1. What is your most poignant childhood memory? The one that sticks out the most?
A lot of my family lives in different states so I do a lot of traveling and I have a lot of memories on the road. My trips to Council Bluffs, Iowa with my mom and my sister were probably the best ones because we can all play fight and be silly. I have been making this trip since I was born I. I can go to sleep wake up and know exactly where I am. Any way, If you’ve ever gone to Kansas city you’ve taken this way to get home. When your entering Springfield there’s a city limit, well when I was about 10 I discovered how amazing this stupid line is. Its 6-8 hours to Council Bluffs from Springfield. So on my way home from spending 2 months there we got stuck in traffic right on the city limit line. Well my mom and my sister were both in the front so they were in Springfield and I wasn’t so I started to cry. Not only because of that but because I was tired and I had to burp and I couldn’t burp. It was terrible and then they both started to laugh at me which wasn’t cool. Then on top of that the truck driver next to me started to laugh. I guess when I cry I’m just slap your knee funny.
2. Who was the most important person to you during most of your childhood? Your Mom? Your Dad? Another relative? A friend? An imaginary person? Show some examples in which you see how much influence this person (or imaginary person) had on you while you were growing up.
My Grandpa or Grampidude was the most important person in my life during that time. He’s part of the reason I want to go into that health services. When I was 2 or 3 I got to spend a month in Forth worth Texas with him and my Dad. He was married to this old Asian woman who owned a flower shop I remember walking to it and how fresh it smelt, well she gave me an elephant and I’ve had it ever since. Grampidude was invisible he was my superhero he could save me from everything especially my Dad. He was strong and funny and lively and let me wonder within reason, I’d like to say he’s the reason why I’m so free spirited. It sucks to see him kind of wither away because of his drug use and alcoholism. My superhero found his kryptonite. And it’s killing both him and I.
3. Is there something you know now you wish you knew when you were a kid? Is there something you’ve come to know that you wish you didn’t?
This is kind of a hard question because I know that if I didn’t know those things as a kid I wouldn’t be the same today. And the things I know about now that I’m older have kind of modeled me into a even better person. As a kid I knew about alcoholism and drug abuse and other things 10 year olds shouldn’t know about but I did because my Dad was all of that. I was the one that had to take care of him in his drunken stupor. I’m not trying to get attention, and I’m sure there are people out there who have had it worse than me. But this is something I wish I didn’t know. I wish I could tell my 12 year old self about boys and how much they can hurt you and affect yourself image. Because boys suck.
4. Describe your nemesis growing up. Who made your life miserable and what did he/she do to make your life so rough?
I moved a lot in the past couple of years but in kindergarten I moved even more. I was stuck in Spokane Missouri, which if you don’t know is in-between Nixa and Branson. It’s so small that it has one stop light. Anyway my first day there my teacher said my last name wrong. Its Stuvick (Stu-vick) she said it stupid (Stu-pid). From then on I was stupid Stuvick. And it didn’t help that I was a so learner. That was pretty rough time period for my life.
