January 30 - February 6

[Wlonnie]

"So the challenge this week is to write an autobiography, but it's about yourself up to the age of 20, you may decide if you want it to be fiction or non-fiction or fantasy. Min words is 500 Max is 1000"

Created by Tarsh

[Melody]

My Life Story
As Told by Melody Brocke

(Everything up to the age of fourteen is correct--after that, I just made it up.)

The beginning of our story began twenty years ago; July 6th, 2000. I was born in the small town of Vanderhoof, B.C., Canada, to Laurie and Sarah Brocke. I grew up in Taltan village Telegraph Creek. It had a population of roughly 200 residents, most of whom were of the Taltan native tribe. (Or at least, part Taltan--you would have been hard pressed to find one that did not have at least some other culture mixed into their lineage.)

My childhood, when compared to that of most children, was unique. I grew up among mountains and rivers, forests and wild animals. Living along a creek, during the summer grizzly bears were a common occurrence. My father worked as a local fisherman along the Stikine River--the river that flowed past my house--so boating was not an activity I was unaccustomed to. Indeed, it was a weekly, nearly daily, occurrence. With no road access, it was our means of transportation to a place known as “Glenora” where both our car and truck were parked.

From my front step to where the actual town of Telegraph was, was about twenty miles. Glenora was five and a half from our house; sometimes during the spring and fall, when the river was starting to freeze making it impossible to boat, yet there was no snow for snowmobiles, we would walk the distance. I enjoyed this; it was a pleasant stroll, hardly what I considered at the time to be a long walk.

In kindergarden, I attended the small school in Telegraph once a week. I got on reasonably well with the boys--girls were too fragile and cried too easily. I would have much rather climbed monkey bars than play with Barbie. However, being white in a nearly all Native school, I heard my fair share of name calling. This brings to mind one event in particular: there was this young, quite beautiful Taltan girl, named Jordyn. As a rule, she wouldn’t play with me nor would she allow her friends to do so. (Although Haily, one of her friends, was always nice to me, though she would always stick with Jordyn when it came right down to it.) Anyway, I remember once telling Jordyn once, when she was mean to me, that the next time she was like that, I would do the same thing to her. (This was still Kindergarten--I was six at the time). Soon, we were making crafts at the table with the teacher. (Ms. Sims, I believe.) Jordyn made a face at me; so, being true to my word, I returned it. She immediately told Ms. Sims, and I was the one in trouble. Ah yes--fond childhood memories.

As I grew older (being homeschooled from grade one up, since getting to town was such a hassle) I began wishing more and more I had friends; living so far from town, combined with the fact there were really no children in my age group, meant I had none. So, being the mature, responsible person that I was, I joined some social websites, aspiring to make friends. My mother found out soon, and after getting in a reasonable amount of trouble, it was obvious that if I wanted friends, I would have to find some other way to do it. When I was able to attend the Eagle Bay Bible Camp in August of 2012, I was ecstatic. I got on fairly well with the girls there, although sadly I didn’t build any lasting nor close friendships.

Then, something truly amazing happened. I had been with HCOS (Heritage Christian Online School) since grade five, but had never heard of “The Forums”. At this time I was in grade seven--and they magically appeared. I began making friends--real friends, the kind you don’t lose touch with over time. A good example of this would be my best friend, Amy. She (for various reasons) left HCOS, but we still have remained BFF’s, even when she went to public school.

Around this time, I began to enjoy writing. By the time I was fourteen, I began getting serious about it. At the age of sixteen, my first, full length novel had been published. Around the same time, I moved to my grandmothers house in Summerland during the summers, which allowed me to work and thus save money for an education. I didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to do--writing was what I really wanted, but I felt it wasn’t a “solid” enough job to rely on. After much checking, I found the perfect job: a creative writing professor. I have yet to finish the needed schooling for this job, but I will soon be teaching my own creative writing class.

I hoped you enjoyed getting to know me a bit better. I have no idea what other twists and turns my life is going to make, but I can’t wait! Whether it be good or bad, I have the reassurance that God will be with my every step of the way.

[Wlonnie]

The Beginning

I was born fighting; so why does it surprise people when I stand against the norm now?
I am a writer by choice. The things I feel and experiences that develop me oftentimes leave me with a lack of explanation. Creating a story - some far-fetched formula to explain the lies that we're told - is how I find my solace. It's how I find myself.
My mother found out she was pregnant with her first baby when she was in her early twenties. She'd been married to my father for a couple of years, and was overjoyed at the thought of having a child to raise as her own. (For those of you who don't know my mother, think of how much I love being around kids. Now double that passion, and boom - you've got Mum.) During one of the first prenatal check-ups she went to, my dad had to be at a meeting somewhere else. Although it sucked that her husband couldn't make it, this didn't worry my mum one bit. She was too excited to find out how her baby was doing. But when she got to the doctor's office, one word made her question everything she'd ever believed.
Miscarriage.
A slammed door. Acid tears. Gritted teeth and one prayer that never stopped: My baby will live and not die. My baby will live and not die. My baby will live and not die.
From a psychological standpoint, an unborn baby is the most pliable and mouldable human on the planet. More development happens in the mind and character of an unborn baby than even what goes on in a child's first six years. Crazy, right? But it's true. What happens to you before you're born will stay with you forever; whether it's the emotions of your mother, the environment she placed herself in, or what she thought about while carrying you in her womb.
My mother spent nine months fighting. Every day, she told herself that I would live. Miscarriage was simply not an option. And guess what? I lived.
I'm of the opinion that who I am today is a sticky mixture of both my past and my future; this is what my now is made of. As a small child, I was an interesting little character. Dramatic. Bold. Out-spoken. Absolutely ridiculous. When I got older, I became quiet. Now, I have the ability to use all of my past self's skills when I need them in my everyday life.
But what about the future? Who I see myself becoming is a huge part of who I am. I see myself as a writer, a mother, an advocate for children, someone who doesn't take "no" as the end-all, be-all answer. I see myself becoming a woman who tells stories far into her old age, busying herself with causes she believes in, preparing the world for those who are to inevitably come after her. I'll be a firm old lady, like the women of my lineage, who speaks her mind and says the truth directly, no matter who may get their feathers ruffled by her hand.
What I believe about myself is what I become - it's who I am. While the facts are nice, I simply haven't gone through enough to stack them all up in a picture-perfect row in order to tell my story. We're only on chapter seventeen, guys; there's a lot more coming from my side of the table yet.
There's a lot for me to learn yet, but the core of my being will stay with me for as long as I live. I am a fighter, I don't give up, and I will hold fast to this promise as long as I live. Whatever comes up in my life, well, I've got a team to help me out if ever I get stuck. There is no limit to what a person can do when they make it their MO to stand firm and fight. And that's the beginning of my story.

[Adley☮]

Sorry, I didn't finish mine, this is as far as I got.

I began my life as lucky as can be. I was born right on my own birthday, how incredible is that? I was a big baby, 9 pounds 8 ounces. Apparently the first thing I did was examine everyone in my line of sight and then I slowly turned my head and examined everyone else I could see. There were a lot of people to see, because I was the sixth child out of seven. I probably made a creepy first impression on the world, just starring like that. But to be fair, the world made a creepy first impression on me.
Memory has never been one of my strong points, but what I do remember of being a toddler is confusion. I could never pick up on ‘obvious’ things, like what was considered rude, kind, unkind or normal. My mother thought I was autistic because I would just sit and play tedious games with myself and I never said much to anyone. The only time I got grumpy was if I was taken shopping; I still get grumpy if I’m taken shopping. Dad on the other hand thought I would be an artist, anytime I was fussy, my parents just gave me some crayons and I would calm down.
Eventually my tedious games became more elaborate and included stuffed monkeys. As my mother became pregnant with my sister, I decided that I to was pregnant and had 7 monkeys in my tummy. On the day I went to see my sister for the first time, I birthed my monkeys in the hospital parking lot. I still have the monkeys, don’t judge. I was three at the time, so holding my new born sister was not easy. She was the most interesting thing I had ever seen. I constantly watched her behaviour, trying to understand what it was like to be a baby. Eventually I learned to get her out of her crib every morning for mom. I felt pretty accomplished.
Eventually all my older siblings moved away; I tried to hide in their car when they left, but my plan didn’t work. I was left with my older brother and younger sister. My brother and I became best friends at this point, roamed the yard building forts and damming the creek. Once a week we got together with other homeschooled kids; mostly we went to the beach with them. Sometimes they came to our house and other times we went to Tomas’s house to play with Lego. My best friends and I from the group would draw comics together and build virtual universes on paper. The universes we built were basically like MMORPG’s on paper. We didn’t have computers, so we made our own games.
As my brother and I grew, so did our forts and dams. By the time we were ten and thirteen, we had created an underground fort, complete with a fire place and grass growing on top. It was pretty big, a ten foot diameter circle, with the roof being about 5 feet tall in the tallest part. All built without any help from Dad, he didn’t even know about it until all the leaves fell off the trees and he spotted the frame work of what looked like a space shuttle sticking out of the ground. “Look, I know I told you, you could dig holes out in the field, but I didn’t think they would be that big.” He didn`t get mad; instead he donated a fire place, which we wrestled all the way down the driveway, across the creek, through the trees and into the fort.
When my brother began high school, he and dad both bought computers. Before this, computers were almost unknown to me. The older kids had had computers and my mother had a computer for work. But now I was actually allowed to use one. I played Minecraft as much as I could; still do. When I wasn`t playing Minecraft I was drawing, filling my small room with piles of paper covered in sketches. Every now and then I sort through my piles of sketches, but they never seem to get any smaller.
A few years later I entered high school and got a computer of my own. On this computer I met a lot of people through Self Design and HCOS. I also lived with my sister for a month to help her out with her kids. She had three at the time and one more on the way. I love my nephews and nieces a lot; I currently have six nephews and four nieces.

[Natarsha]

Sorry it's so messy and rushed, I've had problems writing with one hand so i tried my best

My Life –
Natarsha Tibbles

My life began, at 2am on January the 20th 2000, on a Thursday. I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, to Helen and Glen Tibbles. I lived in a small suburb – Te Atatu Peninsula (Te Atatu in Maori means “The Dawn”) I lived there till the age of five.
When I was born I was distressed and had a hole in my heart, nothing to serious seeing as it was the top and it would heal over time. As I was distressed when inside my mum, I wasn’t born naturally and my mum had to have a caesarean section or C-section, as I child I thought a C-section was when someone was born on the sea, soon after my mum sat me down and explained what it was. I was born with a full head of black hair, which caused my mum to have heart burn, I was 9 pounds and 1 ounce when I was born, I was late baby and had extra weight from fluid in my lungs and mum had hypertension causing me to have additional fluid.

I’ve had an interesting medical history, I’ve spend a majority of my time in hospital, over the years. When I was younger I had grommets, at the age of two I had a something called trigger finger where the tendoned in my fingers wrapped around the muscle and bone pulling it down, I then had to have surgery to straighten my fingers out, it only happened on my thumbs and middle finger on my right hand. Both of my hands were bandaged which meant I had to have someone help me eat and drink, being stubbornly independent I did everything myself, I would not let anyone help me whatsoever.  At the age of ten I had appendicitis, now I have an extremely high pain tolerance according to my parents and nurses, because the pain I was in when it burst was like a 10, but I said it was only 6. I was never terrified of needles but being jabbed by needles practically every day because they’d have to change the IV line and they would sometimes have to change the needle because it was the wrong size, got very painful every quickly. Now I could have used numbing spray or cream but my body got so used to it, it no longer worked so I felt every pinch and movement of the needle and it hurt. I was in hospital for roughly six months, 3 months of day stay when I’d come in to get my dressing changed or something. But I was in there for a while including for my tenth birthday. I missed out on a lot of my school year so that explains why I’m behind on some things, after being in hospital I had to have three surgeries and one plastic surgery when my scar didn’t look very nice.

My brother was born in 2001, I don’t remember much about seeing him for the first time or anything, but my mum said that when I visited I gave him a little yellow duck soft toy and he gave me a Tigger soft toy, which I still have today. My brother, being the little rascal he is would run into my room as a child and pull all of my books of my book shelf in my room, I being the little girl I was would through a tantrum and burst into tears over seeing my books on the floor, even at a young age I was fond of books.
Primary and intermediate was a blur it seemed to go by so quickly, I remember making friends who I’m still friends with today and I remember all the songs we would sing in assemblies, I remember playing in a sand pit and on the playground always avoiding the monkey bars. I was always told in primary that I was so quiet, nice and kind. In every letter I received from a classmate it would always consist on telling me how sweet and kind I am, after a while that got old and it became extremely annoying.

When I started high school in 2013, it was scary, I was extremely nervous and worried. as a year 9 I was quiet when I became a year 10 I was no longer this little mouse but now I had a voice of my own, I stood up for myself and didn’t let people push me around, I was proud of who I had become and the friends I have now and the negativity I left behind from others.  I had become to realise in year 9 I needed to break out of my shell because of the people who would bully me and push me around, it was only when I fought back was did they realise that I won’t tolerate being pushed around and told what I can and cannot do. Over the years my life has changed, high school has helped my confidence grow, even though I have been through a lot and had many hurdles to jump over I still jump over them. This is only the beginning of my life, 15 years have passed and there’s a whole lot more to go.

[JerrythKeen98]

Imagine that! If you are reading these words congratulations you win the prize of utter disappointment. My dear, sweet, exasperating friend convinced me to write out some of my story; this is going to be awful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  My birth name is Vladimir Joseph Ross. The name I have used since 1986 is Jerryth Hunter Shea Keen. I was born in the year 1960 on the third planetary rotation of the month of rain. (For those who don’t speak like an idiot that is April third 1960) I am turning fifty five in two months’ time. No worries, my dad is four hundred and eighty three. If you haven’t guessed he is not human and by extension neither am I. When I was born I had under developed lungs so my condition was critical. I recovered eventually, but within my recovery time the doctors discovered that I have a “Genetic defect.” My eyes were without pigment no big deal right? Wrong! When eyes lack pigment the blood in the eyes becomes the pigment. My irises were red, literally blood red. The “defect” was passed off as a reaction to the medication they used.  Moving on, a few years later when I was about seven I discovered my personal favorite “defect” fangs. With this new discovery came Realization, I am sure you can guess what I am, red eyes, and fangs. I am a vampire. As soon as that realization struck me the thirst struck me. I was a bloodthirsty monster at the age of seven, just fantastic.

Fast-forward a few years. (Nobody wants to know about my home life; a bit sketchy if you get my drift.)  1978 a good year, I come back to this year because it is the year I went clean. Up until then I had drifted in a sea of thirst, often hurting others to get my fix. People avoided me like the plague and for good reason. I decided to leave, I moved from Richmond BC to Grand Center AB which was one of three districts that would eventually merge to form the City of Cold Lake. From there I began a new life. I rented a duplex and got a job at the Tri-City Mall. Withdrawal hit like a freight train. I stayed in my apartment writhing on the floor doing everything in my power to stay still. I lost my job because I refused to work for fear I would snap. No income means no rent payments; I was kicked out of the duplex. I left town and walked until I could walk no more. I lay in a ditch until I had regained my strength. I rose and wandered until I stumbled across the Cherry Grove general store. Next to the store was a small shed, my new residence until I regained my sanity. After the symptoms of withdrawal passed I began to interact with people again thus securing my new job and residence. I began work as a farm hand for Ruby and William Keen a sweet couple who still live on that farm to this day. I worked there for years and thus reached the age of 27 before I left the farm to explore the world farther.

Two stories, twenty seven years I would tell more of my home life but even after almost thirty years the memories hurt too much. This ends my story for now; if you read up to this point I congratulate you. I lied there is a prize, my gratitude, thank you for enduring my atrociously written tale.

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