[First journal entry for Eng 1 - MHV2 about my literacy history and still, trying hard.]Carrying me at her womb, my mother used to read an array of books for she's a professor from a state university before. From huge accountancy books to small children's books, my mother thoroughly believed that starting exaggeratingly early gives the upper hand later. And even though she died when I was only 2 years old, she was granted the chance to listen to my first word, a compound one, "hotdog," which, as other members of my family told me, I heard and I grabbed from an old fast food chain commercial.
I learned to listen well at the same time as I learned to speak well. Capture one and you'll get the other, they say. I also learned to write, although lousily, letters and numbers at a juvenile age. Even though my mother left me early, my aunt carried the burden of teaching me to do things the right way. She taught me to spell common names of animals, simple words, up to the time that I could spell names of countries from Soviet Russia. She taught me the value of reading, and the golden materials for a young growing boy to read. I remember that I didn't have many action figures and matchbox cars to play with before, but I had books. I'd collected several fun-filled activity books back then, stiffly accepting the fact that I have to be contented with my older brother's used and wrecked-up toys.
As my age ascended, I was inclined in writing, even though I didn't write legibly enough. I loved writing. It became my passion. Many always say that if you love to write, then definitely you must've also love reading. Grasp the other and the other one will cling inherently, they also say. That approach didn't work for me. Although I had many books, it was all activity ones, books that didn't give you the drive to write, the force to start a journal with. For me it was the mass media medium that worked. I was hooked with the powerful force of television and radio, which substituted from my lack of reading materials. I learned from it, and it gave me the drive, the force, enabling me to write and gain experience with anything and everything under our blazing tropical sun.
Looking nostalgically back now, I learned the value of early literacy, inherited to me by my family, which gave it emphasis and a ton of weight. I learned that teachers and mentors, deserves the utmost admiration and respect, passing the mighty torch of being literate, and starting it at an early age.
I loved my childhood, I treasure it a lot. And even though it was painted by used and wrecked-up toys, I adored my activity and coloring books, it made me undoubtedly happy. And thanks to the new means of acquiring knowledge; it earned me a slot in the handful of vital and essential creatures that creates the better society. Maybe that's all we need after all, another "hotdog," to spark-up, nourish and cure the grumbling literacy of our starving country.
