Random Story
not related to anything really

Below are ramblings. read them if you wish. If not, or if so, remember to visit the new forum!


Stories

Whenever I show my mother this site, I often get the same reaction.

"Is it a story?" she asks, the excitement shining in her eyes.

Every time I end up having to disappoint her and say, "No, mom, it's just a post. But it's something I love to write."

Disappointment apparent on her face, she smiles and tells me good job. She reads everything I post here. I don't even have to prod her anymore. I think she enjoys everything I write, but what she really wants to see from me are my stories.

Since I haven't offered you any interesting Harry Potter theories lately, I thought I would offer you this little story of my life. Anyone interested to know the person behind the theories?

My stories have always has a special place in my family's heart, and for a good reason. When I was young I had a hard time understanding the world. I saw everything through my own eyes. Everything was a distorted picture to me, and I had a hard time understanding basic concepts that people tried to share with me. For example, I didn't learn to tie my shoes until about fifth grade. I didn't learn which foot the shoe should fit on until just prior to my shoe tying revelation. People would tell me about the point on the shoes that let one know whether it fit on the right or left, but I just could not see the point.

As you may guess, this disability followed me throughout my early education. I couldn't write without meshing all the letters together and paragraphs were foreign concepts beyond my world's comprehension. I wrote in circles, I wrote in the middle of the page and on the sides, I wrote everywhere but in a straight, coherent fashion. Geography was by far the most terrifying subject my school had to offer, but for some reason I did understand math. It was one of the few subjects I ever loved. One should not, however, gather from all of this that I was stupid. I had my own wisdom, I just lacked most forms of conventional intelligence. I could march through my Kindergarten class shouting, "I refuse to conform to this society," but I couldn't tell you the first thing about commas. (Perhaps not learning grammar then is part of why I'm so bad at it now?)

Well, when I was in sixth grade my teacher decided that this disability did mean that I was stupid. She called my parents in for a private conference where she told them that I was mentally slow and unable to learn from classroom instruction. Mentally slow was not necessarily the words she used, by the way. She wanted to put me in special classes where I would learn to take care of myself, for she felt I could never learn anything beyond cooking and cleaning.

My parents, bless their hearts, refused to listen. My dad was a teacher for the blind and my mom had had her share of teaching experiences. They weren't about to let one teachers' opinion decide my entire future. And here is where the tale of the stories begins. My mom sat me down and got me to copy down books. She paid me per line. Soon she was teaching me to write my own lines. It turned out to be a brilliant plan. I couldn't learn from the teachers lecture, but I did learn by copying information. Slowly I came to see the patterns that made a paragraph and the different ways that people looked at the world. I came to love story writing even more (I had started doing stories that made sense to me as early as Kindergarten).

My parents loved my stories. My grades raised above expectations and for once in my life I was excellent at something. By the time I was 15, my parents were convinced I would be a published author by 18. Unfortunately, this dream never came true. Yet the writing did stick with me and I love it to this day.

This story is particularly relevant right now. I just graduated college cum laude no more than a few weeks ago. That means I graduated in the top ten percent of my class at the University of Oregon. I did it because my parents weren't willing to give up on me. For that I thank them!

So let this random post be a lesson in perseverance. If all are to succeed than we must believe that all can succeed. Never give up on yourself and always look for new ways to help others. Sometimes the littlest things can make a world of difference.

Expect more random posts in the future. Maybe even a story one day? Though most of those I'm waiting to see if I can't just get published. I think I owe that much to my mom and myself.

Don't forget to check out the forum.