Watching soccer, watching tennis, taking a class, sleeping, day tripping to Athens, and rereading the Twilight books (a. I refuse to call it the Twilight Saga because I think saga used in that context is a stupid word b. The movie for Eclipse comes out Wednesday, so I had to reread it so that I can be properly outraged about every small detail that differs from the book).
Not a lot of crazy things, but it's been nice. Here are a few highlights/observations of my summer thus far. (And maybe an embarrassing confession.)
I took my little brother out on a brother/sister date. While we were eating, he looked at me and asked, "If I was a piece of cereal, would I eat myself?" I responded, "I don't know. What kind of cereal would you be." He then said, "Cinnamon Toast Crunch part of this good breakfast." So I replied, "It's just called Cinnamon Toast Crunch." He, seemingly perplexed, told me, "Well, I've seen the commercial, and it says Cinnamon Toast Crunch part of this good breakfast." So I had to explain that they tack on that last bit to make people want to buy it. Perhaps they need to start teaching advertising strategies in kindergarten....
For some reason, I get inexplicably excited about the World Cup. I love it. I like to think that living in Europe for a short while made me somehow more in tune with soccer and that now I have this deep, understood affinity with it that came from breathing European air and drinking European water (not deep enough for me to start calling it football instead of soccer mind you). It probably also has something to do with patriotism and the passion displayed by the fans and the pure joy and absolute heartbreak on display--all the same reasons why I get way to into the Olympics. (I mean, the side of Ghana's bus has The Hope of Africa on it--how can you not love that??)
People who know me know that when I get excited I get ideas. Usually, those ideas somehow manifest themselves in my classroom, but it's summer. So I can't go about creating all sorts of World Cup themed assignments like I did during the Olympics. What I can do however is solve the problem of soccer not being popular in the United States. Commentators and sports radio people have been talking about this for weeks. Americans don't like soccer, they can't get into it for whatever reason (unless Landon Donovan scores a goal in stoppage time to put the US through to the next round...then everyone loves it--but according to sports talkers, they'll stop loving it if the US loses today). So the debate rages, how do you get us darn Americans to watch the soccer? I think the answer is simple. Market to women.
For girls, the World Cup is basically a hotbed of hidden hotties, really cute guys who, if it weren't for the World Cup, you would never see. Seriously, every team has at least one cute guy. And, at the beginning of each game, they walk out holding hands with a cute little kid. Women like this. When their team scores, they get crazy excited, and no matter how old they are they turn into a little kid on Christmas--they smile, jump all over each other, sometimes do choreographed dances with their teammates. Women like this. Then, at the end of the game, they trade jerseys with each other, so there's at least five minutes of tv coverage where all the soccer players are shirtless. Women like this.
Aside from the guys, there is a lot of time during a soccer game when, to the average fan who doesn't really understand soccer and has never played it, it seems like nothing's really going on. You just start paying attention when someone gets close to a goal. You can usually catch it right before the goal gets scored--then you get to see all the exciting stuff. So, theoretically, a soccer game is the kind of thing women could have on in the background and just half-way pay attention to while they're talking with each other.
Now I know that this sounds kind of like a horrible idea because basically you would have a bunch of commercials saying things like "Soccer: Watch it for the Hot Guys," and that's objectifying men. But people objectify women all the time to sell stuff, so I don't really think the women would mind. I can also understand how it would be degrading to the sport. People should want to watch soccer to see the game, not just the players. But I think if you could just draw them in with the boys, they would learn to like it and stick around.
This leads to the second part of my argument for advertising to women. You would also get to men.
Imagine if you're a guy and your girlfriend actually wants to watch sports with you (not all girls are like me and want to watch sports all the time--seriously, I didn't go shopping with my mom yesterday because I wanted to watch sports). As a guy, I think you would be thankful, even if it was a sport you weren't super into. I imagine you would just start to think of the possibilities--it could start with soccer and then maybe lead to football (especially since in most places soccer is called football, and if you were dating a total idiot, you could really just confuse her and probably convince her that football was what she had always liked). Soccer, in your mind, would be a gateway sport. So, guys would start watching it with their girlfriends, and then they would realize that it is actually exciting to watch. Once you got everyone in, you could switch to a much more sophisticated advertising campaign. I really think it would work.
I went to see Toy Story 3. I cried. And not just a little. I had to take off my glasses to dry my eyes.
I had a recent burst of inspiration and cleaned out my closet and my room. I found books in everything--every bag and box I opened. I also found a lot of Barnes and Noble bags. I then thought, for the first (and probably last) time ever, that maybe I don't need to get anymore books ever. Anyone who knows me knows that for me, that's borderline blasphemy. Good thing I didn't feel that way when I woke up this morning.
Who thought the game show Downfall was a good idea. I haven't watched it, but sending big prizes off the side of a building to their destruction when someone gets a question wrong? Seriously? My little sister pretty much summed it up when she said, "You really shouldn't be ruining cars in this economy."
That's it for now. I'm starting 2 classes on Tuesday, and anytime I have to read about education, I usually have lots of random thoughts to share. But right now, I'm going to watch soccer--go USA!
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