Anna Posyniak-Dutka Mistakes of The Youth

A) My parents sent me to my first programming course when I was 10 and I took totook to [take to something]took to it straight away. By the age of 15, my IT teacher had nothing to offer to me as I was much more proficient at navigating the virtual world than him or at least so I thought back then. My classmates knew I could access resources which were not commonly available to ordinary people and they dared me to stealstealsteal the final exam papers which were saved on our head teacher’s computer. Child’s play. Unfortunately, the exams went so well that our head got suspicious and reported a crimereported a crime [report a crime]reported a crime. An official investigationinvestigationinvestigation followed and it didn’t take the police officerspolice officers [police officer]police officers much time to arrive at my house and confiscate my computer. I will just add that I wasn’t offered a lucrative joblucrative joblucrative job by any hi‑tech companies that wanted to put my hacking skills to a good use. I ended up with a criminal recordcriminal recordcriminal record and a probation officerprobation officerprobation officer for a year.

B) When I was 14, I was helping an elderly lady who lived in our neighbourhood with her daily errandsdaily errands [daily errand]daily errands for a couple of months. I did some shopping for her and popped inpopped in [pop in]popped in to have a chat with her on weekends and some afternoons. She always used to say how lucky she was to be helped by a trustworthytrustworthytrustworthy person such as myself. Well, she should have known better as I turned out to be the opposite. Soon after I started visiting her, I noticed that every time she gave me some cash to buy her groceries, she took it from a metal tin which she put in the cupboard in her kitchen. For an incomprehensible reason,for an incomprehensible reasonFor an incomprehensible reason, I decided that she would never notice if I took several quidquidquid from it now and againnow and againnow and again. She did. How shocked I was when one Saturday she showed me a footagefootagefootage in which I was taking money from her tin! She told me that when she realised that money was going missing, she had a camera installed to confirmconfirmconfirm her suspicions. Never before had I felt so embarrassed. I returned all the money and she decided to let me get away with itget away with itget away with it.

C) When I was in middle school, we had this super silly game in which we dared one another todared one another to [dare someone to do something]dared one another to do some risky things. As much as walking through a graveyard at midnight during a full moon was just ridiculousridiculousridiculous, some other ideas we had were really irresponsibleirresponsibleirresponsible. And one of them got me in real trouble. That day, my classmates dared me to go to our local department store and shopliftshopliftshoplift a pair of earrings from there. Although I knew it was a wrong thing to do, the peer pressurepeer pressurepeer pressure was too big to resistresist somethingresist it. As you can guess, I got caught by the security guardsecurity guardsecurity guard. The store manager decided that it was serious enough to call the police and, before I knew it, the juvenile court judgejuvenile court judgejuvenile court judge decided that I was guiltyguiltyguilty and I was given two months of community servicecommunity servicecommunity service. It taught me a lesson. Not so much about stealing being wrong, as I had known that before, as about participating in dares of questionable value.

D) I have always had a bit of an artistic streak. The problem was that when I was a teenager, I did not always realise it in a way which complied with social normscomplied with social norms [comply with social norms]complied with social norms. To be more specific, I loved painting and I did graffiti in places not meant for it. I was really good at it and I just believed that I was on a mission toI was on a mission to [be on a mission]I was on a mission to make our little town more colourful. When one afternoon I was arrested by the police in the middle of creating another piece of art on a wall of a public building, I felt more like a victimvictimvictim myself rather than a suspectsuspect (noun)suspect of a crime. The jury did not share my opinion about the role of art in making people’s life better and I was given a fine and the task of removing my own work from the wall. I still think I was innocentinnocentinnocent.

1 Źródło: Anna Posyniak-Dutka, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.