Okay, try this one:
Some random thoughts/memories/etc.:
My grandmother told me that when I was two, she gave me a quick swat on the hand when one night I touched the lamp that she had warned me to stay away from. She told me that I looked up at her with the biggest, most concerned eyes and sobbed uncontrollably not from any physical pain but because I was so upset that she had gotten angry with me. This is a theme that has played itself throughout my life; there are few things worse to me than someone whose opinion of me I care about being disappointed in me. This has lead me to be very secretive about anything that I think will evoke disapproval from respected figures.
Although I have held deep affection and loyalty to certain people in my life (for example, my grandparents), I have never really told them how much I care about them. I usually "play it cool" and undermine my feelings for someone. Doing things for them out of duty of our relationship is far preferred over having a heart-to-heart. I don't like feeling emotionally vulnerable.
My imagination was very active as a young child. To this day, my “memories” of seeing Santa Claus and his reindeer ascend from my back yard into the night, seeing a little green, glowing man sitting crossed-legged on my fireplace in many occasions in the middle of the night, and of being able to fly are all still very “real” in my mind. I have also always had very vivid dreams, which on a handful or two of occasions have “come true” (these were very specific events); I was claimed to have the “gift of prophecy” by my church members.
I’m always looking for ways to “beat the system”. I remember a time when I was 11 my dad took me to the horse races, and we were supposed to meet up with my rich aunts in a VIP area. My dad was fretting about how we were going to meet up with them. I noticed as we were in line that all everyone who was entering the track was being stamped on the hand with UV sensitive ink – those who were stamped on the right hand were general admission, those on the left were VIP. I remembered a story my mom told me about how she, as a teenager, would stand outside of Great America and ask people to let her lick her hand and transfer the stamp to her so she could get in for free. Long story short, I got us into the VIP area using the same trick and made my wheeling-dealing dad very proud.
In the 6th grade, my school was voting on “most likely to succeed”, etc. Well, I knew that there was no way in hell I was going to be voted for anything since I wasn’t a jock or a prep, so I stole a very large stack of ballots from my teacher’s desk when the classroom was empty, and my best friend and I voted ourselves something more “realistic” – “cutest in braces” and “best eyes”, respectively. Oh, and we won. : )
Growing up, these are the sort of comments teachers and others would make about me:
“An old soul”
“Wise beyond [his/her] years”
“Bright”
“Creative”
“Talented”
"Insightful"
“Quick learner”
“Keeps a messy desk”
"Disorganized"
School subjects that I excelled in:
Music (flute, voice, piano and electronic composition)
Foreign language (Chinese)
Psychology
Drama and speech (despite extreme nervousness)
Health and human anatomy
At school, I was considered weird by my classmates. I usually had one close friend or hang out with a small group of others loners. I liked being considered strange, but secretly, it hurt when other kids (especially the snobby, rich, ”cool” kids) disapproved of me. I was always exaggerating and making up stories about myself (like an unexplained bump on my hand being caused from dropping a brick on it, having cancer, . On the few occasions when my incredulous stories made their way to a teacher and the teacher confronted me, I always felt like a dog with its tail between its legs. When I was 6, the school secretary announced that a blue retainer had been found, and I went to the office to claim it. It was obvious to the secretary that the retainer didn’t fit, and I was sent back to my classroom. I just really wanted to have a retainer!
When I was 13, I had a sinus infection for nearly a year thanks to a negligent parent, which turned into a bacterial infection in my blood. I had to leave school and start independent study. Of course, I took this as an opportunity to exaggerate, and told people I had a disease where I couldn’t go out in the sun (reality was that I was taking a medicine that made me sensitive to the sun). I did well in independent study and graduated at 16. During this time, I withdrew a lot from kids my age, and until somewhat recently, I felt very disconnected and disdainful of them and the whole “teenage thing”. I went on to community college and quickly earned an A.A. degree but did not go on to my B.A. due to indecision in a major and accepting a high-paying corporate job.
In my teenage/young adult years, I had many projects. I started several websites to earn affiliate income – there was TeachersEd.com (a website for teachers to purchase books and download free lesson plans), SurveyFairy.com (that one was really cool – a site that links to legitimate surveys for cash) BSGBlackMarket.com (a website that sold Battlestar Galactica merchandise that I designed). I always loved coming up with the concepts and designing the sites, but I ultimately became bored and let them expire. I also came up with several business ideas and came up with the names, created the logos, etc., but never actually started the businesses!
I also was very set on finding cheap land and building a home and living “simply”. When I was 16, I attended a seminar on building a home on repossessed land with materials found for free or at a bargain. The next year, I went to a land auction and made an unsuccessful bid on a property that I planned on building such a house.
And there were the career exploration days. My family used to make fun of me for my weekly change in enthusiasm for a different career. I have seriously considered being a police officer (trained for months until I attempted to scale a 6-ft wall and failed miserably), an anaplastologist (someone who creates prosthetics for the face – ears, nose, cheeks, etc.), a lawyer and a legal mediator, among many, many others.
In romantic relationships, I have been known to be very focused on wanting things to be “moving forward” and on “fixing” things, but once they are fixed, I find myself unsatisfied. I have a history of viewing the grass as greener on the other side. This has caused me major relationship trouble. I also tend to view things as black and white and have been accused of being insecure and jealous. I have been very generous, financially and with my help, with my mates, but I have also used these things against them. I seem to not be satisfied in normal give-and-take relationships. I also am very moody (not emotional) and pout and give "the look" when I disapprove or don’t get my way. I have also been told that I read into things way too much and make a mountain out of a molehill. I am not proud of any of these traits.
At work, although I’m amiable, quiet and accommodating, I am ever questioning my bosses’ decisions (of course very diplomatically) – “why are we doing this”, “why aren’t we doing this”, “this may be construed in a negative way” etc. They especially never seem to understand or care about the impact of their speech or actions on the people involved. I’m very meticulous with work that will be seen by my bosses and the few projects that I actually like; otherwise, I procrastinate, sweep things under the rug, ignore phone calls, and generally dick around. A lot of things with me involve swinging back and forth from one side to another. Despite these tendencies, I get raises and praise often and have done very well in my field of work.