In the days of my youth...

Sorry for the Led Zeppelin reference. If it's any consolation, I have that song stuck in my head now, too.

Anyways, because of the miracle of comments, I'm learning about more and more readers, which in turn means I'm reading more and more blogs, and that leads to me finding things I like on those blogs and feeling like I should write about them. Case in point: this entry by a blogger on a blogroll of a reader of mine(thanks for reading and blog rolling me!) about learning to read.

My own story of my fledgling school career is funny. I learned how to read extrememly young. My dad was convinced I was going to be smart, and I like to think he was right. Anyways, when we moved back to the US from Kitchener, Ontario(I attended day care for a brief time, which is why I still sing O, Canada at hockey games), my parents tried to enter me into kindergarten, but they wouldn't take me, because a) my birthday is in October, b) I was only 4, going on 5, and c) they didn't think I was intellectually ready.

So, instead of being a member of the class of 1991, I was going to be in the class of 1992. Not that this was a problem. As an alternative, they placed me in a kind of "advanced day care" school where we weren't graded or anything, but we were taught reading and science and all that. It was only half a day long, and my mother was at home anyways with my little brother, so it was really just to keep my mind growing. Basically it was a public-school type pre-school.

Now, I don't really recall this, but both my parents have separately told me about my teacher pulling them aside and asking them about my reading habits. She wasn't really concerned, but rather amazed that during reading time I would ask the teacher for the sports page of her newspaper. I read the hockey and football articles religously. Sometimes, if I finished early, I would even ask to read the main news section as well. I was also notorious for helping the teacher's aides sound out unfamiliar words when they read to us as a group.

So, what happened? That's my big question. I'm not much of a reader, just when I'm on the train to pass the time. I never learned to read terribly fast, but I am unusually adept at picking up new languages. I also never really enjoyed school, as a matter of fact, I started to hate it after a while. I seem to remember saying during my college "I think required courses are bullshit." Not surprisingly, my test scores got me in, in addition to my feisty attitude.

Anyways, that's the story of my early academic career.