Well, I've finally hit 1000 after nine months here and I'm looking forward to many more; this is an awesome community and I love you all.
Following tradition:
I was born in Concord NH and have lived in the state all my life. My family consists of my wonderful parents, my sister and, at the moment, two cats (we used to have four). I love my family, we tease but mostly in good fun and my Dad has a great sense of humor (he started telling me about Monty Python sketches when I was really little because I would make him tell me a funny story at bedtime). My sister and I don't really get along that well; we're really different, but we muddle through and we're so close in age (she's two years younger) that we had a ball playing together when we were little. People often asked if we were twins and we still look similar although we haven't had the twin question come up in a long time.
We moved when I was entering kindergarten so that I could go to the Waldorf School (wow, a lot of the pictures on the site are of my class but none of me ) and I spent the next ten years going to school there. I was a bit of an outcast for most of grade school, I had one good friend who lived next-door and we were almost inseparable but other than that I wasn't very social. When we grew apart after she moved away from that house I became much more of a reader and read all of the fiction books in the school's closet/library. I received copies of Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Singer trilogy in fourth grade (I was, and still am obviously, a bit obsessed with dragons) and from there went on to read lots of other great science fiction and fantasy. I became much more social in seventh and eighth grades but since there were only 25 students in my class/grade our impressions of each other stemmed from the younger grades, friends stayed friends (for the most part) and new friendships were rare. The curriculum was... interesting but I have a lot of great memories and tons of interesting skills that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise like woodworking, sewing, crocheting, circus arts and acting. I am glad however that I am not going to the Waldorf high school; that would be just too much. They don't really have much academics at Pine Hill and although the high school is much better, going to a high school with only 100 kids, about half of whom I spent the last ten years with, is not my idea of fun; I needed to meet new people.
My new school is awesome; the teachers are friendly but really make us think and the kids have been accepting and welcomed me into the community. The classes are challenging but not too hard and it's not too big (only 1000 students); I'm looking forward to my next three years there.
One of the great things about Pine Hill was (still is) the circus program in which all fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders are required to learn to juggle, ride unicycles, walk a low tightwire, do acrobatics, etc. (All at a basic skill level of course unless they are really dedicated.) Then all the seventh and eighth graders perform the Hilltop Circus which, unfortunately, I couldn't find a link to, it's awesome every year. Some of the graduates a few years ago decided that they wanted to continue doing circus throughout the school year (in part to stay fit for Circus Smirkus and in part because it's fun) and when I was in seventh grade I joined them with a few friends.
Soon after our first show they left and the group became a whole bunch of seventh graders and two amazingly talented sophomores and we needed a lot of hard work to get a show going. Since there are only a few of us in the troupe (max was 13) each person needs to be able to do a lot of the acts and that's really hard; most circus performers have a specialty but we couldn't. We each have areas that we like better and are better at (for me it's club passing, rolling globe and slackwire which I can't do because it needs to be rigged). However we usually only do two shows a year and somehow we managed to pull them off with minimal mishaps. Now we are the same core group with a few additions and this is our final year together; the two oldest troupe members will be graduating and our wonderful coach needs some time off (she also coaches the school circus, is a professional mime and has a family). We're performing our last real show this weekend at the Portsmouth Music Hall and a mini show at a nearby festival celebrating children in the Arts.
I use too many parentheses, comas and semicolons and this probably wasn't all that interesting so thanks for reading it and if you have any questions I'll be glad to answer.
Posted by Maethoriell (Member # 3805) on :
Awesome!
Congrats!
Posted by Ophelia (Member # 653) on :
The circus thing is really cool!
Posted by esl (Member # 3143) on :
Happy 1000th Post Dragon! Thanks for sharing; it's very interesting
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
My school was like a circus, but not in a good way.
Thanks for sharing your life with us Dragon.
Posted by enjeeo (Member # 2336) on :
Actually that was VERY interesting to read! I wish I could see your show.
Congrats on 1000 posts!
Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
I didn't notice this first time-Cool! Circus thing, all the stuff you got to learn-wow...I think I'm jealous. happy 1000th!
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Happy Thousandth, Dragon
Posted by flyby (Member # 3630) on :
Happy 1000th. Great to hear about you and the circus thing does sound pretty neat. Hmm...question, what would you say has been the most difficult challenge you have overcome in your life?
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :