narratives_reading_listening_fmri/stimuli/story_04.txt

So, about a month into my daughter's kindergarten career, beginning of her being in school, {BR} I was informed by her mother that her teacher was concerned {BR} about uh how she was doing and {BR} a month into kindergarten, {BR} you would think that there's not a whole lot that you need to know ha how to do, but apparently, {BR} my daughter was was giving her teacher cause for concern. {BR} And so at at the earliest opportunity, which was the parental uh observation day around halloween, {BR} I went in to observe the class, and uh it was all very familiar. {BR} And I it was clear to me what her teacher meant, {BR} even though it had been delivered to me in a really ambiguous and and hard to understand way. {BR} I I watched my daughter just be herself uh in this classroom. Kind of blissfully unaware of of what was expected of her. {BR} Um. It seems all very innocent, kindergarten and everything, but that's where they start training you how to be {BR} a part of society, which, if you're into that kind of thing, that's awesome {LG}. Um, but. {LG} You don't have much much choice though in this world, so I'm watching her and watching her like do her thing, {BR} and watching her teacher get frustrated with her to the point of like near anger just because she's not jumping to the next uh {BR} thing that's being assigned to her, because they have like little sections in the day or in the afternoon for they have to work on and uh, it was very familiar. Uh a nice thing that can happen with having children is that you can {BR} see yourself and you can be reminded of of of the progression of your own life through viewing them, {BR} and I was I was brought back to my experience beginning kindergarten and I I can see myself very clearly and my daughter we share a lot of {BR} similarities. And I remember being handed like rudimentary mathematics that you're supposed to start in kindergarten, and {BR} not being interested at all, so not even bothering uh it was it wasn't clear to me that you were that wa it was like required. Uh {LG} 

It was clear to me that she was kind of in the same place and uh, her teacher, besides rubbing me the wrong way, you know in a in a lot of ways, {BR} clearly didn't understand my daughter, I didn't want my daughter to stay in that school, I wanted her out. Um, {LS} and that could be just it it's hard to say when you're dealing with your children, because you know everyone thinks that their children are god's gift to the planet, you know. Or, sane people do. Sane people do. {BR} Um {BR}. So I I wanted her out I didn't think it was g it was a good place for her but I I didn't think anything was wrong with her. But of course I didn't because I'm her father and uh it's very difficult to see your children clearly because I I would I would like to say because of the uh incredible amount of love that you have for them but {BR} that's not totally honest because there's something besides the love, there's ego involved. {BR} Because there's such reflection of you, you want them to do good, you want them to be smart, you want them to be beautiful because you know you you're smart, and you're beautiful and you do good, {BR} you know, {LG} or that's how you want to perceive yourself in this world.  {BR} And you want your children, your offspring, to to to have that, that's maybe a little ugly, but it's true, and I think it's true for most parents. Um. 

So I do love my daughter a great deal, {LS} and I love myself. {BR} And I wanted wanted her out of that school and uh, her mother, a very fine woman, um, brilliant a and beautiful, we're partnered in raising her, we're not partnered romantically, {BR} didn't want to uh hear me that that maybe that that the teacher had the problem because she was beginning a career as a teacher and she always heard parents talk about {BR} how how it was the teacher's problem and that they wouldn't be able to actually see their children, and I had no idea how hard it was to be a teacher with all these kids and {BR} blah blah blah. {BR} Not blah blah blah, I'm sure she had points, but we really {LG} we're very very good at disagreeing. We can disagree very strongly. But I can see myself in my kid. And I I can see myself sitting at the kindergarten desk that she was sitting at, I can see the similarities and a lot of the similarities come down to {BR} an attribute that is slowness. Like it real slowness. {BR} That uh we share. That has been like uh frustrating to teachers and {BR} parents and friends and lovers and roommates and {LG} any number of people. Um. {LG} 

For instance, like, {LG} it it it really can and often does take me an hour to put on my shoes, {LG} and {LS} I I can't tell you where the time goes, it's not like I got distracted and started playing records or something, like I can sit in the same place, {LS} putting on my socks and shoes for an hour, so can my daughter. We can lose weekends just sitting on the toilet, {LG} and uh if this apartment where I where I spent time with my daughter, there's only one toilet, so that, {NS} that's easy for me to see the similarities you know, um. Uh thinking about how we see our children, and how we see ourselves and our children, and how we want to see ourselves in a in a positive light. {BR} We don't want something to be wrong with our children. Um. It makes me think about a moment in time {LS} when I was seventeen years old and I was watching television with my father, {BR} uh a an episode of NOVA, it's like a science program that was on, I think it was on PBS, I don't know if it still exists. {BR} Um. This one was on neuroscience and neuro neuroscience technology and uh. {BR} They're had a guy getting prepared for a CAT scan, and {BR} being receiving a cat scan and it filled me with this crazy wave of uh of like deja vu, but not just regular deja vu, like deja vu mixed with dread and like sickness to my stomach. {BR} And I it was overwhelming, {LS} and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And wondering if like, did I have a CAT scan? So I turned to my father and asked him if I had a CAT scan. {BR} He said no and fell back asleep. {LG} And then uh, I couldn't get out of my head, and I started remembering more and more this experience of being a little kid and getting a CAT scan, and uh. {BR} um. I finally went to my mother, asked her, and she didn't want to talk about it, and I persisted, {BR} and she uh, she admitted that I had had a cat scan, when I was six years old, something like that. {BR} And I asked her why I'd had a cat scan, and she didn't want to talk about it, but she started laughing a little bit, and uh, which is weird {LG}. 

From where I was standing, you know, {LG} kind of filled with dread and having like this like repressed memory come up {BR} uh and uh. Finally she admitted I had had a cat scan, and she told me why, she said I was um, {LS} so slow {LG} that they thought that I was retarded. {LG} And I had been given a battery of tests to test my cognitive ability, and the tests were inconclusive, {LG} and they couldn't figure out, {LS} the jury's still out, trust me {LG} Um. But uh, the tests were inconclusive so they thought that maybe I just had a brain tumor {LG}, and uh so they were gon they that's why I got the cat scan. I don't know if you're ever had one but uh. I don't even like giving blood for a for a blood test. I don't, I, this is actually, thinking about it right now, probably {BR} exactly why I hate western medicine entirely, {BR} and will do anything to stay away from a doctor. Um. Well a CAT scan, they have to like, take your clothes, off, if and uh if you're little and you don't want to take your clothes off in a room full of strangers, {BR} and then they, this my memory is so, I don't know. I guess they inject something into your ankle, like an iodine solution, and then you they lay you on a table, {BR} and you get slid into a tube {BR} that sends whatever rays through your body to {BR} look into your brain to see what's going on, {BR} um, totally fucking terrifying. Like uh, I remembered trying to escape, I remembered screaming until I was hoarse, {BR} I remembered uh, my father coming into the room and talking me down, I remember having my clothes put back on and taken to the gift shop and my father bought me a book of {BR} animal limericks and and rhymes and photographs of the animals, all these animals from north america, black hard covered book, {BR} I remembered that book, and I had it through childhood, but I didn't remember anything about the CAT scan, after I left the hospital cause that it sucked that bad. 

Um my parents loved love love me love their children {LG} uh and uh, that couldn't have been anything but painful and frightening for my father too, you know, the whole situation. {BR} Um, and I I so I'm just thinking about what motivated them to go to that extreme {BR} to see what was wrong with me. Okay so it turns out that {BR} no brain tumor as a child, just slow. {LS} I'm just slow. {BR} I have figured out ways to live my life that it doesn't really matter. As far as survival is concerned, and actually, {BR} I've been able to thrive, you know, by degrees, {BR} and and uh. I I had to think about that so tempted to sing, so tempted to push it {BR} so past the time that she starts playing and I have to improvise a song on top of it to finish the story. {BR} I won't do that {BR} um. Just thinking about um, not doing that to my child, you know, having the f having the good fortune to have a child that's so much like me that I can take my experiences and and help her, at least in this moment, I don't know what the future holds, and I don't know who she's going to become, you know, but uh, {BR} I can use my experience in a way to to lessen her her {BR} potential problems in this world. Which is what you ultimately ultimately ultimately wish for as a parent. {BR} Um her mother went to talk to the teacher a couple weeks later, and came back horrified, and wanted to but she's not a violent person but she {BR} she wanted she wanted our daughter out too. So we took our daughter out of that school. She's now at a Steiner school, which really suits her much better, {BR} and uh we're both slow.