I remember the first time I used a computer. It was a behemoth of an apple. Our school had three that the entire school shared. The game I was able to play was a bear game that was on a floppy disk, the actual floppy disks that flopped, not the hard cased floppy disks. I remember each new computer as the years kept going. A fad of gateway giants, the see through apple computers were my favorites and eventually our small school had its very own computer lab. I loved Oregon trails and Mario typewriter, where you had to type as fast as you could with making the least amount of mistakes. I was very tech savvy and at one point I could hack into systems I wasn’t allowed into, but I felt bad for doing something I wasn’t supposed to so I stopped doing it. If I ever felt bad about something I would tell on myself just so I would no longer feel bad. In the sixth and seventh grade we had the same teacher, when usually one teacher taught the same class every year. He was awesome and one winter my sister and cousin convinced me to egg his door. I wasn’t sure why but I listened. I told him that I egged his house in the journal he had us write each day. He asked what were the worst things and best things we had ever done. I was very honest and I like re-reading what I wrote so long ago. The best story was the time two other girls and I killed a chicken. It was a victim of the pecking order from the other chickens that our class raised as a class project. One girl was brave, one laughed the whole time and I cried and screamed so hard I almost peed my pants. Growing up in isolation did not mean we were disconnected from the rest of the world because we grew up right along with dial-up internet and the advancement of technology. I really liked the school atmosphere and I loved my teachers or at least most of them. I was a fan of constructive criticism because I knew it was a form of people helping me become a better person. I liked going to the library as a young girl and picking an encyclopedia just to flip through and look at pictures, if I found something interesting I read about it but mainly I liked pictures. Then I found the National Geographic section of the library and I delved in looking at spectacular areas of the world. My favorite childhood book was “Danny and the Dinosaur.” There was something magical about it to me and I liked the adventure they went on. Our school had a basement and I never liked going down there, it simply gave me the heeby jeebies. I absolutely loved art class and wood shop classes. I liked to help people my whole life. I would write about carrying garbage for elderly ladies or picking up trash around our small village. I made up games at the playground that became games passed down throughout the years. My cousin and sister told me to slap a girl at the playground and I listened. I felt very bad for doing it because she had braces and I hit her pretty hard. I apologized and became her friend for a few months. I liked having different friends and trying to befriend so many people I spread myself a little too thin. The village life could be a great thing. The attentiveness of the teachers to each student and the encouragement of community members always made me smile. The village I come from is like no other. People help people and care for each other, or at least that’s what I’ve witnessed my school years. I didn’t like lunch time so much because I didn’t like finding a place to sit because I didn’t want to choose which friend I would sit with that day. I moved where I sat most days and a lot of times I tried to sit by people who nobody else would sit by. I felt misunderstood most of my life because nobody thought about life the way I wanted or expected them to. My first pen pal asked if I would like to come to America one day and after he asked that I never wrote to him again because Alaska was a part of America. I literally remember so many nicks and nacks of my life because I felt like my whole life was worth remembering and allowing memories to fade was never an option for me. I like interpreting my own dreams and remember a lot of dreams my sister told me that she had growing up. My favorite was her scary dream of wolves. She dreamt we were passing a family identical to us seven family members mother, father and five children. They needed help and my dad stopped to help them. Although they looked like us my sister saw a tail on one of the look alike family. They were wolves in human skin that resembled us and she begged my dad to come back to the boat. He did and we pushed off the bank and as soon as we did that they ripped off their skin and revealed their true identity which were wolves. I liked the part where my dad listened and that my sister saved us by being keen with her sight. Her dream was from when we were so very young. I write the most significant dreams I’ve had in a dream journal and I keep those to myself for the most part. Life is so interesting to me as it should be to everyone. We are all blessed to be chosen to live the lives we live and one must never forget that it is a blessing to be alive!
Sewskimo Gertz 