The First Dollar

Everyone always remembers that first something that you save up for yourself, as a kid. It’s the first time that you actually buy it with your own money that you saved for. Well for me, it was a green Pocket Gameboy with a Gameboy Camera.

When I was back in second grade, the “cool” toy that everyone was playing with was the Pocket Gameboy, the mini device that was selling out in toy stores and was portable to fit in your backpack to show off at school. Not too mention all the commercials of the newest Gameboy product, the Gameboy Camera made it look fun to take pictures and play around with them, expanding faces and adding different objects on pictures to make them look humorous. Since I never even owned a camera, it seemed like the first game to get with my hopeful soon to be Gameboy.

My mom had said that she wouldn’t buy it for me, that I had to learn to work for things and not just have them given to me all the time. Luckily I already had a head start with money from my birthday. My grandmother helped, she offered me a few different jobs to earn some money such as: cleaning her front door, cleaning the house, and watering plants. There I sat everyday in my blue overalls after school, scrubbing away at her front door or helping her pick up the house. I realize grandmas always want to help give you things, they spoil us and that what they are best known for, but I know now that she did it more for the extra attention that I couple spend with her on afternoons. We talked about different things while we cleaned. My mom also gave me work, she just told me to dust all the shutters, and take care of the dog everyday. With those jobs it only took a couple weeks before I was running around at home taking pictures of people and expanding their faces or adding an extra eyeball on their forehead.

Recently, a couple months ago I found that Gameboy and the Gameboy Camera. I thought it was kind of funny that I still had it hidden away with my stuff and the fact that it’s so outdated. The fact is it’s just a reminder of the first time you worked for something you wanted. I mean working to buy a toy isn’t all that serious or exciting but there has to be a first time for everything. From there you learn to work for much harder things to reach like grades or other goals in life. You always start easy but from there you learn to progress.

Our Own Character

Do you ever wonder what our younger selves would think of what we have become now or what we are becoming? Would we be proud or dissapointed? Do we ever take the time to realize who we have become? Can we make the right decisions on our own or do others make our decisions? Do we ever stop to think about our own character?