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2.1 Slightly Early Maturation
Compared to the graphs in the textbook, I experienced the onset of gonadarche just slightly earlier than the national average, beginning with the maturation of sexual characteristics. Since I'm a little bit older, I'm not sure if the current data/trends may apply to me. -
3.2 - Self-Consciousness
I was always a very self-conscious adolescent, because I felt like I had been lauded as the "smart one" so my peers regarded me as a leader of sorts, so I was always on the spot to make jokes, make decisions about what our group would do that weekend, and display wit and brevity like an intelligent person. My peers responded accordingly, but I still felt pressured to lead because I'd unintentionally created a cycle of that expectation. -
1.1 Entering Adolescence
I grew up in Seattle, and the public transit system is easy to use. There was a bus stop a block from my apartment, and I had ridden the bus from there a few times with my parents - but then the summer I was thirteen, I was bored out of my mind, and decided to take the bus on my own to explore Seattle. That was when I realized I was an independent person capable of making my own decisions, and no longer someone who just did what the adults told him to do. -
6.2 - Social Comparision
I met this friend during freshman orientation, before the first day of high school. Our high school had a large deaf program, so it was a nice opportunity for all the incoming deaf freshmen to meet each other as well. This girl ended up being one of those people who always talked about other people, so she became my social barometer. -
7.1 - Transition to High School
I remember the feeling walking into the gym for freshman orientation - going from a class of six to a class of three hundred was an overwhelming experience for me. This transition was a bit abrupt, because my parents hadn't really prepared me for the excessive responsibilities (in comparision to middle school) of high school. -
7.3 - Intrinsic Motivation
This was in English class my first semester of my freshman year, and we were working on the first essays of the year. I remember realizing that I was doing this on my own - the writing, the outlines, the research - all of that for the first time. And I realized I was good at it, so I kept writing. That pushed me towards writing more in general, because I was motivated to do it myself. -
3.1 - Personal Fable
I thought I was the smartest Deaf person ever. This was the weekend when I participated in the Academic Bowl competition for the first time, and it was my school's first year in the competition. We registered late, and went to Mississippi for the regional competition, just to have fun. We ended up winning the Championship, and destroying Florida's dynasty. That was a fun weekend. -
2.2 - Niche-picking
I don't think my environment had much to do with my genes - I wasn't born Deaf, but I still sought to be with my Deaf friends often (just to hang out or to party.) At the same time, I wasn't very compatible with them because I was the only Deaf student in honors classes. So I sought out my intellectual stimulation on the Internet. Therefore, my niche-picking didn't correspond to my genotype. -
3.3 - Self-Protection
Like I mentioned in 3.2, I felt pressured to be the leader, so I would also freely admit these qualities about myself - humorous and intelligent, and disregard the qualities adults (like my mother) would bring up occasionally, like being lazy or aggressive (which had something to do with me being the "leader" I think.) -
6.3 - Companionship
I grew up with this friend, and he was held back a grade at some point, but it didn't really matter. We always got together and hung out during high school (in a big group) but we never really had any similar interests. We just hung out because we were familiar with each other, so we lost touch after graduation (because I went to college across the country.) -
6.1 - Parent-Adolescent Conflict
My mother had a drinking problem that started when I was about ten. It was after the beginning of my sophomore year when I remember vividly having a confrontation with my mother about how much she had had to drink that night, and dumping the rest of her wine bottles in the sink - my first open act of rebellion with something I disagreed with. However, this was not typical of our relationship - our relationship was more along the statistically average American norm. -
4.2 - Non-gender typed behavior
This was my sophomore year, when I started making friends with some of my Honors classmates (I was the only deaf person in my Honors classes.) Most of them were girls, and as I started to get closer to them they began to come to me for advice and rapport talk. It may have been gender-typed behavior for my friends, but I was always willing to talk and listen to them and their problems. -
4.1 - Gender-typed Behavior
In academics, girls are more likely than boys to "be engaged with academic material... and put forth more academic effort." This date is the day I graduated high school... with a cumulative GPA of 1.9. I didn't see the point of doing homework or doing well in school, because I thought I could get by on my smarts. (The only reason why Gallaudet accepted me was because of my participation in Academic Bowl and my SAT of 26.) -
7.2 - Transition to College
I remember being so overwhelmed with the fact that I was literally an adult and that all my choices were mine alone, instead of being a "participitatory" vote. This transition really showed me what Deaf culture was like. -
1.2 Emerging Adulthood
This was the day I packed up all my stuff from my childhood home in my SUV and started a ten-day roadtrip from Seattle, Washington to Washington, DC. This was the last day I lived with my parents - I moved into a house with my then-girlfriend and some other roommates, started paying rent and bills on my own, and stopped relying on my parents for support. This allowed me to explore my identity as an independent adult, and I remember at the time seeing so many possibilities in my future.