Clone Me!

nobody@vox.com(Budd) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:53:06 -0500

Yesterday I caught part of a movie called Godsend. In the movie a couple clones their son that died in an accident at 8 years old. Of course the cloned child starts acting weird at 8.

I thought it was kind of sick that they would clone their child. You can't just replace a person and it isn't like bringing the first child back to life. It did get me thinking about cloning though. I would like to clone myself. Much like Jango Fett, I would raise the child myself and teach him in the ways I felt he should be taught.

To understand my thinking you have to know a little about me. My mother didn't quite quit drinking or smoking while she was pregnant with me. I was born premature and weighed 4lbs 9oz. This isn't too small I know and several people have a worse time of it being born. I was also not breast fed and allergic to milk/formula. I was put on meat formula. I was always smaller than other kids growing up and now stand at a tall 5'7". There is no way of knowing if I would be taller had my mothers pregnancy been healthier. I don't really care about that, but it is an area to be considered when cloning oneself to try and get the maximum potential out of oneself.

The greatest area of improvement would be in academics, I believe. I attended 13 different schools growing up. Looking back, this had a noticable impact on the classes I was able to take and the consistency of my learning. I was either catching up or waiting for the people around me to do so most of my school life. I moved to a different state for 9th grade and they wouldn't let me take Algebra due to me not taking pre-Algebra which was normal 8th grade math for me. This meant that I didn't advance through the Maths and was never able to take an advanced math class due to time constraints. I also changed schools in the middle of my 11th grade year. I was taking French III, but my new school only offered up to French II. I was able to take the French II class for a French III credit but I slept through the class and finished the year knowing less French than when I started and with no option for French IV. Examples abound.

I consider myself a smart person and know that I was bored at school most of the time, but the turbulance of my situation never allowed that this would get noticed and I would get that special attention that could have impacted my academic carreer. I was also not pushed at home. Good grades were encouraged but that was it. I was never directed and seldom received the at home education that would have encouraged learning in the sciences and social studies. I am thankful that our house always had a bookshelf with books like Watership Down and The Hobbit.

So, I want to clone myself to see how I could have been, had I been given the right circumstances growing up. I want to allow this version of me to play little league and take martial arts classes. I want him to get the encouragement he needs to excell in school. I want to feel for what interests this person and guide him towards it acedemically. To a point my own children exposes some of this potential, but there is always the question of did they get that from me or from their mom. It shouldn't matter with my kids and it doesn't, but I kinda want to know how I could have been and the girls don't reveal that, not the way a clone would.

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Budd's Alternate Reality

Clone Me!