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Coming from a very distant country to the United States, I was born in Davao, Philippines. I was not very sure until middle school to how my toddler phase went until I had my parents explain to me what happened.
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My mother gave birth to me along with my two other sisters one about 10 years older than me and one just one year younger. When I moved it was only my little sister who stayed with my mother in the Philippines. My older sister and I were adopted to my parents whom I live with who are technically my Aunt and Uncle but I always referred to them and Mom and Dad. I'm not too sure who my biological father is I still keep in touch with my mother.
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I moved to the United States when I was 3 with my whom I consider always my parents. My older sister was here before I was but I don't remember as much on what was happening at the time. I had like a welcome party and met all of my family friends and aunts and uncles.
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I was not that nervous about attending school. I was just shy about making friends, but I eventually warmed up and most of them I know to this day. I went to preschool at St Lawrence O'Toole and kindergarten in a different catholic school that is closed now but I cant remember the name well because I was sick for most of the year due to pneumonia
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Sports have always been a passion of mine but it took me a while to figure out which sport I fell in the right category.
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1st grade I tried soccer but never paid attention to the camp instructors. 2nd grade I tried baseball but immediately regretted little league because after the 3rd day we did a drill where the instructors tossed the ball which seemed to me like a million feet into the air and when it was my turn to catch it hit me in the eye. I also tried tennis but I never really had friends that played tennis.
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In 4/5th grade, I thought I had settled in basketball. And I did for a while. I joined the rec basketball team. It was a lot of fun for a while and we won the whole season winning all of the games except one where we tied. After that, I slowly lost interest in basketball and realized I would not get very far anyways.
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In 8th grade, I then became part of the main relay team. Somehow we dominated other schools in sprinting events. But this year all of my friends and I have improved massively within that year. We eventually broke the school's 4x100 relay record set by the 8th graders of the previous year.
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Here starts the best decision I've made throughout all of grade school. Joining the Modified Track and Field team. I always enjoyed competing on being the fastest anywhere I was whether it was just at Recess or when we were racing during gym class. Practices were hard for me but somehow I enjoyed pushing myself. I made it onto our second-fastest relay team but it was hard competing against people who are a grade above me but I did well on my individual races.
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My Highschool had an interesting start. I was super shy around all of the bigger kids and people that are in different grades in my classes but that was fine. Over the summer into the fall I joined marching band and didn't enjoy it that much. I never knew that the winter track was a thing until my dad signed me up. That year was a very good start to the track season because during spring our freshman team dominated a couple of meets against some senior teams.
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Sophomore year came around and I'm just wondering how I can get better with track offseason. I came around to the decision that I'm going to try out cross country. I knew I was not gonna be good at it but it will help me improve my endurance during track season. I was told to go to the cross country camp over the summer and it was an amazing experience. Although the main runs were tough the rest of those days were just hanging out doing outdoor activities.
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There was a lot that had happened during my sophomore year. I decided to take a class called Introduction to Engineering and it came out to being a class I enjoyed a lot. I slowly developed a passion to become an engineer like my dad. Not only was it a fun class I had a lot of my friends and I continue to take engineering classes.
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After track season I was over I decided to try out for the football team. I still went to the cross country camp just to stay in running shape but I had a good time during football season. I mainly focused on running and improving my speed for track season. I was going to try and play wide receiver but I didn't feel as ready to play that position so the coaches put me playing cornerback. I had not known much about football and it was a good learning experience for me.
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Cross Country was a lot of fun but there was one problem. During track season I hardly had noticed an improvement as to last year. I realized although my endurance improved, it does not help my speed in sprinting. The only area where I had improved that was noticeable was in long jump. I only made it as far as to state qualifiers until my season came to a disappointing stop. Then I took some hard thinking in my decisions of fall sports and I settled on trying out for the football team.
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And so it turns out. Football did in fact improve my tack season. I made it to all the track meets I didn't the previous year. I got a personal record as the meets went by and came towards the end of the season. The 4x200 team and my coach kept putting me as a substitute until it came to where we kept qualifying to even bigger meets. I kept working hard with the 4x200 team during practice and eventually I was brought along to states and they qualified to Nationals which was sadly canceled.
