Monday, January 4, 2010
11:17 PM
Arithemetic Machine
I never had one of these but had friends and cousins who did and I thought it wsa pretty cool. Remember when having tools to do elementary school homework at home during breaks and during the summer was fun? I do.I also remember when math was called Arithemetic but I don't remember it because I'm old. Honest. ; )
Ben Franklin's used to carry this cool line of educational books that had many day's worth of work pages in various subjects such as math, science, spelling, etc. Every summer, I missed school so much that I would buy those workbooks so I could pretend school was still in session. I LOVED those things and the cozy way I felt every time I would crawl up into my old country bed, in my little air-conditioned bedroom with a couple of those books. I loved school so much when I was in elementary school!
I also remember being frustrated when our teacher wouldn't give us any or at least, enough homework so I would make up assignments that I gave to myself just because I so enjoyed doing school work. LOL Some of the teachers who had me as a student in high school would never have recognized elementary school me. She and high school me were as different as night and day. LOL
It was around 8th grade when I figured out the fact that my parents didn't care at all about my grades. Up to that point, I had been an honor student. I stopped making any effort at all once I figured out they didn't care one way or the other. I already knew what I wanted to do for a living so I ignorantly thought high school didn't matter. In actuality, it didn't matter much when all was said and done. I excelled in the things that mattered to me: music, speech, drama, journalism, English, psychology. The rest, I completely ignored. That meant I had to work a lot harder once I got to E** but work harder I did and I graduated with a 3.64 gpa in my field and a 3.2 overall. That's a solid B+/A- grade point average. I worked my tail off and enjoyed it immensely. During my college years, I returned to being the lover of learning that I had been as a child and that desire has never again left me. I love to read and I love to learn new things. I wish I had the money to take classes in a thousand different subjects beginning with photography, Hebrew, sign language, guitar, photoshop, and filmography. Those are just the first 6 things on my very lengthy to-do wishlist.
I wish I were 18 again.