When in Middle and High School

Meeting my 'brothers'

In my first day of middle school, I had art in first period and then PE, which would end up being the class where I met one of my best friends that I still have, Tim. The best part of how I met him was because it was so stupid. While playing soccer in PE, the ball got passed to him, he kicked it full force, and somehow it ended up hitting himself in the face with the ball. And that's my memory of how I first met him. It turned out I had two other classes with them later on that day, English and Science. In the English class, there was another guy, my other best friend that I met, Erik, who was a shy guy in the corner on the opposite side of the room. But during lunch and within the next week, I got to know the two of them pretty well. And it took just that first week of being in school in America to realize that this is what it is like to have proper friends, as opposed to people I just go to school with. The concept of friends is a very important aspect in my life. You can go to a place and get to know people, but those may be more just your workmates or your associates. There's a difference when you distinctly identify someone as your friend. Like, “This person is my friend.” It took those first two weeks in America to realize that I hadn't really felt that about many people in Ireland. And so it was a shocker and changed my perspective on things.

Epilepsy

Oh, I got diagnosed with epilepsy in Winter '13(a real nice christmas present /s). Oh, big whoop. It's not a big part of who I am, but it's a definitely a notable thing to be mentioned.

Gaming

During this era of my life, I played a lot of video game. Playing the wii in the after school program, I would kicked everyone's ass as Baby Luigi in Mario Kart. He is still my main in his monster truck. I had a handful of cards in Ireland but it was when my friend gave me a shoebox full of pokemon cards, that ignited my passion for Pokémon, collecting, playing, reading, and watching.

Sports

After 2 years of soccer in Ireland, I continued to play for a few more years. I played soccer on the Junior Varsity high school team during 10th and 11th grade. When not on a school team, I also played on 2 other club teams at different times.

Drawing

I took more drawing classes in high school as well. One of the better classes I took, I met the good friends and my traditional art practice would gradually become a bit more focused. I got really good at making very technical, geometric designs.

Film Class

In highschool, I had to take an elective and decided to take a television class and some broadcasting. In that class, we predominantly used Premier Pro and other Adobe programs which resulted in a lot of editing and filming work. I got good at it and I enjoyed what I was doing, but at the same time, I was bad at exams related to it. I enjoyed the practice more than the theory. I became a personality on the TV broadcast called TNN and greatly enjoyed editing. Because of that class, I ended up continuing it in my third trimester and later majoring in Film and Television Entertainment in college. It helped me become a more outgoing person.

Work

During High school and early College, I worked in a total of 4 kitchens of which 3 were restaurants. I only liked 2 out of 3. Each one, I worked alongside my Dad, him as Chef and me in whatever department(varied per location).

The Return to Ireland

After high school, I took Tim and Erik back to Ireland for 6 weeks where they got to see where I grew up and see my Irish family. We loved that trip back home. It was a great graduation gift before starting our college life