My draft so far...

My interest for design started my freshman year of high school. I signed up for a web design class. Beforehand, I believed I could not draw to save my life, but the ideas were clear. I just could not execute them on paper. That web class showed me that with a computer I did not have to draw. I could translate what was in my head onto that screen with minimal effort. I just needed the knowledge of the tools in the programs, which were a breeze to pick up. The only problem was, there were so many programs and so many tools. Dreamweaver was the majority of what I knew at the time, with the exception of a little Illustrator. I wanted to become an expert.  I needed to become a master of this. I was addicted. It was my drug, my passion. I had found something that I could do at school that soon overtook my personal time. The class had two stages web and flash. Your website had to meet certain standards before you could pass over to the flash side of class. The site needed ease of use and to be aesthetically appealing. Ease of use is the idea that your website is clearly laid out and you can use the site full circle. Meaning you can travel way down many links in the website and still have access to all the website has to offer. Essentially, a navigation bar at the top of the page is the easiest way to achieve this goal. Aesthetics were a breeze for me. It is all about colors and clarity with websites. Colors bring the user and the clarity keeps them happy and focused. I still had a ton to learn after the web portion and still do to this day as a matter of fact, but I had to move on.
The flash portion of the class was phenomenal.  You had the opportunity to make your own animation. Granted at that age my topics for animation were not that great, but I had an enormous amount of fun. I was always so stoked to go to that class and you can’t say that for a lot of high school students. Flash really was a big gateway into my design. You had to create character profiles, backdrops, props, etc. Only a fraction of the class was actual moving pictures. Most of it consisted of us creating the bits that went into it. That is what I enjoyed the most. My animations were a tad awful. It was hard to grasp the concept of accurately portraying a person moving. Most of them just slid everywhere they went, but they looked fabulous doing it.
Thus the foundation for my interest in design was laid. I was hooked and there was not any stopping me for some time. I browsed hundreds of design sites and read so many articles, but I did not have the programs at my disposal unless I was in class, which frustrated me to no end. My interests lay dormant throughout sophomore year. Entirely because I was unable to take any design classes. If I had chosen to, I would have fallen short on other required credits. Plus, I had to acquire the proper programs, at least one or two of them. There are far too any of them for me to have at such a young age.
In my junior year of high school I was able to receive Photoshop and Illustrator for my personal use. It was a dream come true to say the least. Even better, my credits allowed a Graphic Animation class, which turned out to be more graphic than animation. That scored big points with me. I designed with own business card. At the time consisted of blood splatter and skulls. I was so hardcore back then. Regardless, it looked snazzy and I was pleased, as was my teacher surprisingly.