I call this chapter one of the best moments of my life because I will never forget them in a very grateful way. Each paragraph has its own stories of my great memories that I have throughout my life. I wrote this chapter to see that everyone has great memories and the bad ones in our memories. Sometimes life can suck, but not all the time. We have to remind ourselves of the great memories that each of us has, and here are some of mine and have fun with it. I wrote this chapter because of the kid who inspired and reminded me of the greatest moments of my life by seeing his best memories with his friends and family.
One of my unforgettable memories is when I was attending Fleming College; I had a pretty good friend at chess that got me into it. We both participated in a chess club at the school in which all students there plus the teacher participate in a contest of who was the best chess player at the school. My friend beat the teacher and ended being first place, and I was third. After moving to the United States, I never practice playing chess again and stopped being good at it until I played with friends at college. My family was never into chess, so I did not have someone to practice with. I also remember at Fleming College, I played the violin. I had a private teacher who came to my house to teach my brother and me to play the violin. Both my brother and I did many violin concerts at the after-school activities with other kids. Still, after we moved to the US, we stopped practicing it because we could not bring our violins, have enough money to buy new ones, or have enough money or time to contact a private teacher again. I will both always remember playing chess and violin, and hopefully, one day, I play chess again. I do accept playing instruments is not for me.
When I was a kid living in Peru, I went to Argentina to meet my mother's side because she is also from Argentina. All four of us arrived in Buenos Aires at one of my mother's aunts. I had fun there because we went to see inside Boca Junior's stadium. Boca Junior is one of the soccer teams in Buenos Aires, like their rivalry River Plate. Unluckily, I did not see a soccer match at that stadium because they weren't playing, but I could experience it from inside. Do I remember me being inside the stadium physically? Not really because I was too young to remember it, but I do remember my parents telling me about it. In Buenos Aires, I was also pretending to be Spiderman since I was a fan of Peter Parker. I pretended that I threw spider webs under my hand at my family, and fortunately, they played along. I also met my mother's grandmother, grandma Chula (even ignoring her name's English pronunciation). Unfortunately, she is deceased now, well died a long time ago. I hope I can meet her again but in the heavens. Also, at that time, it rained with thunderstorms which were very common in Buenos Aires, but I never saw rain that heavily nor saw thunderstorms that loud in my life. I was scared at first and did not like Buenos Aires because of it. I did not know at that time I was going to live in Houston, which is also a city that rains heavily with thunderstorms. I hope to go to Argentina and see my mother's side of the family again before turning it into regret. If I do not see them again, I will most likely see them in the heavens above. Somedays, I remember them, but I only have a few memories of them. These few memories are some of the best memories that I have ever had, and I would like to share them with you to appreciate life a bit more than you already do.
When I was living in Peru, my brother and I watched a TV show called 31 minutos (31 minutes). This show was a puppet show which was very fun for us and had their album that my brother and I bought it. This album is entirely in Spanish except for one song in English called 'They Wrong Cut My Hair.' In Peru, my brother and I sang it around our house with our grandmother and watched the show with her. I still have their album and sometimes listen to it to remember some great memories with it. I also remember my brother, my cousin, and I watched Pokémon in Spanish at a specific time every day. At that particular time of the day, there was silence in our house; we were all watching the show, and my mother could have a break from the noise that we made and could use the computer that she wanted to use. Most of the time, my brother used the computer. I also remember a time that I had chickens on our roof. At one moment, those chickens were running freely, and my mother, for some reason, was scared of them, so she called a list from the oldest to the youngest child of the house to pick up those chickens. No one could pick up those chickens until it was my turn to do it, and it was pretty simple for me. Everyone was shocked that I was brave enough to pick them up and put them where we had them.
While living in Peru, I was into soccer. I watched soccer with my parents, but it wasn't easy to root for one team because my dad is from Peru and my mom is from Argentina, and they both wanted their team to win. You might think I rooted for Peru, too, since I am from Peru, but I rooted for Brazil. At that time, when I was living in Peru, Brazil had an incredible team because of its' players. This team had Ronaldo (not CR7), Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Robinho, Kaka, Adriano, Dida, Rivaldo, Cafu, Edílson, and many other players. I loved this team so much because all those players played very well. Many nurses in Brazil and my family called me Ronaldo because I had the same haircut as him. I always wanted to be like Ronaldo as a soccer player; I tried to play it in Trujillo in many different ways. I always watched Brazil play and rooted for them despise my parents rooting for other teams. I went to many soccer stadiums in Peru and watched a lot of television every time Brazil played. The love for soccer that I have, I continue having by continuing watching soccer games with my parents here in the US rooting for the same team. We always watch Barcelona play in LaLiga and other tournaments. My love for the Brazil team quickly faded away after those players retired, and I started rooting for Argentina for many reasons. Two of those reasons are rooting with my mother and because of Messi, of course. My love for soccer has expanded now by loving other sports such as basketball, baseball, American football, and ice hockey. I try to watch all of these sports as much as possible, but sometimes it isn't easy because I am always busy, which prevents me from watching all of those sports. My favorite sport is still soccer and will always be. Every time I talk to my paternal grandfather over the phone, we always talk about soccer and basketball, mainly soccer. I would say soccer is part of my culture. I speak to my paternal grandparents every Sunday over the phone as much as we can since I lived in Peru.
In my first few years living in the US, my brother, Sebastian, and his brother, and I registered to play for FFPS (Fun Fair Positive Soccer activity in Houston). In FFPS, they taught us to play soccer, but differently than usually how outdoor soccer is. There were rules in that outdoor activity. Every soccer player made turns to each other during the game all the time. For example, a goalkeeper will take turns with a defender or any other soccer player so every kid can try at different positions. Every player is only allowed to make a maximum of three goals so other players can have a chance to score. Whenever a player misses the goal, everyone has to make a positive comment about it, so the kid has a positive attitude to keep trying without giving up. There were different age groups, of course, and I realize there that playing sports was not for me, but I had fun there. Every team wins a trophy without the matter got first place or not. My brother and I won many awards there, hehe. We played there for several years until we realize that we aren't meant to play sports.
I was born and raised a catholic (still am) in a catholic family. When I was a kid in Trujillo, there was a priest whose name was Father Henry. I admire him there and told my mother that I wanted to be a priest when I get older. My mother said to me that the name Henry translates to Enrique in Spanish, in which Enrique was my middle name, and that made me wanted to be called Father Henry and not Father Daniel. When my mother told Father Henry that story, it made him cry for sure. One day I wanted to be an altar server (an altar server helps the priest in anything during mass), but I was too young and needed to receive my first communion. When I finally received my first communion, I went to tell Father Henry that I want to become an altar server. After being trained to be one, I eventually became one and continued to be at my local church in Houston until I was nineteen years old as a retired alter server. Typically, altar servers retire at eighteen because they go to college, but I continued until I was nineteen. When I was living in Trujillo, I had an Elmo toy that I brought to mass and wanted the priest to sign the cross to the toy before me, and those priests did. One day the Elmo got lost, and I was sad about it that many people started looking for it, but it was no near to be found, and we overcome it.
When I was living in the US, I went back to Peru to visit my family and friends many times. One day my parents allowed me to fly to Peru by myself when I was older and met my aunt in Lima, who happens to be my mother's young sister and looks like me. This aunt lives in Arequipa and still is, but flew to Lima to meet me there. She usually gets scared to fly in an airplane, but she let herself fly to see my friends in school at Fleming College in Trujillo. When I saw my friends, they were surprised that they saw me again in school. Some of them did not recognize me at first, but they eventually did. When I flew to Peru again, I went to see them in Trujillo again and went to see many movies at the movie theater. I remember we watched the final film of Harry Potter, part one in Spanish, but I fell asleep. After all, I did not understand it, which was weird because I do understand Spanish. I have been speaking Spanish and understanding it since I was born and still use it in the US. It does not matter if I fell asleep because I had fun with them there.
When I was thirteen or fourteen years old, I lived in an apartment with my family, and I wanted to have a dog. My mother did not allow me to have a dog until we move to a house because she did not want us to leave the house whenever the dog needed to use their necessities. When we moved into a house in November 2008, we quickly got a dog, named Scooter, the day after moving into the new home. See, in September 2008, there was a hurricane Ike that flooded the city, and many people became homeless because of it. Luckily, we didn't, but the family that had Scooter did not have a home and stayed in a hotel where the hotel did not accept dogs, so they have to give the dog away. My mother had a coworker who knew this family and agreed to us to give the dog. The dog already had a name, so we kept it. I had Scooter from 2008 to 2015. This dog terrier liked to run outside a lot, and in our house, we had a backyard, but it wasn't as big as the farm he used to live on. He escaped many times, but we always found him and started putting bricks where he built holes to run underneath the fences. One day Scooter was sick too; my mother and I took him to a vet, and the vet told us he was fine and gave us medicine if he needed it. I did not like this vet when he said Scooter was OK, but we trusted him anyway. Six months later, I saw bloodstains on the carpet after returning home from school. I quickly called my mother and took him to a different vet, but it was too late. The dog suffered too much pain. His kidney already started failing, and we had to put him down to sleep in which I cried far too long. A few days later, I started enrolling in college and had a little time being at home, so we did not have another dog then.
I remember when I was living in Trujillo, my bother brought me to a public computer cabin. This cabin was full of computers that needed to be used since computers were expensive and could not have more than one computer. Most people use this computer cabin for work or email people, but my brother and I used it to play computer games such as Age of Empires II and Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. Those were the first computer games that I played, yet I still have them and play them. Since then, I became a gamer. I played PlayStation and Xbox games as well as computer games. Fast forward to PlayStation 3 and 4, so I do not bore you about it; I played Call of Duty games and tried to be a professional gamer. I gave up school throughout my high school career and was only interested in finishing it and playing video games. Those years were one of the best years of my life because I got experience with something, I enjoy doing it. After graduating from high school, I chose not to go to college and take a semester off. I decided to pursue my gaming career until, eventually, in late October 2014, I was bored of gaming all day and decided to go to college. I still play video games to this day and will always continue being a gamer. I still play video games such as Team Fortress 2, StarCraft II, Age of Empires II, and Warcraft III: Frozen Throne.
When living in LA, my mother worked at several schools as a teacher. The first school she taught was called PUC iPrep; it was a charter school. There, I started to volunteer as a teacher assistant for sixth to eighth grade in many subjects. I usually helped the students in math for a little over a year while being a college student. I went from classroom to classroom assisting students. I remember some teachers that worked there, excluding my mother. I did this until the school was closed. Then my mother worked at another charter school called LALA (Los Angeles Leadership Academy). I volunteer there as a teacher assistant to a fourth-grade classroom. I once again helped students in math and teaching them how to add and subtract fractions correctly. I gained a lot of experience as a volunteer teaching assistant while pursuing my major. I had a lot of memories there, had fun with it, and I always remember them. Students for both charter schools gave me many great memories and gave me many sympathetic notes saying thanks for helping them. Because of these opportunities, I decided to continue pursuing as a teacher at any school grade.
When I was a high school student, I made dancing videos in my bedroom. Mostly my dad filmed me, but sometimes my mother did too. At that time, I posted them on my Facebook page. Also, during high school class, teachers allowed me to dance in front of my classmates, and it was fun. I will never forget those teachers that allowed me to dance in a slight of the class. I enrolled in a dance class in high school but quickly left because I did not want to put on the tap-dancing shoes, and I was the only male in that class (which some of you think is a good thing). After I graduate from high school, I stopped making those videos until who knows when I will make more dancing videos in the future. I typically danced finger dance, which I thought I discovered, but then I found out it already exists and continued dancing. A moment in college, I made a friend who was a real dancer taking college-level dance classes. This friend had many times to do a dance performance with her classmates at the end of the semester as a final exam in one of the college's auditorium. I went at first to support her and then went as a pleasure because I liked the performance. I went there on weekdays and weekends as well. I started liking dancing since I was a kid living in Peru. I won many mini-tournaments with classmates at school. Since then, I started enjoying music and dancing, and now I finger dance as a pleasure. Some would say I am good at dancing, hehe.
When I was trying to be a professional gamer, I participated in many tournaments, but it was only online. Sometimes I win them, and sometimes I did not. When I was attending the College of the Mainland, I enroll in a student club. This student club was called anime club (yes, I am a fan of anime). I had a college friend who introduced me to Fairy Tale (a fantastic anime show), then I enrolled in this anime club and watched many anime shows in this student club. In summer, sometimes, I went to Dallas with the anime club to the anime convention. In one of those moments in the anime convention, I participated in a Call of Duty tournament in person in which was my first time participating in one. Unfortunately, I did not win because I was out of practice but had a lot of fun. I participated in a Free for All tournament in which everyone was against each other until someone had the most kills win. Many groups of people needed to play in this particular tournament to make it to the finals. I got into second place in my group (which only the top 2 out of 8 people could make it to the finals) and make it to the finals. Unfortunately, I got the last place in the finals (out of practice again). A thirteen years old kid won the tournament and won a lot of price money. Yes, I had to pay to participate in the tournament, which was worth it. Many people dressed as many anime characters and other kinds of characters in those anime conventions, but I was never into dressing one. I still have pictures of those dressed as those characters (of course, I asked for permission). As a college student, I attended many video game tournaments (such as Overwatch League) as a fan. I will always continue to do so to support the video game community. Always remember violent video games do not make you violent.
I have an uncle named Abraham Rondon, in Peru, that we always talk about music. We mostly talk about American/English rock music such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, U2 (Ireland), Aerosmith, AC/DC (Australian band), Queen, Tom Morello with Rage Against the Machine, Rush (Canadian band), Ramones, Elvis Presley, Pearl Jam, The Beach Boys, The Who, The Kings (Canadian band), Survivor, Simon & Garfunkel, Alice in Chains, R.E.M., Timeless, Frank Sinatra, Blondie, The Clash, Radiohead, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Linkin Park, Van Halen, Sex Pistols, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Doors, Bee Gees (Australian music group), Skid Row, Village People, Foo Fighters, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Prince, Metallica, The Police, Bob Marley (Jamaican), The Cure, Soundgarden, The Kinks, The Cars, Kiss, Bon Jovi, Deep Purple, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Journey, Green Day, Pat Benatar, Eagles, Bruno Mars, Johnny Cash, Talking Heads, Eric Clapton, Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, System of a Down, and many more. Sometimes we talk about Spanish rock music, which is also fun, but I'm not familiar with it. The only few Spanish musicians I know are Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Luis Fonsi, Shakira, Selena Quintanilla, Selena Gomez, and Jennifer Lopez. We can both talk about music for hours every time we speak to each other. Because of him, I got into rock music more than I was already. I took a college class called American Music with Professor Kiefer; it was entertaining to learn and enjoy. We learned about the 12-Bar-Blues at the beginning of the semester. I mostly took that class as a requisite for an art class, but I also took it to communicate with my uncle about it. When I moved to LA, I took another college class that was very interesting as well. The course was called History of Rock Music. I took that class for three reasons. It is a requirement for an art class; I love history and rock music and want to know rock music to continue communicating with my uncle. We also learned about the 12-Bar-Blues at the beginning of class and learned about each song. We examined every piece that the course could from every American/English rock band. When the semester was over, I promised myself that I would go to Professor Kupka's lecture the next semester, and I did. I asked him if I can enter the class and sit down to listen to his lectures again, and he let me. I had so much fun in his class. I miss those two professors. In both of those classes, I had to attend a concert and write a short paper about my experience which was an easy assignment because I love attending rock concerts.
In my American Music class, we also learned about rap music in the USA. The ones I remembered are Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, Dr. Dre, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Run-DMC, and Beastie Boys; I also added some rappers that I know such as Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, Niki Minaj, Cardi B, Nas, Chance the Rapper, Pharrell Williams, Rick Ross, Post Malone, Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith. In both American Music and History of Rock Music class, we learned about the Blues such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Robert Johnson, and Bessie Smith. We also learned these Blues musicians transformed music into what is now called Rock N' Roll, Funk, and Jazz Rock by learning the 12-Bar-Blues first.
When I was eleven or twelve years old, Father Henry visited Houston and made a private mass at the apartment where my family lived in League City, and I was once again an altar server for him one last time. When I returned to Peru several years later, I celebrated Mass in Lima's church and saw Father Henry again. He saw me when he gave me communion and was shocked. After mass, we talked to catch up on our lives. When I was eighteen years old, I had a friend who taught me to be close to Christ. See, when I was ten years old, I was mad at God for keeping me apart from family and school friends and did not understand why I moved to the US because I was too young to understand it. For eight long years, I was angry at God until I made a friend who brought me close to Him and started to believe in Him again. When I moved to LA, I started volunteering at my local parish as an EDGE (middle school Catholicism) and LifeTeen (high school Catholicism) to continue sharing my faith with young people. I also do a bible study with teens on Wednesday nights as much as I can.
While volunteering at LifeTeen at my local church, there were two times when Alan Pinel, the owner of The Burrito Project, explained to the teens how to make burritos properly while the volunteers gather the ingredients. When the teens make about a thousand or more burritos, we went to downtown LA, with permission from their parents, and let them give the teens to the homeless. If you are wondering what The Burrito Project is, they are friends who come every month to make burritos and provide them to the homeless in LA and Southern California.
Here is a 2-minute video explaining what The Burrito Project is:
I have many great memories throughout my life, but I only share a few of them because I do not want to make this chapter longer. I promise this is not a religious chapter, but it can be a spiritual book. Why did I want to share with you? Because I firmly believe that everyone has great memories at some point in their lives and we should always share it with everyone about it. I also called this chapter the great memories that I have ever had, and since this is an autobiography, I have to share it because I believe great news has to be shared in this world more than negative ones. In the next chapter, you will find out some dark stories about me. After writing this chapter, I realize that we all should share positive news more than negative ones because the world needs it and now let's continue to the next chapter.
Before you and I go to the next chapter of my life, I want to share with you one of the greatest moments of my life. When I was a high school, I took a computer class. Unfortunately, I do not remember what the exact course called or remember the teacher, but I remember this. Quick, watch this video and listen carefully:
(I'm my own grandpa by Ray Stevens)
and then come back here.
Hey! Welcome back! I hope this music video brought you joy because it did to me. From the day the teacher shared this song with the class through now, I still listen to it from time to time. Every time I hear it, I start singing with joy and will always the teacher for it, despising for not remembering his name. I hope the song satisfied you more than confusion because sometimes it can be confusing. Now, I promise we can go to the next chapter of my life.
Before you go to the next chapter, please donate the Burrito Project, if you can, so they can continue making burritos to the homeless, and there are other ways to help them by looking around at their website: http://theburritoproject.org/donate/success