How The Stories Begin:Just Write It July 2016

Elementary School

How far back do I have to go? I guess to begin I can go back to the 1st grade at least. That's my first memory of writing that I can remember. When I was in early elementary school, we had these things called Bear Books, where every grade had to write a small book. And I guess it was a really big deal because I remember parent volunteers coming in and helping out and in the end, we would present in front of our class and their parents, sitting in a huge rocking chair like we owned the entire school. I remember writing one about Christmas vacation and also the most important things in my life through the ABCs. I was only at that school for two years, so it makes sense to only remember having two. They were taken very seriously, though. The school even ordered Bear Book hard cover books every year and they would put it together to make it like an actual ten or so page book.

Like every book starts, you would have to come up with an idea. I can almost guarantee that we had to do one of those graphic organizers out of the eight that were super popular in the mid-2000s. I don't even remember what they use to call them or if any of you out know what I even talking about. But I guess we used something that was called a bubble chart or something like that. So we had to fill one of these out to "organize our thoughts." This almost makes me laugh because I'm not organized at all and when it comes to finally organizing something, I take it way too seriously to where making my bed and picking up papers turns into literally taking everything off the shelves, making the floor disappear, and taking up to three weeks to finally put everything back in a "more organized way". Yes, this happened to me a week ago, don't judge. If the theme was a memorable vacation, I did my Christmas Vacation, even though we go to the same place every year. I guess it's more memorable than my trip to South Korea (shrug). But even though this was in the early elementary school years, when I was around seven, I wanted to make sure that I made the descriptions of the place as perfect as a little first grader could make it. I'm pretty sure I was also writing too much and the teachers made me shave off a sentence or two from each of my descriptions. I guess I liked talking a lot back then too. Then we actually got to type out our sentences in the computer lab, which was fun. I enjoy typing. I can imagine me trying to type with my tiny little hands. After typing that, our teachers gave us a crisp new Bear Book with the thickest white pages I have ever put my hands on. Then we had to cut out our sentences, glue them into the book, and draw pictures based on the sentences we made. Not to mention I love drawing and back then I tried to steer away from the stick figures. To this day, I still have that book on Christmas Vacation on my bookshelf, still wondering how those two to three simple sentences turned into those horrific pictures.

After first and second grade, a new school was made in my neighborhood and the class was split up. I was the first third grade class to be in that school. The school was definitely high tech and meant to be "the school of the future." Every class had a brand new Smartboard and there were also these cool microphones attached to necklaces that the teachers wore. Sentios were a big thing too: these little blue television remote looking things connected to the Smartboard that had the letters a-f and numbers on buttons so we could take quizzes. So overall, I felt like I was on top of the world, even though it was a public school and anyone was welcome. They had a gorgeous library that I can still remember. It was the size of at least four classrooms. Every wall was covered in bookshelves filled with books I've never heard of. The floor even had half bookshelves that were the perfect height to get into unknown territories. I remember that on top of one of those long half bookshelves, a small little bookrest dedicated to American Girl books. All of them were the older ones, like Samantha and Felicity. I was all over those books. American Girl was a big part in molding my personality. I got a subscription to the American Girl Magazine and the first issue I got was the November/December issue of 2008. I learned to be more independent and those books and magazines got me to believe that dreams come true through hard work. I met some good friends in elementary school that I don't know anymore. I also started getting bullied in elementary school. It's never too early, right? I know why I was bullied and now that I'm older, there was no way I could have stopped it. I was different, and they didn't like that. I would be alone at the playground, talking to myself, creating book scenes in my head, running around the monkey bars like I was in the battle to the death. I knew that I was doing this, and I knew that I was exchanging dialogue to no one; I didn't have imaginary friends. I just loved creating. I mean, yeah, I had friends that I would play with but they had friends too that didn't like me. And when I did try to make friends with the others, they didn't want to be friends with me. Simple. But I didn't know that back then. My problem was I kept trying to be friends with them, and they took advantage, telling me I was their friend and then ditching me. I would always forgive them. But I also was the one that the teachers came to I terms of creativity. Every school year, the third to fifth graders got to go to a one-night stay at a camp and they introduced gimp (plastic string keychain making). I was the only one who actually did it outside of school, and the first time they introduced the craft the kids couldn't figure out how to do the first knot that starts the chain. So a week or two before the trip, they dropped almost two hundred pre measured baggies of plastic thread and asked if I could start them all. I hated saying no because that's how I was brought up. So I taught a friend or two how to do it and we did some of them during recess while I did the rest of them. I felt pretty accomplished. Was I praised and thanked at the camp? Nope. No one even knew that I did them except the kids who saw me at recess and some of the teachers. So I wasn't what you call popular. I'm pretty sure they hated that I had guy friends, too, but that's normal when all the girls still think that boys have cooties.

I also remember an event during elementary school that helped me get into reading. I wanted to play with the boys one day. I don't know if we were playing a sport or just playing tag. I wore this nice pink dress that I was obsessed with (it was not a pretty dress) and not the right shoes to run around in. One second I'm chasing a kid. The next second I'm doing somersaults and my face drags on the grass and dirt. Half of my face is covered in dirt and skin. I don't remember if there was blood, but I took off the top layer of my skin from my cheekbone, next to my eye, and the far right side of my forehead; a c-shape on the side of my face. My mom had to come get me and she probably scorned me badly. The next two or three months I couldn't go outside because my mom told me it would damage my sensitive skin when it healed. So when everyone would go outside, I would sit in the main office and read. Those paperback level 4 books and American Girl books turned into the puffin classics and Percy Jackson.

I might have been in the fourth or fifth grade when I was reading the Percy Jackson sequel. That sequel really was the turning point for me. Rick Riordan was my little writing idol in the back of my head that I didn't know about until I actually started writing. I even remember there being a tornado warning and we actually had to utilize the drill. We were all freaking out. Of course, there I was with my back against the hallway wall with the fourth book of the Percy Jackson Sequel balanced on my knees. I don't even know why that's a memory that I remember. I guess my little self told me that this would be important someday. I guess she was right.

I also loved singing and dancing in elementary school. I was doing ballet and piano since I was four and I loved repeating lyrics on my little Barbie shaped mp3. I had a couple solos in Chorus too, which made me love singing in front of people. So I decided to do the musicals. My first musical was The History of Rock and Roll. It was a musical about going through the times and seeing the Beatles and Elvis and other famous icons. I got the main lead of Announcer: a character that introduced you to the different times like introducing songs on the radio. I even remember the first few words of my lines. "Helloooooo teens and teeny boppers, boys and bobby sockers! Welcome to the R-O-C-K rock national radio. Here we play the hits from..." That's all I remember from the lines. But it was an amazing experience. I had to quick change behind the curtain from the different scenes. The chorus teacher also wanted me to do another minor role of being a skateboarder in a beach scene where people were dancing and throwing beach balls. I didn't say no. The quick change was insane though. Come off stage right from Announcer, change into skateboarder, skate board stage right to left, change back into announcer, enter stage left to introduce next scene. It was a little intense. But I did it, and I was proud. I remember telling myself that I was experienced because I did quick changes for my Nutcracker Ballet performances. I remember memorizing my lines like I was a crazy woman. I had the biggest role with the most lines. I wrote them on note cards, worried that I wouldn't be able to memorize them. But at the dress rehearsal, I put those notecards down and I said those words like I was talking to anyone else. Then after that experience, I wanted to do so much more, and I also played as Cinderella in the fifth grade, but after that, my mom never let me do another musical again. Actually, the things that I loved doing ended after I was ten. I couldn't do any musicals, my sister quit ballet and my mom wouldn't take me to ballet by myself, and my mom stopped supporting my competitive figure skating too. Even though performing became limited to me, it still resides in me. I feel as though writing also lets me perform. The definition of performing for me is showing people what you are proud of doing with expression. Writing for me is like that. I am showing people my writings, not caring about their criticism. I write with creativity and expression. My pencil is like the bow on a violin. My typing is like the feet of dancers. The words racing through my head is like the lyrics of a song. Writing is a replacement for what I lost and it has allowed me to gain more than I could ever imagine.

I don't know if I wrote any stories when I was in elementary school. I think elementary school was really more of the ending of things rather than the beginning of them, now that I think about it. Then I started my life as a middle schooler. Puberty hit, the hair part decided to run away to the side of my head, bullying continued, life was...great.