As a history major, I feel obligated to offer a history of myself. This will let those of you who want to get to know me better do it. I’ll try and be as brief as I can be.
Very Broad Overview
I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the St. Francis Hospital. I lived in Jenks, Oklahoma until I was almost ten. We moved to Kingwood, Texas (just north of Houston) at that point. I lived there until it was time for college. Now I spend my school time in Richardson, TX (just north of Dallas) and my vacation time back in Kingwood.
School History
I went to a small preschool with a religious affiliation (although I don’t remember which it’s been so long). I went there for a year or so. I went to Jenks West Elementary for four and a half years (kindergarten, developmental first grade because I was “not big enough,” first grade, second grade, and the first half of third grade). I went to Shadow Forest Elementary for the second half of the third grade (which was actually a step back for me in education), fourth grade, and fifth grade. I went to Riverwood Middle School for sixth, seventh, and eighth (I, the big stick-like nerd, played football for Riverwood in seventh and eighth grade). I went to Kingwood High School for all four years, and I graduated in May 2004. I started attending the University of Texas at Dallas on scholarship in the fall of 2004. I’m still here; I’ll be graduating in the spring of 2007.
Social History
In preschool, I had one best friend who I did everything with. I don’t actually remember this guy, but my parents assure me that we were best buddies back then. We both wanted to be like the other. In elementary school at Jenks, I was apparently considered to be part of the “popular” crowd. I never really thought of myself this way, but I was told later on by people who knew me that I was part of that crowd through association. I remember being the leader a lot though; I usually had a squad of guys following behind me, ready to take orders (like go pick on the girls ). In elementary school at Kingwood, it was just the opposite. Once it was found out I was smart (through the Gifted and Talented testing thing), I was dropped from whatever popular status I had when I first moved in to near isolation. My only friends were the misfits who didn’t belong in other groups and the other G/T kids. In middle school, I was somewhat popular through association. A lot of people knew me through other people, and I had more friends since I was on the football team and all. In fact, I had my first and only girlfriend during this period. In high school, I more or less isolated myself. I had a lot of friends, mainly from the smart honors and AP classes, but they were only friends at school for the most part. We rarely did stuff outside of school. In college, it’s been much the same. I’ve tried to be more social, but it’s been a difficult thing for me.
Religious History
When I was really young (say first grade and before), my brother and I went with a neighbor family to a church thing on Sundays. It was called Bible Bowl or something like that. Most weeks you just listened to Christian stories and studied summaries of the various books. At some point each year, there was a real competition between people in the various age groups. One year I got third place. Around second grade, my whole family started going to Beaver Street Baptist Church in Jenks. I went to Sunday school, both morning and evening services, and then the little Wednesday night activities that they had. I didn’t learn tons about religion during this time, but I felt inner peace. In fact, I chose to be baptized during this period (of my own free will). It was a nice time. Then we moved to Kingwood. We tried various churches, and none of them fit our family. Either it bothered my mother for some reason (they were too nosey about our home life and such) or it bothered me (I had some enemies at this point and I couldn’t stand going to church with them). Either way, I stopped going to church. I never thought of going back because I grew to be too smart and arrogant for my own good. I thought I knew what was right and wrong, and I didn’t want anyone preaching at me. It wasn’t until I hit a low point in my life, recently in college, that I turned back towards religion. I’ve checked out a Methodist church, but I didn’t feel it was totally for me. As some of my other threads show, I’ve also checked out the LDS church. Whether I convert eventually or not is still up in the air. I continue to do research and pray about it. Maybe sometime I will receive an answer.
Computer and Internet History
Last but surely not least. I got started on computers at a really young age. I used a PC running MS-DOS when I was in first grade. I used it mainly for playing games (the Commander Keen series and “Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?”). When we upgraded to Windows 3.1, my computer usage spread out some. I started playing card games (solitaire, hearts, spades, etc.) and I did some minor word processing stuff (crappy little kids’ stories). The upgrade to Windows 95 expanded my use even more. I got more and more games to play. I used Paint to draw up all sorts of pictures. I even programmed in BASIC a little bit (I made a game about a monkey that threw bananas). With Windows 98, I got my own computer separate from the rest of my family. We got the internet (at first dial-up 56k and then quickly to cable) and I was quickly immersed in it. I did a lot of HTML work during this time, putting up all sorts of little websites on the free hosts like Geocities and Angelfire. I attempted to learn C++ several times over the course of my life, but I never picked up more than enough to make very basic programs. I moved onto several other operating systems over the years. At the moment, I have three computers: an old PC running FreeBSD, a somewhat less old PC running Windows XP Pro, and an iMac G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.5.
I joined several internet forums over my time on the web. The first major forum I joined was earthbound.net (a site dedicated to the Super Nintendo game Earthbound, now at starmen.net). I was one of the founding members there. In fact at the time, there were only four or five of us. The site grew quickly though. I wrote an article for the site that can still be found on there. It was horribly written (by my standards), and I was totally off in my predictions. I did a lot of news reporting for the site though (I was always a quick searcher/researcher on the web), and I earned the title “Supa’ Fly Information Guy.” Even now several years later, I still visit the site and retain my title. I was big on the IGN Boards when they first started up and for the one year when I had IGN Insider, but once that expired I stopped going there. I joined this forum on the advice of two people in my first creative writing class in college last spring. One of them, who goes by the name Amanecer here, has become a really good friend of mine. I enjoy these forums a lot. A lot of my topics are self-centered (which at one point made me leave these forums), but I like the feedback I get from all of you. I try my best to post in topics and contribute something useful (or at least interesting/funny). I find this forum is a good source of news, a good source of knowledge, and a good source of support. Thanks a lot, Hatrack and all the users I’ve interacted with on it. You’ve done a lot for my life.
Well that’s about it. It was a rather lengthy thing, but that’s what I thought my landmark should be. I’ll be surprised if anyone reads through the whole thing. Any responses are welcome though. I always appreciate feedback. Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
Congradulations on the Landmark!!! WOO HOO! Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Good to know you a bit better.
And congrats on 1000. Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
YAY! I read it! It is good to know you better and I hope you stick around to tell us more of your story. (I've greatly enjoyed your other religion thread as well.)
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Congrats on 1000, pfresh. I, for one, totally identify with all your struggles with college and religion, having been through similar things myself. I'd love to tell you you'll figure it out, but I still haven't. I'm sure I will at some point, though.
Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :
Congratulations on 1000 (I am like um, 1/10 of the way there)!
Sometimes, I feel like the people who designed the G/T programs MEANT to prevent the kids from socializing. I was in a G/T and they would take us out of class, always during the most conspicuous time of the day, so if these kids didn't already hate us for memorizing our multiplication tables first, they certainly did when they saw us missing class.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Congrats on 1000 and thanks for letting us get to know ya a bit better!
And yep, there's something about being put in G/T programs that throws some kids out of the social loop. It isn't like the kid all of a sudden got smarter, but it sets them apart from their peer group.
At least it did in my case. Our G/T class (back in what, 1978) was actually something that got you pulled out of regular classes and into a different class for about two hours each day. Then you went back to your other class. It was odd and apparently it didn't sit well with most of my friends. (Only two kids from my grade level went to the G/T classes.)
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
It's nice to get to know you better, pfresh. Thanks for writing it all out for your 1000. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Congratulations!
I read it all, and I identify with a great deal of your story. I'm glad you're here. Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
To those talking about the G/T class, it was similar for me in elementary school. We'd get taken out of class for about an hour every day (and on Thursdays it was usually even longer than that). Most times we'd go and do stuff that I considered fun (independent research on topics of our own interest, field trips to the art museum, etc.). We (all of us G/T kids) seemed to be resented partially for this though. *shrugs* Oh well. It's all in the past now.
Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read this.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Our class was all day, one day a week. It was my favorite class in elementary school. I was pretty oblivious to how my classmates felt about it though. I do remember that most of my best friends came from that group - not intentionally, but they were the only ones who were the same people from year to year.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Our class went three times a week.
During music.
>_<
Eventually I got kicked out of G/T, and got to go to music. Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
We never got to skip music or P.E. (I wish we had, because they both sucked). Our G/T class was usually during spelling or math, which made sense since most of us were really far ahead with our math and language skills.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Huh. At the school I used to work at, gifted kids were pulled out during English, and some of their English skills were behind those of non-gifted kids after a year or two of this. Specifically, they did a lot of reading, but virtually no writing, and were taught absolutely no grammar.
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
Ah, well that's not what happened with the majority of us. Most of us were already way ahead in writing skills. In fact, once we started middle school, our G/T classes were History and English each year. Our classes were always known as being notoriously harder than the classes everyoen else took for those subjects. *shrugs* That's how it went though.
Posted by katdog42 (Member # 4773) on :
Thanks for posting! It's great to get to know you.
Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :
Firstly, congrats on the landmark! It may seem like a mere echo at this point, but it is really great to learn more about you
In other news, my elementary school education was somewhat similar to yours - switching half-way through and being placed in the G/T program ('cept I was never popular. At all.). Our G/T program, in contrast, sucked - it was a sheet of paper in our file, a stamp by our name. We had no special classes, no different opportunities to learn - it was just a way for parents to know that they had smart kids. I wish I had been taken out of class, because I hated being stuck with everyone in regular class. Oh well. I guess I got over that fairly quickly.
Oh, and I love silly computer games about monkeys throwing bananas. There was one I always used to play where two apes, really, were trying to decimate each other by throwing banana-bombs and the goal was to get the trajectories and speeds right - and not to blow up too many of the buildings between the apes. Man, what happened to those games?
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
I guess the demand for banana throwing monkey destruction games went down. Too bad.
As for the G/T thing, I really enjoyed my 2.5 years in the program in elementary school. I got to do a lot more learning on my own, which is usually where I do my best learning anyways. Plus one time we got to make sugar cube castles and then got to eat the rest of our sugar cube stock pile. That was a great day.
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). In elementary school at Kingwood, it was just the opposite. Once it was found out I was smart (through the Gifted and Talented testing thing), I was dropped from whatever popular status I had when I first moved in to near isolation. My only friends were the misfits who didn’t belong in other groups and the other G/T kids. In middle school, I was somewhat popular through association. A lot of people knew me through other people, and I had more friends since I was on the football team and all. In fact, I had my first and only girlfriend during this period. In high school, I more or less isolated myself. I had a lot of friends, mainly from the smart honors and AP classes, but they were only friends at school for the most part. We rarely did stuff outside of school. In college, it’s been much the same. I’ve tried to be more social, but it’s been a difficult thing for me.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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