It has become painfully obvious that our friendly neighborhood prompt is waaaaayyyyy overdue for a vacation! It feels a bit like a Trifecta of fragmented questions.

I will once again tackle these odd, open ended, and multiple directional questions that leave us to guess what the heck the question actually is.

It makes for some interesting ideas about my favorite things… I now have to decide if I am supposed to pick a school, pick a time period in all of my 16 years of schooling, and/or pick a favorite subject in any one of a large number of educational establishments. Don’t forget that we also have to decide what can be construed as a subject… to an emotional middle schooler. Was it my favorite subject back then, or is it the way I feel now? See what I mean?

Perhaps this is the wise secret that is held by the Prompt Genie… designing questions made to entice the minds of many many writers… many many readers… and many many different lives and perspectives. I choose to think along these lines, so as to stretch my outside of the box way of thinking, and also my writing.

So, in only my fashion, I am going to dive in and give it a go… are ya with me? I know you are cause I always leave goodies at the end… not sorry!

Elementary School was not the easiest for me, as my family practiced a religion forbidding the celebrating of any holidays. Because of this, we were ostracized in every possible way so I spent most of my time at recess riding a pretend horse on the fence line with my jump rope. Being sent to another room for the flag ceremony each morning was no fun… being sent home from every party or celebration was no fun… and being bullied and beaten by other children who didn’t know better was no fun. BUT… I had one friend!

Her name was Autumn… and she had the prettiest long red hair and a blanket of freckles across her pretty face… she was my favorite subject in elementary. I cannot remember her face exactly any longer, but I do remember that she always came and sought me out during recess, to ride horses with me at the fence line and share lunch together. My favorite author back then was Louis Lamour and my hero was John Wayne.

Middle School was right about the time I lived either on the streets or in protective custody. From this time forward, my journey was rough and school was a place I rarely turned up, and when I did it would be in a new town, and/or county. The down side to moving me around for my own safety, was that the state never left me in one place long enough to take any quarterly exams and gather any credits towards completing my education. None of the foster homes I stayed in ever focused on my schooling at all! The only place I felt happy was in the schools libraries… they all smelled the same… books! My favorites came from Beverly Cleary, and I shall be forever brave thanks to ALL the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys.

High School was quite literally 4 years of classes shoved into only 2… my Junior and Senior year. In order to graduate with my proper age class, I went before the school board with my foster mom, and they waived all my elective credits if I could fulfill all of my required credits before graduation. I did… though I was most often high… very into my current boyfriend… and by now, I was really really mad at the world. In honesty, all I can remember is MTV, getting hammered, hooking up, and getting high. I still graduated with an accumulated GPA of 3.94. I have no idea how I did that… lol!

College was more or less a basic Associate of Arts degree, but it did not come until after three children were born into my world. I guess I could claim that as an educational institution, and say that my three kids were my favorite subject… but that would be too easy. While in college, I found myself taking a series of Cultural Anthropology classes to fulfill my humanities section of required credits. I can say hands down that I could soooooooooooooo be an anthropologist if I was made of money or sponsors. But alas, it was not to be… too many babies along with all their toys, to stuff into my travel luggage.

Now that I have regaled you with all my educational travels, it seems pretty clear that my favorite subjects have been, are, and most likely, will continue to be reading and writing… anything and everything!

Here, have a cookie…