Changing features, changing people...

I guess you can say I went through a phase during the early maturing stages of my life. Ideally I normally write about living in another country and not being able to identify where I grew up in because it was always somewhere different, yet at the same time I enjoyed the idea of being “different” because that’s what makes you standout from the norm right? However the thing that makes me different is the fact that different from everyone else with interesting lives I didn’t go through any hardships, or major drastic changes. And to add my parents always reminded me how perfect my life was and everything was basically laid out for me, which confused me because the words “perfect” and “fortunate” were the words used by parents so often that it really affects me the most. Anyways this perfect life style was actually the thing that caused the most mental damage to me because I was always messing up. Its funny cause this thought process is what my middle school teachers described as “suffering from metacognition”. However metacognition didn't just affect me in my classes, it was an ongoing thing in just bust everything I did.

The first time it came to light was in elementary school. I began my normally scheduled scan around the classroom. It was independent reading and everyone seemed so invested into their books for just fourth graders. I mean maybe I’m just slightly illiterate but even so there’s no way these kids are reading Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, those books probably weigh more than the kids themselves. Not to mention that I’m still struggling with the Magic treehouse….  The door opens… Everyone looks up from their books almost the same way a deer looks up when it knows it’s being hunted. It’s the school nurse,  I knew it was her just from the sound of the jingle from the lanard and the room keys because I practically live in her office due to a combination of being so clumsy and fragile. You would think that all my chubbiness would work as a protective shield from knee scrapes and bruises from gym class. Nope, Nurse Westbrook and I were with each other about four hours out of the school week. At one point it was so bad that as soon as I would enter her office she would already open the fridge with an ice pack ready without me even telling her what’s wrong. Even the office made jokes about it. Anyways, the nurse enter the room and my classmates stare as if it’s their first time meeting someone from the outside world. She smiles and strolls over towards my teacher who at the time was organizing the bookshelves. The nurse hands her a large pony folder, they chat for a moment, and uninterested as usual I continued in my struggle of reading the magic treehouse.  The two share a laugh like two moms watching their kids from a park bench. And just like that the nurse exits the room along with the interest the kids had in their books. Our teacher walks to the center of the room, folder in hand and brings the attention of the class towards her direction. She announces that we would all be called down to the office two by two in order for her to do check our height, eyesight and worse of all weight. I began to freak out finding looking for ways to get out of this activity. I knew it was not be any means supposed to show comparison of students but it truly felt that way.

I remember in 3rd grade going over my best friends Nick’s house everyday and playing split screen Online on Halo 3. It wasn't till Christmas of 2008 until I got my own Xbox 360, and became victim of the video game addiction. Unfortunately all of my memories on Xbox weren't positive. but although I stayed inside all day it was probably the fasted way I learned about the world. All I can say is that earth is full of extremely twisted people, and very reasonable people. And there's a very clear line between the two. It wasn't till I was 11 years old until I met my first "pro" gamer. He was 18 years old and his name was Michael, and at the time he seemed like the most intelligent and inspirational person in the world just because of his halo skill. He introduced me to the competitive world of eSports and basically taught me all my social skills in real life. From what I learned eSports is the exact same system as the MLS, NBA, NFL.... Just less physical work! Which invites way more people to compete. From that day I played with Michael just about every day of that summer of which I got my Xbox.

My friends were surprised that I still had social skills considering I haven't hHung out with them since I had my Xbox. It was really that bad. Especially once I found out that people considered me a good halo player... Life online was just so much better thant reality. It was like I was being worshipped by people older and younger than me. And I didn't even have to do anything except play the thing I was good at. A lot of people don't take things like that into consideration, when the first thing they think of when they picture a gamer, is some nerd or wimp that stays inside. Well, 50% of that may be true, but it’s not always in a negative directions. A lot of these gamers are very intelligent but just do not fully understand on how to apply their strengths to the real world. But becauses of this the “smart gamers” have more than enough time to structure their gaming hobby into a career making more money than any other regular job. To this day I don’t know how these gamers made it so far with what just appears like screaming at screen for hours. Until I realize how much work and sacrifice and dedication it takes to get that far with such an underestimated career, which for me could be considered “The dream job”.