Title→ About Me Uploaded Date→ Tuesday, December 30th, 2014 By→ RyderLSU Description→ I attempt the LSUtube About Me Video Challenge (Proceeds donated to the International Dyslexia Association)
[Ryder sits down after turning on the camera, this time looking a little nervous] Hello again internet, its me Ryder and this week I'm doing something a little out of the ordinary for me. This month's LSUtube challenge is to make an About Me video that gives the audience a run down of your entire life and experiences and I've been agonising over how exactly to go about that for so long that I'm having to do it now right as the month is about to end. I'm not really the type of person to share much about themselves, so this is definitely going to be hard for me but I'm always up for a challenge. [Ryder gives the camera a 'thumbs up' in a show of false bravado but is clearly still anxious]
So, to start off with, I'll go all the way back to the beginning. My life began at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith, where I was born just a few minutes past midnight on 30th September 1995. While I was born in Fort Smith, as I mentioned in my last video, I grew up in the small town of Cedarville which is about twenty miles north of there. Fort Smith just happens to be the closest city with a maternity ward to my hometown. Cedarville is your typical small Southern town in every sense. Its a very insular, very conservative and very closely knit community with just over 1300 people. Everybody knows everybody, especially if your parents are fairly major members of the local community. My dad, Steven Lynn, is more commonly known in town as Dr. Lynn since he runs the only local practice. My mom, Rebecca, not only helps out at my dad's practice but also runs most of the community groups and committees in town. If there's a petition that needs signing or a charity bake sale, you can be pretty much assured that Rebecca Lynn is behind it. [Ryder stops and just smiles, remembering all his mother's activities around Cedarville]
Despite how neurotically over-achieving my parents are, I can honestly say they're the best parents in the world. I know everyone says that about their mom and dad but I promise you that they are the two most selfless, generous and supportive people I know. These two would probably walk through fire for anyone who was in need, even if they didn't know them. That's the kind of people they are and honestly, if I turn out to be even half as great as them I will be a pretty lucky human being. I know that sound massively sappy but I guess when I get a little further along in this video, you'll see why I'm so in awe of them and you'll probably be a little in awe of them too.
I started school, just like almost everybody else, at age five when I started at Cedarville Preschool. Unlike other kids, I really struggle for most of my early school years with reading and comprehension until my fifth grade teacher talked to my parents about getting me tested for dyslexia. As it turned out, that teacher was completely right. I did have dyslexia. Or, to be more accurate, I still do have dyslexia. The symptoms just aren't as pronounced as they were. After I got diagnosed, the first thing my parents did was sit me down and explain to me that in no way did it mean I was dumb or stupid or any of the other things that my classmates or even some of my teachers had called me over the years. See what I meant by incredibly supportive? A month or two after that, my parents and I started travelling to Little Rock almost every weekend for a dyslexia intervention program. It was definitely difficult and one of the hardest things but it really helped me out a lot in the long run. Like I said, I still have dyslexia and some days are harder than others but I honestly can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't gone through that program and I'm so thankful for all their help.
After that, the rest of my school career was fairly smooth sailing or at least it was up until my final year of high school. As soon as I entered high school, I pretty quickly realized that I was very good at sports. So good, in fact, that by the time I was a sophomore I was already playing as the first string quarterback for our highschool's football team, the Pirates. Another thing I also started to realize in highschool was my sexuality. I don't really go broadcasting this too much but since I am a member of LSU's LGBTQIA+ community group it shouldn't come that much of a surprise that I'm not heterosexual. Instead, I'm bisexual and I really started to figure that out in the last few months as a sophomore. I'd dated a few girls, even been in “love” but I also started noticing that I felt the same way about guys too. Living in a conservative rural town, this obviously freaked me out quite a bit when I first confronted it. I was terrified what my friends would say, what my parents would do and pretty much just scared of anything to do with it. After a while, I came to terms with it and started to really accept it for myself but I was still very adamant about not telling anyone. At least not until I was away at college.
That seemed to be going fairly well until something happened in my senior year that made everyone in town very aware of my bisexuality. While I've been fairly open with what I'm telling you so far, I don't really want to get into that whole sequence of events here as it was pretty recent and I guess I'm still dealing with it myself. All you really need to know is that a very large portion of Cedarville and the people I called my friends were not happy. I was even effectively thrown off the football team by the joint efforts of both a very homophobic coach and very homophobic captain which ultimately made me lose my scholarship to the University of Arkansas. [Ryder stops and falters a little, clearly getting pretty emotional] Sorry, just give me a second.
[He shakes his head and calms himself down] The one little positive of the whole thing, however, was my parents. Just like with the dyslexia, they were incredibly loving and supportive through out the whole thing and had no issues whatsoever with my sexuality. As it turned out, the weekend the whole thing went down, my mom was about to tell me we were going to be flying out to Chicago later that week so we could attend her sister's wedding to her long time girlfriend. They definitely didn't have a problem with it. While that was all well and good, there was still the issue of college. University of Arkansas was definitely off the table since I'd lost my scholarship and I didn't really want to go to a university where most of my classmates were heading anyway so my parents and I looked at a few other universities and saw LSU. My mom has a very large amount of family here in Baton Rogue so it seemed like a pretty solid idea, especially since they were all more than happy to let me stay with them over the summer so that I could just get out of Cedarville as soon as possible.
All the family here have been incredibly understanding and welcoming which has meant I've had a really great support network the whole time I've been at LSU. I guess I should have mentioned that pretty much my whole family is as wonderful as my parents. Not to say it hasn't been hard, though. I definitely do miss my parents and having to start all over in a new city and make new friends hasn't been easy but I think that given the situation, everything has turned out pretty well. I love it here at LSU and I've met some really great people through my classes, Spectrum, the station and even from the Through My Eyes Program. Everyday I spend here is so rewarding and I'm now that I'm so lucky to be here.
Well. This has been a pretty long video but I think I've covered everything I wanted to. I hope this gave you a little more insight into who I am and what I'm all about even if I did spend half of it just talking about how great my parents are. I've really enjoyed watching everyone else's videos and I hope this is as good and as honest as theirs. Also, before I forget, I just wanted to say that I'm donating the extra proceeds from this video to the International Dyslexia Association. They're a not-for-profit based in Baltimore dedicated to dyslexia advocacy and education and definitely a cause close to my heart. Thanks for watching, remember to like and subscribe and I'll see you all in the New Year. Bye!
