vegan cupcakes
I found my primary school reports last week. The earliest ones - Years 1 to 4 - were handwritten in little blue booklets. It was weird to read them all at once, instead of cushioned by time. They said things like: "Anna needs to pay attention to instructions." And: "Anna frequently does not listen to instructions. This causes her to become quite anxious about set tasks." I'd forgotten about that, but all my teachers mentioned it. It makes sense: I was a daydreamer, and also I'm a very visual learner. I can't retain (or say) a new word or unusual name until I know how it's spelt, so I can visualise it before verbalising. I have trouble following verbal street directions. Once I've looked at it a map I'm fine, but I need to SEE it. All those rights and lefts mean nothing to my stupid brain. Anyway, I guess that's why I'm still kind of bad at taking instructions on board, along with the fact that in primary school all I wanted to do - ever - was read read read. I would read ahead in the history or maths book instead of listening to the teacher. In Year 7 we had an English comprehension textbook that contained short extracts from novels, with a questions after each one. While the teacher was reading that day's piece aloud to the class I'd skip ahead and read all the others. I must have read each one twenty times. It was so frustrating, so tantalising, not being able to keep going and find out what happened. There was one about a car crash, one from The Endless Steppe, one from a book by Isaac Bashevis Singer. (I thought that was a great name.) I remember them so vividly. The only one they had in the library was The Endless Steppe. I can't remember much of it though; only the comprehension-book extract. In it, Esther was lost in a snowstorm on the steppe. I guess all that happened was that she found her way back. I guess that's pretty much the end of every story.