Birth and Childhood:
I was born in Mendoza, Argentina to a pastor, a stay-at-home mom, and three siblings. I was the baby and around family I still am. I never lived in a city more than four years while we were in Argentina, so memories were kind of hard to form. When I was nine years old, my family moved to Houston, Texas, USA. Though not my birthplace, I think this became my true home.
Public School:
Somehow, when I started thinking about the next stage of life to write about, I thought about being school-aged, and my thoughts jumped very quickly to the topic of having gone to public school. Then to public school vs. home school or private school. And I'm not going to go all out and make my arguments here, but for the sake of my story, and maybe a preview to my argument, I have to say I'm grateful to have gone to public schools.
First of all, immigrant parents who barely speak the language, and don't have much money, don't really have a choice about where to send their kids. But my memories couldn't have been better. I remember my very first American teacher: Miss Carpenter. I stood at her desk the day our family went through a huge tragedy, and she helped me grieve. She had the prettiest blonde hair. A cute Venezuelan girl helped me understand what was going on around me by sometimes translating ("sometimes" because she was nine and would of course get distracted or bored with the whole thing). Kids would ask me to repeat certain words, like "worksheet", because I would say "workshit" instead. And I don't think it's cruel. It's funny, and had I been in their place, I probably would have done the same thing. And Keith - my very first American crush. In fifth grade Mr. ... I forget his name, but I can see his face. Big face. Big head in fact. Anyway, he taught me that though in Spanish you say that you have however many years, in English you are them. Also in fifth grade, I pretended to vomit multiple times to get out of tests I hadn't studied for.
Middle school is kind of a blur, but good, I think. The secretary's daughter dated the cutest, coolest guy in school. At some point in eighth grade I found out she was pregnant. Poor thing, everyone found out she was pregnant. But when I found out, I remember being so completely clueless. Like the whole idea of getting pregnant was so foreign to me. I don't think I knew anything about sex at that point. And if I knew the logistics of sex, it's like I hadn't ever imagined that people like me were having it. I guess that's the point, girls like me were not. I don't say that to make some point about how holy and chaste I was. "Not like me" in that I was still such a child. When I think back on it now, it makes me happy.
Loved, loved, loved high school. Most people are on one extreme side or the other. I've met so folks that absolutely hated high school, most of the time because they were deeply hurt. I am extremely grateful for my high school experience. My brother was a senior when I transferred to his school my sophomore year, and being at the same school with him was fantastic. He was the perfect blend of nice and popular. His kindness toward me placed me in the middle of a crowd that I would never have belonged to on my own. Still could not belong to now.
