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Esta página no está disponible en español. Orlando SentinelChoice Of Gift Can Inspire A Career DecisionBy Maria Padilla
December 25, 2002 Last night, my husband and I broke out the Puerto Rican eggnog, took out our list and checked it twice for who got what on this Christmas holiday. The eggnog, called coquito, deserves all the credit for getting us through this annual task. Sipping my coquito with chipped ice and a dash of cinnamon, I recalled the bounties of Christmases past, crediting many favorite gifts for shaping my interests long after the wrapping paper and boxes were put out with the trash. These were gifts that hinted of the future, although no one knew it at the time, certainly not I. It is no accident that I am a writer, for that spark was ignited long ago, before I reached the age of 10 or 11. Perhaps you will be so loving and so prescient as to encourage another child to read and write -- not as a homework assignment, not as part of an FCAT drill, but for pure delight. Your contribution to the Orlando Sentinel Holiday Fund can make that dream come true. The very first gift I ever received that required me to put my thoughts on paper was a diary. It was pink and it had a lock and key that any bumbling burglar could have picked. But the notion of such privacy was unheard of for me, one of five children in a three-bedroom apartment with one bath. I wrote the most minute details of my life in the diary, including the time I woke up that morning, what I ate, what I did that day. Years later, embarrassed by such mundane detail, I threw out the dairy, and I have regretted it since. It was a window into the mind of a young girl, one that I would love to glimpse today. Another Christmas, I received a rubber-stamp "printing press," with which I could write not only the day's stories, but the day's headlines, too. Such power! It came with a supply of paper, an ink pad, and letters and numbers of varying sizes on rubber stamps. It was the first time I ever saw my name in a byline, and I liked it very much. Reporters and columnists never get over that thrill, no matter how many years they've been writing, and no matter how cool they try to be about it. On still another Christmas, I received a typewriter. This was no accidental gift. I had asked for it. (Can you see the progression here?) My neighbor had a beautiful Remington portable typewriter that I secretly coveted. It had a brown case, the keys were green with white lettering and they were smooth and glossy. That was some typewriter. Finally, I asked for one of my own. That Christmas, I received an Underwood. It was the color of sand. I typed and typed on it, from silly things to schoolwork. I have since owned many typewriters, but I particularly loved the IBM Selectrics, on which I wrote many college term papers. There is no better present than the gift of reading and writing, no greater sense of power than to command words to do your bidding. I envy the people who lived in the 19th century and the early 20th century for their art of writing letters, which has been lost. Computers have encouraged e-mail and instant messaging, but most of it is junk, the writing too pedestrian. However, with a thoughtful gift, you can inspire a young mind to greater depths of expression with a book that becomes a favorite, an author who becomes a soulmate, a diary to express their thoughts. Anything is possible.
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