(Foreword: If you've been tagged, press Ctrl+F and type your name to find where I mentioned you.)
22.
I had a deprived childhood & adolescence.22a.
There were some summers when I went to NO summer camps at all. If I somehow had a second childhood and was faced with the prospect of rotting all summer AGAIN, then I'd just run away and find anything better to do.22b.
After I went off to college, when I heard that even some HIGH SCHOOLS offered Japanese (and KOREAN for the love of God,) I overfilled beyond the brim with abject jealousy. Former Elder Stephen Matheson's high school had a Korean class.22c.
...and I feel sorely regretful for not having ANY foreign-language classes at my old middle school (Good Belated Riddance to it, as the tornado destroyed a greater portion thereof,) and only Spanish at our old high school. French used to be offered until the 1996-1997 school year, some years before I started there. When their old teacher moved to California, the administration decided that they weren't going to keep allocating scant funds on hiring another French teacher.22d.
So I feel so embittered at not having many options in the schools I grew up in. If only I lived in a bigger city while growing up - I know I'd be in a better position in life right now because of more opportunities that bigger cities provide.22e.
Chapman was like a small island in an ocean of farms. If I had lived in Manhattan and Topeka, my parents would have been able to find me tutors in Math. I was strong on Math until 8th Grade Algebra which was the level my parents didn't know how to help me on. They instead gave me some educational Math CD-ROMs that didn't do much good, if any, at all. If they had it so I could enter each problem I had to work on, they would be as useful as tutors would have been. That year, I started to think, "Why waste my time trying to study for it when I will likely fail just as hard as not studying at all? I have better things to do." Most any other teacher than Mr. Richard Hite would've set me a better opinion on math.22f.
Jody and Sheila Waldrop, I still want to go to SEMP! I've learned they've since renamed it "MERGE" and I now have the money. One of the reasons why I've longed the fruitless longing of being a teenager again is because I never felt any "closure" from my teen years. I believe going to SEMP would bring me closer to this "closure."You see, my parents were nowhere near impartial between me and my sisters. I asked them for the money to take me to SEMP but they expected me to provide for my own! First, to get a job (which any hope thereof was found OUTSIDE of Chapman,) I needed a car. I didn't get one for a long time until Dad got another.
So I asked Mom to pay me for doing good in school! I showed her a lot of "A" assignments, and she put it off (and actually NEVER paid me) because she thought she'd have to pay me too much! (Which is also why I stopped trying hard in school, because there seemed to be no point without such incentive. I knew what the long-term incentives were, but lived more for the short-term ones.)
And she promised that she'd have me go "next year." Then next year's SEMP got more expensive. I asked Jody why. He said, "I don't know, the cost of living?" Mom also forgot the promise and didn't want to remember no matter how hard I tried to remind her.
Sure, I went to Mexico with the youth group at the end of my high school years, but if that got me any closer to this "closure," there's still a ways to go. It also didn't feel the same as SEMP. I will still feel the longing to go to SEMP all the way to the grave (or when I've finally completed going to SEMP.)
After Natasha started High School, I heard SHE was going to SEMP and that Mom paid for her! Yet another reason why I don't prefer to be the oldest child.
22g.
I knew there was a Spring trip for high schoolers called "Acquire the Fire." I needed some money for that, which I have now. Going to "Acquire the Fire" will further help bring closure to my teenage years. I can go with under the guise of a "chaperone" or "youth minister's assistant" and will hopefully do much of the same things that the high schoolers themselves would do. Despite being in those "positions," I'll still pretend that I'm a teen myself and will be evasive about my age until after we return from the trip.22h.
(Remember: Even though I've left my teen years, a lot of myself still hasn't, one of the bigger reasons being that I missed out on a lot of what could have made my teenage years a more fulfilling time of my life. That makes me a "ghost of the teens" because as depicted in some movies, ghosts stick around due to unfinished business. Much of myself remains stuck to my teen years due to unfinished business. As pretty much stated above, I still have an overwhelming desire to make amends for my deprived youth, and have done so in at least one situation already:)22i.
(Amend Made 1) Jeremy Goering decided to let me "camp" with the high-schoolers during the 11th-&-12th graders' week toward the end of summer 2007. I was going to "staff," until Jeremy claimed that the "staffers" are no older than 15, and that all I'd be doing is chopping wood. He knew a little about my desire to stay a teen longer, and the fact that I only got to camp one previous year there.Sure, it seemed a bit awkward, but I hung out with an older demographic than I would have (so that helped lessen it,) and still managed to get plenty out of camp. This would have been the second time I "camped" at KBC because I found out about this wonderful place kinda late in my youth.
Actually, it would be my third if you count LTC (Leadership Training Camp) in May 2007. I guess three times is the charm.
22j.
(Continuance of Amend Made 1) As I believe I can't possibly be older than 17 inside (due to my secret I go over on fact #1,) I think I acted a lot more like myself in that high schoolers' camp. I didn't feel a compelling to "act careful" like I somehow do in college. When I had observed the high-schoolers act "loose" at this camp, (i.e., like typical high schoolers,) I (temporarily) picked up their tendencies and felt the "barriers go down," so in this week-long liberation, I acted the same.Which is why I more openly exhibited the fact that I was having fun there, and as "L." liked observing guys do fun things, she liked me well because I was acting so much like myself around the high-schoolers.
Then when college started back up again, I went back to my tense, careful "college mode." At Chili's, I tried too hard to put my best face forward and be exciting at the same time. "L." then decided to call it a "friend-date." I learned that I can't do both, at least not at this juncture. Maybe others can but I'm not so trained at it.
I've since explained to her my reasons through Honesty Box, and that it has something to do with my "personality secret" I dwelled over on #1.
22k.
I don't mean to go far off on tangents, so the way I am / try to be, in certain settings (as mentioned above,) may also tie in to having a deprived adolescence as well. I miss out on learning to act in certain ways, you see.(Continued on "23/25 facts about myself: "I will marry one day." (Valentine-themed) (One fact per note now.)" due to length. Each "fact" itself is getting so long now, they each warrant their own entry.)
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