The Best Thing About Being in English Education...

Is that I get to write a lot, which makes it really easy to have stuff to post. This is my literacy autobiography that I turned in for LIT313- Literacy Assessment and Intervention. It sounds really boring, but the class is really fun, and I think I did something pretty interesting with the autobiography.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine o'clock. I could leave soon. I walked over to the shoe rack near the door and grabbed my sneakers. They were getting pretty beat up and worn out. I'd be getting a new pair in a couple of months when school was about to start again. I tied the white laces that had long since been turned brown by dirt, dust, and grass stains.

I looked around the house for any stray books I might have forgotten. There were two in the living room. I managed to stuff them into my bulging backpack and zip it shut, the seams screaming and holding on for dear life. I lifted the bag onto my shoulders with a grunt. I was ready to begin my trek.

That bag was always heavy. It must've weighed at least twenty pounds. That might not seem like a lot, but when you realize that twenty pounds was a full fifth of my 100 pound, fourth grade body weight; it gets put into perspective real quick. It's a burden I carried with pride.

Every week I would make a trip to the library. I had to walk because my babysitter couldn't drive. I was fine with that; I generally enjoyed the walk. I began the journey around nine or ten in the morning. The backpack seemed lighter then. Maybe it was because the temperature and humidity hadn't spiked yet.

Nelly, my babysitter, would help me cross the street right in front of her house. There were no sidewalks for the first block and a half, so I had to be careful. I stood as far right as possible, walking on the grass of front lawns when I could, and the dusty gravel shoulder when I couldn't. I picked up the sidewalk as I entered the well ordered residential outskirts of downtown Baldwinsville. I lost the sidewalk again as I passed the Moose Lodge and the decrepit, crumbling train station. I smelled seafood and hamburger grease as I passed the seafood restaurant and then the Burger King. There was the run down dive bar, Mickey's Tavern. After the Sunoco gas station was the beat up Gould's Pumps warehouse. Next to the warehouse was the cleaner, white brick Gould's Pumps office building where my father worked. I hung a right at the dark brown Baldwinsville Commons office building. A block up the street was the long rectangular building that was the Baldwinsville Public Library.

I made that trip every week. I loved to read. It wasn't until recently that I began to realize what really drove me to take that literal walk, and later, many figurative ones. For me, it's always been about the stories. Stories do so much for me. They entertain me. They educate me. They let me connect to people.

My earliest memory of stories is with my mother. When I was a toddler, she told me the stories of Little Ludwig and his dog named Bow Wow. These were characters that were used by her father when she was growing up. There was never a set story, she would jus think of something when I climbed up on her lap and said, both adorable and annoying at the same time, "Mommy, mommy, tell me a story!"

And she did, every time, without fail. Ludwig and Bow Wow went to London and saw Big Ben. They saw the pyramids in Egypt. They dug a hole straight through to China, a feat that I would try (and fail) to replicate. There were many other adventures, great and small, that I can't remember from so long ago.

I was also able to get closer with my father. Every week, on the walk back to Nelly's house, I would stop in and see my dad. We'd sit in the lobby of the Guild's Pumps building and he'd listen to me talk about the books I picked out. Looking back, I feel bad about making him listen to me ramble on about books he had no interest in. His patience was an encouragement, though. A few years later, when I began my science fiction kick, I would raid his book collection. Anne McCaffery and Piers Anthony were my favorites from his bookshelf. The favor was returned a few years later when he lost his job and suddenly had a surplus of free time to raid mine. I turned him on to Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't do the same with Tim O'Brien and Hunter S. Thompson (yeah, right), but c'est la vie.

Of course, other people's stories were only good enough for so long, and reading is only one half of literacy. For a long time, I was only interested in stories from other people. It didn't occur to me that I had my own stories to tell that other people might find interesting or useful. Not only has writing allowed me to share my stories, it's given me another avenue to connect with other people.

My hobbies, more than most other hobbies I think, are very community oriented. The biggest one is probably a game called Magic: the Gathering. It's a strategic collectable card game that is dynamic and ever changing. There are players all over the country, the world even, and we communicate primarily through internet message boards. That alone opens up many doors for literacy. Not only do I need to know how to read and write, on top of needing to know how to work the bulletin board software. All of this in addition to being literate of the rules of the game and the every changing trends within the game.

Of course, the game being so community oriented, there's much more to be written about than just strategy and ideas. There is a lot of writing to be done for and about the community. Many of us have traveled hundred of miles to meet and play against each other. There's really no other reason for doing that than being able to say, "Yeah, I drove to D.C. and met up with the Elgins and the Hatfields and had a blast," or, "Dude, it was so awesome going to Portland and meeting up with Bardo and Pinder." We do it for the story, because it is the story and the journey that brings us together. Someone has to record the story; it encourages more and bigger adventures to take place.

There is a genre of writing that's fairly unique to this hobby called the tournament report. It is part box score, part fishing tale, and part bar story. Most tournament reports are just the facts of what happened to the writer in the tournament. The good report writers describe what they learned about the game and their deck. What the great writers, and what I try to do, is write about what we've learned about ourselves and the community. The great writers chronicle the happenings of the event that take place away from the game itself; it is in those moments that connections are forged.

It was through these that I really began writing. Writing allows me to look inside myself and learn something new. I don't flatter myself and think my story is all that important on a large scale, but I like to share it anyway. I write for myself, but I post it regardless. If anyone can take anything from what I write, then I am flattered. It means I was doing something right.

Books have taken me all over the world- this one and others. They've taken me to the past, and through them I have seen the future. I've sailed around the world and across the galaxy. Writing has served as the impetus to create my own stories and to tell them. Both reading and writing have allowed me to interact with numerous people on a meaningful level. Literacy for me has been a journey. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the journey is what is important. The journey is where the story is. As I stand on the verge of a great adventure, both literal and metaphorical, I can still feel that backpack. It's not getting heavier, but it is getting fuller. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Adolescence

This is a story that I've told maybe three people. Also, for the record, the fact that tomorrow is Valentine's Day is completely coincidental.

Adolescence is a period of extremes. At no other point are the peaks and valleys of life so apparent. We run the gamut of emotions every day. We go from fearless to insecure and back again at the drop of a hat. We are convinced of our immortality, only to face our own fallibility at every turn. Living through adolescence is like running the gauntlet, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We learn and grow through adversity, and as a result, we change and learn about ourselves the most during adolescence.

There is one event in particular that has had such a profound effect on me. I think it is safe to say that no other event before or since has had a bigger impact on me. It greatly influenced how I view life and myself. It occurred when I was sixteen. The ages 13-15 weren’t all that remarkable for me. Looking back, I don’t think I changed all that much until the later half of my sophomore year in high school. I could write about what I was like in seventh grade; that I was a lot like I was in fifth grade, and that by ninth grade, very little had changed. But that wouldn’t make for a very interesting story, now would it?

When I was a junior in high school, I had a part time job at Burger King. It was there that I met a girl named Julie. Through work, we became friends. More accurately, I became her friend. She was going through a rough patch, and I was there. I would listen to her and talk to her.

I was never particularly attracted to her. She was a few years older than me, and also had a kid. She wasn’t too bright, and was probably doomed to a dead end, lower class existence. She was, however, quite attracted to me. I tried to ignore it and act as if it was nothing.

During spring break of that year, I was planning on getting a new piercing. I asked her to come with me for moral support. At the time, my parents were very conservative when it came to body modification and had threatened to kick me out if I got another piercing. I wanted someone with me to make sure I went through with it.

Afterwards, we were at her apartment. I know I’m not the first person this has happened to, and I know that I won’t be the last, but one thing led to another, and we end up having sex. A very big, very important detail: It was my first time. I had no idea how it happened, and today, almost five years later, I still don’t know. I’m sure you can tell where things are going from here.

We “dated” for about a month. I use that in a very loose sense of the word. I never should have let it happen, or to allow her to get the impression that how I felt about her changed.

A few days after we broke up, she tells me she’s back with her ex-boyfriend. I don’t really care, but I remember her telling me that he wasn’t the nicest guy, and remind her of this. She just shrugged and said it was okay because he was going to buy her a new living room set. It was at this point that I said one of the dumber things I’ve ever said in my life, “Wow. You do realize that kind of like prostitution, right?” Definitely not the smartest thing I could have said.

Things exploded. I don’t remember what else was said that night, but there was a huge, loud argument. I saw her in a completely different light.

Suddenly, instead of having an ambivalent attitude towards the whole thing, I became disgusted. I was revolted, not only at her, but also at myself. I didn’t understand how I could do something so incredibly stupid.

Through conversations with her friends and co-workers, I became well aware that she was promiscuous, to put it nicely. It didn’t actually hit me until a friend asked me, “Is she clean?” It was like a punch to the gut. All of a sudden, I was thinking about all the bad things that could happen. I started to think about all the negative effects on not only my life, but on the life of any person I chose to be with in the future. As teenagers, we really do think we’re invulnerable and invincible. Sure, we give lip service to the idea that bad things can happen, but we don’t really think, “Bad things can happen to me.” I was incredibly lucky; bad things didn’t happen to me this time, at least not on a physical level.

Mentally, I was a mess. Words simply cannot describe how terrible I was feeling. Without trying to sound incredibly arrogant, I am a smart person. I generally don’t make stupid decisions or mistakes. Yet here I was faced with an enormous error in judgment. I was slapped in the face by the reality that I was fallible, that I could make mistakes, and more importantly, that my decisions have consequences.

It took me a long time to get over this. For probably well over a year, I would have given anything to take it back. Before this, I had never known was true regret was. Now I did, and it felt awful. True regret is a pit in your stomach, a crawling in your chest, and it keeps you awake at night.

Lest you think it was only negative things that resulted from this, I should explain how I finally got over it. What allowed me to come to grips with everything was acceptance of what happened. I eventually came to accept the fact that I couldn’t change what happened. I can’t change the past, and if I could, I wouldn’t. Those events shape who I am today, and I won’t change that. It is for this very reason that I no longer regret that or anything I’ve done.

What They Don't Tell You about Snowstorms

In honor of the totally shitty weather this week, and the foot and a half of snow received two weeks ago, I present:

What They Don’t Tell You about Snowstorms

Let’s start off with what they do tell you about snowstorms; because I assure you, it’s all true. Yes, it snows so hard that you can’t even see your hand in front of your face, or ten feet out the window. Yes, it’s like being surrounded by a white sheet. They are called white outs for a reason, and the name is apt. Yes, the snow is fluffy, and falls in large, wet clumps. Yes, the wind is gusty, and it whips up more snow. And yes, it does indeed bury everything.

It’s true, every child goes to bed at night hoping and praying for a snowstorm so that school will be cancelled the next day. I certainly did. On the days school is cancelled because of snow, as soon as we hear about it, we rush to the window to see how much snow is there, and if it’s still falling, before we go back to sleep. Yes, snowstorms do seem to erase everything. The image of everything outside covered in freshly fallen snow certainly has a majestic connotation, and while we don’t sit inside getting warm by the crackling fire, it really is a winter wonderland.

Except when it isn’t.

You see, what they don’t tell you about snowstorms is how incredibly frustrating and annoying they are. Generally, snowstorms aren’t that devastating like a tornado or a hurricane. They’re just a giant inconvenience for those of unfortunate enough to be stuck in their path.

The thing about snowstorms is that just because it starts snowing, real life doesn’t stop. Hurricanes shut down entire areas. Only the absolute worst snowstorms do. When a snowstorm is on the way, most people I know just roll their eyes and say, “Yeah, so?”

People know that they’re still going to have to go to work, go to school, pick up their kids, and go grocery shopping. What they don’t tell you about snowstorms is how tedious driving becomes. What they don’t tell you is what it’s like to be in front of someone in a giant, over-wide pick up truck who thinks they know how to drive in a snowstorm or being stuck behind someone in a Cadillac with a Florida plates who you know can’t. They don’t tell you about driving down a normally busy and bustling street that is now abandoned. Instead of driving in the right lane, you’re driving down the center of this abandoned road so that if you do happen to spin out and fish-tail, you don’t end up in the ditch. If you’re smart, you’ll just stay at home and do the one thing you should be doing during a snowstorm.

Shovel your driveway and sidewalks. It’s really the only thing you should be doing. It’s also one of the biggest pains in the neck on God’s green (or white) earth. Your lower back is going to be sore from bending over low enough to get the shovel under all that snow. Your shoulders are going to be sore from pushing and lifting hundreds if not thousands of pounds of snow. Your legs are going to be tired from walking back and forth and from helping with the lifting. Then there’s the cold. Your face is going to be stinging from the frigid wind. Your cheeks are going to be red from it, giving you a new appreciation for what a certain jolly old man in a red suit has to endure to get his trademark rosy cheeks. Your hands and feet are going to be numb, making it difficult to grasp the shovel and making you dread the dull ache of blood returning to your extremities after you go back inside.

That’s if you get to go back inside. This is the worst thing about shoveling sidewalks and driveways- by the time you get done the first time, you have to start all over again. There’s nothing more disheartening than to finish the driveway, looking back to where you started, and see the driveway completely covered in snow. Philip Gerard doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he says that it doesn’t stop. The snow doesn’t stop falling either, and that’s what they don’t tell you about snowstorms.