Insanity is oh soooo nice!

Ever feel like the only sane person in a world full of insane people? I often feel that way. When I was in eighth grade, my teacher sent me to the library to get tested. A few of us were sent there with no idea of why we were going. I sat down and the nice lady asked me some really bizarre questions. I was absolutely, without question, horribly embarrassed by the whole thing. I thought..."Oh no, they're going to find out how crazy I am and send me off". Ever since I can recall, I have known that I am different. A square lost in a world of circles. I just didn't fit in. Well, I answered the lady's questions, then went back to my room thinking I was going to be diagnosed as psychotic and then...off to the looney bin (my grandmother would always say that).

A few weeks later my mother was called and told that I had tested well. Surprised because she was never asked permission to test me, she went ballistic. After she had calmed down, she informed me that I had been accepted into the "gifted" program at school. I thought that meant I was retarded...or maybe psychic....whatever it meant, it wasn't normal. My mother explained that the tests showed that I was "gifted" in the areas of mathematics and pattern recognition. I could see patterns in everything. The nice lady told my mother that I was lucky. Gifts such as those are usually only found in boys. Hummmm.....lucky that I didn't have those girlish talents like...oh...literature and art.

What's the point of all of this, you ask? From the moment that I was "labeled" my life was never the same. I was discouraged from taking classes in art and music. I was instead, told that I had to take science and math classes. My genetics ruled my education and didn't allow me the freedom to find out if there was more to me than the "rain man" that I am. Are our phenotypes(the expression of our genes) all that we are? Is there more to us that isn't dictated by our chromosomes?