Sibling Rivalry

This blog is dedicated to my brother Carter . . .

I've always been a little jealous of how he can talk his way out of any situation. My sister and I got away with plenty, but Carter is the absolute master. When we were kids he used to punch me and start crying and tell my mom I hit him. No matter how hard I protested, I still got in trouble. When I was about 20, my mom called me after watching some old home videos. Evidently she had video evidence of my brother pulling this act and apologized for all the times I got yelled at. Example #2: We were down at the beach house like we were every summer. My brother and I were pretty young, I would say about 8 and 6. I was playing with my Barbies under a table and decided to give one of them a haircut. Carter came over and asked if he could have a Barbie so he could give her a haircut too. I of course said NO! because he tended to destroy my Barbies and dehead them. A few minutes later Carter comes over to show me that he decided to cut off his own hair instead. One big cut took off all his hair in the front. Not gonna lie, he looked ridiculous. I couldn't even tell you how he got scissors cause I was using mine. Somehow, however, this was also my fault and I got yelled at. I brought it up with my parents recently and my dad said "Well that would have been your mother." I'm now 24, but she apologized. Better late than never right?

Other examples? I get pulled over for speeding and put on the waterworks, I still get a ticket. He gets pulled over for speeding, chats up the cop and they're instantly friends AND he gets a warning. I bring home a C, my parents are disappointed and try to analyze why I didn't study harder. Carter brings home a C, its fridge material. Of course I'm exaggerating a little. The point is I've always been a little jealous of Carter's negotiation skills.

Well guess what bro, evidently I'm learning more than just Advertising here in Aussie.

I had a big test in Advertising Management right before Spring Break. I studied hard and felt confident going into the test. Once in the test, I knew all the questions and finished in one hour rather than taking the two hours for the test. It was essay style so the grading was kind of subjective. When I got my grade back I had gotten 22/35. WHAT? Kennan makes As and Bs and that grade would probably be equivalent to a C on the Australian grading scale. So I asked my teacher if I could meet with her about my test just so I could see what I got wrong and get a better understanding of my grade. Jackie made fun of me all day today and told me I was a huge dork. Her argument was the test was over so why did it matter what I did wrong? In less than 10 minutes of meeting with my teacher I had convinced her to give me 3 more points, enough to bring me from a 4 to a 5 on a 7 point scale. Bow chicka wow wow, who's the dork now??

Mom & Dad, I don't blame you for blaming me. Carter's good at what he does. Even if I end up working at McDonalds, he'll convince someone to make him the CEO of some major company and make enough money to keep your boat fueled.

No worries, mate.