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Hi,

It’s been about three weeks that I've written anything on my journal blog...

My name is Alfredo I was born June 1st, 1981 in a lovely city called Santa Barbara.  My mother Olivia Velarde gave birth to me and blessed my family and my father with yet another mouth to look after and feed.  Since I could remember I have been somewhat of a "shy" person.  For approximately 10 years I hardly said a word.  I mostly just sat quietly and pondered things.  Whenever I was asked a direct question especially from my impatient father my response nine times out of ten was "I don't know."  And usually this was the case.  I was either too young to understand the complexity of the issues being raised or I simply had no idea as to the answer of said question.  Either way this response more often than not resulted in a slap to the face or sometimes a good whipping.  I sometimes revolt at the idea of what I would have said in those situations had I the correct answer due mainly to the outcome of my answer.  Had I not feigned ignorance and actually spoke up I may have gotten worse than just a slap or a minor whipping.  Either way I blame this for the reason I stayed quiet 99% of the time while growing up.

You may be asking what exactly was I pondering and why.  Well what I was pondering most of the time was that if I knew that the result of my answering "I don't know" was going to get me hit why did I continue to do so?  The rest of the time I was busy placing myself in other situations; namely healthier situations, ones that did not involve my mother leaving our family when I was just four, not having a father that constantly tormented my siblings and I, and where I was not sexually molested by a close family member at a very young age.  Why I was pondering these things probably had a lot to do with the natural human instinct to separate ourselves at least partly from an unhealthy environment.

Now don't get me wrong aside from all the abuse and cursing the heavens (mostly God) as to the reason for my existence, I had a good childhood.  I mean I had friends that I played games with, family members that would on occasion take me away from my house and the unstable environment that it afforded, and even a brother that would (when he was around) shield me from my dad's physical abuse.  I guess what I am trying to say is that while my childhood was less than perfect at least I was not my dad.  Talk about a rough life.  His mother died shortly after giving birth to him and his father, well we never actually got that story, but needless to say he was out of the picture pretty quickly.  Long story short, his step-parents thought that they were unable to have children and miracle of miracles they bore a child.  It was due to this that my father was then neglected and abused and subsequently put into other foster homes that he eventually ran away from.  At the age of 19, I think, while living in Tijuana, Mexico my dad took it upon himself to move to California where he came to live with an uncle that supplied food and shelter provided my dad worked and took the physical abuse that my great uncle doled out on a regular basis.  It gets kind of hazy from here, but my father eventually met my mother and they soon started the most basic of human instincts to reproduce and multiply.  And that they did with a fervor that Mexicans know too well.  First was my oldest sister Raquel, now a successful case worker with a master’s in marriage and family child counseling, next was Leticia, now a pre-school teacher whom is months away from obtaining her bachelor’s degree in Education, after that Lucia, who two years ago obtained her law degree and has yet to pass the bar exam, next my brother Cesar and after him me, and finally my sister Carolina who is a quite successful realtor and just recently bought her first home.  Don’t ask me why the women in our family tended toward success while the males didn’t.  Honestly I would not call my brother’s life a failure he has three children and a loving girlfriend/fiancé that he has been with for about twelve years.  I on the other hand was a different story.  The supposed brains of the operation I was injected (as my dad would say) into advanced math at the age of twelve.  In high school I was the only one of my family members to be in GATE and AP courses while also being on student government and playing sports.  My grades were somewhat mediocre although I did manage to graduate with a 3.0 and scored relatively well on my SAT.  Unfortunately while in high school since none of my other siblings took the courses I was exposed to I really got no help when I would hit stumbling blocks.  That entire story aside I decided that would I would go to school for biology at either Sonoma State University or the University of Oregon.  Again I dropped the ball and with no guidance from anyone eventually went to the local city college where I decided to go pre-med.  It was a fantasy of mine growing up that I was to become a neurologist of some sort to “fix” the metal instability my family seemed to possess.  Well irony is a bitch because just one year out of high school I was diagnosed with a mental disability.  I was told by doctors that I have bi-polar disorder something I had seen in myself years before I was diagnosed I just did not have the verbiage to explain.  Here started the cycle of ups and downs, regulating medication after medication, mood swings, voices, you get the picture.  Needless to say my education was to be put on the backburner for a bit.  But, fuck that, no brain disorder is going to stop me!  I started back at SBCC, got a job, and was determined to “beat” the illness.  To my dismay this was harder than I expected; now about 11 years after my diagnosis I have yet to complete even an associate’s degree.  My college GPA has gone to shit and I have little to no hope of ever recovering academically from this blasted illness.  I do have hopes and dreams for the future still though.  My goal is to at the very least get a bachelor’s degree in an engineering field.  Since my original goal was biology a bio-engineering degree would be the tits, but I would settle for a degree in plain old biology.

That is me in a nutshell (help I’m stuck in a nutshell) there is a lot more, but I will not bore you with the specifics.  What I would like from any of you is help.  I need to find someone or a group of someones that will help me in advocating my situation.  As I stand now my GPA is about a 1.8.  I have tried now to put my past behind me by not transferring any credits from my previous college courses to any of the schools I am now looking to attend.  Unfortunately for me when I filled out my FAFSA I got caught and now the Tech school I want to attend is asking for my transcripts.  I am not 100% positive, but I am kind of certain that most schools have the policy that if a course was passed with a grade of “C” or better it cannot be retaken.  And while a grade of “C” is passing I do not believe it to be a good enough grade.  What I mean to say is that a “C” grade does not reflect me.  Academically I am not a “C” student, and basically I will not be able to even apply to the schools that I would eventually want to apply.  Most schools accepting transfer students in the general field of engineering want at least a 3.5 GPA.  If I am wrong about this PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

If you have read all this I am ecstatic, it was a long read.  If you can help me, no words can describe my joy.  And if you can relate to this, well, YES WE CAN!