Time to Travel

 Hey, guys! My name is Christopher Whittaker, and I go by my middle name, Todd. 

I am an avid reader and I have been since I was a little kid. I have always considered books to be an escape. I needed the escape when I started reading. Now, I'm just so used to "traveling" that I can't stop, haha.  The cover of my Kindle actually says "Time to Travel." I like it because I like to get lost in the worlds of books, so it really suits how I view reading.

 

My love for reading began in about fourth or fifth grade. I was really into R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series back then. I owned the entire original collection of 62 books and read them all. I am actually making my way through the series again now as an adult and am blogging reviews for them at my book reviews blog, Shadyside. My goal is to reminisce, of course, but also to let parents and reluctant readers know what they can gain from reading those books. I focus a lot on literary analysis. I analyze the crap out of Goosebumps. Who else can say that? I don't know if that makes me cool or nerdy. I will be reviewing each of the books we read for this course on my blog as well.

In seventh grade I stumbled across an Animorphs book by K. A. Applegate and became hooked on that series. That book series and those characters shaped my adolescence. I shamelessly read that children's series until the series ended in my high school years. I identified with a character named Tobias who was abandoned by his family and who felt alone. Whenever I would feel sad or alone, I would pick up one of those books and just jump into their world and their war with the Yeerks. Seventh grade was also when I discovered Madeleine L'Engle, and I fell in love with her Time Quartet. A Wrinkle in Time was required reading for me that year, and I heard there were sequels, so I sought them out. A Wrinkle in Time is my favorite book, even today.

After Animorphs, I read the first three books of Harry Potter. Yes, I never finished Harry Potter. I have thought about going back and rereading the other three and finishing the series, but rereading books feels like such a waste of time when there are so many books I want to read. I say this as I look at the Goosebumps book on my Kindle I just finished again, and I just recently reread A Wrinkle in Time, which I reread every few years. I don't know; those books are very quick reads and don't feel like wastes of time, haha. Quidditch is what made me drop Harry Potter. I found it so boring to read the quidditch scenes, and book four is littered with quidditch at the beginning. It lost my attention and I put it down. 

My hobbies aside from reading, web design, and blogging include playing video games, working out, playing with my Corgi, Helo, and volunteering for a charity I'm deeply involved with that advocates for and attempts to better the lives of foster youth. Growing up in the system and being a "survivor" of it, I feel obligated to help others who are in a similar situation I was in. Those kids need all the advocates they can get. I also am heavily involved with the youth group at my church. I teach 7th and 8th Grade Sunday School at First Baptist Greenville.

Because I grew up in a children's home and left to live in a hostile family environment, survival became a priority for me when I graduated high school, and I decided to make money to support myself and stand on my own feet. Education became more of an "option," and I decided I had to put it off to survive. I was finally able to go to school and chase my dream of becoming a middle school teacher in 2017. I went to Greenville Technical College for my first two years and earned my Associates in Science before transferring to USC Upstate last year. I am a senior now and will be student teaching next semester. My dream is so close, it's blinding. I keep smiling just thinking about it. I'm doing it. I still can't believe it. 

My concentrations are in math and English Language Arts. English has always been my favorite subject, but I enjoy math and I'm pretty good at it. When I found out I needed to pick a second subject to concentrate in, I went with math after talking to some people I admire. One teacher told me if I have any passion at all for math, to go for math and I'll never not have a job. Although I'm in my early 30s now and have been surviving on my own for a long time, I still feel the need to take actions to survive, and choosing math was kind of doing that in a weird way. I will be happy to teach math or English. The subjects were a second decision for me. I just want to teach.

I do have to say math has blessed me because I have gotten a lot of work as a tutor because of my math concentration. I tutored seven students last year in math and Spanish, and I was asked this year by one of my clients to tutor their two boys exclusively this year because they are doing online learning. I tutor about 20 hours a week and I am taking 14 credit hours this semester. I also am doing 50 hours of clinical. I'm a busy guy, but I make it work. I have a 4.0 because this dream is so serious to me and because I do not take school for granted. This is a gift.

I know I wrote a lot about "escape" in this entry, so I just want to clarify that I am open about my experiences because they have made me who I am and I'm not ashamed of them, and because they are the major reason I want to be a teacher. I only "escape" today for the fun of reading and getting lost in other worlds. I've gone through a lot of therapy for my experiences, and I'm in a good place. You don't have to worry about me, haha.

I am really excited about being here. Sorry my intro is so long. It's really great to meet those of you I have not met yet, and it's great to have another class with you, Mikayla, A'keriah, and Candace.