Tales from My Childhood, Vol. 1

A child's only limitations are those imposed on their imaginations. Growing up in the country with two siblings and a close cousin right down the road offered me no end of play time and fun games. However, I found some of my most memorable childhood episodes are those involving only myself.

A movie came out in '96 or '97 by the name of Harriet the Spy, maybe you've heard of it? After watching it I took a great interest in spy work, since Michelle Tractenburg made it look so fantastical and fun. So I grabbed a handy little notepad, my mom's binoculars, some darkish clothes and unleashed my skills on my neighborhood.

Unlike Michelle's, my neighbors were extremely dull. I observed one fix the roof of a shelter he was building, another ride a bike down the road, and a third sit on his porch and sip Mountain Dew. Hardly hard-hitting stuff, so I had to spice it up for my notebook! I remember observing the bike rider as being very suspicious and most likely a military operative. The man on the roof also became a shady character with top secret military weapons hidden on his person and he was maintaining communication with the bike rider through a gadget inserted in both their brains. The man on the porch ...remained the man on the porch, though I remarked that perhaps his Mountain Dew had been poisoned.

I continued my spying in this fashion for a couple hours before my cousin came up and we started spying on boys instead, not half as interesting as the game I'd been so involved in before but I'd never have admitted it at the time.

The "Smart People Wear Glasses" Fallacy

I don't know how many times I've heard, "people who wear glasses are nerds", that they're typically the smartest people in school, yada yada yada. I haven't encountered as much of this at college as I did in middle and high school but it's always bothered me. I'm not saying it's a completely obsolete assumption but it is certainly not true of everyone who wears glasses. I've worn them since the fourth grade when my vision started going down hill. The reason? Part genetics, part Toonami (remember Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Dragon Ball Z?). Not constant studying.

I was a pretty average kid-intelligence wise-and hardly what one would call a nerd. It wasn't until I got my glasses that that stigma was slapped on me. Of course, later I took a great interest in reading and studying and I gladly accept that I am nerd, much better than "dumb blonde", right? I just wish people would think twice before assuming something about someone based on a superficial contraption.

I remember one time in high school, a teacher had put us into groups for an assignment. I was paired into what was arguably the dumbest group of boys in my grade so of course I wound up doing all the work. As they were copying the assignment, word for word, they were giggling Beavis and Butthead style that they would get a good grade because I was so smart. Now they had no way of knowing I was smart. They had never seen my grades and I was very quiet in all my classes. It was my glasses. Unlucky for them, the subject was not my best and I only half understood the assignment, so really I wrote down a bunch of random nonsense. I don't fully remember the grade I got on that assignment but I'm positive it wasn't anything above a C.

My point is, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, regardless of what they look like or what you may think they're like based on a stereotype and if you depend solely on these assumptions, you could find you are way off base, as the group of boys did when they received their grades.

My first post...

I feel like the first post on any blog should be incredibly poignant, incredibly witty, or set up the stage for any following post. If anything, this post will be closest to the third.

I suppose I can start out by introducing myself and explaining why you should take the time out of your busy day to read what I have to say. My name is Evelyn Gaerke. I'm not afraid of saying this on the Internet because I have nothing to lose, except a four year old laptop that could die any day and a used Gamecube I bought a few weeks ago. Have at it. Anyway, I'm 21 years old and hardly the type of person to take advantage of it.

I'm a sophomore in college, thanks to having a lovely year off due to financial aid difficulties last year, but I can't really complain. It was a maturing experience, taking a break from school and I had a lot of time to do some serious soul searching. By the way, still searching. I learned that its hardly the kind of thing one can achieve in as short an amount of time as a year, but rather its a lifelong search. Anyway, it was a good bonding experience with my family.

I'm an English major and yes, I know the stigma surrounding it. I don't care. I'm not everyone else and my future is mine. I control what happens to me and trust me, I will not spend the rest of my life asking if you want fries with that.

As a blogger, it probably comes as no surprise that I'm an aspiring author. I love to write, though I'm not the most ambitious of people, I hope to publish a best-seller someday. I know, I know, Keep Dreaming. Trust me, I will. I've written a few novels, a host of short stories, and tons of poems, though hardly any of it is worthy of publication. However, a few years ago I did submit a short novel to PublishAmerica, a print-on-demand publisher (vanity publisher, though they deny it) and it was accepted as it everything else submitted. It was a pretty cool experience, despite the lack of credibility and I learned a great deal about publishing, such as, read the fine print. I won't tell you the title of the book in the hopes that you won't look it up. I wrote it when I was 16. Believe me. You can tell.

I live in Eastern Kentucky, in the foothills of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains and I wouldn't trade it for anywhere in the world as my home. I love it here. Everything comes together to form my very own Paradise. I can sit out on my front porch and listen to the birds serenade the sun, watch the wind blow through the trees which cover the rolling hills, and smell the flowers, the grass, anything but exhaust and stale air. There is power in the atmosphere here, something that blows right through you and elevates your mind above the worries of mankind. This is where I was raised and this is where I want to die.

Anyway, enough about me...and probably enough for this first post. I hope to get into some pretty interesting topics in the coming posts so keep an eye out and bear with me. I want to entertain you...I may just need some practice first!

Until next time, adieu!