What was your first Special interest?

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Cars. My first word was "car," and I had about twenty cases full of toy cars. I would line them up bumper to bumper, creating "traffic jams" that wound around the whole house. When we were out in public, I asked everyone I saw what kind of car they drove. That interest lasted for about five years or so.

Cartoons first, then art, then science.

Grew up in a time when I would get up before the stations came on the air. Yes, back in those days, TV was not 24 hours and usually, depending on how far you lived away from a big city, or had a huge TV antennae, you only got about 2 or 3 stations. Anyway, I would get up and watch the 'test pattern' until programming started.

Test pattern image I used to watch and why all that stuff was on there. It all had a reason.

I am told I was obsessed with snakes as a toddler, although I don't remember this. I apparently used to stare at them at zoos or in pet stores.

The first I remember is cats. Wanting to have a cat, pretending to be a cat, watching The Aristocats over and over because it was about cats, despite not caring for the movie itself that much. Asking to rent the musical Cats a lot. Playing with and watching neighbor's cats to the point of ignoring most everyone and everything else, and writing long stories based on these cats. Looking for excuses to talk about cats and collecting cat stuff. That lasted... at least five years, I think.

The first interest I had that I recognized as intense and which endures to this day is Japan. I went through periods where the obsession was more "focused"--the clothing, the religion, the mythology, the written language, etc.--but it has remained a constant in my life since I was about nine years old.

It could only have been drawing cartoons. But it was more than just a special interest, it's a natural talent I've always seemed to have. Most kids like drawing, but for me it was much more than that.

When I was about four or five years old, I had my tonsils taken out, and my mother says that when I came home I drew a picture of the hospital, and it looked really similar to the real one. I do vaguely remember drawing something on some graph paper that my dad gave me while eating jello at the coffee table, but I never thought of myself as an architect. I wish my mom had saved that picture.

Audio electronics, the analog portion.

I find that to be so interesting a LOT of aspies seem to get hooked on Japan for some reason, weird to me. I mean I like it too. 日本語も勉強しましたか。今はどうでしょうか。

Outside of watching cartoons and stacking Legos, reading was my first. Specifically J.R.R. Tolkien books.

My first special interest was drawing. When I was very little I used to draw pictures upside down. Also, Barbie and Ken dolls, but I always wondered what happened to their private parts.

Cars - I started admiring coachbuilding & automotive design when I was really young. These days I'm excited about cleaner vehicle architecture.

His works were my second and still current interest.

There must be some kind of underlying pull there, haha!

I had to look up a couple kanji to read all of that, but I can answer that yes, I am studying it! LOL. It's been an on and off process for years. Once I'm done with my bachelor's degree I can finally spend more time learning it. For now, there's senior research to contend with--which, in my case, involves kanji, believe it or not!

My mom tells me that when I was two or three, I would stare at pictures in a book on the American Colonies for an hour at a time. I remember liking the pictures of the forts in Williamsburg and Jamestown, and imagining people running around in them, and also the shapes and colors of the costumes and hand-worked machines like lathes and cotton mills. She said she knew I was a little different even then.

Astrophysics.

Haha, I was obessed with the progression of statehood establishment for the US for awhile. Like the 13 colonies, to the 13 states, to the Louisiana purchase, and onward throughout the 1800's.

But my first obsessive interest was probably the solar system and outer space in general. My mom would read me astronomy books and show me pictures of different planets in our solar system when tucking me into bed. I saw planets and mini-moons everywhere around me. In a festival in houston, there were huge posts and sculpltures with rocky orbs protruding on the tops. I would imagine that they were miniature planets that I could reach if I only tried hard enough.

Space and astronomy has always been a lingering special interest for almost 28 years now! And Zombiebride, this might interest you. My favorite stages on Sonic Adventure 2 would probably be the ones where Knuckles and Rouge the Bat are exploring the little mini-planets and asteroids, while trying to find the Master Emerald fragments.

That really is a good description for how the outside world looked to me at that time.

Next special interest was dinosaurs, I think, and then platetechtonics, frogs/toads/amphibians, and US coin collecting (a really strong one =0 ).

I loved Farmer Grey cartoons so much and wished I could watch them all day long but in those days there were no videos or VCRs so you could only watch them when they happened to come on TV.
I wished that someone would invent a TV that would show only cartoons and you could watch them any time you wanted.
I imagined it would be a small kid-sized TV and it would be pink.
When my grandkids were little I saw little TVs just like the one I imagined in Toy's R Us and they had VCRs attached so you can watch cartoons any time you wanted. I just want to say, I thought of it first.

Cute story!