I was home-schooled, until I was 13. Thrust into the public school system when you have no idea what white out or a locker was…well, I am just grateful I learn super fucking fast and am good at copying. Being a chameleon has its benefits. I was home-schooled because my older sister, she is ten years older, has autism and during the 1980s and 1990s some of you may remember there was little to no information on it like there is now. She was relentlessly bullied, my parents were scared I would have a horrible time, not realizing my sister had autism until she was about 18 and ended up in the psych ward in a hospital for a couple years while I went through puberty. There was such significant chaos during my childhood, I have come to understand of course this is why I have pursued ridiculously toxic or abusive people over the years, yet, had stable, healthy supportive friends. Aside from a couple co-dependent female friendships. I really don’t know how my parents could have done better. What support was there or even knowledge of raising a child with autism at the time? If I had been the first born, I am sure they would have went about things differently. However, she was born first, and by the time she was ten years old, I came along. Caught up in her fits of drama, they would neglect me, but have stable and supportive love when they weren’t distracted by her episodes. I see how lovely they are around my baby, and it reminds me of my childhood again. That is how I realized.

With all the Covid going on, here we have a time of home-schooled kids across the world in a spectacular fashion. Some are now back to school, others not. I am considering home-schooling my little one, until age seven. I believe in the research of personality development, and I know how much television fucked me up. I also want him to learn how to handle bullies and the rest of the fun societal things, while being able to think for himself and self-study. I mean, if he wants to. Maybe he won’t want to, and I am not sure what my schedule will be like in a couple years. Guess we will find out, shall we? I wish I had a nanny. I would absolutely home-school him until seven then. A lot can change in a couple of years.

My parents are old as dirt, coupled with being home-schooled and watching way too much pop culture on TV, along with access to the internet before many other kids develops an interesting combination. I remember seeing a computer when I was four, using the internet when I was eight. Real Player, Winamp, Shockwave, Netscape, Dial-Up, Windows 95, remember that and more? Oh my goodness.

Homeschooling nourished my predisposition to self-discipline. I would be lazy, well I am lazy in many ways, but I find the most efficient way to get something done so I can do other things instead. I ended up going to a self-paced high school and absolutely flourished there. I should have graduated at 16, instead I milked a peer counselling course for an extra year and left at the tender age of 17. I would finish the week’s worth of homework, sometimes weeks, so I could go to raves on the weekend and talk to a boyfriend on MSN everyday. I would eventually meet my now ex at a rave when I was 16 and he was 20. I approached University and College much in the same way when I went to them. Finish everything as soon as possible so I could get to other things. Or finish it very last minute. It gets done.  In University it was my goal to be in the top five grades but also finish tests within the first 5 people. Most of the time I did achieve this.

My priorities in high school were wholesomely slutty, sex, boyfriends, learning. I stayed diligent on getting my birth control many months ahead, I had my condoms, I had my thorough research on STDs and STIs. I have always enjoyed learning about the parthenogenesis of infectious diseases. I love discipline, self-imposed, and I have worked self-employed for ten years. Not always in the industry I am now. But little vanilla businesses here and there. I had so much time alone as a child I think that is why I prefer to live alone in general, well with my fur babies and baby of course, I enjoy the company of a spouse, but I would also be okay if he lived…next door. My bed is already crowded with a cat, dog, and pillows. I wake up sandwiched between two tiny fur babies and I am sure in near future there will be my little one coming to bed if he needs to during frightening nights.

I enjoyed my virtual class rooms when I was home-schooled, and again, seems to be a thing happening currently. I was in the first experimentation of having virtual class rooms. This was 20 years ago. The school would give us all computers each year, brand new to use. It was a privilege out of uniqueness that placed me in an odd category I shouldn’t have been in. It helped me develop further my quickness to pick up learning by observing and logically working out the details. Times I have been in College, if it involved computers I would figure out the flow of where the lesson was going and finish in-class assignments before end of class then fuck around on social media. When the teacher would come to scold me, they would see that I had already finished everything and I would not get in trouble. When I was in a typing class, I typed faster than anyone I’ve met. The teacher would tell the whole class to not feel bad as I just typed super fast. I was allowed to leave that class with completed grade after two weeks with my WPM card of 99 with one spelling mistake, I can type up to 170 WPM if the words are not complicated like medical terms. I think homeschooling helped any of this happen. When I was younger I would play this weird canoe race game with spelling, it came with the computer. When I talked on MSN, I refused to short hand type, I didn’t understand BRB, LMFAO, ROFL. Although I absolutely use those now-a-days. When you do something enough times, it becomes more and more efficient. Faster with high accuracy. I like that.

With homeschooling, I didn’t understand a lot of social expectations. Much as is cliche with us home-schooled children. Because of this, I got isolated by girls and because I did not fit in I would hang out with the tech lab nerds. They were happy a girl was even near them and would teach me things about music, computers, photoshop, and more. They were witty and treated me like a person. I had big boobs, cleavage always out and they did not shame me for this.  Girls would call me a slut and I didn’t understand what that word meant. I didn’t know what masturbation was. I didn’t swear. Before I ever kissed a boy or had a boyfriend, there I was, a slut. Because of that, it became my goal to not make friends in high school and just get out of there as soon as I could. I thought graduating and moving to a bigger city would solve everything. It doesn’t, of course.  I didn’t understand why people were mean to me despite me leaving them alone or not reacting. I had a lot of pain from not understanding. I tried to, by reading. It didn’t help. Guys would bully me, girls would bully me. Never my tech lab nerd sweethearts. They didn’t make me uncomfortable, they didn’t hit on me in weird ways, they taught me things and included me in their circle. I became a loner, I would read books in the library on mental illness, suicide, kinetics of drugs, and I would go to dance class. I lived for dance, I still do. From the second I stepped into a dance studio at 13, I knew where my heart belonged.

I met my first unsavory person when I was 13, he was 17 almost 18. I am not sure if I will write about him, but he catalyzed many years of low self-esteem and various self-sabotage that has taken a lot time to get a grip on. I only hope the worst for him and for a number of years he kept trying to find me and I would have panic attacks. He would find me in person, I would hide. He would find me online, I would block him. I legally changed my first, middle and last name name a number of years ago and then it hit me how I had changed my name to the name of his last name. I think I reclaimed what he stole from my innocence, I love my name, how had I not realized how obviously I had done a tediously life changing legal ordeal? Yes, I could change it again, but I am comfortable and identify with my name. The idea of my last name was an effort between 14 martinis, my best friend at a favourite restaurant, then later a Engineering Physicist and Civil/Mechanical Engineer mentor I had that pushed me emotionally to take the leap. He has participated in the Olympics, done speeches for NASA,  worked with the US navy on developing ideas for comprehensive fleet defense, developed a 3-D printer that uses concrete, and launched an event which is a day in our Canadian calendar that if you know me better I will tell you what day it is. He pushed me in a way forward that was helpful for me, by me.