Casey Alex - They let me write a book!: Jamies world

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION
   Hi! lol. Here goes nothing...
2. CHAPTER 1
   Thats not a rocket: baby me calls a box a box
3. CHAPTER 2
   My double life as a sports superhero and amateur hole-digger
4. CHAPTER 3
   Please dont bully the poor kid in the cowboy hat
5. CHAPTER 4
   Finally, a comedy star is born (jokes)
6. CHAPTER 5
   Risky tomato sauce heists at high school
7. CHAPTER 6
   The unexpected yet natural birth of Jamies World
8. CHAPTER 7
   Dealing with my cool life online
9. CHAPTER 8
   When I started getting recognised
10. CHAPTER 9
    Dont press this leopards panic button
11. CHAPTER 10
    Im so OCD no, like, literally
12. CHAPTER 11
    This is a job! Wait, what?
13. CHAPTER 12
    How do I adult?

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO START A WHOLE BIG BOOK WHEN I CANT EVEN START A VIDEO PROPERLY?

HI, HELLO. HI THERE. HOWDY DO. OH LOOK, Ive ruined it already. I dont really know how to start a book. Look at me. How am I supposed to start a whole big book when I cant even start a video properly, as Im sure you are well aware? Ive decided to call this book They Let Me Write a Book!, because thats about how I am feeling right now, and Im sure they are feeling right now. Whoever they are. All out there united in wondering why on Earth this is all happening. Why have I been given the power over all of this blank paper? Why me? I ask that question every day.

When they asked me to come up with a title, I imagined that I was an eight-year-old who had just been asked to write a book. Dont ask me why I chose eight, and didnt just go with nineteen like I am now. I think eight-year-olds have enough of a brain going to make decisions, but havent lived long enough to let annoying life stuff get in the way of their impulses. So here I am, eight-year-old me, deciding what to call my book.

My first eight-year-old reaction, as has been the reaction of everyone around me, was THEY let ME write a BOOK?! So I thought I should run with that. Just to make it very clear from the very beginning: Im as surprised as you are that all of this is happening.

If you have picked this book up in a public toilet, or if it was being used to prop up a desk in your office, you are probably feeling pretty confused right now. Allow me to introduce myself. Im Jamie, Im nineteen years old. I make videos on the Internet, and enough people watched them that they let me write a book. I know. I cant tell you whats going on with the world either. What is life?

JUST TO MAKE IT VERY CLEAR FROM THE VERY BEGINNING: IM AS SURPRISED AS YOU ARE THAT ALL OF THIS IS HAPPENING.

WELCOME TO JAMIES WORLD: IM PUSHING THE TROLLEY BUT THERES NOBODY IN IT TO STEER.

I THINK I HAVE A HANDLE ON MYSELF NOW, but I dont really remember when I first knew that I was a person. My earliest memory is probably of being at kindergarten, pushing around this special trolley that had a steering wheel in it. There was nobody inside it, so nobody was steering the wheel. Thats not only my first memory, but my first of many memories where I have done something wrong and embarrassing. Welcome to Jamies World: Im pushing the trolley but theres nobody in it to steer. Thats got to be a symbol of something for sure. What am I doing? Who am I steering? Whats my plan of attack? Take notes, there will be a quiz at the end.

Invisible friends sitting in trolleys aside, I wasnt actually the most imaginative of kids. I dont even think that I had an imagination until I was about eight. The same age I picture myself being able to come up with this book title. Before eight, if you caught me jumping off a box, Id be saying Im jumping off this box rather than Im jumping off this rocket ship. I called a box a box. I wasnt messing around with ideas and make-believe. But I was happy. I was probably the happiest kid of all time, which Im sure was very annoying to everyone around me. Nothing has really changed since I was that little kid on a box. Now I just annoy people from a different kind of box.

Although I may give off the oddball only child yelling about boxes kind of vibe, I actually have a younger sister called Tayla. I know that she exists now well, at least Im pretty sure but I dont remember her ever existing in my childhood. The only memory I have is of her as a baby, when she was chilling in one of those elastic baby rocker things. I would have to restrain myself from pinging it back and making her fling across the room. Aside from that, as far as Im concerned I was pretty much an only child till I was about six. But dont tell my sister that. She was probably too busy orbiting the Earth on her post-pinged baby rocker anyway.

I was always good at getting what I wanted as a child.

AS FAR AS IM CONCERNED I WAS PRETTY MUCH AN ONLY CHILD TILL I WAS ABOUT SIX. BUT DONT TELL MY SISTER THAT.

Mum took me into a store and I picked up this Barney toy and wouldnt let it go. Mum had to buy it.

When I was about three, Mum took me to the shops with her. Big mistake. I latched on to a Barney soft toy that I found particularly fetching, and dragged it around the shop with me. Mum tried to get me to put it back so we could leave the shop. I wouldnt let it go. I tightened my grip like a vice and screamed and screamed. She was left with no choice but to buy me the Barney toy so we could leave the shop and get on with our lives. Thats life lesson number one: seize onto what you want and never, ever let go of it.