Your first post should be an introduction. I did buy a yearbook, so I will be able to look at your picture (yes, I know it is probably not your best…) and connect a face to your name. But more importantly, I will be able to connect a name and a face to the story that you choose to tell me.
Add a Comment to this post that tells me a story about yourself. Make it a true story. And short. It can be funny, sad, silly, heart-breaking, inspiring, open-ended, or just a sit-in-the-back-seat-on-a-long-car-ride-and-pass-the-time story. You decide.
When you read your story to yourself (you should always do this with a story), it should be less than three (3) minutes long. Sign your first name at the end of the story, please. You will not use last names on Web 2.0.
Here is my story:
I learned to read when I was three, by reading the messages on tombstones in a graveyard in Lincoln, Nebraska. That is a family story; I remember walking in the graveyard with my day, and even falling into a freezing cold pool, but I don’t remember NOT being able to read. It’s right up there in my life with swimming, nose-picking, ball-throwing, running, and watching nature closely – things I have always done.
I hated kindergarten in Waukesha, Wisconsin, because everyone had to do the same thing at the same time: nap, snack, make a picture of Washington out of macaroni. I longed to go to 1st grade because it was upstairs, where my big sister went everyday. On the 1st day of 1st grade we were marched – full of anticipation – downstairs, into a basement room next to the boilers and the milk machine. Even though I could already count so I was allowed to collect nickels and get milk from the milk machine, I hated 1st grade. And 2nd grade. And 3rd grade.
I loved my 1st Waukesha neighborhood, though. It was next to a small college. Big sister Pat and I explored the football stadium while our parents played tennis way below. I loved my 2nd neighborhood across from a park, where we swam in the summer and skated in the winter and learned to ride bicycles and explored the haunted mansion at the top of the hill. Big sister Pat played in the car and released the break and drove it down the driveway and right into the intersection in front of the park.
In 5th grade (I skipped 4th) in New Jersey (exit 9 on the NJ Turnpike), I decided to be a Pirate. In 6th grade I fell in love with poetry and grammar (yes – grammar). In 7th grade I fell in love with science fiction and musical comedy and my mother locked me in the basement because I refused to do my ironing. In 8th grade I fell in love with… never mind that. In high school I fell in love with math and physics and reading and varsity sports and …
I was a lifeguard and actually saved a little girl’s life. I taught probably 200 little kids how to swim.
In college I decided to be a spy but I almost failed Russian so I did not make the spy-cut. But anyway I ended up years later in NYC as the head of a computer department in a very posh private girls’ school. I hated that and came to Georgetown, Maine, with Mr. Mac, Sprinkles and Little Bear. I read and read and read (rhymes with “seed”), walk a lot, and write my blogs and lesson plans and things that make me feel smart and happy.
I don’t do computer games but would if I had a PS2. There is a game I am hankering for that follows the day dreams of a flower.
Today I am sitting in my kitchen with Mr. Mac, Sparky and Dodger, sick of the rain, and wondering who I am going to meet on this blog over the summer.
You know who I am now. Who are you?
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