Hi! It's me!

Once upon a time, sometime during the early 80's in the city of Caracas, a handsome young man named Juan and a beautiful lady name Alicia met. As time went on, cupid struck their hearts and their love for each other blossomed...now fast forward a few years to February 1992, when their union ultimately resulted in a little crying meatball full of laughs and farts. Yup, you guessed it, that little meatball was me! Hi, my name is Alejandro and here is my story.

Like I said before, it all started out the year 1992 in Venezuelan. Yes, I’m from there. From what I’ve been told I was a handful of a child, or as my mother puts it, very “creative and energetic”. That’s just her nice way of saying I did not like to listen to adults and enjoyed experimenting with random things. From an early age, I demonstrated a very curious personality, I’ve always been fascinated by how things worked. Whether it was building massive Legos structures to painting to taking apart my toys to see how they functioned. This curiosity quickly developed into a passion for the sciences and mathematics. I attended primary school in Caracas in the school San Agustin del Marques.  Here I began to find my niche; I was excelling in the math and science courses over everything else. This might have something to do with the fact that my father is an engineer and my mother a chemist. Our household was always very science based. Whether we were cooking dinner or fixing something in the car, I grew up with the scientific method and empirical logic drilled into my brain. Though still important for a well-rounded formation, the social sciences did not particularly spark my interest. Well, they did later in life but that’s a story for a later time.

As a kid, I had the dream of graduating from my current school in Caracas, then attend the University Simon Bolivar to study mechanical engineering, and then find an engineering job somewhere in Venezuela. This house of card quickly came crumbling down as the socio-economic situation in Venezuela worsened. My parents knew that the situation was not going to improve, and quickly decided to look for a way to flee the country. They diligently worked on the immigration papers and necessary Visas to come to the United States. So much for my original life plans; I was going to the USA now.

On September 24, 2002 we touched down at the Miami Airport. My parents, myself, my five year old younger brother, my two-month old youngest brother, and ten humongous suitcases; this was it, no looking back. We were here to start a new life. Did I mention we didn’t speak English? Well we didn’t, which as you can imagine made things even more difficult to begin with.

The first day of 5th grade was rough, I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t understand the system. It was all very foreign to me; pun intended. I actually got sent to the principal’s office on my first day. Let me begin with, I wasn’t my fault. My initials get pulled together to from a very peculiar acronym, “A”lejandro “S”an “S”egundo. I’ll let you guys figure it out. My mother, being the amazing mom that she is, wrote my initial on everything I owned including the required school supplies one brings for the classroom. Upon unzipping my backpack and pulling all my stuff out my teacher, Ms. Walker, almost had a heart attack when she saw ass written on all of the kids’ belongings. She lectured me and kept on trying to communicate. She thought I was being difficult and was not responding, I literally did not understand what she was babbling about. So yeah, I got sent to principal’s office where they quickly figured out that I did not speak a lick English.  They changed my class that day and put me in the ESOL program for kids that didn’t speak English. Luckily the U.S. has programs like these, because otherwise I would’ve been screwed. I attended the 5th and 6th grade in Miami, Florida and it went well. The acclimation to my new life was coming along I was making friends and I was slowly picking up the language. It also helped that a large part of the ESOL class were students of Latin descent that had immigrated to the states. Once I was beginning to feel comfortable at my new school and city, my parents decided to move. Not very far, just a couple of hours up north to Fort Lauderdale. Still, new school? new friends? I was going to have to go through it all again! But we were moving from an apartment to a house, with a yard, and I was getting my own room. So, I stop complaining and went along, it wasn’t too hard to convince me on that one.

We moved to Weston, Florida in the summer of 2004 and I began attending Falcon Cove middle that fall. That year, life started taking a turn for the best, I was making good friends at home, doing well in school, and meeting more and more people. I finally tested of ESOL in 7th grade an was allowed to take advanced and honors courses. Of course, I enrolled for the science and math classes. The neighborhood we moved to was full of kids, so making friends was much easier.  My first real friend was my neighbor Fernando. It all started out with a simple invitation to play basketball in his drive way. In school that year I met two other goons by the names of John and Landon we quickly clicked and began hanging out more. Before I knew it, circa 8th grade, I finally had a solid group of friends. Now fast forward thirteen years and those three goons are still some of my best friends. Landon and John just recently got married; talk about growing up. As youngster, we would play outside any chance we could. Whether basketball, football, soccer, skateboard, rugby, we were always doing something active. I was very sporty and started participating in local YMCA leagues. I loved moving around and playing sports. I was even planning on trying out for the high school football team next year as a freshman.

I began 9th grade in Cypress Bay High. Here is where I really started becoming who I was today. I didn’t feel like I was playing catch up anymore and I was able make my own path.  Cypress Bay wasn’t your regular high school either, it was very different to say the least. Our principal, Mr. Neely, believed in giving the students the freedom they desired in return for the respect the school deserved. This worked very well aside from a couple of outlying instances. Besides the difference in culture, while I was there Cypress was the largest high school in the country with over 5500 students. It felt much more like a college than a high school. Because of its size and constant excellence in academics, we received a large chunk of the county’s public school budget. This led to countless AP classes and electives available to the students. I kept excelling in math and science and kept progressing through different advanced placement courses. Regardless of where I lived, I still wanted to be a mechanical engineer.