One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss 1995

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss (or OFTFRFBF) is the first book I remember being read to me. It is, as all Dr. Seuss books are, written in rhyme and contains original words created by the author. Each page contains a minimal amount of words and simple illustrations in the traditional Dr. Seuss style. The first words "One fish two fish, red fish blue fish" exemplify how the book taught the young reader about colors, numbers, etc. It also stresses diversity with all the different fish that there are. Both of these values were communicated to me either consciously or subconsciously when I was young via the book.

My mom read this book to me when I was only three years old. Eventually, I had the entire thing memorized and could recite it back to my mother as she turned the pages. This is probably the first case of my love for poetry and its recitation. Even at an early age I had a good memory. In addition to poems I was also skilled at remembering songs (probably because of the rhyming factor). The lyric and memorial influence of Dr. Seuss has prevailed in me even up 'til now with my good grades (testing memory) and interest in poetry.

Neopets 2001

Neopets is a website where it is possible take care of a virtual pet, by playing games to earn neopoints, which are spent on providing for and pampering it. There is a "neo world" with lots of shops and other activities. The website is focused more around earning and spending neopoints than caring for your pet, but the basis is the pet, which you must have to start an account. There are many fun and interesting opportunities for site members such as, battling with your pet, playing the lottery, furnishing a house, running a shop, donating items and neopoints, entering writing or problem solving competitions, banking, and auctions, and neo-mail. There are a number of neopets to choose from, and once you have a neopet you usually have it forever (you can give it up for adoption but the ensuing process is indescribably guilt-ridden). It is easy to get sucked into the competition-like world by working hard to earn neopoints to the point where the games are not for fun but mere sources of income. Since there are so many users, things like the money tree (where users give out donations for other users to take) are more like games because you have to select an item within millisecond of the page loading in order to get it before anyone else. It kind of mirrors the real life issue of overpopulation, don't you think.

I first ran into Neopets when I started going to the Boys and Girls Club, in fourth grade, where there was a computer lab full of Neopets lovers. I had always been interested in the stimulating world of computers and video games and henceforth followed the other kids'suit in their neo-addiction. I quickly learned that neopets, as I said earlier, was all about the neopoints. I often looked for the easy way out, choosing games on how many neopoints they paid out as opposed to how fun they were, playing the lottery, and "playing" the money tree. This emphasis on the importance of capital contributed to the already present cultural emphasis on it. It taught me again and again that the people with money were directly successful and indirectly happy; something that, I came to learn, wasn't always the case. However, I still have an ingrained love for money albeit less than in the past and I still have affections for Neopets. It's also interesting to note that the name of my neopet (tottter) and my Neopets password (**********) are the screen name and password I use for all my current online accounts.

Magic Cards 2002

Magic or "Magic The Gathering", as it is officially called, is a trading card game in which players summon creatures and cast spells to defeat their opponents. It is comparable to other trading card games, like Yugi-Oh, in that there is a set number of life points that must be depleted in order to end the game, their are monster cards that have specific attack and defense points, and different card effects and abilities. However, I always found magic to be much more in depth than any other trading card game. It had been around for ten years when I got into it and had extremely complex game play; it was comprised of thousands of unique cards each with its very own characteristics. Furthermore, each card had a brilliantly drawn picture on it, only adding to the allure.

I became enthralled with the world of magic, in fifth grade, meticulously reviewing my collection, improving decks, and often playing against myself. I felt an intense sense of challenge in the vastness of the game and I was determined and delighted to master it. I was the best player at the Boys and Girls Club; I only found my match at the Friday night tournaments of local trading card shops. It wasn't until I stopped attending the Boys and Girls Club, my seventh grade year, that I ceased to play magic. It was partly because I didn't have anybody to play it with anymore, and also because I was "growing out of it", so to speak. Magic was probably my first obsession and the first time I was alerted to my addictive personality which is caused, in part, by my ADHD. I would literally not eat breakfast in order to play with my magic cards sooner. The same thing happened later on with video games. The amount of time I spent with the cards left a big imprint on my memory which I will never erase.

Aside from the time and money put to waste by my Magic addiction, one positive aspect of the ordeal was an improved vocabulary and imagination. One might notice, while browsing a selection of Magic cards, that the language and themes of it are not directly targeting 7 to 9-year-olds as much as they are 10 to 15-year-olds. In fifth grade, we would have weekly semi-class-constructed vocabulary lists; I would offer up such words as: behemoth, endemic, doppelganger, threshold, ornithopter, and anarchist. This contributed to the wide vocabulary that I now possess. The fantastical nature of the card game, opened my mind to new words as well as ideas. Creatures like elves, dwarves, zombies, sorcerers, and goblins expanded my imagination. Not to mention the art of creating a deck; and using different card combinations to make it effective. Magic encouraged me to be more accepting of new ideas and to create and change with time; thereby helping me to adapt to the everchanging world in which we live.

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition 2004

Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition or "Dub Edition" as I often called it, is a street racing game in which you can buy and customize cars with the money that you earn from racing them on the streets of San Francisco, Atlanta, and Chicago. I played it on PS2 but it is available on other systems as well. There are literally thousands of customizing options from $20,000 rims to wheelie bars to tire widths. I would play it every weekend. I'd often scream at the T.V. if I lost a race or jump and yell in excitement if I won; it was that intense. All the car and car part manufacturing companies in the game were real which gave me an untraditional education in the auto industry. Surprisingly enough I learned a lot about driving from the video game: braking before going around corners, how to run somebody off the road, running lights, driving on the wrong side of the road, using nitrus efficiently and adjusting the weight balance in a car from mid-air so that it would land smoothly. I loved the game because of the shiny cars and the fast paced thrills. I disliked the game because it was indescribably frustrating when a car came out of no where when you were 5 seconds from winning a race and sent you sprawling into last place. Although it had its ups and downs, MC3DE was and probably still is my favorite game.

At the same time I was interested in Dub Edition, I was also getting rides to Rundlett every day from my uncle. My uncle was a big car buff and had been reading Car and Driver magazine for many years. I remember our talks about cars and their performance and their price compared to other cars. It was during this time that I learned the names of all the major car makers, as well as the trifectums: "Ford, Lincoln, Mercury" "Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge" "Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche" "Honda, Acura, Lexus" etc. I realize now, that Dub Edition was pretty much a corporate free for all. There was a huge amount of advertising, whether it be the unnecessary car manufacturer names, the extensive soundtrack, or the in-game billboards. This game not only changed the way I looked at the vehicles I saw on the road everyday, but it gave me a wealth of brand names and logos of which I had never dreamed. I began to point out different cars on the road like Mercedes and Cadilac when I saw a top of the line model and I would confuse my mother with a barrage of different car names on our weekend rides. As you can see, my Midnight Club experience was filled with learning.

The Avian Bird Flu 2005

The deadly Avian Bird Flu or H5N1 flu virus drew national attention in 2005 when a relatively small number of people in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia became infected after coming into contact with infected birds and scientists warned of a global pandemic. They said that the virus was mutating and may become contagious, spreadable via human-to-human contact, very soon. ABC World News covered it for a little while as did local news stations. I didn't know much about it except the information my parents told me. They told me that it was going to mutate, eventually and inevitably, and that people were going to start dying all over the world. I was terrified. My parents weren't ones to lie to me. I questioned them and questioned them but their answer remained the same. The news told of people killing or "culling" massive amounts of birds, which was another first in my life; the slaughter of thousands of living things. Life never seemed so cheap. I went online to research the subject, which was an extremely uncommon occurrence, unless it was for school, and discovered the true direness of the situation. I even emailed a doctor about it. I told him who I was and that I was scared; I asked him what I could do to keep from getting sick should the virus break out.

This news story was the first piece of media that had ever caused me to consider the possibility of an early death. I had always assumed that everyone lived until they were 80 which seemed like light years ("as the crow flies") away at the time. I began to think, "If I were to die tomorrow, would I be happy with my life?". This thought has been raised more than once in my mind since I heard about the virus. Along with other things, the bird flu caused to do a bit of "living like you were dying" from time to time. Since this was the first time my own safety had ever been threatened directly (I could actually die!) it affected me a great deal.

John Scofield A Go Go 2006

John Scofield became my favorite guitarist during the summer of my freshman year. This was mainly caused by my guitar teacher, Andy Greene, who admired him as well. He suggested that I buy his album A Go Go; which incited a trip to Borders book store and a $16 purchase of an interesting album with an orange and white cover. I had been earning money mowing my Memere's lawn and I was excited about reaping the fruits of my labor. When I put the compact disc into the C.D. player of my mom's black Honda Civic, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but pretty soon I was grooving along to some jazz funk that even my mom enjoyed. The first track "A Go Go" started out with bongos and then turned into an organ trio (organ, bass, drums) with John Scofield playing the melody which was simultaneously played by low organ breaths. He had perfect articulation; he could play the same note in various ways, producing tones that were the same note, but sounded different. I listened to the entire thing and then listened to it again... and again. It was practically all I listened to for the next two weeks. I began to learn some of the songs on my own guitar, so that I could play along with the recording.

This album inspired me to pursue jazz guitar, which is what I did for the rest of the summer; it's what I'm still doing today. The sheer magnificence of the album left me awestruck. I would sit in the passenger seat of my mom's car, quietly savoring every note and sighing at the hippest and funkiest licks. I was quite and quietly envious of John Scofield. I couldn't understand how any one man could play such complicated music with such perfection, and have such incredible improvisational ideas. I was driven by this envy and the envy of other talented jazz musicians to work hard that summer on guitar.

One thing that John Scofield taught me was that good music wasn't always popular music. Everyone has different tastes. Each of us has his or her own ideas of what is great and what isn't. In this way Scofield's music opened me up to a wider world of music.

Into the Wild by John Krakauer 2007

Into the Wild is a nonfictional book about a young man named Chris McCandless who, after graduating from college, leaves his life in society and takes to the road, hitchhiking across the western U.S. and taking in the beauty of raw natural experience. He is motivated by the works of Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, and Henry David Thoreau, and henceforth has a dislike for society, money, and government. Although he may seem like an ungrateful fool at first, for giving up the promising future he had as a lawyer, Chris is actually quite intelligent and extraordinarily well disciplined. In the end, he is found dead in the Alaska bush after an unfortunate turn of events, over which he had hardly any control. However, his ideas and moral rigor live on in the research and literature of John Krakauer who had written an article for Outside magazine on Chris's mysterious death, and was so affected by the story that he decided to write a book on it.

I read this book for Ms. Laramee's English class. Ms. Laramee had a connection with this book, in that after college, she had worked for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), leading students on outdoor adventures in such places as South America and Alaska. I couldn't believe it when she told us that she had gone more than 40 days on an expedition with only one set of clothes. Some people thought that this was disgusting and ridiculous but I thought it was incredible. I hoped to one day do something so incredible and life changing.

I have always liked the outdoors. I would go camping with my mom up in the mountains starting when I was three. I had gone on trips with my family up to my grandparents' camp in Pittsburgh NH where there was no electricity except for a generator, moose outside the door in the morning, and no body else around for miles. I also enjoyed going for walks in the woods behind my Memere's (grandmother's) house. My Pepere (grandfather) had been a wildlife biologist for the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game for 40 years. He was also a trapper and would take care of animals in need of rehabilitation; when my aunts and uncles and my mom were little they had such pets as a beaver, a skunk, a raccoon, a bear cub, and a deer. Almost my entire family inherited his outdoorsiness, including myself.

It was because of my love for the outdoors that I became interested in the R.O.P.E. class at CHS. I first learned about it in 7th grade and had made it one of my goals to take the class once I got to the high school. However, I realized in 8th grade, while selecting my freshman year courses, that only Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors could take the class; I would have to wait another year. During my freshman year, I talked to some kids who were taking R.O.P.E. I asked them questions about the course and what I needed to do to get in. One of the people that I talked to told me about a program that he did every summer called SCA, the Student Conservation Association. He showed me a bunch of photographs of his trips to New Mexico, Montana, and Alaska where he, along with other high school students from across the country, worked on trails for various national parks. He suggested that I do it and I agreed. However, when I looked into it, I found out that I wasn't old enough to attend that summer, but would be by the summer of my Sophomore year. So not only did I read Into The Wild my Sophomore year, but I also took R.O.P.E and applied for SCA.

The story of Chris McCandless intensified my love for the outdoors and sparked my distrust for social institutions. It caused me to consider what was important in the grand scheme of things as opposed to solely the present and near future. I began to question the importance of social status and academic achievement; I wondered if what I thought was going to make me happy (college, money, etc.) was truly going to bring me happiness in the long run. It seemed to me that Chris McCandless was even smarter than I was in school, and he chose to live a life which some uneducated and indeed some homeless people are forced to live. This led me to believe that just because you are smart and hardworking doesn't mean that you are destined nor do you always desire to live a life of high social status and riches. The fact that Into the Wild was a true story made me consider the lessons and ideas that it conveyed (asceticism, civil disobedience, raw natural experience, anti-societalism [I'm not sure if that is a word]) more critically and with a greater sense of truth and practicality, than if it had been a fiction novel that taught morals and ideas that might not be plausible in the real world. I found a role model in Chris McCandless and I strove to be more like him, (without making any drastic changes to my lifestyle) at least where morals and beliefs are concerned.