ADVICE TO MY 12-YEAR-OLD SELF
I recently read a great question at Slashdot . It was: "What advice would you give your 12-year-old self?"

Here's mine:

Dear 12-year-old self:

Things may change in your life as you get older, but you'll never feel anything better than how you are feeling right now as a 12-year-old. Don't worry. That's a good thing.

In the next few years, you're going to learn a lot of things, and remember a lot of more too. You'll become more responsible, get a good job and even find out what you want to be when you grow up. There are some negatives to growing up too, but don't be afraid, you'll get through them fine too. The good news is the things that are important to you now: Your family and doing things that make you happy, won't ever change. You should always try to do the things that make YOU happy. In fact, you'll find out that video games are still cool, that the Texas Rangers still suck and that you never quite get over the facination with race cars.

People will always like for who you are, not what you can do for them. So don't try to hard to fit in. The guys who pick on you, they only do it because they like you. And the adults are right, they only do it because they like you. Believe it or not, you'll be tougher for it in the future.