Tag: 2006

Top Ten Series: What are the top ten lessons I have learned in the last ten years (Part 1 of 3)…

Posted on by anele25

Welcome to a new series I am starting which sort of resembles the countdowns we see on Sportscenter, MLB Network, and various other sports networks. I thought for the series I would begin with top ten lessons learned in the last ten years. Ten years ago around this time I was 15 years old without a care in the world. I had just been told that I had weight issues and this is when I also was informed that I would need to move to a new school in Cupertino. I didn’t want to lose my friends that I already had so I was going through the worst case scenarios in my head. I also had the idea in the back of my head that school wasn’t for me and I really didn’t need to try that hard. Boy, was I wrong as these lessons about life, school, work, friends, hobbies, interests, and habits soon came back at a rapid rate that even I sometimes can’t believed happened. So, the year is 2003 and my life would dramatically change beginning with…

2003- You have to adjust to new settings.

Starting in this year, I started realizing I was growing up and I liked new things. Gone were the days of my obsession of Dragon Ball Z and in came my interest in El Chavo Del 8. I also started realizing that my feelings about girls was changing as well as I kept far away from them and was shy around them as well. I saw them as the enemy and I never really saw myself as being a ‘player’ as we called them in the early days of high school. However, as I finished my first year of high school I looked at how beautiful and good looking girls are at that point in your life. It can be either an attraction or even a personality attraction as well. I saw my friends go through some changes as they started becoming more independent and branching out with other groups of friends. I was now an outsider and I had to set myself apart. I tried to pick up a hobby or two by taking walks around my block during the evening as this helped me lose a little bit of weight at this point in my life. I couldn’t really say that I was helping that much around my house because I was a teenager that had priorities. I was the nerdy wrestling kid at this point and I really had nothing else to me. But, when high school started I really got into school because I was learning cool things like the French language, the electronics side of school, and the importance of delivering an important speech. I took this idea of delivering an important speech as something that became apart of me because before that I was shy due to the idea that people would laugh at me. This is where my confidence building as it was very low at this point and I was doing my best to get it started somewhere. The summer came and it was very fun. However, the one event that I do remember was me getting one of my kidney stones shrunk so that I urinated it out. This was one of the sacrifices that my parents have made for me in my life as I was in a great deal of pain and they had to deal with my crying and moaning as it was very painful. The sad part is that the pain lasted all of one week and there are people out there that have had pain which lasts longer than that. Later on that month, I remember getting the reminder that I now had to attend Cupertino High School and one of the few white lies in my life that I have made is telling a counselor that I took a class which I never did and he signed me up for the next level of math which I had no business being in. The funny part is, this would play a very important part in my journey a little down the road. Once I got to Cupertino, I was scared because the new setting had me worried to the fullest. I didn’t know many people and now that I think about it, it was for the better. When you don’t know anybody, it could be a blessing in disguise because you are going into an unknown situation. If you mess up, so be it at least you tried getting accustomed to that setting. But, if you succeed, all the better for you and everyone else involved. I remember my brother accompanying me to my first class which was tutorial and I was really nervous. It was almost like the first day of kindergarten when you are a little kid. You don’t know anybody and all you know is that this is a school where you learn stuff. The main thing I learned from those few months (and the entire year) was that you really do have to adjust to new settings and it may be good for you. I learned a world of knowledge and being in a new environment helped me discover that success wasn’t built in a day. You have to find that success within you and with it comes confidence. I can remember doing my first speech at Cupertino and everybody loved it due my energy and being fired up. That is how I made my first impression by showing everybody that I had a bit of soul in me as being the new guy. Adjusting to new settings and getting used to them is apart of life and that is how I did this in that aspect. Now, in the 2004 things got a little bit more interesting.

2004- You can never be too tired

For some odd reason, I remember the Superbowl between the Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots as being the thing that sticks out in my head the most in this year. As the year started, the stress of my classes started getting to me and I was riding on Adrenaline most of that time. I was hardly getting any sleep and I was also dealing with a bit of a health issue at this point as I started having seizures which seemed to come out of the blue but I discovered why they were happening later on in the year. I realized that just like in wrestling you can never be too tired to put on a show and give it your best. I continued getting healthier and I could feel my confidence building a bit. I also started becoming friends with mostly everyone in my classes just out of curiosity. I would later go onto form a bit of a group with some Asian friends that I made who were all very nice to me at this point. I also started taking a bit of interest in sports as I seriously became enamored with baseball at this point. I can remember watching A’s games and started thinking that this is the sport for me. I had watched games here and there but I always thought it was pointless and slow. Once I started watching it however, I noticed how intense and fun the games can become. The year went by and I noticed no matter where you may be you are always moving. It could be that you’re moving towards a big goal or just moving in general. This is also the year that I happened to meet that person that I have written about here in the past and it makes sense to include her her because she was such a wonderful person that I could have respected much more. Life happens for a reason and this particular year was special because I started building my foundation for who I am today. I still was a bit shy and paranoid but I started changing that little by little. I can also remember saying goodbye to one of my favorite history teachers as he taught me a lot about life and history in general. He gave me a good life lesson as he taught me the importance of writing a paper about the question asked rather than avoiding the question all together. I also ended up going to Mexico this year and it was quite the experience as I had the time of my life with my cousins as we all had a fun time kicking back and shooting the shit about our lives. I must say it was quite the year helped by the fact that my Junior year was just starting and I met even more interesting people. I started realizing that the more questions I ask the more it becomes about them and less about me. I enjoyed becoming a good listener rather than rambling on about myself. I could say that this was the template for how I would build myself up for over the next 5 years. It became apparent that instead of being who I almost was I became a sort of ambassador to hear other people’s problems. This is when 2005 came and it became a year of triumph and tragedy.

2005-Cherish the moment

As I stated in the previous year, I started having seizures and I realized as to how I got them and it was good to find out how I gotten them because if I hadn’t them I would probably not be typing this right now. I was in the moment of noticing that you should never be afraid to ask questions for fear of getting reprimanded. I started asking questions to my parents about my health concern, about school to my teachers about something I was confused about, and even particular people in my life. This was the year that one very important person in my family died and I must say it still kind of stings. My grandmother passed away one day after birthday and ever since it feels like a black cloud floating over our family’s head. Once that one family member passes away, it’s as if one side of your family doesn’t exist. I can see the great divide that is seen between one side of my family and the other side and it hurts. That same week, I had finals going on and I can remember all the finals being very intense due to my thinking that my grandmother had passed on. That was really the first time I had thought of death because it had never really hit home yet. One particular final I had required me to present a scene from the dead and it really had me thinking how should I present this scene as I want it to be seen? I knocked it out of the ballpark to say the least. I realized right then and there that life doesn’t last forever and we won’t be here for too long. I had also failed one of classes (Algebra 2) and for good reason and that was because I never asked for help. However, I told myself to not lose hope because at this point I had already gone past the points needed to graduate with my math completed. I wasn’t too worried and eventually everything worked itself. I also saw the path that some of other friends were headed down and I really didn’t enjoy hanging out with them as much as I did before. This was because they had taken on different interests and I had as well. This wasn’t a coincidence as I had my goals set in mind and they had there’s as well. Sometimes, one group of people has their goals and you have your own. I also had learned that opportunities pop up for the weirdest reasons. One of the few cool things that I got to do this particular year was take part in a few mock trials in which I played a major role in a few of them. I was excited to do this because you never know when you may need this type of jargon in real life. One trial had us deciding whether or not the United States was responsible for the losses in other countries due to the role they played in World War 2. I saw that we might have a strong case for my side (pro U.S.) and we won due to some convincing language and some cold hard facts about the role other countries played in that bringing down the economy. My senior year of high school was also set to begin and boy was it fun. I can remember sitting down in the cafe after my third period and basically doing homework the whole time. When that would happen I would listen to the ‘Jim Rome Show’ and some of his takes had me in tears due to the humor that would come with it. I also would be hanging out with friends a lot at this time due to our common interests. My friend that I mentioned earlier also started taking an interest in me which I had no idea why (check out this post from way back). Things were going well for me at this point with studying, watching wrestling, movies, listening to the radio, my family had stable income, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I basically learned this year that cherishing the moment is the most important thing you can do in this life. It may be there tomorrow or it may not. All you have to do is wish and hope that it never goes away. Be cautious of what you are doing, but have fun doing it. I realized you have to live life and be free. But then 2006 came…

2006- Take advantage and understand that you will fail sometimes

One of my teachers this year talked to us at the end of the year and explained to us 5 lessons that he wanted to send us off on. One of the lessons that stuck out to me was to understand that you aren’t always going to succeed and you fail sometimes. This seemed to be the theme of the year as I was successful in leading a team of underachievers to victory in a scene of the play Othello. The scene seemed very basic but I’d be damned if I said I wouldn’t be giving it my all at that point in time. I saw the scene and I imagined myself and three of classmates succeeding. I knew we had potential and I saw how we interacted which could lead to a good product in the classroom. I recently heard the saying that if you’re having fun then you’re audience is going to be having fun as well. This is what happened here as we nailed out of the ballpark with the scene and our interpretation of the scene was spot on due to our chemistry and adjustments. I also started to see not succeeding can be a good thing in some ways and you have to have a back up plan just in case things go wrong. I can remember hanging out with my friend (described in a blog post of course) and thinking to myself the signs were there but I never clung onto the obvious thought of it. I was too naive and young to understand what crushes from a female’s perspective are like and I couldn’t come to the realization that other people have feelings too. If we had gotten together, it would have been a completely different world in my eyes because I’m the kind of person that usually is hurt really easily and I didn’t want that for her or for myself. Now that I’m more mature, I know that women are what they are and we guys are what we are in the grander scheme of things. My family also became a bigger part of my life as I saw them more as friends because they helped me out paying for my first few quarters of community college and other expenses that I had. The funniest thing about life is that once I finished high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and of course I said Business seems easy but I didn’t know where to begin (more on this later). This is where my family would come with suggestions and ideas for me to continue on my educational path but I said business seems just about right for me. As the summer went on and the long months passed, I took a couple trips to Los Angeles and to Mexico both of which were very fun due to the crazy trip ideas my dad had. We took a few trips around Jalisco which seemed like an awesome place to go chill and see the scenery. I must say it was some of the most fun that I had in a while. I also happened to take a trip to one of the famous landmarks in Zacatecas called Organos which was wonderful as I got spend a little bit of time with my uncle, my dad, and one of aunt’s husband who was always super nice to me. What I learned that summer was that you always have opportunities waiting for you in the smallest parts of the world and who knows what may come next. The fall of that year was sort of the beginning of my longing for what could have been as I sped through my classes reading, writing, and wondering when she would come back. I also started going  job searching which was not fun at all after every single job told you “No, No, No”. Once that year was over, I realized two things A) Things work for the best sometimes and B)  I hadn’t reached my full potential yet. The year 2007 was one of the most bleak and forgettable years I choose to acknowledge because nothing could have prepared me for what was to come the next 5 years

2007- Set your goals and aim high

The beginning of the year was a hoot as for some odd reason I would be hanging with my friends from school a lot. We would do the usual routine of hanging out, watch movies, have a pastry, or just talk. I also lost a few friends because I didn’t keep them at arm’s length and they just changed. I can see why they changed as they developed a different outlook on life or they didn’t feel the need to communicate with you any longer. I also started changing a bit but in a more arrogant way. I realized that looking for a job was pointless and I was ready to give up as I went everywhere that had a name to it. The most obvious frustration was that I had no previous job experience so it kind of eliminated the basis to hire me anyway or give me a job interview for that matter. I saw the way that the interviewers came to me and approached me and I saw myself as being better then them. This was one of the few mistakes I made when I came looking for employment as I didn’t know the intricacy’s of what they were looking for and as I went through these interviews I figured out they weren’t looking for the best employee for the job but the job that best fit the employee. Eventually, I figured that one of these places had to hire me and after almost a year and a half of looking I finally found one a few days after Christmas 2007. This was set in 2008 so more on that in the next part. School was also something that kept me afloat as I had tons of fun in my mind control class joking around with a few friends of mine and once again meeting new people. I also happened to see that the classes I was taking were very helpful in helping to expand my field of my study rather than settling on business. I took Geography which helped me see that the world is a real big place and it isn’t that small unless you take other things into account. The one class that really caught my interest was Government which give or take taught me a lot about how senate and congress work as well as well as how different laws are set in stone. During the summer, there wasn’t much going on due to the lack of work that I had in front me but the fall was very interesting due to a few classes I took with a friend and others. My friend in my English 1A talked to me about all the crazy antics he was up to and I told him about mine as well. I would write papers and we would share a few ideas on how to expand on them as well. The other classes that I was taking taught me that I was at least a bit smart because I was understanding the concepts that were put in front of me and all I had to do was try my hardest. But, at this point I also realized that if I had to get a job it would have to be scrapping for the bottom of the barrel. This, I ended up doing and I must say that after this there really was no looking back. I learned two things once the end of the year came A) Baseball watching can only take you so far and B) Get out there and have somehwhat of a voice. The baseball watching was fun but I realized that it’s only good if I wanted to spend my life watching a ball being hit by a bat. Getting out there and having a voice consisted of me reaching out to other people and hearing them out. This was only the beginning of what was to be a rollercoaster of the next 5 years where give or take I was on the road to living a good life or a life where I suffered: In the next 2 installments 2008-2012 and a little preview of what 2013 has been like!

Lost opportunity for a young 18 year old…Part I

Posted on by anele25

Ya no me mires asi que no ves que

estoy loco por ti

ya no me jusgues tan mal

es mejor primero conversar

Cuisillos on “Ya No mires Asi”

It has been almost 4 years since I last spoke to a person that meant a lot to me at the time and every once in a while I will think back and wonder, woulda, coulda, shoulda, and I wonder wow my life could have been much different. It was a bright sunny day the day I moved from Sunnyvale in the dying days of summer which was labor day 2002. We were getting ready to move from our old apartments in Sunnyvale to a condo that our family (mostly mom and dad) had acquired that summer through a lot of intensive paper work, loans, and what not. I was a bit sad that I was moving away as I probably would not see my old friends as much as I was used to and I felt in my heart a bit of bitterness towards my parents for doing this. I remember we got all our stuff packed and my friend wanted to come along for the ride with his dad’s cousin who was helping us move but unfortunately there was no room for him. Once we got there, it felt like a whole new world with different people and new places to explore that I had to see through my years of living. However, there was one problem and that was that I had just barely started high school at Homestead High School and it was quite far from where I had moved. My parents decided that they didn’t want to take away my first year of high school so we just kept the same address at our old apartments and we would go over from time to time to check with our neighbors who had, as luck would have it, had family of there’s move in next door to our old apartment. I was glad that happened because somebody would have caught on if was anybody else but I was lucky to say the least. My first year was rough to say the very least and I was grateful that most of the time my brother would by his own will take me to school at 7 in the morning and most of the time I would just catch 2 buses to get back home which would roughly be a 9 hour day including lunch and one break. After my first year, though was when things get a bit complicated as my parents decided that it would be difficult to go to a high school that was that far away and I would have to start attending Cupertino High School which was a lot more closer to my house and a short 10 minute drive with traffic. I remember after the pre registration stuff and all the signing stuff, I was shocked to hear that my dad was the one who took the opportunity to check out Cupertino for me as I have him to thank for that. I couldn’t sleep the night before I started at Cupertino as I kept thinking in my head what kind of people am I going to meet? Who is going to befriend me? and What would my classes be like? I remember first walking into my tutorial for the morning as my brother accompanied me to a strange yet inclusive location. This was the first time I had ever had a sort of class in a trailer! It wasn’t really a class per se but rather a place where we could do homework and study. My tutorial instructor had stated at that time that she was seeing a lot of new faces. I was one of them I thought to myself. I then saw a very big girl that looked rather scary yet she was approachable when it came to talking to her other friends. I thought to myself, “damn she’s ugly” but I learned later on it’s not what’s on the outside but on the inside. Going through my first year, I saw her passing by in the hallways, the library, the tutorial class, and at times when we had P.E. in the same period but we each had different classes. I found her friend, let’s call her Melina for her sake, to be quite attractive and I always saw her as the gem of the two friends. I found myself to be constantly staring at her and I found beauty in everything she had but of course her friend at the time was nothing but a backdrop. I remember a particular incident where we were sitting in the trailer and she was touching the letters of my Eric Chavez T-Shirt of the Oakland A’s and I didn’t know what to think of it. I didn’t know what to say or think of it at the time. I just remembered the girl that I didn’t have my eyes on asked me if I knew this guy named Eric. I just kind laughed about it later and I was in awe of what she asked me because I didn’t know if she was talking about the shirt or some guy named Eric. So, the year passed and I became comfortable with my classmates as most of us got to know each other very well. But, after my first year I was still curious about this girl and her unorthodox size. I talked to her a little bit but I never went beyond disclosing any personal information or went deep into our conversations. I was surprised that the next year we once again ended up in the same tutorial of course due to our last names being almost identical. I saw her again but it seemed this time around she was a bit more comfortable around me. It was also to my surprise that she was in my Algebra 2 class which at the time was difficult for me because I admit that I am no expert in math. I had the same teacher as the year before and I as soon as I saw this girl in the class I felt a bit more relaxed. As the year went on, she helped me a lot with homework, questions I had, in class homework that we had at times, and there was one time in the year when we each sat next to each other. Usually, I would ask her about how her English went because we both had the same English teacher and I would be surprised at some of the funny and quirky stuff that my teacher would do because it was her first year. I liked talking to her because she was not willing to hold back anything and I started getting accustomed to asking her anything I could. She was willing to help out with anything she could and she would ask me if I had a crush on one of our classmates from Algebra but the truth was this girl I talked to was a classmate who had some funny and and exciting stuff to talk about because she was moving away to college. Back to this girl, who at this point I considered a friend, she was concerned that I wasn’t doing as well in our math class as i should have been and she was right as I admitted that math wasn’t my strong point but I did enough to pass for credit in my final semester that I took math in high school. As time went on I wondered why this girl was trying to befriend me, and I couldn’t muster enough courage to ask her why. I just talked about anything and everything I could with her. I remember talking with her about baseball, movies, music, friendship, and anything I could think of which is something I miss and I wonder what was going through her head when I was around her. The last few days of Junior year I had finals and I remember the last final of a Tuesday June 7th 2005 I had a good conversation of what was to come in my final as I felt a bit nervous as to what I could say in my speech about the Crucible. I felt confident after the conversation I had with her and I aced the speech that I did at the English final. Summer passed and it went by fast and once again I saw her again in my tutorial class. She looked the same and I told her my class schedule and she seemed a bit happy that I was in two of her classes but I just said whatever. I didn’t think about it at the time but what was to come defined me for the next two years and a half as I embarked on an epic journey. I remember the first time we hung out sort of as she invited to go eat something the 25th of August 2005 and I just jokingly said that we should go to Taco Bell and we did. I was starving really bad and she just sat there and watched me eat while we talked about the beginning of the year and my buddies that I was hanging out with at the time. I still wondered to myself why was she hanging out with me? What did I offer her? Well, after this I told her that I still had a crush on her friend Melina and she didn’t really offer anything as to what she could say other than that she smoked yet she was trying to quit. I vaguely remember that her and I had a tough time communicating because her mom was sick and she was trying her best to take care of her. I really couldn’t offer any strong advice at the time because I was young and stupid and I really wasn’t thinking about anything at the time except my future. I also remember she would not come to class sometimes because she was taking care of her mom and I understood that aspect of it. The memory I have of her is her coming in and her eyes were watery with black bags under them which sunk my heart because I knew what she was going through and I couldn’t be anything but a good friend. So, I gave her space for a while and I understood the life that she had in front of her. She had a lot to say about her dad and how much of a gung ho type of guy he was which surprised me. But something happened around the time of November, she completely disappeared and I wondered what happened to her. I didn’t have her number, I didn’t know where she lived, and I worried a bit about her. I went through my classes enamored with the career choices that could have come to me. I had business in one hand, economics in the other, and then I had English in the other hand. I had no F—— idea as to what I wanted to do with my life and these choices seemed the best at the time. I waited for the holidays to roll around and I was preparing for finals as well. After my finals, I started a new semester and there she was again. This time she looked the same but her hair was almost gone and I didn’t know what to say. This is when the awkwardness of me being silent to people started and this is one situation where I wish I wouldn’t have been like that. I remember we were doing an activity in our English class where we had to pass around a sceptre and say a passage and I remember she had to pass it to me next but the teacher just went ahead and gave it to me. It was one of those situations where I felt sad and confused at the same time. I didn’t know if I wanted to associate myself with someone like that and this started one of the times in my life where people that feel like they need someone to talk to began with me. I waited anxiously to see if she would ever talk to me because I felt she wanted to say something but I believe I had no right to talk to her because me giving her silent treatment was just me being a big jerk. Then one day she came up to me and she wondered why I wasn’t talking to her and I stuttered through my words as I came up with some lame excuse. I told her we should talk in my free period which was my 4th period and I waited like a little boy for a while at the cafeteria. I saw her and she told me what had happened to her which was her blacking out which resulted in her losing a good chunk of her hair but it seemed it had something to do with her brain. Reluctantly, she told me her mother had passed on and how her mother wanted her ashes spread which was good to hear from her. She stated that we should hang out some time and I told her that Saturday would be the best day. I remember that Saturday I had a bit of hesitation as I felt it would not be in my best interest to hang out with her. I was being very selfish at the time and I thought to myself that it was at least worth a shot. So, I gathered my stuff and headed out to AMC Mercado 20 here in Santa Clara and saw her coming out of her sister’s car. She was wearing the combination of colors of pink and black which made her significantly stand out and this is around the middle of march or so which made it even stranger because it was getting closer to high school ending. We saw the movie together and I can honestly say the movie, 16 blocks, really wasn’t mattered to me but rather spending time with this girl made me real happy. We talked for a little bit after and I kept hyping up that I had a crush on one of our classmates and she guessed who it was after many tries. She laughed about it later as she stated that this girl I liked was very childish and immature. She was right as I saw that in her classroom behavior and her demeanor towards other people but at the time that really didn’t matter to me. As time went on, we got a little bit more comfortable with each other as we talked about our futures and she started talking about going to De Anza College and start her career in nursing which I had little idea what I wanted to do. I wanted to do business at first but I lost desire for that as soon as I started (more on that later). Then, something happened and I have only told a few people about this. As the semester rolled on, she would sometimes roll out of Teacher’s Aide period to come visit me in the cafeteria. I didn’t get it at the time, but I knew from those times that something was up and the funny thing was, I didn’t even have to move or say anything. As a buddy of mine at work says, “I was just being myself”. She remarked at one time that it looked like I was losing weight and if I was trying to impress a girl which I remarked outright “No”. I didn’t understand anything at that time and I was young but one day a hint was dropped as to what was going on. I just remember the words coming out of her mouth “I may have a small crush on you.” Time stopped and I let everything sink in. The clues were all there, she said how she was always around me and always talking to me and I may be blowing my own horn here but I still don’t know if I really did anything to warrant that kind of attention. I was a good listener and I was trying to be a good friend and nothing more. The fact is, in my opinion, I never had that kind of connection with a girl up to that point. I had classmates that I talked to here and there but I never had gotten this far and it felt like a relief. Things were going through my head, and then around April or so she asked me if I wouldn’t mind taking her to prom which I did as a courtesy not as a favor. I asked my parents for the money so I could go and then I told my brother who was very excited that I was going but I didn’t know what to think of myself. I hung out with a group of guys who were awesome as friends but I wouldn’t say I would be thrilled to have them around her. That was my biggest problem and it was more of a self image thing more than anything for me at that moment. When she wasn’t around, my friends would tease me about how big she was but I never really defended her knowing that I was wrong having nothing to say. When I paid for the prom itself, I then asked my brother and his girlfriend for ideas of where to get fitted and all that good stuff. As I got fitted, I thought to myself this is really happening isn’t it? The weeks leading up were pretty interesting as well as we had to buy the extra stuff such as flowers, corsages, and of course we had to wrap up school as well. Leading up to that, I did the crazy task of actually driving to where her sister lived because she told me that she would be staying there for the weekend and bam I did that. What I didn’t mention was that the day that happened, me and some friends were going to see the latest Mission Impossible movie and I drove back all the way only to see that she had called my house as I was supposed to help her with a small report we had to do for our English class so I flaked on her. I had that problem early on when we weren’t communicating really well, and one of my buddies told me that we had to do some sketches for a project but I promised her that I would hang out with her that day but instead I opted to do the assignment instead. So, I went and saw the movie with my buddies and the next day proved to be pretty fun as well as I finally spent a good chunk of the day with her which was around the middle of May 2006. I asked my brother if I could borrow his car and he agreed but he didn’t know why I borrowing it. I picked her up from her sister’s house and off we went to the library to do some research and make copies. I can say we had a fun time that day because we joked and made stupid remarks about what prom was to bring for us but all in all I knew something good was to come from this. We did our research, I brought my laptop that day and she had her stuff and we finished up doing everything around 5 or so. I sat at her sister’s house and she was remarking about how fun prom was going to be and I agreed with her. We shot back and forth about the A’s and Giants who were pretty close to playing each other around that time. I was surprised about how much she would talk about her family and in particular her dad, who up to that point, I had never met. She remarked about how he would leave early in the morning to go see this woman he was dating and she didn’t really feel comfortable with how that was being dealt with. He would bring her home sometimes and I understood with what she was dealing with as all I could give her in that sense was provide and support. After leaving her house, I blasted the song “Corazon de Otro” which was done by the Mexican Romantic group “Los Temerarios” and I didn’t know it at the time but that song had a much deeper meaning later on. I felt confident the week of prom and I remember this girl took me to her house to show me her prom dress. Looking at the dress, it was amazing that she was willing to show this guy that had done almost next to nothing her dress. I was happy that she had chosen the color of gold and this is also the day I met her dad. Her dad was an interesting guy and he was retired either from the army or the military, (either way it escapes me at the moment). I had a bit of small talk with him and he seemed pretty cool with the fact that I was taking his daughter to prom. The date of the prom was a mix of strange occasions and occurrences. The day of the prom, I found myself watching watching the second season of the West Wing and I started patterning myself talking like that. I wanted to be slick and fast with my speech but to the point. I told myself, “if this girl really likes me, then I’ll be how I want to be.” I asked my dad that day to drive me to my “friend’s” house and he agreed as I was dressed to impress as every guy was trying to look the best he could. My dad dropped me off and I felt a bit nervous as to what was going to happen. I told my dad to drop me off and leave as soon as he dropped me off. He did just that and arriving there seemed a bit awkward. I saw her sister, her, her dad, and his woman friend. My buddy decided that she wanted to take pictures and I made the stupid mistake of not looking into the camera. I felt embarrassed for doing so and I waited anxiously for us to arrive at school so we could get on the bus and leave. Her sister drove us to the school and I remember her sister telling her that this was her night. We got there, had refreshments, appetizers, cake, and her and I talked a bit more. Sitting in the cafeteria, I realized that I was glad that I had done this but I wasn’t sure this was the best way to do so. I had been acting like an idiot up to that point to her and I had no real possible way to continue doing this the way I was, I was gonna crack at some point…

Well, that concludes part I, I thought about halfway through this that this was going to have to be a two parter so that’s what I’m doing, till next time…

Preview:

What happened at prom that night?
What happened on the day before my birthday and the reaction I got

Graduation day and what it meant to both of us

Small, but meaningful conversations I had with this girl after graduating, including one that left me shattered

and What did this mean to me?

Specifically, what path would have this taken me on, what could have it meant in the future and the present.

Lastly, if I could see her only one more time would I take the chance to say what’s on my mind? Would I really talk to her?

Thanks for reading and to conclude this part, here’s the Clash at Bond’s Casino in 1981: