The First Day

Happy New Year, everyone. Today is the first day of Project 365 for 2010. I almost forgot about it. When I remembered this evening after a long day at work, I was frustratingly short of ideas. I had predicted this project to be easy -- my first picture capturing the very essence of a stranger's soul, or something equally difficult to do without getting shot or otherwise accused of being a creeper. Instead of attacking the public, I decided to start small and describe myself to you.



This first picture is, essentially, me. However, before we get on to talking about me, let me describe my blog title.

I did not attend school until I was 16 years old. My family's loosely structured form of home schooling, titled Unschooling, led me to become an Autodidact at a young age. That is not to say that my parents left me to sink or swim in this world, but rather that they gave me the tools I needed to go forth and find information for myself. This alternate form of schooling has taught me how to make informed decisions about my education while still schooling at home, as well as helped me get into college early (my first day of school at 16 was at a local community college -- I have since studied abroad twice in short-term programs, and have transferred to and graduated from a 4 year University). I assure you, I was never an uneducated, friendless loser -- I had many friends, read nearly half the day away, taught myself foreign languages, wrote stories, and even studied math (gasp!).

So, let me talk to you now about myself. First, please admire the beautiful warm blanket beneath my display. My grandma knit it for me. Autodidacts can't teach themselves everything, so when I wanted to learn to knit I searched my resources. Hence the partial black hat you see. Nana taught me the basic steps, and I figured out how to knit on double-pointed needles as time went on.

I love to read and write (I am an English major, after all), and as you can see my display is a bit heavy on books. I am currently reading Tim Ferriss' "The 4 Hour Work Week" as a way to help me focus my life, and expand and improve my business. "Madame Bovary", "Pride and Prejudice" and "Tess of the D'Ubervilles" are also in process.

"No Plot? No Problem!" is a wonderful guide to writing, focusing on quantity over quality. If you have not yet heard of National Novel Writing Month, you simply must visit their website. NaNoWriMo is a challenge I am determined to win this year.

Yes, my handwriting can sometimes be that messy. What you see on the notebook was a hasty attempt to catch a poem before it left my mind. I succeeded.

As I mentioned above, I have studied foreign languages in the past. Italian is, so far, my favorite and the one I have progressed farthest with. My original picture idea for today was to take a picture of all my Italian study guides and books (including all of Dante's Divine Comedy, "Pride and Prejudice", and "The Cat in the Hat"), in an attempt to portray my New Year's resolution of working on fluency. I figured my bed wasn't big enough for all the books.

Briefly -- "Second Hand Lions" is the best movie ever.

The picture of a woman giving a massage is simply a representation of how broad my interests can get. I picked up a deck of cards one day, each depicting a different massage technique. In addition to wanting to be a writer, teacher, ornithologist and animal trainer for movies, I also wanted to be a massage therapist for a while.

If you're looking past my main display, you can also see a sideways picture of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (my favorite painting), and my black work pants which need to get washed, as soon as I finish this post.

This was much longer than I expected it to be, but I hope you are still intrigued. Check back tomorrow for my next adventure! Or perhaps it should be considered my first, as I haven't left my bed since the picture was taken.