Mark Twain

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -Mark Twain

After I heard this quote sometime around middle school or after, it became my mantra. I realized that the two things have different meaning, and they are not the same thing.

After all, I realized that learning in school was not what we normally would do. I learned very little that I already didn’t know going into elementary school.

This is due to having a big brother and parents who taught me things; for that I am quite fortunate.

Mrs. Eileen Ludwig was my second grade teacher at Fifth Street Elementary School. She was old-school and she was strict. At this time, I did not realize I had been placed into a classroom with others who shared my socioeconomic status: we were the poor kids. The kids who had wealthier parents were grouped into the same classes throughout my entire public schooling.

When Mrs. Ludwig pulled me aside one day, I naturally thought I was in some sort of trouble. Terrified, I braced myself for her words, and what she said changed my eight-year-old self: “For our class pen pals, there’s an extra student in the other class. Will you write to 2 pen pals?”

I nodded my head up and down, beaming. I was so happy because I loved to read and writing was so much fun. My parents had instilled this love for literature in me as an infant and toddler.

I felt like, for the first time in my life, someone believed in me. I never told anyone this before writing this Substack—not even my own mother. I never felt I should show off or brag about myself. It was our little secret.

After I had been a song leader (Cantor) at Saint Joseph Church, Mrs. Ludwig, who had attended mass, gave me a look that was very strange: she rejected my smile and eye contact, and she instead shunned me.

You see, I had not realized that being a Cantor was a negative thing, but it was. The campaign against me goes something like this: I liked the attention so that is why I chose to be a song leader.

This could not be further from the truth. I hated the attention, and I never wanted to become a song leader. I had said yes—only after I had been asked. I was a devout Catholic, albeit the only one practicing one in my family. My mother chose to tell her sister-in-laws that I was performing at church (this was not true), and my aunt Ang wrote about how “ethereal” my voice was.

One should not attend religious services to watch a performance, and this deeply offended me because I truly wanted to be faithful in the church. I simply had informed my mother of my activity schedule and I never wanted to be the center of attention. I eventually came to question my faith and, as recently as 2025, I was stalked by Father Zach Etienne twice while at Panera Bread in Evansville, and once before that at a gas station where they pretended not to recognize me and not know who I was.