The Early Years

Well, my life began on August 7, 1972 in Jersey City, New Jersey. I guess the weirdest thing about the beginning of my life was that it was almost the end. My parents told me that only a day or two after I was born, I was drinking milk from a baby bottle and I began choking. They said that the milk had somehow gotten into my lungs and I started to turn blue. Anyways I was revived but I had suffered minor damage to the left side of my brain. It doesn't really affect my thought process or my memory. But it affected a part of the brain that effects movement or so I've been told. The only thing that I have noticed as a result of all of this is that I can't wink my right eye. But it's good for excuses. When I used to do bad in school or when my mom would get pissed off because I forgot to do something, I would tell her, "It's because of the brain damage." :P

I grew up in a family of five, with a younger brother(Don) and an older brother(Paul). Being the middle child kicked ass. My parents always expected the most out of Paul. Since he was the oldest he had to set a good example for me and Don(which he did for the most part). My parents had high expectations for him. He was to follow my dad's footsteps and become a doctor. And when that fizzled my parents felt extremely disappointed in him. As for Don, he is and will always be my mom's baby. She doesn't let him do a lot of the things Paul and I got away with when growing up. They pretty much want him to do nothing but study. But with me...I let them know early that I would be the loser of the family. I got C's and D's(occasional F's) in junior high and high school. And I was always getting into trouble. In the 5th grade I was suspended from school for throwing rocks into some lady's pool, whose house was adjacent to our school playground. Anyways they learned not to have high expectations out of me. And I liked it that way. Eventually when I began college at UC Irvine, they began to expect more out of me. But they knew not to expect too much...after all, I am brain damaged...:)

After Don was born, my dad sold the house and we moved out to Huntington Beach, California where he had a job lined up already. We lived there only lived there for 5 years so I didn't get to make very many friends. However I did meet Elliot Yamashiro, who I would become very close friends with. My dad ended up getting a better job so we moved to Santa Ana. I had trouble making close friends. I just didn't click with very many people. But I did become good friends with John Chennavasin. At first we hated each other(to this day I don't even know why). But our parents were close friends with each other so John and I were sort of forced to see each other and eventually we just became good friends. I also met up with Elliot again whose family happened to move out to Santa Ana a few years before mine. I went to elementary school with him, met up with him in junior high, then went to the same high school, and would eventually attend the same university(UC Irvine). I guess you can say that he has been my best friend throughout the years. I've known Elliot longer(20 years) than anyone outside of family.

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