Okay – I can’t think of anything better or any other story at all, actually, so I’m just going to write out the story that next occurred to me. I seem to be stuck on this story, even though it’s unflattering, because it made me reflect on how instructive it might be about me.

So I’m trying to think of stories in chronological order and I can’t think of any fun goals in elementary school. In middle school, I told my mom that I would enter a bookmark contest as an extracurricular activity, but I hadn’t been following through. My mom got exasperated at my indifference and lack of effort so she insisted that I keep my word and submit an entry. I grudgingly conceded that I should make the bookmark (for the book Bunnicula lol) and I won second place. My mom seemed unsurprised and didn’t say anything, but I ended up feeling sheepish for almost not having competed at all.

A few things stick out to me about this story. First of all, that I’m not naturally attracted to competitions in general. Particularly, social competitions. The competition that I did choose was something creative – and solitary. Like my main childhood hobby of reading. I never read did much else and there was never any friction involved. My parents always encouraged us to read and didn’t care what we read.

Another thought I had was how I didn’t do much other than read outside of school. So I never really encountered much in the way of obstacles as a result??? Yikes. Doesn’t bode well for coming up with 5 more stories. But maybe this is a good exercise in pointing out areas for improvement….