I am not a writer.
I hated English class. [Except for the accents.]
I never read the books. [Or even watched the movies. I still haven't finished A Tale of Two Cities and never will.]
The symbolism was always way over my head. [Even when it was blatantly black and white... looking at you, Javert.]
I loathed essay tests. [And their resultant hand-cramps.]
I preferred illustrative cover art to the actual book report. [I once drew an entire chicken skeleton from one of my mom's veterinary books. I retain no ornithological knowledge to this day.]
My only writing tool remains concrete detail followed by supporting argument. [Every single fucking personal statement.]
Maybe because in third grade I didn't memorize enough vocabulary words to be anything but average at Wordmasters, I assumed I was all left brain. The small lead on spelling tests that Louisiana [of all education systems] had given me before the life-disrupting move to Texas was quickly squandered in a gluttony of extra-point stickers and the idea that I should never ever have to try, rather just be inately gifted.
At home the only flash cards I remember were geared at math. Times tables, timed tests. All I wanted was to be the best, or the fastest. Or nothing at all. To beat Seth LaRoche. To be one of the three girls in Physics AP. Not necessarily to be "loquacious". [A word I had to look up in the dictionary right now because my brain is so cross-wired with homophones that I would have accidently said "lugubrious" and looked the total fool. Ironically the latter adjective hits very close to home.]
My parents have a heavy STEM bias. I mean they are literally scientists. Arts are for fun, not for jobs. Maybe I answered "artist" once to the recurrent "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question but that memory is so mired in suppression I'm not even sure it's real; the obvious response would have been "pick something else" and from then on the answer would be "I don't know." I got my first chemistry set and lab journal in second grade. I got a diary the same year. Neither reveal anything about my inner workings at the time: I did almost no experiments and wrote maybe three of the most illegible and superficially concrete entries about who my friends and cats were at the time. The only written word I perfected was the one time I forged my mother's signature on my homework assignments sheet and [though she was impressed with the craftsmanship] she refused to defend me with the outcry that she would "never sign in red pencil."
I thought I hit the jackpot when I went to UNC and my mediocre verbal score on the SAT opted me out of the spartan English requirement for a Chemistry major. Seriously swayed the college decision-making process. No AP tests. Just a lousy Speech class that almost sent me to a nervous procrastination-induced Starbucks-perpetuated public-speaking breakdown early Freshman year. Still get tachycardic and sweaty just thinking about speaking up in a large group of people I know. Still have not tried propanolol.
Yes, the 20 page lab reports were brutal, [and often handwritten on carbon copy grid paper because if you waited until the night before it was due and there was no physical way to get to a printer you had to just lock yourself in a room with no escape for 6-8 hours] but nothing synthetic was really required of me [except the failed attempts to make a cherry flavored powder]. Though I ultimately swore off graduate level science and all attempts at novel research [someday I'll make my own CV of failures], the years of technical writing more than adequately prepared me for the objective detachment of medical dictation, operative reports and overly detailed progress notes.
They just didn't help me become a person.
I'm not going to lie and say my little blog habit has made me more emotionally mature. I had many journals in high school and college that only served to expunge the extreme self-loathing without resorting to alcohol, drugs, sex or seriously bad poetry or song-writing. I can't even look at them. Or the self portraits from the time. [Yes, before the trauma-face selfies, there were the even more emo loner-face pencil sketches.] In contrast, forcing myself to write things down continually reiterates how immature I still am. That my life at 32 is still about why my friends don't like me enough or what is wrong with me. Narcissistic and hypercritical, to the point where the label "jaded" almost sounds like a compliment. [At least by 1990s sensibilities.]
My only hope from the little feedback I've gotten about this public blog is that maybe as I continue to gain experiences - good, bad, and ugly - that my writing will continue to be entertain. I mean, I have to save some dirt for my deathbed memoirs...
[P.S. The one thought I had re-reading this: "Needs more italics." Apologize to MLA for me]
I hated English class. [Except for the accents.]
I never read the books. [Or even watched the movies. I still haven't finished A Tale of Two Cities and never will.]
The symbolism was always way over my head. [Even when it was blatantly black and white... looking at you, Javert.]
I loathed essay tests. [And their resultant hand-cramps.]
I preferred illustrative cover art to the actual book report. [I once drew an entire chicken skeleton from one of my mom's veterinary books. I retain no ornithological knowledge to this day.]
My only writing tool remains concrete detail followed by supporting argument. [Every single fucking personal statement.]
Maybe because in third grade I didn't memorize enough vocabulary words to be anything but average at Wordmasters, I assumed I was all left brain. The small lead on spelling tests that Louisiana [of all education systems] had given me before the life-disrupting move to Texas was quickly squandered in a gluttony of extra-point stickers and the idea that I should never ever have to try, rather just be inately gifted.
At home the only flash cards I remember were geared at math. Times tables, timed tests. All I wanted was to be the best, or the fastest. Or nothing at all. To beat Seth LaRoche. To be one of the three girls in Physics AP. Not necessarily to be "loquacious". [A word I had to look up in the dictionary right now because my brain is so cross-wired with homophones that I would have accidently said "lugubrious" and looked the total fool. Ironically the latter adjective hits very close to home.]
My parents have a heavy STEM bias. I mean they are literally scientists. Arts are for fun, not for jobs. Maybe I answered "artist" once to the recurrent "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question but that memory is so mired in suppression I'm not even sure it's real; the obvious response would have been "pick something else" and from then on the answer would be "I don't know." I got my first chemistry set and lab journal in second grade. I got a diary the same year. Neither reveal anything about my inner workings at the time: I did almost no experiments and wrote maybe three of the most illegible and superficially concrete entries about who my friends and cats were at the time. The only written word I perfected was the one time I forged my mother's signature on my homework assignments sheet and [though she was impressed with the craftsmanship] she refused to defend me with the outcry that she would "never sign in red pencil."
I thought I hit the jackpot when I went to UNC and my mediocre verbal score on the SAT opted me out of the spartan English requirement for a Chemistry major. Seriously swayed the college decision-making process. No AP tests. Just a lousy Speech class that almost sent me to a nervous procrastination-induced Starbucks-perpetuated public-speaking breakdown early Freshman year. Still get tachycardic and sweaty just thinking about speaking up in a large group of people I know. Still have not tried propanolol.
Yes, the 20 page lab reports were brutal, [and often handwritten on carbon copy grid paper because if you waited until the night before it was due and there was no physical way to get to a printer you had to just lock yourself in a room with no escape for 6-8 hours] but nothing synthetic was really required of me [except the failed attempts to make a cherry flavored powder]. Though I ultimately swore off graduate level science and all attempts at novel research [someday I'll make my own CV of failures], the years of technical writing more than adequately prepared me for the objective detachment of medical dictation, operative reports and overly detailed progress notes.
They just didn't help me become a person.
I'm not going to lie and say my little blog habit has made me more emotionally mature. I had many journals in high school and college that only served to expunge the extreme self-loathing without resorting to alcohol, drugs, sex or seriously bad poetry or song-writing. I can't even look at them. Or the self portraits from the time. [Yes, before the trauma-face selfies, there were the even more emo loner-face pencil sketches.] In contrast, forcing myself to write things down continually reiterates how immature I still am. That my life at 32 is still about why my friends don't like me enough or what is wrong with me. Narcissistic and hypercritical, to the point where the label "jaded" almost sounds like a compliment. [At least by 1990s sensibilities.]
My only hope from the little feedback I've gotten about this public blog is that maybe as I continue to gain experiences - good, bad, and ugly - that my writing will continue to be entertain. I mean, I have to save some dirt for my deathbed memoirs...
[P.S. The one thought I had re-reading this: "Needs more italics." Apologize to MLA for me]
I've enjoyed reading it!
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