This is a new piece for the September 2010 issue as I was trying to think of something new and this came to me. Unfortunately my voice recognition program just died and now I have to re-install and re-train :-( my Dragon Dictate®. Which I did after surprisingly few sessions.

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Education and Frustration

by

©F. Alexander Brejcha

As it is time for schools to be opening soon, I thought Education would be a good topic for September. I know that I have a real wide variety of schools in my memory. I was born in Sweden in 1957, fortunately with a mother who was an English teacher, so when I came to America in 1968 she made sure that I already knew how to speak English -- though I had a few yumping yiminy problems at first since in Swedish the letter J is silent. I quickly learned American pronunciation, but my mother took a little longer and raised a few eyebrows at first, though the fact that she spoke six languages quickly removed any doubts about her proficiency. In fact, after some other jobs (including a position as a newspaper editor for University Park News in Denver for a while), she became a professional interpreter and translator and even went back to school to get her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania -- adding to the Masters that she got from Shipley during a previous visit to America.

And in 1968 when we came to America, we were headed for California because my mother knew a classmate from Shipley there, but in Denver we found a family whose mother was from our hometown in Sweden, imagine that! Needless to say, we settled there at first. But when mom remarried to an American man there (actually, he was originally from Romania) and he was transferred to General Electric in Pennsylvania, we relocated. So after elementary and middle school in Denver where I first developed a taste for reading, I started Junior High in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Then, when my stepfather designed and built a house for us outside Phoenixville Pennsylvania, I went to Phoenixville Senior High for two years until I was admitted to Temple University in Philadelphia on the Early admissions program where I finished the first year of college and the last year of high school at the same time (my Temple classes counted for both) -- coming back to High School to graduate with the Bicentennial class of ‘76.

Originally an art student, I lived in a variety of apartments with my cats while working full time and going to school part-time until 1980 when developing multiple sclerosis hit me. The first problems were severe fine coordination deficits and visual problems of double vision and blurring. Luckily the visual problems cleared up fairly quickly (I only needed an eye patch two weeks) and with exercises and practice, I re-trained my hands to a degree though even to this day my coordination and sensitivity are both impaired. Fortunately I can now write with the program Dragon Dictate® where I just dictate – in fact, this article was written by voice.

Earlier, when art became impossible to continue, I transferred to the psychology department as I was already taking psychology courses--planning on going into art therapy. Psychology was a good fit, and in addition to being accepted into Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology, I was elected Vice President of the Temple University chapter and I produced a monthly newsletter for psychology majors and Psi Chi members. But being used to being creative, I decided to try writing on the side as I was always a voracious reader. Being addicted to science fiction and an avid reader of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, I obviously made my first submission to that magazine. And, as most writers do, I started by collecting rejection slips. But the editor and I were very compatible, and even his rejections were helpful and with my fourteenth (I think) rejection he said he liked the story but that it was too long and he listed some other problems.

As I have never been good at taking direction, I added 3000 words and took care of the problems. This time he bought the story, and as it was long and Analog paid well, it was profitable as well as educational. At that point I dropped out of school and decided to concentrate on writing. Working the night shift at Graduate Hospital allowed me to develop a very good bibliography (see http://www.netreach.net/~abrejcha/biblio.htm ), of both fiction in a variety of genres, and disability-related non-fiction. I wrote for both print magazines and online magazines and web sites - and I had three books published – all of which led to articles about me in a variety of magazines and newspapers and guest appearances on 3 radio programs and 1 TV show.

Writing has been both fun and very educational, as my editor at Analog demanded accurate science in my stories and I had to do a lot of research -- but not only was he supportive and bought 14 stories, but he even wrote the introduction to one of my books.

But sometimes it is very frustrating to consider that I started college at age 17 and now at the age of 52, I still don't have a college degree. Though at the same time, I have to consider how much I have learned just by living. Of course, isn't that the case for most of us?

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