By Alexander Gu
I’m a pretty normal person. I am 15, I go to a regular, old, public high school, and I’m on the swimming team. I get average grades, and I don’t really stand out. However, there is something really special about me. I can see from a third-person point of view. When I say third-person, you might think it's some cool ability to see from another person’s eyes. In reality, it is far worse. I see like I am in a third-person-shooter game. I ‘see’ from a spot that is about 5 feet behind my head and 2 feet above it. This is extremely strange, so I obviously haven’t told anyone. I am also confused on how this works anyways, and what the purpose of my actual eyes are.
I do my best to be a normal person, but it is not so easy. I have extremely good spatial awareness. While my FOV is the same as everyone else, I can see all around my body, roughly 260 degrees. Unfortunately, I have a blind spot right in front of me, which is caused by my body blocking my ‘vision’. Understandably, this causes a ton of problems. I can’t play sports, I can’t read books, and my handwriting is terrible. I am only getting by in school because of the projectors teachers use to display everything.
My average day of school is terrible. I wake up, eat breakfast, and ride the bus to school, just like any other person. My day goes smoothly up until I need to open my locker to start the day. As that is on my blind spot, I have to crouch incredibly low, and unlock it with my hands stretched above my head. I have developed a reputation for looking strange while doing this.
Fortunately, my desk in my first period class, English, is close to the back. This way, I don’t get called on a lot to read passages. When I do, I have to hold my book far above my head to be able to read. I have been sent to the principal many times for this, but I have never gotten in trouble because I am not really breaking any rules. For my other classes, we don’t do too much reading, so I can get by just fine in that aspect. However, writing brings a new challenge.
I have still not developed a good way to write. My best and current method of writing is sitting as far left as possible on my desk, and writing with my paper far to the right. This way, I can see the paper from my third-person vision. Sadly, the point at which I see from is pretty far away, so I tend to misread questions that I must answer on tests. I repeat this process through all of my periods, and then I get on the bus to go home. My after school swimming practice goes pretty normally. My vision doesn’t negatively impact me here.
Overall, I have an incredibly tough time in my daily life, but I have been getting by. My future prospect is to write a book about this experience, and hopefully have a successful career covering this terrible time.