Symbols of the Pen

[Savage Dragon]

I was just curious to see who, if anyone, in the Pen has a particular symbol they associate with themselves the same way I've come to see a blue square as mine.

 

Nothing too complicated, just something really basic. i once had a friend who told me he always thought of two arrows pointing at one another as his own symbol, though i never learned why.

 

I was hoping some members of the Pen could share with me some of the symbols that have become important in there lives and how they got that way.

 

I'll start by explain the blue square that has become my avatar.

 

 

It's actually very simple. When i was growing up as a kid, my 3 sisters and I all went to the same school where my mom worked at, Aquinas Montessori school. a Montessori school is a private school where the basic premise is to put a whole class of kids in a room filled with educational toys and let them decide what to do. of course it wasn't entirely devoid of structure, there were instances every day where we would come together as a class to learn one lesson, specifically subjects like music and foreign language.

 

for a kid it was the coolest school ever, because for the most part, we could do whatever we wanted. the playground was huge and recess was pretty lengthy. there was no homework and we only took one test the entire year (how many apples does Suzie have kind of questions). since my mom worked there, though, we had to stay for all the afternoon stuff and went to most the summer camps. school was fun, but there was a lot of it. still I loved Aquinas and i'm very thankful for my parents for having us go there (my mom actually worked without a salary in exchange for our 4 tuitions). it undoubtedly played a huge role in the development of my natural love of learning (and my hate for homework).

 

there was only one thing about Aquinas we didn't like. we had to wear matching uniforms, yech! and that was of course a problem for my mother. she had 4 children of all the relatively similar size that each had to keep the same set of white shirts and black skirts (well shorts for me) separate. to make things harder, my 3 sisters all shared the same room. but my mother is a smart woman (after all she went to Aquinas too when she was young) and devised a simple system, she gave us each a colored symbol to remember and drew that symbol on the inside tag of every piece of clothing for every one of us.

 

and thats how i came to start my day, every day, sorting through a pile of white shirts looking for my blue square.