My Story

Chapter 1

Born in Las Vegas, NV, my parents had bought a home there at the age of 20-23. My father worked at first as a Landscaper, then a stone cutter/polisher, and finally tile installation over a course of 2-3 years. They realized wages were quite poor and competition amongst our Hispanic kin was high, so they decided to move from the West Coast to the East Coast. There, they resided in Gaithersburg. My father and mom were highly unstable in terms of where they wanted to live. They built a home in Mexico, and we would frequently travel back and forth between Mexico and the USA (1 year in Mexico and another in the USA throughout my primary school). I attended Brown Station in Gaithersburg while at the same time I attended private school in Queretaro, Mexico. (There’s another private school I attended but let’s keep it simpler).

So, as I was saying, we made frequent trips back and forth between Mexico and the USA during primary school. I wasn't fully raised in the USA or Mexico, so it's kind of like a blur. Between kindergarten and 4th grade, that was the case. I didn't include these years in this bio because of time constraints here, but I was a bully and neither mastered English nor Spanish, so essentially Spanglish was passing. Also, American teachers and kids would scapegoat all their problems onto me and stuff, and I couldn't fight back because I had no idea what was going on since I didn't master English.

During my time in private school in Mexico, sometime between my 4th Grade year, I was the dumbest of the bunch. I guess what would you expect—a Spanglish kid in a Mexican private school. That's a recipe for disaster. Anyway, I started off horribly, getting the equivalent of 50% or below grades. They would write paragraphs through paragraphs on the board and you were expected to copy it word for word on your notebook. I guess it doesn't sound too hard, right? Well, I was wrong. For starters, they used 3 types of pencils: a blue pencil for capitalization, a red pencil for correction since you weren't allowed to erase, and your ordinary pencil without an eraser. On top of that, I knew nothing on how to write in Spanish. So it was no surprise my grades collapsed in the first quarter. I was bullied for a good long quarter (you know our Hispanic kin back home is wild), and despite it being private, it didn't help. The worst part was they were right on every mean thing they said. They said how could I call myself a Mexican if I couldn't speak or write? Or called me names like the "Fake gringo non-Mexican." Following the 2nd quarter, I completely broke down and cried due to an identity crisis. Who was I? I'm sure everyone has gone through the same when you visited your pals back in your home country. Luckily, I had a great teacher who noticed my struggles and personally mentored me throughout the 3rd and 4th quarter after school for 2 hours. By the time the 4th quarter ended, I had finally matched my Mexican pals' language and writing skills. Obviously, their bullying stopped and they finally considered me as one of their own.

Well, my Dad once again brought us back to America and I attended Brown Station. This time it was a permanent stay. Since I had mastered Spanish, all I needed was English mastery, which I picked up throughout 5th grade. Oddly enough, I excelled in mathematics (from skills back in Mexican private school) and finally got rid of that dreaded ESOL. I performed poorly in English writing for a while until I picked up a love for reading at my local library and finally caught up by the end of 5th grade.

By the time middle school hit, I was outperforming in mathematics and finally matched my American pals. I took Math 6 and attended orchestra. I was pretty horrible at violin. I think there were 3 levels (Beginner, Mid, Elite). I was stuck at the beginner level for 6th and 7th grade. I was curious about love but it didn't come to me as easily as others; I was quite dense and shy at the time and scared of dating (comes back to bite me in the present day). It's so bizarre it comes so easily for others today and my older churchmates. I guess they're just built different and got that goat and chad in them. I guess it was also the fact that all my near Cross Country friends and school friends didn't really date anyone and I kinda matched their energy, I dunno. Oh, and I suppose the hair loss thing in 10th grade also contributed, which I'll discuss in later chapters here… he he heh.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. So basically, I was 3rd level in orchestra in 6th and 7th grade. I was also playing soccer throughout 6th, 7th, and a little of 8th grade with my dad's soccer team. He was the coach for a team and we won a few cups (not bragging), but it's too long a story to put here. Initially, we were bad at it, but then by the end of it, we were the best team in the entire Germantown Soccerplex. In contrary to most teams who were there by automatic placement or paid with money to be in the best, our team was entirely merit-based and non-discriminatory, so anyone could join, even the poor, but only the best would be placed in the game. For example, our top players Mamoud and Abdul were Egyptians, but they spoke little to no English initially and had no money to pay tuition (not us, the Soccerplex itself charged tuition). However, we waived their pass because we saw their potential (it paid off). This also extended to another African American player who was incredibly talented but lacked funds. Obviously, we had other pro players like Agustin, Carlos, and Christian who coincidentally also attended my church CCI. So I think through a combination of merit, multiculturalism and diversity, and zero money barriers, we achieved such a strong team and won a few cups. As for me, I was a decent player overall with the exception of my dad's team; in comparison to them, I was actually very, very bad skill-wise, which was kinda the idea (merit > nepotism). So obviously I had little playtime and that was kinda the point because this gave room for top talent to rise over family connections or paying money to play. Obviously, once I left the team for another team far below, well, I was no longer the “if there's time I will put you in” guy anymore because, well, yeah, going down the team ranks automatically raises your status because the players aren’t as great. However, I didn't truly like soccer; it was mostly my dad's dream for me to play, and my passion was actually running. However, I didn't know that yet since I didn't know there was such a thing as cross country at the time… I mean I knew track, but that doesn't count.

I attempted the school soccer team but unfortunately, there was corruption like nepotism and not merit because the coach would favor friends of friends instead. This greatly contrasted with cross country, which was completely merit since numbers don’t lie, which I tried out in 8th Grade. Either way, in 7th Grade, I took French 1A since I couldn't take it in 6th grade because apparently the ESOL thing back in elementary school threw off my middle school teacher. So I took French because, well, I knew Spanish fluently already and it would be unfair to kids who were genuinely trying to learn it. I was leapfrogged to Algebra in 7th grade, so mathematics was my strong suit. I took geometry in 8th grade and stuff.

I joined cross country in 8th grade. I don't know why, I guess it was perhaps the corruption in soccer that saddened me? Or burning out? Or I really can't pinpoint, but I did love running like a madman for some reason. I decided to abandon soccer and join my friend #1 in cross country who also played soccer with me in the past (the lower-ranked team I joined at the end). He was the Goat. Not only was he the fastest, smartest kid in school (also through high school) and natural with the ladies (aka he didn't like anyone, even in High, it was the other way around). I bet ya anyone would fall for him 10/10, heck I would fall if I was a girl. I guess it made sense why he wouldn't like anyone since the girl intellectually/speed equivalent didn't exist per se (there was, but I don’t know, the guy was dense). He was a tiny bit cocky/egotistical but his heart was in the right place and was a pretty nice guy once you got to know him. There was also my friend #2 who performed poorly in running initially but eventually had a glow-up + growth spurt and became the 1st place runner in High School there too. He also didn't date anyone until, well, as far as I can remember. I think I had genuinely great influences in my friends' groups. So essentially I did great in 8th grade and was number #4 out of #10 from 15 guy runners in middle school. With friend #1, I believe, in 2nd place and friend #2 as < 4th place. To be fair, 1st place Friend #3 was an outlier; he was an 8th grader in a senior's body. Dude was like 6 feet tall and an anomaly. He was sick of the soccer corruption as well so he joined the cross country team.

So in high school, I was taking, I believe, Algebra 2 in freshman year and eventually Pre-Calc in Sophomore year. I was also in cross country in freshman year and Friend #1 was excelling once again in everything academically and running. So remember when I said every girl liked him, I'm not exaggerating. He had the looks, the grades, the personality, and the speed, but dude was as dense as a rock. In freshman year I did have a couple of classmates from church as well… um and I’ll stop here because things start to go downhill fast…. Hair loss, life foot injury, poor grades, new school of geniuses (Urbana High School), new home (Green Valley Rd), new cell group, new friends, and much much more. It's pretty dense….

Chapter 1.5

Um where was I... uh so sometime in CCI before the Great Divide. I did serve in the youth section downstairs in Northwest High School, and I believe Rosa was a leader there too for a while — and in the car parking service for the church and stuff…

I was initially in Maldonado's cell group with my parents for a considerable amount of time. Me and my brother would spend time with their kids throughout our middle school years and then fully transitioned to the adult regular service and stuff.

After that, I joined a cell group with Brian and Pastor Javier’s son — a group of jóvenes — for a time in Montgomery Village… then I joined Selvin and Brenda’s cell group, which included Brandon, Jackeline, Kevin, Norma, and others. I think I preached once but was incredibly bad at it… I did get along with them pretty well though.

A Brief Story About Them…

Norma attended my freshman year at Quince Orchard High School — we had the same precalc class. She was chill and had her share of boyfriends (not judging). Occasionally, she'd invite them to church. I definitely considered relationships weird and strange at the time since I was still a freshman.

Brandon was another pretty chill dude — we’d occasionally play soccer. I think (don’t quote me on this) he attended Northwest High. His parents would visit Maldonado's cell group and he had a sister too. I think he had a relationship at one point. His driving skills were kinda rusty, but to be fair, he was just starting to drive.

Kevin played soccer sometimes too — I think he attended Gaithersburg High. Jacqueline was into tennis and was chill. I think she liked some guy from her school but I don’t know for sure. I think nowadays my parents occasionally order pupusas from Kevin and Jacqueline’s parents for cell service. Selvin and Brenda were great leaders — I really appreciated their preaching. Brenda was married or deeply in a relationship at the time too.

Entering high school, I developed skills to rebuild broken iPhones — took many failed attempts but I definitely learned. I even developed a game app but couldn’t afford the $100 Apple developer fee to deploy it. Friends encouraged me to do PC builds during middle and high school, but I couldn't afford that until after high school. I already had the technical know-how from rebuilding phones, but a working PC cost about $500.

Eventually, after high school, I earned money and built like three custom PCs with my brother — can’t remember exactly how many, but definitely a few.

Back to High School

Freshman year was okay-ish, but I started falling behind in math because of cross country. My coach advised me to hold off running and focus on studies by sophomore year. But then I started losing my hair due to alopecia areata. I got really sad and pushed friends away… isolated myself. My grades tanked. I wasn't motivated. I thought I just had to wait it out — maybe I’d go fully bald, maybe it would grow back. But instead, it was a rollercoaster — sometimes growing back, sometimes falling out again. It didn’t choose one or the other. I couldn’t handle it well.

In theory, maybe I could have had a relationship sophomore, junior, or senior year. My cross-country friends talked about it more in junior/senior year. I was starting to consider it, but didn’t want to bring someone into my struggles. We weren’t even 100% sure it was alopecia at first — there was fear it was something worse (it wasn’t, and thankfully my hair did grow back and stayed).

To Be Continued…

I'll continue further in Chapter 2 — about changing schools from Quince Orchard High to Urbana High (the “school of geniuses”) for junior and senior year, and the injury — and more dense stuff.

Chapter 2

So chapter 2 starts off in sophomore year or so during this time I was right about to take cross country again for the fall season….. unfortunately however my coach had told me it was better if I took a break so I could raise my grades up and stuff since I had done poorly last quarter of freshman year. I definilty think he was in the right it was pretty simply bring grades up n stuff and go back to running I guess…. Or so I thought…. It was partly my fault since I had been taking in more then I could chew since I was taking AP US history at the time and PreCalc and AP French n stuff when I could have just taken things in a more peaceful manner by taking regular classes like Spanish or simple mathematics, or regular old history and stuff and guaranteed an A or B+ definitely no doubt but I was challenger type and wasn’t really content with taking the easy route of life….. thing was I didn’t anticipate disaster to strike shortly after when the first batches of hair began to fall and um shortly after my grades nosedived out of sadness…. I did undergo treatment with dermatologist n stuff….but it was helpless at the time they told us it was alopecia areata but it was new to us and the fact that they couldn’t cure it made us doubt if they actually what it was….um like I said if had gone bald then I guess I would have accepted it and moved on but it became more cyclical and random…. So I couldn’t just deal with it…. Obvoisly all friends asked me about it and I would tell them n stuff but not even I understood it well…..I used to be a very social person before but after those events I isolated myself in sadness and just kept to myself hoping things would get better n stuff. I mean I guess I could have worn a hat or something but you know school policy n stuff. Technically I could have you know shaved my head and forced it but the thing was it didnt really look any better since it looked like spots were missing and not like scars or anything like that. I guess what really worried me and kept me at edge was that i didnt know if this would lead to something more serious…. Like im not gonna say cancer or anything like that but I don’t know its like a weird feeling when a doctor tells you we dont have a cure and say its this but at the end of the day they scratch there heads in confusion too and give you treatments that don’t work. Like not knowing is bizarre confusing thing like is it placebo? Serious ? not serious? I mean like what in the world is it? Either way um by the end of sophomore year or my parents decided to move to Clarksburg and I moved from quince orchard high to Urbana high. Yeah so at this time my parents were heavily remodeling the home for the next two years or so so we definitely worked pretty hard on the weekends n stuff. We also left celvin youth group because it was no longer practical for us to travel all the way there due to distance. So I started off Urbana high realitively poorly thos guys were practical geniuses compared to QO I mean there dumbest guy was QO smartest guy I mean that was insane. Especially in Calculus geez thos guys were fast almost instant fast……no joke I was not able to keep there pace at all and me being taking Calc was super dumb… i could have taken things more peacefully….taken the L and just said ill take easy math classes until I sorted things you know moving new schools and losing my friends and not knowing you health condition was a recipe for disaster especially with me taking more things then I could chew… especially since I took I believe AP World history aswell on junior year …. I was really dumb I swear…. I needed time slowly build up but I was stuburn and took the hard route on purpose…

Chapter 2.5

Uh so chapter 2.5 follows by me being in junior high um yeah so the majority of the guys there were geniuses and stuff. um so obviously at this time I kinda start from scratch and have no friends n stuff except for two fellows called ben and Esteban( track field + Cross country). I later joined indoor track n field by winter or so… I cant remember if I joined cross country in junior year or not but I definitely rejoined by senior year in the fall…. Along with track and field in the winter and spring….. um i did improve my endurance compared to my freshman year and sophomore years…… tho its hard to tell if its because my physical body finally matured or if it was because after many years of training was improving considerably…. Most likely it was a combination of both time, training and physical maturity. Um yea so at this time I had occurred to me to join macroeconomics for senior year I believe….. It was a mistake of my part to take the class because it was incredibly hard….but I did learn very valuable lessons from an Indian guy n stuff… the one I mentioned a while ago n stuff……. Um grade wise it was a mix I did perform decently in some tests and others poorly……. Overall I think I was below average…. Some other kids performed poorly too because it was that hard. Um yeah so the Indian guy um I did pick up his advice on Tesla and how it was the future n stuff…. I cant remember if it was him or if was just the class itself that gave the idea….I definitely know he gave advice on Bitcoin but Tesla was bit foggy in my memory….but ill give credit to him regardless….um so yeah uh I decided to take a bet on Tesla but I don’t think I had money at the time till after high school n stuff( in college) and ill explain that in chapter 3ish…. So um continuing after this period um I think I only really had two freinds at this new school mostly because I had recently moved n stuff and I was periodically still losing hair so yeah I was very conservative with friendships. Um during this period or after highschool me and my brother finnally got the funds to build computers n stuff. So went ahead and built several… think I explained this previously um basically trial and error and back and forth with micro center n stuff. Um yeah that was there .. um also I did take a financial education class in senior year and i performed great there tho to be fair the class was too easy…. learned about credit cards …. Setting budgets n stuff…… I mean it was simple math algebra tis but a scratch. Also business class and also performed exceptionally there but again it was simple math stuff …. We did discuss about business plans…etc…. Um and finnally computer science and web development class… there was a genius asian girl there that was exceptionally talented and I do regret not asking more advice from her….. I mean she was actually smarter than our teacher ….crazy stuff… like no joke she was a prodigy…. Um so yeah in this class I did do really great …um I was definitely popping out some great websites…. I mean I think you could tell where I learned.um it was kinda funny that our teacher would give her advice and to be fair he did give her credit n stuff…. But it was kinda funny since she was smarter than him and I was like yeah it should be the other way around….um yep. um Ap world history was very interesting class too….. I found it facinating how multiple cultures rose to power and stories like Alexander the great and Chinese dysnasties stories like Admiral Yi from South Korea, and Meiji restoration …..etc tons and tons of stories…. Um I think I did great with the knowledge test but I believe since it was AP we had to take essay tests…… and I was bad at writing n stuff. I definitely loved this class tho but because of the essays I wasn’t that good. Um also I took AP physics which again I was incredibly dum because I could have just stuck to regular physics but oh well…. but yeah um as expected I did pretty poorly there. Um so basically yeah that’s my story in Urbana high…..um I graduated albeit with poor grades but graduated nonetheless… chapter 3 will start off with my foot injury and journey in college, work,finances, Tesla etc. Oh yeah I also took AP lang but I was really bad at it… I definitely hated that class… and essays were my weakness.