My idea tree is getting a bit sparse again. Then I went to my Sparks meeting, where I watch five-year-old girls run around and then attempt to teach them songs and games and other nonsense. As you have probably guessed, this has some blog topic potential.
Sparks have a lot of energy. I was thinking about why this could be and couldn't come up with much. There is the fact that they are very small beings and thus the energy that normal people have is doubly strengthened energy inside them. Or they are young and free of worry and thus, have less weighing them down and more energy to bounce up and down and be merry. They seem to feed off each other, as well. If one girl comes to a meeting a litle more excited than usual the other girls will follow her lead and the hour will be a longer one of my day.
Now I could sit here and make more observations about the peculiar nature of the Spark, but I'm not feeling particularly intrigued or inspired so I think I will look for something else. Aha! That book. For those of you who are not currently residing in my mind I'm talking about a workbook called The Write Brain which I believe I got at a writers conference that contains writing exercises to kick start your write brain.
...
And I can't find anything in said book that I feel like pursuing. What a disappointment, I was really hoping that would work out.
I guess i'll go back to the Sparks. Because I just remembered a juicy tidbit filled with blogging goodness. For me at least.
There's this commonly known Girl Guide song, that isn't in any songbooks (that I know of) and is extremely irritating but somehow also widely known. This song entitled, Hermy the Worm, is narrated by someone who is sitting on a fence post chewing their bubble gum when along comes a worm named Hermy. The narrator seems to know this worm and soon enough they are engaging in a conversation where Hermy admits that he ate his brother/sister/mother/father. You sing the same verse over and over until he has eaten his entire family and then in the last rendition he burps. Terribly clever, isn't it?
Now somehow, this song has traditionally been cherished in the hearts of girls of all ages, despite the fact that it is lame, repetitive and promotes cannibalism. If it were just the first two demerits, I might be able to handle it's absurd popularity, but the fact that it is supposed to be a comical song (with that hilarious burp punchline) that tells girls that it's okay for worms to eat their family members as long as it's funny at the end.
So of course when we are choosing what song we will sing and everyone is putting forward their ideas, someone naturally suggests Hermy the Worm (I have no idea how some of them learned it; older sisters perhaps?). I cannot count the number of times I have explained that I do not endorse songs about cannibalism and that we will not be singing them at Sparks, but they are always so persistent.
The good character trait of the average Spark, though, is that they are easily distracted. I just have to pick the first song that pops into my head and start singing, and soon enough the follow suit and forget about their worm friend for the time being.
The problem is, that I don't exactly know how to finish the song off for good. It's the default in everyone's mind, whenever they think of a campfire. Hermy the Worm, Hermy the Worm! I guess some people don't realize that the song suggests that abusing your siblings and parents (by eating them or other methods) is okay. I know no one is going to go home and take a chomp out of their little brother just because they sang the song, but it plants the SEED. Which is bad. Because cannibalism is wrong. And any song that suggests otherwise is a song that should not be sung by five-year-olds.
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