After immense personal struggle, I have finally accepted the fact that I cannot embed the timeline. here is a link, I admit defeat.

I don’t remember not knowing how to read. My mother, when going through the old storage boxes of childhood artifacts during her biannual cleaning ritual, usually pulls out the book Are You My Mother by P. D. Eastman, and starts reminiscing about how it was the first book I ever read. This is what I remember most about the book- not me reading it for the first time, but my mother explaining that it was my first book. The pages are torn in a way that is so familiar to me that when I see the book in stores it seems weird that they aren’t torn like that. I was (am) an only child, which kind of explains a number of phenomena surrounding my childhood (such as the dreams). The most important of these and the theme of this narrative is my love of stories.

What I think is most ironic about this whole thing is my lifelong hatred of writing. As a child I would dread putting even a few words down on paper, it was an agonizingly boring process. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t know what to say, or because I simply hated spelling things out on paper. I think it was a combination of these things.  This, of course, did not mesh well with my constant spinning of wild tales in my head and the vast and confusing nightmares that plagued my childhood. I think if I had kept a journal I would have had a lot more clarity of mind.

As much as I hated writing, I loved to read. Through reading stories and relating to them I learned valuable things about myself and the world. When characters in my head did the same things as characters in books, it gave me insight to what motivates people to do these things.  As a child my greatest frustration would be a lack of books. Or the lack of ways to obtain said books. Which is why when I got my phone and discovered ebooks it was a huge deal. I have never met another person that was as excited by them as I was, but the sheer easiness of reading on my single, onmipurpose  device anywhere I went and without people seeing what I was reading (I’m kind of a private person) was great.

Later in my life, my nemesis Writing became more difficult to avoid, as there were always essays to be written and lab reports to be done and proofs to be explained. Mostly the essays, though. It was around this time that I started to enjoy the challenge.

The challenge of writing. Not the writing itself. Very important distinction.

About the timeline: I really wanted to expand on the concept of “narrative”, so the bulk of the story is written within the format below. Above is only a brief iteration.

Seeing as this is a more personal project, I decided to write it in a more casual tone that I normally would for a school project. I also thought this was fitting for a project on “Digital Literacy”, seeing as technology and modern communication go hand in hand.

I know that it is supposed to be a visual aide, but the concept of writing a story through the use of a tool like this was very appealing. I am turning this project, which I have made narrative the theme of, into a narrative itself- just as I organize my life, in which stories play a huge role, into a giant story.

I hope it is interesting.