At the menu screen, press up-down-up-up-down-left-right on the d-pad. Then hold A+B together as you turn the Nintendo 64 off. Volunteer at a local soup kitchen. Get involved with your church.
This one time, during the summer, I worked as a full-time file clerk in a hospital, but there was so much downtime that all I did was practice origami.
I made dozens and dozens of boxes, ninja stars, and paper cranes. And because I didn’t want to take them home or throw them away or have my supervisors find out, I hid my creations around the file room. Sometimes I would write words of encouragement on them for future generations.
I’d like to think a maintenance man changing out the fluorescent lamps could be inspired by a paper crane floating down from the rafters. A paper crane that said, “You’re doing a good job.”
Or the next file clerk moving the desk to reach a fallen pencil, but instead accidentally dislodging a ninja star with the phrase “I believe in you.”
It was a pretty good time…until the last day of my job, when I actually found out that there was some work I should have been doing all along that I somehow completely missed. I still feel bad about that.
1. Think of a word to read. (i.e. apple)
2. Say all of the individual letters of the word in order really fast. (i.e. A-P-P-L-E)
3. If you speak fast enough, I bet it’ll sound sorta like the actual word. (i.e. aypipielee)
Note: This is not the recommended technique for reading. It’s just something to fall back on.
When I was about seven years old, I had a beautiful dream.
I was in my Tae Kwon Do class, and a pale-faced alien named Nikken was a new student. We became instant friends, kicking and breaking boards in tandem and sparring very playfully with each other.
But then when class was over, Nikken said he had to go home and could never return. He had to take the ghost train to his home planet, and it would be landing in the parking lot very soon.
My initial reaction to this news was the urge to get his autograph before he left. I rushed inside the Tae Kwon Do studio and frantically rummaged through my elementary school desk for a piece of paper and a pencil. But alas! Every scrap of paper I found had dark pencil scribbles all over it! I tore through my desk for the back of a pamphlet, bare space in a math workbook…..anything, but to no avail.
A few minutes later, I heard a loud train whistle coming from outside. Panicked, I grabbed one of the dark sheets of paper and ran down the hallway as fast as I could.
And as my body burst through the front door, I caught the sight of a faint, grey ghost train lifting off and gliding away into the summer dusk.
I had wanted Nikken’s autograph to remember him by. But as it turns out, I didn’t need that autograph at all.
The first dream I ever remember having was just a pulsating, glowing green skull on a river bank. That’s it.
| — | My Memory Bank |
