Eric Buffington was born in Ontario
Canada, where he lived until he was eighteen. After that he traveled with a
Canadian government program, for one year (what he did is top secret), he then
moved to California to serve a two year mission working with the Laotian
people.
Shortly after returning home he met
the love of his life, moved to Pennsylvania and married her. He has since completed
a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in education. He currently lives in
Pennsylvania with his wonderfully supportive wife, and their four
children. He currently works as a High School math teacher in an online
cyber school. You can watch his math lessons on his Youtube
channel. He is here on my blog today talking about how we overcome our challenges.
Ever counted the words on a writing
assignment just to be sure you made it to the minimum requirement, or within
ten words of the minimum? Have you ever gotten an F on a writing assignment and
looked enviously at the other kids who got A’s so easily? That pretty much
describes my High School career.
In High school my math and science teachers
loved me and my English teachers probably wished that I would just drop out. In
ninth grade I thought I was pretty brilliant with my 88% in English, but from
there my grade dropped 10% each year. As the years went on, my teachers,
friends, and parents all consoled me, telling me I just wasn’t an ‘English’
person. My guidance counselor even joined with them. So that I wouldn’t fail my
senior year I switched to a current events class that he said would count as an
English credit.
By the time I graduated High School I had
convinced myself that I would never be any good at writing. I basically stopped
trying. If anyone told me my spelling was atrocious or my penmanship was
unreadable, I’d just let them know that I was not an ‘English’ person, it was
an easy way out for me.
And one thing led to another and now I’m a
published author… Just kidding.
Between High School and College I took
three years off to do a government program and a mission for my church. In that
time two things happened that began my transition into being a writer. I had
one roommate who was a grammar Nazi, he didn’t let me take the easy way out. We
had to fill out forms and he made me write my part legibly, and correctly. I
also had a different roommate who was so passionate about fantasy novels,
especially Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, that it was contagious.
When I returned home and began college, I
realized that writing was going to be a big part of my life again. With my
renewed love for reading and some grammar lessons under my belt I thought I’d
finally be able to write something really amazing! Then I submitted my first
essay and it was pretty much terrible.
At this point I knew, either my English
teachers had called up my College Professor and they were all out to get me, or
there might be something that I needed to learn or fix… I was pretty sure a
phone call was made.
I spent hours writing and checking each assignment
and the results were similar. I passed the course, but never really excelled,
and I was again feeling again like I was just not cut out to be an ‘English’
person.
During that summer I got engaged, and
shortly thereafter we were married. We moved out west and I began at a
different college. I signed up for an English 101 course with the hope that I
could learn to write before taking a bunch of courses that just expected me to
produce essays.
The first writing assignment came and I
typed out an essay, printed it out and brought it home to show my wife. She
looked at it and grabbed for a pen. I felt like I was in High School all over
again. She was crossing stuff out, and making comments like ‘does not make
sense’ all over the place.
Although her comments were very familiar,
this was a new experience for me. I knew that she loved me and was trying to
help me do better. It was hard to see the feedback and it was even harder to
swallow my pride and realize that she, and all my previous teachers, had been
right, but it was needed. While I was worried about my ego, she was probably freaking
out that her husband would fail out of college and she’d need to sell vacuum
cleaners for a living. Either way I knew that she was just trying to help me
improve my writing, and that made a huge difference for me.
By the end of the semester I felt like a
big boy because I actually wrote an essay on my own and got a decent grade on
it. In the end I earned an A- in English 101. I say earned with the greatest
respect for the word, I worked harder in that class than I have ever worked in
any other class to date. That A- became a stepping stone for a lot of the
success I would have in the future.
About four years later, I was talking to a
friend of mine about a reading & writing test I needed to take to become a
certified teacher. She waved her hand dismissively and she said something that
I have always remembered. She said, “That test will be a breeze for you, you’re
an ‘English’ person.”
It might have been the fact that I said
things like “I’m doing well.” or “I couldn’t care less.” or that I always
carried a book with me, but somehow in those years, I had learned enough to
fool my friend into thinking I was comfortable with English, and now I’ve also
convinced a publisher and hopefully some readers.
When I graduated, I got a job as a math
teacher, and I have worked as an online math teacher for several years. I am
comfortable with math, and enjoy teaching something in my comfort zone. But
what most of my students and many teachers do not know is that I have also
taken the tests and became a certified English teacher. I love the look of
shock that they get when they learn their math teacher could next year be
teaching their literacy class, and then I risk giving them a complete heart
attack when I tell them I’ve written a book.
In our lives we will have challenges,
struggles and obstacles. We may not be the kind of person we feel we want to be
and others around us may seem to easily have the skills that we do not. What I have learned through the past decade
is that when we have a goal, or a dream, we can’t let people tell us we’re just
not good enough. If your dream is to be an author, don’t ever let someone tell
you you’re not an ‘English’ person. Face your challenges head on, seek help
from those who care about you, work your tail end off, and then you will be
able to see the rewards in the end.
In
a world where each person is born with a magic ability, the island of Denall is
on the verge of an attack from a power hungry sorcerer, Mordyar, as he scours
the world in search of the Stones of Power. While the stones are gathering, and
their power begins to be revealed, four boys leave their village on a rite of
passage into adulthood and are swept into an adventure that will make men and
heroes of them, if they can survive.
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Adventure
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