ME AND FAMILY
Ohayo! Hola! Zdravo! Bonjour! Guten Tag! Shalom! Hello! How many of those languages can you understand? I speak English (hello), Spanish (hola), I know a little Japanese (ohayo), a few words in Serbo-Croat (zdravo), and I was trying to learn written Arabic until I ran out of time to go to the Islamic Center!
My name is Jason Crowe. I am 13 years old. I live with my mom and dad. I have a married sister, Roxana, a brother-in-law, Justin, and a very active and very beautiful 15-month-old niece, Audrey!
I don't attend school in the conventional sense. Instead, I am homeschooled. I attended "regular" school for grades 1-3, and I much prefer learning at home. At home I have more time to explore my interests and can work at many different levels where I am not confined by grade level. It also gives me time to try to find ways to help other people, which I consider very important. Both my mom and dad are educators and "teach" me the "essentials," which I tolerate reluctantly, but I really learn best and most from reading, studying, and researching on my own the topics I am interested in. Foreign languages have always fascinated me, so from time to time I explore a language.
I have been interested in many other things in my life. I refer to these intense interests as passions. In first grade, it was Greek mythology, and I read everything about the gods and goddesses that I could get my hands on. In second grade, I was hooked (no pun intended) on whales, and in third, I was into rocks and WWII. (My interest was not in the battles or war machines but in trying to discover why Hitler did what he did, why the people followed him, and why he committed suicide.) In 4th grade my interest in astronomy was cut short by my grandmother's terminal illness.
Nanny and I were very close. When she died in August 1996, I was only nine, and it was as if a part of me died with her. Life and death have always been very important issues for me, and I have always wanted to help people who have been victimized. So as I began 5th grade after Nanny's death, it is not surprising that my interests became more intensely humanitarian in nature. That September, I began The Informer, a newspaper to raise money for cancer research and to encourage kids to make a difference in their world.
Three months later, an adult friend Laura Whaley from the Center for Gifted Studies at Western Kentucky University sent me an article to read. As a result of this article, I became passionately interested in the suffering of the Bosnians. I have worked ever since to bring awareness to the public and honor all the victims of this aggression in Bosnia, especially through my Bosnia statue project. My parents are very supportive of my projects and take me to deliver flyers, to give speeches, etc. I call them the "Great Facilitators."
In 6th grade, I got a new DELL computer and immediately programming and designing levels for computer games became my passion. In addition, I got interested in virology and spent months reading about this topic… and worrying.
My 7th grade year was filled with school work L , old and new friends, Awana Club, and humanitarian endeavors. (Notice I got uninterested in virology after scaring myself to death!) Besides the newspaper, the statue project, and my work for peace and multicultural harmony, I organized a community Spring Food Drive for the second year in a row. I enjoyed meeting people all over the world and working to solve problems through community service and technology as a participant in MIT's on-line Junior Summit. I had fun traveling and giving speeches and workshops at state and national education conferences in 98-99 too! But some things about 1999 upset me a lot. After watching the images on the TV of the ethnic Albanians and our three POWs, I started a project to raise money for the refugees. I called the campaign OPERATION "YELLOW BOW FOR KOSOVO." The campaign ran for nearly four months and netted over $4,000 for our local Red Cross to send to Kosovo.
Well, it's 8th grade now, but I am doing sophomore level work like chemistry and geometry. (Euclid is not on my most-favored people list these days.) School takes way too much time. At least the computer makes it more interesting to do research!
In addition to my passions and projects, I LOVE to have fun! I like to play soccer, though I am not very sports active. I also like to swim, ride my bike, and play "man hunt" in the dark with my neighborhood friends. Of course, I play video games and computer games… ad nauseum, as my mom would say. I collect a variety of things. Right now, I am in my Pokemon phase. My friends and I spend hours collecting, trading, and playing Pokemon cards as well as the Pokemon video games available on Game Boy and for the N64. Besides Pokemon, I collect and play with Battle Tech and Star Wars cards. I collect all kinds of stuffed animals. I collect G.I.Joes, somewhat of a paradox for a self-proclaimed peace activist, but I can separate play and reality in my mind; I also customize them. I enjoy reading ALL kinds of books and magazines. And I like listening to music, especially soft and alternative rock, classical, and folk. (But I am no longer obsessed, as I was in 5th grade, about starting a rock band with any bona fide or not-so bona fide instrument I could find for me and my friends.) I love going on vacation with my parents, traveling through different regions of the United States, and meeting the people who live there. I would love to travel all over the world some day! I enjoy the clubhouse that my dad built for me in the back yard. In fact, the clubhouse reminds me of what it is I like best of all in life: just hanging out with my friends!
You can e-mail me if you want at jdc@sigecom.net.