"text":"I was born in China, but my biological parents left me at the gate of an orphanage. From there, I was adopted into an American family when I was still a baby. They then raised me on a farm in the southeastern United States. <br/><br/> I learned a lot about myself from being a farmer and gardener. I'm incredibly allergic to pollen and hay. The hot, southern sun is my enemy. I love the days when it's cool enough for me to ride my bike without sweating. <br/><br/> However, just because I was raised in farm country didn't mean my life was centered around the outdoors. Since I was a young child, I was interested in art, music, and writing. I would go through countless sheets of paper drawing. I would consume whole wide ruled notebooks with my childishly simple stories. I would bang on the piano that my sister played beautifully and strum horrendous discord on an antique harp. <br/><br/> As I grew older, I began to refine my skills. I studied art techniques, wrote tons of fan fictions, and started taking piano lessons with half gallon jars of milk as payment instead of cash. Around this time, my brother haggled with my parents to give me their old laptop, and they obliged. This is when my love for gaming—or simply Minecraft, rather—began. A few months afterward, my baby brother was adopted. He's less than a year younger than me, but he's still a baby to this day. <br/><br/> Now, I'm a professional artist by definition. My stories are in the sluggish process of becoming novels. I continue to practice the piano, though under new guidance due to my old teacher's retiring. My bike is still the place where I go to relieve my stress. We own a lot less farm animals now than before, but at least we have more cats."
Joanna Blount
2 years ago
