My Life Story Thus Far Act 3: High School Memories [1997 - 2001]

Finally with some free time, I decided to put up on here Act III since I have the free time to do it. That and I feel like I need to do it so that people can get some more details about who I am and how I came to be the person I am now. Thirdly, I wanted to get my thoughts a bit more organized since a ton of things happened for me during that time. So if you have been following my little stories thus far, you learned a great deal about me. While I made my days at Mt. Carmel sound like it was a hell for me, I can't really say that too much since there were some good memories that came from there. I had some really close friends which I lost touch with yet was something out of my hands. At the same time, I should have never let that happen and I have been trying now to find them and hope to bring them back into my life. Time to move on with Act III.

What can I say about my four years in high school? A lot went on for me there that I would have never been able to do if I went to a private school out in the city or even close to home (in which close I mean like 10 min drive). In a lot of ways, I wanted to go to the private high school since I knew that most of the people from grade school were going to different ones and I could stay in touch with some of them. My family said that the public school would be fine and that I can have a fresh start with new people. It was very interesting I have to say to go from 26 students in my class to about 300. I recall going there and feeling so very lost within the first day when I got my schedule and it was the time to introduce students to everything that the school offered. It was at that time that I decided to just go with clubs and give it a shot with them so that I can make some new friends. I recall giving that a shot and made some good friends but I made more friends within my classes.

I recall meeting my first friend who is someone who I consider to be a good friend, Wayne Thoreson. I met him my first day of school and talked to him for a few before our biology class. I remember that it was once we had lunch together that I talked to him for awhile and ended up meeting some other people that he was friends with like Joe and Robert (can't recall their last names off the top of my head here). It was from there that I felt that I had found some new people to spend time with during my school day. It was also there that I ended up meeting other people along the way and got to know more people. My freshman year, I ended up doing a few clubs like Business Professionals of America and the Chess Club. I even got to do a program called the Saturday Scholars with a few friends too. It was in this group that we got to board a bus and head out to a different high school to hear about different advancements in science from these professors who knew a lot on specific topics. I got to hear about space, the human body, and even computers with programming (something that will come to inspire me in my major in some ways).

There were some good days and some interesting ones too. I recall that in 1998, there was a big snow storm that hit the area and my family was rushing like madmen to beat it since we had a wedding the next day for one of my cousins. Well, we never made it to the wedding since we got hit hard with the snow and were not able to get out of the driveway. I recalled that while most of the schools were closed on the day back, my school was open. So I was not thrilled about that. I managed to walk it to school with no problem making it in the nick of time. Well, I soon heard that some of the buses were running late so the school would be going on inservice schedule (shorter classes). So during that free time, I ended up going to the computer lab for awhile to play some games and work on the Macs there and also hit the gym and did a bit of weights. Classes then started like normal with a low population of students. It was around my second class of the day that the school lost power and we were there for an hour before we were told to go home. I was happy about that.

It was at the end of my freshman year that I decided to try out a few new activities like choir and cross country. It was cross country that proved to be a big challenge for me here. I never ran a day in my life, so doing the sport was a major challenge for me. I first enrolled in the camp with my mom knowing about it. She thought that I was never going to make it through the summer and that I would give up. When I went that first day of camp, I didn't know many people except for one person who I shared every class during the second half of my freshman year, George. I gave it a good shot where I walked and ran as a combo. It wasn't until mid-July that I began to handle more of the mileage in which I was able to run without stopping. I decided after the camp to join the team and do the sport. I recall some great times during the season in which I will list later on as I talk about my sophomore year.

It was also during my sophomore that I also got a study hall. I decided that I really didn't need the study hall so I decided to become a student aide for the counselor's office. It was pretty fun I had to say since I worked with a new secretary and I got really close with her. While being an aide, I got to take passes through the school to oick up students so that they can see the counselors It was also during that time that I got close with one other teacher by the name of Ms. Barb Bylinski. She was my chemistry teacher who made the class a lot of fun. It was in her class and a different class with Mr. Bryan Weinert that taught Geometry and gave me the tools to build programs on my TI-83 in which I made a ton of programs for that class and for my chemistry class. It was a great deal of fun I had to say. In that same year, I hung out with a few of the seniors of '99 in which I got one of my few nicknames that did not last long "Comet". They gave it to me since they saw I was in Cross Country. During this sport, I ran a great deal of meets as a member of the sophomore squad and did really good. It was so much fun that I decided to do Track for the spring. When I did Track, it was during there that I got the nickname that I use for just about everything, "Helium".

Now the nickname is an interesting story. What happened was that we were on a bus to go to a meet. During the trip, I sat with some of the seniors (mainly the football jocks) and they began to talk about masturbating by saying "polishing their swords". It didn't take me too long to figure it out and I got embarrassed and my voice went high. Well they heard that and tried to think of a nickname for me. They came up with Prepubes but one said Helium and the name stuck. I tried to switch it to Comet or TKO which I gave myself but it didn't work out. So in the end, I accepted it and made sure that it didn't phase me. It was during my sophomore year that I also got to join both the National Honor Society and the Spanish Honor Society which is a big honor for a second year student.

Now that summer, I could have taken the driving classes but I felt that it was not really needed for me since I was so close to school, I could walk almost everyday and I never really had the need for a set of wheels here. So I decided to skip on that part of my life and instead focus on my training for Cross Country. Now this summer was a bit different from last. For starters, I got to take a bit more active role knowing the distances and mileages of where to go. The other thing was that my coach (forgot to introduce him earlier but his name is Tim Stark, someone I can consider to be another father figure) decided to take us to the Prairie Path (trails that go from Elmhurst all the way to Wheaton in which it branches off to either Aurora or Elgin) or to the forest preserve once a week for a long run. He gave us the task of tracking our miles and making sure that we ran on the days off from camp and that we would be in shape.

During the time that I had off in-between camp and the start of the season, I was told by Ms. B (my beloved chemistry teacher) that she would think it's best of me to sign up for a program at Elmhurst College in which I would learn a lot of math and science within that time. I signed up and got the ok from my folks to do it. I got there on a Monday morning and got away to learning a lot of new problems and even got some help in getting some pre-calculus and trigonometry problems (a class that I would be taking my senior year). We did some fun experiments in science too which made it all worthwhile since we were taught by some great professors who ran the program and two college students who helped in keeping an eye on us. While the classes started at 9 am and breakfast was served at 8, I used the time from 6-7:30 am to run on the track (which people didn't mind and I even saw Elmhurst's cross country team on there and talked to them for a bit) or ran on the Prairie Path since I was pretty close to it. It was a great time and I got to make some nice friends from there (in which I saw one of them in one of my CS classes in Champaign).

My junior year was a great deal of work since I did choir along with a few more activities. I was heavily involved with 2 choir groups, my sports, classes since I had AP classes, and a bunch of other activities. I was running around but somehow managed it pretty well. I know my junior year was where I tried to help out people while making sure my brother was doing ok since he started high school. As I went through the year, I got more programming on my calculator with Algebra II and was a great deal of fun since the teacher allowed me to doze off in the classroom because I had one of the highest grades. I loved getting away with some stuff like that. It was also during this year that I got to go to Disney World for the first time ever. We ended up going down there by bus and I recall some of the fun going there. I enjoyed it so much down there that I would end up returning in the future (stay tuned to that). The worst thing of doing the trip was that a few of my friends that went down and I (the juniors mainly) were studying for the ACT test on the trip back and that was not fun at all. We ended getting back at midnight Saturday and had the exam in 8 hours. I was lucky that I live close to school that my mom just picked me up and we got home in 2 minutes so that I can crash and wake up at 7 to go to take the test. Ended up getting a 24 composite (got that same score again in June when I retook the test in which only once score improved by one point) and decided that 2 times was enough.

I did camp again that summer in-between my junior and senior years and the same thing happened as the summer before with the mile tracking and the weekly runs to the path or forest preserve. The big thing that summer was in going out to Stark's timeshare at the last day of camp. We ended up going for three days with him, me, our captain Miguel (known to the team as Jefe) and the other Miguel. We headed out first to his place for a few hours in which we met his wife and saw his house. It was there that she had on Jeopardy! where it was the usual adults playing on there. You should have seen their faces when they saw me answering some of the questions with relative ease. They encouraged me to try out in which I said maybe I will in the future and then you can say that you know me (that's something I have been thinking about doing and will give it a shot when I head out to LA in the future). After that episode, we headed to a pool and got a bit of a tan and swam. It was a great deal of fun. Soon afterward, we went to his timeshare and chilled out for the weekend having fun with playing ping pong, basketball, tennis, and running. We all enjoyed ourselves that we bonded pretty well.

My senior year was a great thing since I got to enjoy the last year with friends and faculty. I ended up doing a lot of things my senior year with some changes. While Cross Country had the same coach, Track was with a different coach. What can I say about senior year except that I got to do a great deal of activities that I thought I would never do. One thing was that I ended up going to Disneyland for a few days as well as seeing Hollywood and Beverly Hills for a day since I had the chance to go and compete on the national level for Word Processing Skills for BPA. The other thing was that I got to go to East campus for one class and then rode the bus back to West to be an aide again for the counselor's office in which there were 2 other aides there and that 1 of the aides, a senior like me got to play Rock, Scissors, Paper when we had to show new students around the school. The other fun part was that there were a few days that I ended up missing the bus going to East for choir and so I got the chance to use the system to my advantage and sign in the office with relative ease since they all knew me so well and loved having me in there. I never realized that time flew by but soon enough, it was time for me to prepare mysef to graduate and move on to a new place. I had a ton of schools to choose from. While Northwestern was my dream school to go to, my parents told me to choose an in-state public school since I had a scholarship from the VA that would cover my tuition only if it was in-state. So going there was out of the question. I soon began to think about University of Illinois all the way in Urbana-Champaign which I applied and got accepted to as a Computer Engineering major (wrong choice in the major which I will explain in the next part).

As you can see, I made full use of the fact that I was close to home instead of going to a private school. I got to do a ton of activities and sports that I thought were never possible to do here. I made such great friends both on the team, in my classes, and in choir that I bonded with a great deal of them and still remain close to some of them today. I have to say that my 4 years at Leyden were some of the best times that I ever had. Of course I have a few regrets like not doing cross country or track my freshman year or being in office for some of the clubs I was in (I tried my senior year to do it but I never got it since BPA (President) and NHS (Secretary) had meetings the same day and I ran for 2 offices in there which I didn't win in either place), but I know that I did a ton of hard work for that school and it's nice to know that the teachers, faculty, friends, and administrative staff who knows my name and recalls my face will always recall that I was one good kid with a great head on his shoulders. On that note, I will conclude Part III for now.

I will give a sneak peak into Part IV, my days in Champaign. In here, you will see me start to question my major, sexuality, and a lot of things. Also on here, you will see that I did have a few last activities with Leyden and my times at Triton in-between it all. The final thing you will learn is the truth as to what happened at U of I and why after all this time I still feel a bit ashamed on that part of my life.