be properly bi-lingual. Not sure how possible being dyslexic. One is hard enough.

english, here.

I would've loved to have been bi-lingual too, French perhaps, or Italian.

I also think that any instrument to fluency would've been good. People should think in eights.

The chances of this ever happening though? Pretty much zero. But children have no recall for everything under the age of 10 beyond a few experiences... it's worth hammering shit into their head then.

Social competence.

How to escape their evil clutches.

Its possible to achieve a competent level in almost any skill, it depends how driven you are to attain what you want I guess, Michael Jordan for instance must have been one of the hardest working men in basketball, as he started off with next to no skill, a poor vertical jump, but then he worked like a bitch, day and night practice practice practice (and took loads of steroids) until he was where he wanted to be, and he is incredibly sucessful at what he wanted to do.
But enough procrastinating, my parents never tried to drill anything into my head other than that I have to work hard to get where I want to be in life, my dad used to like doing this via positive encouragement, and advice when I asked for it, whereas my mum enjoyed criticising absolutely everything I did, and proclaimed at every opportunity how disappointed she was with my actions or how she would have done it differently, or telling me how good her various friends children were at things that I didn't do, or wasn't as successful at......a second langauge would have been cool to.

I speak fluent Swahili after 18 pints.

I wish they'd let me race BMX like I fucking asked..

raw plugs.

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Its possible to achieve a competent level in almost any skill, it depends how driven you are to attain what you want I guess, Michael Jordan for instance must have been one of the hardest working men in basketball, as he started off with next to no skill, a poor vertical jump, but then he worked like a bitch, day and night practice practice practice (and took loads of steroids) until he was where he wanted to be, and he is incredibly sucessful at what he wanted to do.

Michael Jordan's my dad.

FACT.

To be honest though he doesn't work that hard. And I'm pretty sure he's never taken steroids...? Or, in fact, played basketball.

He's a systems analyst from Norfolk.

He's a systems analyst from Norfolk.

I didn't know they had them in Norfolk....

Agricultural systems?

Hmm...

Wish I'd started playing music younger 'cause I was fucking good at it when I started but even then it was too late to be really really good (although that's debatable so...)

I'd love to have been involved in motor racing from a young age, had it driven into me (pardon the pun) and become a F1 driver ;)

Doesn't happen if you don't start super young... I remember seeing a really old karting video years ago with Jenson Button about age 8 and by that stage he was completely dedicated...

I didn't know they had them in Norfolk....

When they say 'system', they mean 'field'.

When they say 'analyst', they mean 'the one who isn't a sheep'.

Charisma and machismo

^^Ha! But I remember it all being sugar beet n stuff - and the odd cow.

All the usual instrumental and language things..

To be honest, I wish I'd been given the opportunity to play more sports when I was younger. Only played football outside of school sports like rounders up until the age of 11 when I started playing club rugby..

I would have loved to have given Cricket, Hockey, Tennis and some other sports a go (outside of school where I've played each probably only 4-5 times each) as a youngster

I wish my parents hadn't been satanists and instead had taught me about the love of our Lord Jebus.

^^Ha! But I remember it all being sugar beet n stuff - and the odd cow.

There be sheeps in my village. And cows. And lots and lots of maize. It's a veritable party going on.

The only regrets I have from my childhood are my own doing.
I was and still am a very, very stubborn kid/person.

I regret quitting swimming to play rugby, but peer pressure and teasing is a strong motivator.
I regret turning my back on my arabic lessons so I now know little.

If my parents had tried to stop me, we'd probably have an even more strained relationship, and I wouldn't have been as academically successful, as I'd have had no self motivation to do stuff.

My mother's a fluent Italian speaker - I wish I'd had a bit of that drilled into me. As it is, I can pretty much order a meal and extract some of the sense from a newspaper in Italian and that's it :-(

There be sheeps in my village. And cows. And lots and lots of maize. It's a veritable party going on.

I actually have very fond memories of Norfolk, well the north bit at least. It's still the only accent capable of bringing tears to my eyes (apart from Murtle's, of course).

My mum always tried to encourage me to join in with football that my friends were playing (friends meaning children belonging to friends of hers that I hated*), maybe thats why i've never liked it, I always found basketball far more enjoyable to watch and play, although i'm slow as shit these days and it takes a half hour or so of shooting for me to start getting the ball in the net.......
I must have appeared to be a really anti-social child, but I think I was just surrounded by kids that I hated for a few years, I don't ever regret being myself and taking part in sports/activities that I wanted to do, as opposed to the ones that my beloved mother wanted to do, and most of all I don't regret breaking bones and wrecking myself in the process, I think my only real regret in life is that I never started snowboarding when I was younger.
Pain is temporary, scars and glory are forever.

I wish my parents had taught me to trackstand when I was younger. It is very embarrassing trying to learn as an elderly chap balancing awkwardly at the lights. Also, my father knew how to pick locks. Learning that would have been useful.