enid blyton

i think my love for reading intensified the moment my dad had to resort to bribing me. this happened when i was six going seven years old. backstory: i cried every day at school and for my principal to call home and get my parents to send me home it was nothing unusual (my sobbing was distracting towards the other kids who genuinely gave a shit about '__ + 3 = 9' kinda sums). for me, i hated school. i'd get extremely homesick, and this was (is) something i've battled with ever since four years old. i mean i'd always been a crybaby but putting me in school just made it worse haha.

when i was six, i used to take the school bus back home, and one day my dad waited for me at the drop off point of our condo estate. he told me if i managed to get past a whole week without crying in school, he would get me an enid blyton book of my choice. i was crazy for enid blyton (and little did i know she was just as crazy – i only found out recently), but this incentive hardly motivated me. i think my parents were exasperated lol. i'm not sure how we all got out of it alive, but the crying continued, and i still got my books.

after having lunch with my parents yesterday, i chanced upon a second-hand bookfair and they had a ton of enid blyton books for sale. my dad told me to pick a few and he bought them for me :') so much nostalgia!

anyway, i guess i grew up ok despite all that crying. and i'm also kinda disappointed that fairies don't live under toadstools – i checked when i was waiting for the school bus.