Me and my Baby Brother when I was 2 or 3.

This one is either the Phillipines or California at 4 years old.

Swimming at probably 6 or 7.

Autumn the conservationist.
The mother goose abandoned these eggs and I attempted to save one, unsuccessfully. My brother and I have always been environmentalists, thanks to mom. One day a construction crew was clearing some trees in this very same spot where I am with these eggs and my brother, who was 5 and by himself, sat down in front of the biggest prettiest one and cried. The construction crew wouldn't continue with him there and felt terrible. I came upon the scene and went to get mom to come and get him. As she dragged him off he just kept begging them, in tears, not to hurt the trees. Cute, huh?

Always the English teacher's darling. This was in response to a book I wrote and illustrated that went into a state-wide competition. It got honorable mention at that level. My teacher felt it should have placed but it was entered in the wrong category. Oh well.

Yes I was a nerd. Will sorta. This is my GT class from Old Donation, a GT school in Virginia Beach, VA. We were on a field trip to Monticello to learn about one of the Founding nerds, I mean Fathers. Virginia Field trips rocked! Lots of cool history around there. It helped history to be one of my favorite subjects. At least I'm one of the cooler kids in this pic.

I took flute in school. I love how my band notebook stands out from the rest. :)

this is me in Junior High.

My make-up days in 9th grade.

Note the weird colored hair. I had bleached it and died it purple. The purple was washed out by graduation. Mom was very glad about that. I was following a band named Phish around and spare-changed my way home in time for this ceremony.

My High School graduation almost didn't happen, much to the horror of my teacher/mother. After elementary school there weren't any GT programs that were free or through the public school system. I got bored REAL fast and began screwing up. I learned the material but got sick of the constant review and repetative homework. So I'd typically sleep in class or just not bother to show. I got 100s on all my tests but only had C averages because of the class and home work that I was missing. Eventually a nemesis PE teacher found my pocket knife and got be kicked out.

Luckily this meant the school board had to pay for me to take alternate education. My getting kicked out of school was the best thing that could have happened to me. My alternative high school was awesome. Small class rooms with VERY progressive teachers. You only took what was required to graduate. Classes were split into trimesters so each class was 3 hours long and over in a few of months. You could work at your own pace and once you took the test to prove you learned it you were free to do whatever you wanted. You only had one 3 hour class a day, 4 days a week, or two 3 hour classes twice a week. IT WAS PERFECT FOR ME!

My college graduation.

I had no career ambitions so I didn't want to go to college and waste time and money. Mom insisted I go somewhere so I went to a Bible College. I figured knowing the Bible would be useful. I graduated after 2 years with honors.

Because of my geekiness I qualified for an early language program (rare in those days). I took French. Lots of fun.

I wanted to be an astronaut at one point and this was offered through my GT school. Naturally I had to take it. We got to design space stations for the moon. Too cool!

This was neat. A teacher at my alternative high school was friends with this editor and hooked me up with this. I was the only one from my school. We gave a teen insight into the times and politics.

When I graduated they wanted to give me some sort of special honor so they created this award for me. Very sweet.