3 y/o: we just immigrated from the (former) USSR to the US. this experience intensely stressed me out. mom and I were outside one day when I saw a plane flying overhead. I pointed at it and asked, "mom can we get on that plane and go home?"
3 y/o: I was playing with some building toy blocks, kind of like Lincoln Logs. I built a tall structure out of them, then when it fell over and the blocks scattered everywhere, I asked my mom, "if our building topples just like this one did, can we move back home?"
5 y/o: I was outside my grandparents' apartment building. a girl my age ran over, wanting to play. not knowing much English at this point, I didn't know what to say, so I panicked, told her "wait", and ran inside to my grandparents and stayed there. not sure how long she waited.
6 or 7 y/o: my first and only waking nightmare. I had just read a Toy Story picture book, and Sid's toys ended up giving me a nightmare. I woke up in the middle of the night and ran to my mom crying, but kept hallucinating that they were following me. it was... terrifying.
8 or 9 y/o: we just got a computer, but I only got to use it while my mom was on the phone, & since we had AOL, I couldn't use the internet. so I doodled in Paint, but I hadn't realized I could resize the canvas, so I ended up doodling a *lot* of vertical banners for a *while*.
7 y/o: invited a boy from my class to come over after school to play. he said "no, you have chicken pox". I laughed and hand-waved away the fact that I didn't know what kind of food 'chicken pox' was by confidently saying "no I don't, but we can make some other kind of food!"
8 y/o: friend & I would sit in the stairwell of our apartment building, looking out the window at the windows of the building next door, "spying" on people. we only saw shadows, but we made up wild stories about what was going on & recorded them in a notebook labeled "Top Secret"
8 or 9 y/o: same friend refused to help me figure out how to get the Card Key in Pokemon R/B 😾 took me *forever* to realize that if you step on one of the teleportation squares, you can teleport back and keep walking in the same direction. I thought they were actual barriers
7 y/o: overheard a girl in my class calling *herself* fat, and so I *immediately* tattled on her to the teacher (??????). the girl looked at me like I was an idiot and clarified that she had called herself "phat", not "fat"
5 y/o: my English was slowly getting better. sort of. my teachers gushed / laughed (lovingly) to my mom that when I read passages aloud, my pronunciation was absolutely impeccable, but I practically didn't understand a word of what I was reading.
7 y/o: I'd make up wild stories to tell kids about my great grandma (who I never met). she was a fearless jungle explorer who tamed tigers. she was also an inventor & invented a pencil with "rubber" lead; after writing with it, you could move around the markings with your hands.
8 y/o: class gathered before a field trip to hear the rules, one of which was "no gameboys allowed". not knowing what a gameboy was yet, but needing to *thoroughly* understand the bounds of the rules, I raised my hand and asked "what about gamegirls?"
9 y/o: a group of us were gathered around The Best Artist in our school (who I later quickly caught up to), holding up our drawings for her to judge & comment on. in a bizarre self-deprecating / attention-seeking move, I screamed out "UGLY!" about mine & got in trouble for it.
10 y/o: just discovered IRC & was very new to the internet, so I believed a rando when he told me he knew where I lived & was on his way over. I went & excitedly told my friend & got him to come wait w/ me outside. we waited for quite a bit but, surprise surprise, nobody came.
9 or 10 y/o: my very first time on IRC (Pojo's Anime channel on Mediadriven), I got overwhelmed by the flood of messages and couldn't read fast enough to keep up yet, so I asked everyone "can you all be quiet for a few minutes so I can read all your messages and catch up?"
10 y/o: angrily chased a kid around the classroom, screaming at him, because he spelled "laugh" as "laff". wish I remembered my reasoning here, but mostly I just had anger issues and what I later realized was probably OCPD.
6 y/o: I was a guest on a children's TV talk show kinda thing. we rehearsed beforehand, but it was supposed to look ad-libbed. so, on live TV:
host: "do you know any songs?"
me: "... yes?"
host: "can you sing one for us?"
me: "... but I already did when we rehearsed..."
10 y/o: went to an educational weekend program meant for high schoolers, & took several classes. one was about Caml (was getting into coding, but only knew HTML/CSS). was following along but not seeing the use, so I raised my hand and asked, "can this be used to make websites?"
12 y/o: was very passionately discussing something w/ some classmates while holding a Gogurt. in a moment of unbridled manic energy, I loudly declared "we. have. no. TIME!!!", and on the "TIME", I slapped my Gogurt against the desk. the Gogurt exploded & covered us all in yogurt.
2 or 3 y/o: I had a toy gnome at the time. one day, I peed my pants. (sounds completely unrelated right?) when my mom asked me "who peed their pants?", I blamed it on the gnome.
7 y/o: in my 1st grade class photo, I'm "smiling" with my mouth open as wide as it can possibly go, because I was trying to emulate the :D smile I saw in shows such as Pokemon. I have no clue why my teachers didn't stop me.
10 y/o: my 1st ever crush was Gary Oak. my 2nd crush was Syaoran from Card Captor Sakura. I had it *bad* for him. I was seriously, *seriously* lovesick, & in distress that he wasn't real. I dreamed about him nearly every night, & thought about him *constantly*.
12 y/o: the 7th + 8th grade classes had a sticker chart where each of us would put 1 sticker on it for every book we read, and once we got to 100 books collectively, we'd get some sort of party. I was quickly banned from putting up any more stickers b/c I was carrying the class.
11 y/o: my aunt had a baby girl who she named Erica. in the months leading up to the birth, I was trying very hard to convince her to spell it Erika (after the grass-type Pokemon gym leader) and was extremely upset when she chose not to.
13 y/o: my class put on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where I was Puck. without meaning to, I quickly memorized the entire play line-for-line. and so when the day came & 2 kids called in sick, I played 3 roles: Puck, Titania (fairy queen), & Hippolyta (Amazon queen).
6 y/o: my mom had me go to bed crazy early, so in the summers I'd be laying in bed as the sun was setting, listening to my friends laughing & playing outside, AC gently humming. this gave me a Pavlovian response of painful melancholy to the AC sound that I only recently broke.
10? y/o: at some point I started regularly dissociating during school due to a bully teacher. in the "happy place" I always escaped to I was sitting under a big tree at the top of a big, grassy hill on a breezy sunny day, and as far as my eye could see there were just more hills.
11 y/o: we had to do a report on an animal for school & I picked the stoat. in addition to writing a report, I made a papier-mâché model of it then cut it in half across the belly & glued a slinky between the 2 halves (got the idea from the slinky dog in Toy Story). I was proud.
9 y/o: some friends and I gathered some of our unneeded trinkets/toys to do a yard sale together. I ended up pocketing this one girl's cool-looking lenticular Pokemon card thing while nobody was looking. she never found out. sorry Rachel.
9 y/o: I made a guild on Neopets called "Rainbow Pride". I had NO IDEA the connection either of these words had to gay rights. I just thought rainbows were cool & pretty & that people shouldn't be made fun of for liking them (?????). my mom died laughing when I explained this
10 y/o:
---
RT @pareinoia
when I was 10 I "fell" in "love" with a boy I met on Neopets simply because he was the first boy I encountered who used emoticons like :3, xD, ^^ as well as proper grammar & spelling. I thought only girls did that & figured I caught myself a rare specimen I needed to hold on to
https://twitter.com/pareinoia/status/1348855297733918721
8 or 9 y/o: one night my mom brought home sushi after working late. I was dancing around outside, waving the chopsticks around like wands. my sandals were unbuckled & so I tripped & fell & got a gash on my elbow that still has a scar. was still happy due to sushi though.
12 y/o: I convinced my mom to let me leave our computer on for 2 days and 2 nights in order to download the 700mb Ragnarok Online client (I hadn't heard of download managers at that point). honestly I'm surprised it worked and that the connection didn't break at any point.
11 y/o: mom & I visited my aunt in the hospital after she gave birth. it was the first time I saw a newborn up close. she was bright red like a lobster, & kept her eyes tightly shut — we kept trying to catch the fleeting moments when she'd open her eyes to see her eye color
6 y/o: on the first morning of 1st grade, when I was sitting waiting for class to start, instead of talking to kids & making friends, I was looking around & imagining how the room would look underwater. the pretty colors, how different objects would be floating, the bubbles, etc
12 y/o: I got scarlet fever & ended up staying home from school for like a month straight. I watched Spirited Away a *lot* of times in that month. my mom always stressed the idea of recovering from illness fully before turning to work or school, which I really appreciated
6 y/o: mom took me to Disney. we went on Space Mountain. I'd never been on a rollercoaster before. I eagerly volunteered to sit at the very front. I deeply regretted it & kept my eyes closed most of the time. been terrified of rollercoasters ever since.
13 y/o: friends got me to go on another coaster, Batman & Robin: The Chiller. at the front of the line, group in front of us zoomed off & left an afterimage b/c of how fast they went. I felt sick. when we went, it was over in what felt like 15 seconds. the worst 15 seconds ever.
13 y/o: in 7th + 8th grade, we'd cook a Thanksgiving feast together as a class (had a kitchen in our classroom. long story). it was so cozy & lovely. puttering around making stuffing, cornbread, turkey, etc, then eating it all together as a group & being thankful for each other.
12 y/o: a few of us had taken high school placement exams & the results were in. principal called us one by one over the PA to come to his office & get the results. my heart was pounding & I was dizzy the whole walk over. & got into the high school of my choice. amazing day
6 y/o: I took ballet classes for a while, but once my growth spurts started, my legs hurt so bad I could barely sleep at night (would cry myself to sleep a *lot* during this time), let alone do ballet, so I quit.
12 y/o: at sleepaway camp, the girls were helping set up for a dance later that night. one of the girls laid down on the grass face down & started thrusting her hips. we laughed & asked "getting ready for tonight?" but she didn't react. then we realized she was having a seizure.
8 y/o: I plagiarized the entirety of Goodnight Moon for some sort of thing at school (talent show maybe?). nobody ever found out. I have no idea why I did that.
8 y/o: overheard kids in my class talking about Digimon & Yu-Gi-Oh. got mad when they didn't even know what anime was & that those shows came from Japan. like *really* mad that they seemed to think those were American shows & weren't giving credit where credit is due.
9 y/o: speaking of Digimon, I spent a *lot* of time fantasizing about being like ~the Eighth Child~ Kari and being swooped up into a magical adventure one day.
5 or 6 y/o: as an only child, I fantasized about having a cool older brother to protect me, care for me, and of course tease me / bully me a bit. when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night, I imagined him soaring through the air like Superman with me sitting on his back.
7 y/o: when I was little, "lanyard" meant those colorful plastic woven things we'd all make. I was obsessed w/ them and had several that I treated as "dolls". laying in bed at night, I'd play out little puppet shows using them, on a small ledge on the wall next to my bed.
11 y/o: the 6th/7th/8th grades would have a "current events" hour every Wednesday morning. each of us brought 3 articles to share: 1 local, 1 national, 1 international. we sat around a big table, ate bagels w/ cream cheese & drank hot cocoa, and discussed these articles.
10 or 11 y/o: we'd often play dodgeball in the yard during recess. I was terrible at throwing, but amazing at dodging. one time I was the only one left on my team, and then the game dragged on 'til recess was over b/c I kept dodging each throw (but not getting anyone out myself).
9 or 10 y/o: for a while, the man in the ice cream truck that drove down our block would give me & my friends free ice cream every day in the summer. at some point I think someone tattled on him or something because there were rumors he was fired (or just had a route change).
8 or 9 y/o: mom and I went to the Poconos for the summer. to keep me occupied, my mom sent me to a Christian kids' day camp in the area, though we're Jewish. all I remember is a scavenger hunt in a sandbox, finding some kind of rubber Jesus and then... chewing on it later.
8 or 9 y/o: same Poconos trip, my mom would take me on long walks in the woods and drill me on memorization skills. she had me memorize increasingly longer strings of numbers, as well as poems, and recite them back to her. this was honestly so much fun and so soothing.
12 y/o: going on an overnight school trip, crammed into a van with a bunch of classmates. at one point I raised my arm for some reason, & the girl next to me looked at me and went "ewww, you've got a jungle under there!" after the trip, I asked my mom if I could start shaving.
6 to 8 y/o: in 1st/2nd/3rd grade we had "snack time", where 2 kids at a time would be called over to a table where they could eat the snack of the day (choc chip/oatmeal/sugar cookies, or pretzel rods) and drink the drink of the day (fruit punch, lemonade, or iced tea).
6 to 13 y/o: the Scholastic book fairs were my *absolute* favorite time of the year. I was ecstatic about both carefully reading through the catalog beforehand, and wandering around the fair itself. it filled me with an energy that wasn't matched by anything else, not even close.
alright, that's 58 stories for 58 likes. 🥵 gonna round it out with 2 more to make it 60 and then call it done. 💖
12 y/o: I used to think a (menstrual) period was called a period not because it's regular/periodic/cyclical, but because you got a tiny dot, a "period", of blood during it. hoooo boy I was in for a HELL of a surprise.
10 y/o: when editing HTML for my Neopets guilds, I did a *lot* of <img src="C:/etc">. didn't know I needed to upload files, but I had *some* sneaking suspicion that this could be wrong, as I included a message to "please let me know if the images don't load for you!"
6 to 11ish y/o: my mom left for work early in the morning, so my grandpa would ride the bus with me to school each day. he never trusted that my mom properly fed me breakfast, so he'd always bring me food, usually a sandwich w/ butter & bologna and an apple.