The Event That Foreshadow My Parents' Marriage, Also Know As The Deciding My Name...

My name really doesn’t mean anything special. It’s got some biblical meaning and if you look it up in the urban dictionary apparently I’m the sexiest girl you’ll ever meet, amazing in bed. Yup, that’s definitely me. But, hey, I could have been stuck with the name Hope, Aja (pronounced Asia, and yes, it’s that Steely Dan album that I just happen to hate), or something begins in an O if my dad had his way. Actually, how I got my name is probably the most interesting thing, besides the fact that it’s Rachael, not Rachel, and that a sub mistook it for Raphael in seventh grade. It pretty safe to say that the battle of picking my name was a foreshadow of my parents’ marriage. My father was determined that I would not have a run of mill name, which fits his personality, considering the man wears Japanese clothes that he has no idea what they’re called despite the fact he’s over fifty. His names, as mentioned before, were Hope, after my grandma who was Faith, Aja, after one of his favorite albums, Poe, and that O name I don’t remember. My mother on the other hand, wanted some Irish names like Siobhan and some other ones that I can’t spell. She was not having my name be Aja nor was my first name to be Hope. The only thing that was floating through her head was the fact that either no one going to know how to say my name and spell it or my nicknames would be Dope or Ho. To top it off, Dad hated all the Irish names. So yeah, not until the very last month did I have a name, which turned out to be Rachael because that was the only one they could agree on. I think it’s because Mum loved French culture and Dad got Hope for the middle name. Two years later, the process was a bit better with my sister getting Dana from the letters of my parents’ favorite relatives but that was still a whole bucket of arguing fun.

In the end I wasn’t stuck with an outrageous name, thank god, but it still sucks when someone tries to spell it. But hey, it could have been worse; I could have been Aja, so I’ll just be thankful for what I have.

The Reason Why I Hate Spelling...And American Boys

When I was younger I thought everyone was born with a learning disability. Of course people had different levels of them, but no one was born perfect. I don’t really know why I thought this, maybe it’s got something to do with the fact my sister, father, and myself all have them. Whatever the reason, I didn’t think my having a dislesick reading pattern was that different and I really didn’t care about it. I couldn’t read like everyone else, or spell, letters and numbers flipped, and I always left the class for extra help. It was normal.

Well, that’s what I thought until sixth grade. In sixth grade, grades and test score suddenly became important. Showing up you neighbor had a new thrill to it. Kids who left the class were less intelligent than everyone else. Safe to say, that all this new gossip fad had no effect on me for a long time, being that I was Queen Antisocial (still sorta I am). Unforunatly, someone decided to change that.

You see, Andrew felt the need to always be on top. He believed that he was the greatest, brightest, most amazing thing to grace the hallways of Florence Sawyer. So, a jerk, basically. I had the displeasure of having to sit next to him in Social Studies, one of the few classes I enjoyed and actually did well in. I forget exactly what time of the year was it but we had just finished a unit I loved: Greek mythology. I might not have been able to read very well back then, I that didn’t mean that I didn’t love a good story. My parents made it such that even if I had a hard time reading, I wouldn’t miss out on the classics. By the time of sixth grade, I had heard the “Hobbit” six times and knew western fairy tales, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian mythology like the back of my hand. So, yeah the Greek mythology quiz was a piece of cake and I actually scored above one hundred, thanks to the bonus question. To me, this was awesome.

Then Andrew looked over at my paper. First of all, that’s rude with in itself. Second, he actually had the gall to be angry with me because I scored better than he did. He was pissed, since I had spelled all the name of the gods wrong, yet was not docked for it, while he was. Honestly, I didn’t think that this was that special, as I’d never been penalized for spelling before. So, I just told him. I said, spelling doesn’t count for me, I’m something called dislesick. Letters and numbers flip, so spelling is hard. It was the truth, nothing to be ashamed of.

Well, this little ray of sunshine proceed to make a face of absolute disgust and said, well isn’t that convenient? Must be nice to get so many passes. Should I just call you Miss dislesick?

Normally, I don’t care about other people’s opinion about me. But this? This crossed the line. The nice thing was, that apperantly this was over the line for everyone at my table as well as, and we gave Andrew hell for it. Still, the idea that my achievements were essientally invalid because I was born with something was pretty rotten.

My reaction to this whole thing, well, it can be summed by Ritsu Onodera, one of my favorite characters from the manga “Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi”, who, when he found out his co-workers were bad-mouthing him behind his back, responded in the delicate fashion of: “The old me would have never able to recover from that shock. But at this point I was already jaded, so… Screw you!” Instead of complaining and feeling dejected, I worked my ass off. Originally, I was on a IEP plan, getting accommodations for mainly English and Math and receiving help in the resource room. When seventh grade rolled around I worked myself to a 504 plan. No longer did I receive a different version of the test, no longer did I have to fill out those horrible organizers that had no benefit, no longer did I go to the resource room, no longer could anyone say that my work was in invalid. I create an arsenal to deal with the flipping letters, numbers, and messed up words: spelling aloud, reading what I write aloud, asking people to read my work, using context clue, using a simpler form of a word and defining it to get the synonyms where, hopefully, my desired word lived, and probably a bunch of things I don’t even think about anymore. What you read before I explained my reaction is how I write, right now, without using my tools involving the internet and other people. Scary, right? I’m in honors English and I write like I’m in fifth grade. It’s kinda embarrassing. Now, think about this paragraph. Not perfect, my writing will never be error free even if I spend hours pouring over, but light years ahead, right? It’s all thanks to my tools. It’s still a work in progress, I know. I still flip cases around like nobody's business, I can’t see my missing words, and now thanks to my tools, my brain will automatically fix sentence to conform them to what my brain wants, completely changing their meaning. But, you know what? I’ve made progress, and I’m proud of that. I’m going to keep pushing forward till I can write a story or paper without the reader having to stop ask “what did you mean here? It doesn’t make any sense…”