My Name Is Chimezirim Amadi
Being the Curious four year old that I was, I darted reading the dictionary not even knowing what the words said or meant. The reason I did that was because I liked looking at the words, wondering what It said, I was too preserved to ask anyone to teach me how to read, so I tried to teach myself. I never wanted anyone to see me reading because I did not understand anything I was reading. At night when everyone went to sleep, I snuck out of my bed, went and got the dictionary, and started looking and reading the words out loud one by one. One night I snuck out, and my father heard a little voice talking.
He snuck over behind me ND asked what I was doing. I tried to hide the dictionary but he grabbed it and asked what was I doing with it, I was stunned and speechless, I was so speechless that I started mumbling. I mumbled all the way to my room. The next morning, right before he went to work he told my mom what happened. My mom decided to sit me down and ask me about the situation, finally I was ready to face the truth. That was when I told her, I wanted to learn how to read. She smiled and told me I did not have to be shy about It, so she bought me some easy to read books with pictures and these
HUGE words. It was excellent to read books with so much art. I loved reading and everything thing about it, so much that by the age of eight I started making my own fiction books. First I told my mom to buy me a big composition book with brand new colored pencils, crayons and markers so that I could make an Illustrated book, she said no, I should Just use blank paper and the art supply I already had. I begged her so many times and I kept getting the same answer “NO”. When my dad came home from work. Asked him and he said yes, so he took me to Wall-Mart and bought me a full set.
I as so excited to make my own book. But the only thing was that I could not really think of anything to write about. I sat in my room for twenty minutes thinking, so I started drawing this huge monster and that was when I figured out what my story line was. I loved to write and draw, so every year until the age of thirteen, I made an Illustrated book. When I was thirteen, there was a contest for junior writers and whoever won the contest gets five hundred dollars. Immediately when I heard of the contest, I joined. The end result was that I lost.
I was so disappointed in myself cause I thought I was a good writer. Even though I did not win, my teacher read my story and gave it to the Literary Magazine In my school and they loved It. They put It as a flirt page story so that everyone can see what a great writer I was. I did not think I was a good writer after I lost that contest, even though I did make 1 OFF stories. I thought I was not going to write for pleasure again, until I got to sophomore year of high school. When I became a sophomore, I Joined the year book club. Our teacher assigned each person a Job to do.
I really wanted to be the one to take all the strictures, but she decided to put me in charge of writing the cover letter and some photo captions. I told her that I was a terrible writer and she should reassign me, but she disagreed. I stalled on writing the cover letter for two months because not only could I not think of anything to write, but I did not want to write for pleasure. One boring day, I decided to sit down and write my cover letter, It went from it being a requirement to pleasure. When I started writing the cover letter, I could not stop.
I had so many ideas running through my head that I Just kept writing and it felt good. The next day I handed the cover letter to my teacher, she read it and she thought it was remarkable. It was so remarkable that she had to read it to the whole class. I felt like I accomplished something. My senior year of high school, we started learning about Shakespearean most extraordinary play, Hamlet. The longest play Shakespeare ever wrote and also one of the greatest story in English literature. The story of Hamlet is about a prince who grieves of his father’s death.
His mother Queen Gertrude marries his uncle Claudia, who killed his father. The ghost of the late king kept appearing to Hamlet to tell him that Claudia poisoned him in the garden so that he could become king. Hamlet decides to get revenge on his uncle. He killed Polonium because he was eavesdropping. Aphelia, Polonium’s daughter drowns herself because Hamlet drove her to madness with his confusion of his love for her. Polonium’s son Alerts returns to Denmark for revenge of his father and his sister’s death. A battle took place in the castle, to end with the death of Hamlet, Gertrude, Alerts, and Claudia.
Hamlet was such an influential play to me because Hamlet was hell bent on revenge and his wit and determination reminded me of myself. I was so influenced, for my senior paper in high school, I wrote a 21st century story similar to Hamlet. English as a subject has had an ongoing role in my life. From Reading the dictionary and not knowing anything it said, to making my own illustrated stories and to Just writing for pleasure. English has had a remarkable influence in my life. I always had a personal connection with English since my childhood to the present.
