Tombi's Autobiography - A Good Idea?

[Tombi]

"For some reason I’ve been inspired to write an autobiography of some sorts. I don’t really know where this urge came from but I decided to go out on a limb and seize the opportunity. I’m not going to bore you with chunks of text about ‘when I was a baby I thought strawberries were stobbellies’ or ‘I used to think Marijuana was a name’. I’d rather write... episodes, if you will. Just little bits of my life that maybe saddened me, or angered me or amused me; Or maybe large events of my life that I deem important. I’ll write about PE2K, boyfriends, friends, trust and betrayal, anger problems and music, school and people I love and hate. I’ll get it all down and upload it on here so you can all laugh and cry and scorn and mock, and everyone will feel good."

^ Pretty much says it all. Here is another excerpt from what I have written so far. It's a very rough draft, but still, it gives you the general idea.

Year Ten was a struggle. It involved a teacher who will probably be burned into my memory for all eternity. I will never forget the first day, where I dragged my sorry carcass up to the Maths department imagining a dragon of a teacher, with a hatchet face and no fringe going by the name of Miss Cooper. I was incorrect in all levels (except the name, which was correct), but as I mooched around the closed door to the classroom with a bunch of friends awaiting her arrival, I thought the worst.

“Hello! Come in.”

My first, foolish impression of Miss Cooper was that she looked like a harvest mouse with a strangely manly face. She had a bowl-cut of dyed blonde hair, pronounced front teeth and wore a long skirt, clumpy lace ups and a frilly blouse with a heavy suit jacket. None of this did her appearance any good, and of course everyone’s automatic thought was ‘doss’. She wasn’t a spring chicken, but she wasn’t exactly old either. I have no idea to this day how old she was, but I digress.

I entered the classroom with everyone else, casting my eyes around with interest. This classroom I had never been in before, but it was just like a normal maths classroom: bland walls with a few empty displays marking the start of the year; an army of perfectly lined tables; a whiteboard and a projector; a teacher’s desk with locked drawers; very large windows on one side and at the back with rattling blinds. As per usual, the class filed to the back of the room and stood in a slightly slouched row, waiting to be placed in the new seating plan. I slumped next to Jack- a slightly round kid with long brown hair and an ability to drive any teacher over the edge- and awaited my fate. I always dread being seated next to one of the kids who are so far up their own ass they can taste their intestines, but usually I’m pretty lucky.

“Jack? Where’s Jack... hello Jack, you sit here please.”

“Alexander? Are you Alexander or Alex? Your seat is here.”

“Catlin?”

“Caitlin, miss,” I corrected her. Every time. Every single frickin’ time. Either that or Catherine or Catalin. Once I even had a Catalana.

“Sit here, please, dear.”

I wandered idly to my place. It was next to Sarah, a quiet blonde girl who you never seem to see out of lessons, anywhere. I slung my blazer on the back of my seat and sat down, stretching out my legs and grinning at her.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“George? Okay George, you sit here...”

Eventually everyone was placed. My seat was at one of the single tables at the edge of the room. A small gap separated me from a stocky ginger lad named Dan, who waved at me energetically and mouthed ‘Hi Caitlin!’ with a grin on his face. Prick. Next to him was another even stockier guy named Hammy. Well, his actual name was Daniel too, but there was yet another Daniel in the same year who also shared his surname, so everyone named him Hammy. You forget his name is Daniel. He’s just Hammy. Always is. Automatic reaction. Even for the teachers.
Anyway, Hammy had a special metal ruler that he had scrawled ‘Sexual Harassment Ruler’ on in black marker. Sitting two-seats-with-a-gap away from him, I was the first target, and seized the ruler and threw it back at him as it probed my upper thigh.

“Hi Caitlin.”

“Shut up Hammy.”

The first lesson was an hour of testing our limits. We got our heads down, sure. Slightly. The work was dull and generic and eventually I was sucked into amusing conversations that were happening on the other side of the room. Miss Cooper calls for silence were consistent, in both occurring and being ignored. As the lessons wore on, we grew louder and so did she. She was target of the Sexual Harassment Ruler and her own stupidity, shown by a memorable lesson where Jack owned her so deliciously it had the class howling on the floor.

“Jack, can you come to the front and show how you worked out this question?”

“Alright,” he answered with his normal slight laugh, getting up and going to the front. He took up the board pen and scrawled his workings out and answers on the whiteboard, before stepping back and proudly handing her the pen.

“... Jack, that’s wrong,” Miss Cooper told him after scanning the messy penwork. She smiled.

“No it’s not!” Jack laughed, his eyes wide in indignation. “It’s right.”

“It’s wrong,” she repeated, but with less conviction. “It’s thirty, not forty.” By now, there was a steady chatter of ‘he’s right Miss’ ‘Miss, stop being stupid’ from my rowdy classmates.

“The answer is seven,” Alex piped up from the corner. In that class, all the answers were seven. Don’t ask, it’s another story.

Jack went back to his seat determinedly and picked up the text book, riffling through the pages until he found the answer section.

“SEE MISS, IT’S FORTY,” he called loudly, holding up the book and pointing out the answer with a stubby finger.

“So it is, I apologise.” There was a loud chorus of boos and statements that were generally quite insulting. We were absolute horrors in that class, and sometimes we just plain MOCKED her. She received a Christmas card saying ‘To Mrs Mini Cooper, from Alex’, earned several prods up the bum with the Sexual Harassment Ruler, dealt with a lot of broken swivel-protractors that got nicknamed ‘The Gaydars’ which could lead to the homosexual members of the class, raged at Daniel Sansom (a very smelly, strange kid who tried to do homework in class) and plain shouted herself hoarse. We didn’t work whatsoever. At the end of every lesson she told us to write down answers to three regular questions: ‘Did you produce enough work this lesson?’, ‘Did you disrupt the lesson in any way?’, and ‘Who distracted you from your work?’. Every single lesson we wrote the same answers:

‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Dan Sansom.’

Miss Cooper retired from teaching after five months.

So. A good idea, or not? Shall I continue? What improvements can I make?

Thanks for your time. <3

[Lusankya]

Well, any story will work, to be honest, as long as it's well-written and interesting. An autobiography sounds like a perfectly fine idea if you're willing to for it, but personally, this seems to me to be more like a biographical fiction if you ask me (due to the amount of detail, which I highly doubt that you could remember all of that so vividly).

[Angela]

Wow Caitlin I really liked it.. As for improvement.. Well some of the words you used were to.. British for me to understand... Like Doss...


Anyway.. I had a English teacher with a nasty hair cut.. She reminded me of my dog.. She was also my class's teacher...

Anyway the boys in the class and couple of girls were so mean to her that she quit after 3 months... Anyway.. That teacher is now a friend of my mothers (She probably thinks I'm a demon child xD)... xD
Seeing their both teacher and have the same friends..


Anyway after that another English teacher was assigned and she was made our class teacher.. She left after 3 months as well.. So they split the semester 50/50.. xD


After that the math teacher was assigned as our class teacher (You know the teacher who handles your parent teacher interviews...)

And I remember one time she was wearing PJ's in school seeing it was freaky cloths day and one guy pulled down her pants.. xD

I only saw it from the hall way... xD But it was hilarious...




Teacher with bad haircuts will stay with you forever... xD

[XaiakuX]

Originally Posted by Lusankya

this seems to me to be more like a biographical fiction if you ask me (due to the amount of detail, which I highly doubt that you could remember all of that so vividly).

Nah, cait's good with remembering stuff.. and besides was a year ago.. I can remember every detail of my 2008.. XD

Anways.. Caitlin.. you haz gewd idearz.. I want to read more, so, yeah.. I can hardly wait to read every detail of the past year, that I pretty much know all about anyways.. XD

Yeah.. love ya, neechan <3

[Fluffy Mew]

Caitlin is a interesting name~

Well, anyways, you're like a Roald Dahl. You capture the interest of people on the first few paragraphs, and you're writing is very nice~

I loved reading it, so it's a good idea to me~

FM~

[Lusitania]

I guess, I think it'd be good.

Or not what do I know.

And Griff has a point.

[Griff4815]

I'm not gonna sugar-coat it; the concept seems kinda conceited and self-righteous. Call me a cynic. I don't even really like the idea of international celebraties writing autobiographies. Maybe if it was a war veteran, Paul McCartney or John McClain (the guy from Die Hard) writing it, but still.

That issue aside, you're probably only going to get a handful of people- close friends or fans- that will want to read it. A casual reader probably won't want to know your or anyone they don't know's life story, unless it's really interesting.

Anyways, I can't stop you from writing it, but those are some things to think about- just my outspoken opinion.

[Neo Emolga]

I don't usually read autobiographies, but this one had a strong amount of attitude and humor that really draws you into it. As long as you don't make it too much like a diary and stay on the path you're going, I think you're in the clear. I've never written one of these, and I've probably only read one or two of them in my lifetime (for school projects), so I don't have too much to say about how to go about writing one.

From what I've read and liked, I'd say keep the hooks and the attitude. We've all gone to school before, everyone can relate to these kinds of things. Shine light on all the things we were thinking, but never said it out loud and were too afraid to admit it openly in public. Keep it funny, people love that.

[Tombi]

Originally Posted by Griff4815

I'm not gonna sugar-coat it; the concept seems kinda conceited and self-righteous.

Oh, don't think I've already worried about that! XD Trust me, I had some thought. I mainly had the idea because of the spontaenous way that people write their autobiographies. I've read a few lately of my favourite comedians and the way they write is so amusing. I love how they include everything from favourite moments to really really embarrassing ones, which is what I hope to do. I don't intend to be all like 'yeah, this is my incredible life I know you'd all LOVE to read it'. It was more of, 'it'd be fun to get down school days and best moments, and try to write something like The Sound of Laughter or Dear Fatty. If you're American you probably won't know them. ^^;

So yeah, I really don't want to come off as conceited or anything. ._. I just thought it'd be a fun project to do whilst my fanfic is on, um, hiatus. *lazyandfullofunoriginalideas*

Originally Posted by Neo Pikachu

I don't usually read autobiographies, but this one had a strong amount of attitude and humor that really draws you into it....

...From what I've read and liked, I'd say keep the hooks and the attitude...

...Shine light on all the things we were thinking, but never said it out loud and were too afraid to admit it openly in public. Keep it funny, people love that.

Thanks, Neo. n_n That's what my general aim is, really. I often come home from school and think, 'today would've been really good as some sort of story' because of people's reactions to certain situations, the way I perceive people etc. I'll keep it in mind. :D

[-Pichu Boy-]

Catlin xD

This seems interesting. At first, I thought it was just gonna be like a day-to-day event diary thing, but seeing as you're picking out key moments and stuff, that makes it interesting. The way you're writing it is funny, too.

I'd read this if you continued. ;D