I started trying to write when I was in second or third grade.
I've been home-schooled since I was in the fifth grade, mainly because I had two brothers who were acting. We were from Kansas but moved out to Los Angeles.
I have always enjoyed performing, but I think when I was in the fifth grade was when I discovered that I really loved acting.
I dropped out of school in the 11th grade because there was no purpose in it for me. I'm not proud of this, and I'm not trying to promote it.
In fourth grade I had a high school reading level, but I didn't want to go to school and I didn't feel I belonged there.
In my 8th grade yearbook picture I had on 2 chains.
I moved around 13 different times before I was in fifth grade, not having money, not having a lot of friends.
I had one of those defining moments in the fourth grade when my teacher said the story I wrote was the best in the class, and therefore I would be going Young Authors Conference where I'd get to hang out with authors all day.
I've been reading Greek mythology since I was a kid. I also taught it when I was a sixth grade teacher, so I knew a lot of mythological monsters already. Sometimes I still use books and Web sites to research, though. Every time I research Greek mythology, I learn something new!
My dad bought a Beatles tape when I was in fifth grade, and that was the first time I ever really - I mean I was into music, but that was the first time it really blew my mind. When I heard the 'Red Compilation,' which wasn't like a proper album, I thought, 'music was more than I had ever thought it was before.'
Poetry is the language we speak in the most terrifying or ecstatic passages of our lives. But the very word poetry scares people. They think of their grade school teachers reciting 'Hiawatha' and they groan.
Since grade school, I focused on women's clothing.
I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.
It wasn't really until the 10th or 11th grade when I started to play well, and football took the place of baseball, which was my love when I was five years old. I don't know what happened; baseball just got boring to me, I guess.
As a teacher you can see the difference in kids who have parents who were involved. That difference, by the time these kids get to the third grade, is drastic.
If you tell someone, 'Hey, your daughter is going to win a Nobel Prize someday,' it makes it less likely. If you say, 'Your son is in danger of dropping out in the ninth grade,' it could make it more likely.
I don't even need to know - if you have something to prove to your old boss or your dad or your third grade teacher or yourself, it doesn't matter. You need that hustle and that fire, and I don't care where it comes from.
I think generally I'm a pretty good person if I had to grade myself. Or toot my own horn.
Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.
It may sound lame, but I've been journaling since I was in third grade. I love it! It makes me feel calm and happy.
My grade 3 teacher put on a kids' Christmas concert, and I played the kazoo, so my mother bought me a trumpet. I took lessons for eight years, was in the Kitsilano Boys Band, and I played in the Vancouver Junior Symphony for two years.
It wasn't until I got into seventh grade, I think, that I realized that doing plays might be a fun thing, and so I auditioned for the school play - and got in, as it turned out.
All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.
In grade school, I was a complete geek. You know, there's always the kid who's too short, the one who wears glasses, the kid who's not athletic. Well, I was all three.
The ninth grade. I went from 5'9' to 6'8'.
In grade school I was smart, but I didn't have any friends. In high school, I quit being smart and started having friends.
In the book, I write about children in first grade who were taught to read by reading want ads. They learned to write by writing job applications. Imagine what would happen if anyone tried to do that to children in a predominantly white suburban school.
My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition after school and I got the part.
With hacky sack, somebody brought one to recess in sixth grade and it kind of all went downhill from there! The same with the yoyo's! One kid brought a yoyo one day and people started getting them. I just kept at it and found that I really loved it.
I've always been shy, but I see that as a good thing because it kept me focused on music. When I was in seventh grade, I asked my parents for a mobile recording system for Christmas, and I got it. I didn't come out of my room for years after that. I'd get invited to the movies and I'd say, 'I'm gonna finish a couple of demos.'
'Chef' is a dish of arroz con pollo served with a smile but not much style. The critic in the film would give it a low grade, for agreeability without ambition.
All my friends went to the Madonna concert when I was in, maybe, the 9th grade, and my mother refused to let me go.
I grew up in Dallas, with cowboys. I was the only guy in sixth grade with long hair and an earring. Let's just say I got a lot of, er, flak for being different.
I actually played hockey my whole life, all the way up until ninth grade.
I went through seventh grade in private school. I went to private school from kindergarten to seventh grade.
The first book I ever wrote was in fourth grade and it was called 'Billy's Booger.' It was an autobiographical piece about a kid who was really bad at math.
