Welcome back to part 6 of this 14-part autobiographical series! If you haven’t done so already, make sure to start with Part 1 of the series here and read through part 5 before you begin. I’ve talked a lot about my childhood and the impact it’s had on my interest in all nerdy things. Today, I’m going to continue by talking about high school.
Of course, I don’t want to waste time talking about my grades or academic achievements. Suffice it to say, I graduated with a near perfect unweighted GPA and over 4.0 weighted average. Coupled with my SAT score, I got full Bright Futures (a lottery-funded, Florida based scholarship fund that rewarded up to 100% of tuition) and received additional scholarships to help pay for my first car (and ensure I didn’t have to work for a couple of years during college).
But all that is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. A sentiment that I hope will become even clearer as you continue through this series. So, for now, let’s talk about the more important things.
Making Friends
I made some real friends in high school. In fact, by sophomore year I felt like I had formed quite a few friendships, more than a couple of those friends still being in my life today. I also found myself in a situation the younger version of me never really imagined -I got myself a girlfriend! And so, like many before me, I used high school as a way to reinvent myself not just as this timid nerd, but as a normal teenager with friends and all!
The Boy with Perpetual Ill Health
Despite the friendships, high school brought about some new challenges. See, one thing I’ve failed to mention thus far is my prodigious allergies. Growing up, I was allergic to basically everything. And in high school, despite allergy shots that helped me overcome those allergies, I ran into a different problem: chronic sinus infections. It was an endless cycle of illness, going one week to the next not knowing if I’d have a fortunate healthy week or whether I’d be coughing up enough phlegm to sink a ship.
It wasn’t until I got referred to a ENT that things turned around. Turns out, I had a deviated septum! But one nose job later (or so I like to joke), and I was cured! Suddenly, I could breathe through both nostrils at once and when my allergies acted up, they drained normally, allowing me to avoid more respiratory illness.
Of course, with the health issues and growing amount of time spent with people offline, that meant something had to give.
No More Roleplaying
As I evolved to get some “real world” friends in high school, I unfortunately left behind many of those people who helped me get through childhood. I became inactive on Adventure Quest and in those other private roleplaying forums I would frequent. In hindsight, I wish I handled my departure differently, but I was stupid kid just getting swept away in the notion of having “real friends.”
And so, the online roleplaying chapter of my life ended. But late at night, when I was laying in bed on my Toshiba pocket pc, you better bet I was still writing. And the early seedlings of Evorath really started to take root.
Nerdiness Never Dies
Of course, those late-night writing sessions weren’t all I had. Instead, high school was when I really branched out and explored mythology in more depth. My parents just happened to have a massive book on mythology (which I still own today). It covered an abundance of different mythologies from around the world, giving me a great introduction to the subject. So as Harry Potter was a world phenomenon, I not only got to enjoy those stories, but I started to really grow an appreciation for magic and mythological creatures in general.
At the same time, I really got interested in Magic the Gathering. An interest that started in middle school, and I really started to get into collecting in high school. And I read many of the books over the years as well, with special callout to Odyssey and Onslaught, Ravnica, and Kamigawa. With all this great reading, I also spent no shortage of time just researching any mythological subject that was of interest. Oftentimes, I’d have a magic card spark my interest and that would send me down a rabbit hole of mythological research.
Diving into Worldbuilding
Next week, join me for part 7 of this series where I’ll go into more detail on how the world of Evorath unfolded. Spoiler alert! I wasn’t calling it Evorath back then, and I still didn’t know I was going to write not just one, but many series within the world I was building. Of course, we’ll chat about that more next week. Until then, may you read something that sparks your imagination and find life’s blessings in abundance!
