King's Daughter's Kitchen

My favorite subject and superpower is still Language Arts. Words are my gift. In third grade my class began to learn cursive, root words, and parts of speech. In seventh grade, words were like math problems to be solved. We pulled sentences apart and puzzled over them. We placed them on lines until we could efficiently ferret out compound complex diagrams. In ninth grade, I began to learn Spanish, which I love. I noticed by my junior year that I could make any sentence if I knew definitions and parts of speech. As a senior, the class read Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Words and knowledge became a game. Words in many languages were worlds in which to lose myself.

Words and parts became my secret superpower. Words connected me to the world. I knew more words and read more books than my classmates.

I was conceited, so mean-proud about being the best that I lost friends and earned the nickname Encyclopedia. I read a poster once that said, “People won’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.”

I am far from conceited now after hard, cruel lessons from life and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I learned to be grateful and helpful, not stuck up and selfish. There is more to life, gentle living, more to kindness, than what a person can read in a book.

I am so thankful for my knowledge. I’m grateful to notice that Hebrew has seven different words for types of praise to connect to the true meaning behind it: Towdah, Barak, Yadah, Halal, Zamar, Tehillah, and Shabach. I realize that my teachers gave me words to make me a better person. Sometimes holding back words and knowledge keeps a friend. What I know isn’t worth beans if I can’t use it for good.