Sensing Type Speech Example (Childhood Memories)

So, childhood memories, right? Hello. My name is Lera. Well, I remember my childhood. Vaguely, like, overall vaguely, but certain individual memories are very vivid. The earliest thing I remember is my parents and me brushing our teeth together in the bathroom. And I brought my toothbrush to the tap to wet it. And my parents told me, "Lera, you shouldn't do that". I said, "Why? You do it." — "We are already adults". And I thought, "What's the difference anyway?" Well, I just don't remember what exactly I thought, like, what's the difference. Yeah. But it’s a very warm memory for me.

Then I remember they made me—my mom, to be exact, made me take naps during the day, even though I didn't want to. I remember those orange curtains—not orange, but those dark brown ones that hung in our house.

And I remember that very often—well, not often, but one summer, I don't remember what it was connected to, I think it was because of my mom's work—I was sent to my grandmother's house for a few days a week, like three days. And waking up there was very, very epic—I had a very epic wake-up there. Well, actually, it wasn't me waking up in an epic way. The thing I woke up to was very epic. I mean, I would wake up to my grandma yelling and swearing—using some pretty choice curse words. She really knows how to put a strong word in. "Staska, what on earth are you doing?!"—blah-blah-blah, swearing at him. And Staska was doing something wrong in the garden. What exactly he was doing wrong in the garden every single day, I have absolutely no idea.

After that, it was a standard day: like, riding a bike with friends or riding a bike alone, playing something else, just going for a walk. Speaking of the bike, I remember one time a girl almost—I was giving a girl a ride on the back, not on the back seat, but on the bike rack, and she almost got her foot caught in the spokes. I... well, it was very unpleasant, because since the girl was little, the responsibility was on you, in a way. But on the other hand, how could I keep an eye on what she was doing back there? It was just kind of unpleasant.

Then, a friend of ours from Nizhny Novgorod used to visit us every summer. There were some stories connected to that, too. Well, not very pleasant ones, so let's just skip all that. I remember that he and I... we used to poison ants with cigarette butts that we found—go away—that we found on the ground. I mean, I don't remember, it wasn't an anthill, but a path. Basically, ants were running along the path, and we would put these cigarette butts in front of them, thinking they would die when... Good Lord, we were so mean. Then, we would summon some kind of... what was it... a lion, by doing something... basically, we spun around like idiots all over the road. And apparently, due to the hallucinations caused by the dizziness, we either saw those lions or didn't see them, I don't know. We were supposed to see them.

Then, a dog bit me. Once in my life, a dog bit me right on the buttock—on my backside, on my butt, basically. And how it happened was—I was running out of their house. Why was I running? Because they told me the dog bites. So I ran, and it caught up with me from behind and nipped me. I don't remember the actual bite.

I also remember that same summer, I think, I got ringworm from a stray cat at the train station. It was black and beautiful. Although it’s very strange because my dad and I both petted it, but he didn't get ringworm. Apparently, I was just that... lucky.

I remember that, well, those typical childhood diseases, like chickenpox, rubella, or whatever else—I never had them. As a result, nowadays it feels kind of uncomfortable to see sick children, since the chances of catching it are high, and it's kind of scary. Yeah.

Then there was something else I wanted to tell, but I don't remember, I forgot. Oh no, not that. I already told that part. Well, anyway, it doesn't matter.

I had a childhood friend named Masha. We were friends from the first to the eleventh... no, to the seventh grade, I don't remember what we fought over anymore. And she wasn't a very good friend, because she would tattle on me to her mom, like, uh, she betrayed me, she told my childhood secrets to other friends. Yeah. And she would steal guys from me and all that stuff.

For example, I would often come home after getting a C at school. And I wouldn't tell my mom, because why bother? I'd fix it anyway, so why worry a parent. But I'd come home, and my mom would immediately go: "Lera, why did you get such a bad grade?!" As it turned out, Masha would get home earlier than me, tell her mom that I got that grade, and her mom would go and tell my mom. Yeah. But in the end, in math... well, mostly in math, in the end, I scored better on the Math Unified State Exam (EGE) than she did.

That's why I remember that... mmm... a friend of mine and I—we are still friends to this day, for about 16 years now, since the first grade. We used to play... Oh, as for that other friend, we weren't friends since the first grade, we were friends since infancy, we rode in strollers together. Anyway, with this friend that I've been friends with since the first grade, we used to play "rabbits". That is, he would hide in the burdocks and be our rabbit. What we actually did with the rabbit, I have no idea.

There was an apple tree in my grandma's garden—the same grandma's garden I was talking about. I loved sitting there so much, you know, it was quiet, peaceful, nature, summer, so nice... you could watch the passersby, read a book, or just fool around doing some silly stuff. It had such a comfortable, wide branch, and it would creak sometimes because it was old. But they chopped it down, they chopped it down. I don't know why. They said, well, it's already old and might fall, God forbid, and all that. Well, that argument didn't satisfy me, because in another part of the garden, there is another apple tree growing, which is ugly, thin, and just as old as that one. And they didn't chop that one down. I've held a grudge over this... a grudge for the rest of my life.

Other than that, there isn't much else, really. Oh, I remember riding my bike and crashing. I didn't know how to brake. So I'm riding down an old, unpaved road, meaning it's full of potholes. Not potholes... yes, potholes. I mean, there were lots of holes, bricks lying around, and all that stuff. I turn toward my house, and we had these tires sticking out of the ground there. And I rammed right into one of those tires and fell. And I got a bruise on my... on my forehead.

I remember the cherries. We have a cherry tree growing in front of my grandma's garden, outside the fence. There were so many cherries on it; it was the most fruitful of all the cherry trees there. But since it grew outside the fence, it was basically public property, so random neighborhood boys and girls—passersby, basically—often picked them and stripped the tree, and we never got to eat any.

I also remembered that I found a caterpillar once, and it just wouldn't hatch. And, well, I... it’s so sad, poor caterpillar, I was so mean. Anyway, it had formed a cocoon, and I went ahead and cut it open with scissors. Well, naturally, the little caterpillar died. It's a pity, it probably would have turned into a beautiful butterfly, because it was so pinkish and had horns. I never had incidents like that again. Such a shame. I've barely run into any caterpillars since then.

Anyway. Time is running out.