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About Me: The Journey
I was born in Redmond, Oregon, to a single mother who immigrated from Mexico. Shortly after I was born, we moved to Oregon City, Oregon, which is where I would consider my home. I moved all around the Willamette Valley, meeting all sorts of different people and living in strange places. When I entered elementary school, I had no problem making friends. I was always in advanced mathematics, and I would read and write at the top of my class.
When I reached high school, I joined the varsity football team, where I received an all-conference award as a distinguished wide receiver. I was also in the backstage crew for the drama department, making all kinds of props for the actors. When I was a junior, I joined an entrepreneur contest called Enterprise Academy, hosted by the Portland Rotary. It's a contest where about 100 students from all over the Portland metro area are put into random teams and have to come up with an idea. Then, we complete a plan of how we are going to create, manufacture, and pitch the idea to actual business leaders from the Portland area. My team won first place, and I won MVP of the entire camp.
My senior year and the years following high school were completely dominated by the Covid pandemic. When I went to college, I didn't feel like I was using my time as efficiently as I could be. The classes were slow, and the professors didn't quite understand how to do the whole online thing yet. It was a disaster in my opinion and a huge waste of money and time. I decided after my freshman year that I would wait for the pandemic to end to resume my studies.
In the meantime, I started renovating houses with my uncle and saving money to start aggressively traveling. I drove across 24 states in my old Chevy S-10. I went to 17 countries around the world, including Canada, Mexico, Aruba, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and Mongolia.
It was during this time period that I decided I wanted to become an engineer. I remember the exact moment it hit me. I was on the wrong side of Paris in an old hotel. While the neighbors were yelling at each other through the paper-thin walls, I remember thinking this life is just like a game. I thought about it in the same way I think about chess. There are rules you must learn, then you can start using your creativity to manipulate the game. I thought I must learn the rules of the universe so that I can then manipulate the world.
When I came back from my travels, I enrolled in classes at Portland Community College. I ended up graduating and transferring to Oregon State University, where I'm currently enrolled. I'm still learning all of the intricate rules I must play by and cannot wait to get to the point where I can finally start changing the world with my creative abilities.