A little bit about myself

The following is a little background information on yours truly.

Some of you reading this may know all of this stuff already, others may only know a few things and may or may not be pleasantly suprised by some of the new stuff, others may know absolutely nothing about me, and there are some who just don't give a damn.

I'm gonna cover my life from inception to last day in high school.

I was born on January 12 1979 in Monterey, California. Apparently, I really wanted to come out and as a result, my mother didn't have time to go to the pre-planned hospital. I believe my aunt drove her to the nearest hospital and told them that she was ready to go. Lo and behold, the hospital they went to had stopped delivering babies a few years ago. I was in no mood to stay in her stomach any longer, so the hospital "grew a pair" and delivered me. I was in the local newspaper the next day.

Fast forward a few years later.... my parents accepted a business opportunity in Newman, Ca that they could not refuse, and moved us there (by us, meaning me, my sister, and my parents).
Where is Newman Ca? Google it. As a matter of fact, if you google 910 merced st, newman Ca you will see two businesses side by side: Newman Food Store and Kenneth's Coin Laundry. My parents own both. Yes, they named a laundromat after me.

Anyways, Newman, Ca.... what a quaint little town in the middle of nowhere. Hot as hell during the summer and cold during the winter. Know what else? We were the ONLY asian family there. I soon started pre-school which was cool and everything. I mean, kids ate paste and we basically ran around all day.

Then kindergarten (which is where the whole gremlin halloween costume fiasco happened), fast forward to 2nd grade where half way through the year, my dad decides to have the school give me an I.Q. test. I scored a 148 and was told that the next day I would be finishing the year as a 3rd grader.

3rd grade was pretty boring. I got my ass kicked once during recess. I didn't even do anything. I guess being the nerdy asian kid was reason enough? Whatever, the guy is probably either in jail, working at the local grocery store, or dead.

4th grade was pretty cool. I had discovered by accident that I could spell really well. We had a class competition, which I won. Then a school competition (rest of the 4th and 5th graders) which I won and then set me up for the district spelling bee. I told my dad that I was supposed to go to the local town center and compete in this thing. We did some practicing and proceeded to the town center. I ended up placing 2nd. The word I lost on? Commercial. Yeah, I spelled it with one m. I tell you what, after that debacle, my dad took a huge vested interest as I was to represent Newman California in the county spelling bee (1st and 2nd place finishers advanced).

We went through a ton of practice lists and a dictionary (abridged, thank god). Went to the bee and kicked little kid ass. Winning word? PLATELET.

So now it was on. I was to compete at the state level. Things got worse, way worse. My dad bought a freakin unabridged dictionary and we started with A and finished the damn thing. Well, we went to the state bee (held in Luther Burbank Center) and I again kicked little kid ass. Winning word here? Well, there were two because it was a tie between me and some other kid. We had to wait until one missed a word, which was MENISCUS for him. I spelled it correctly and then had to spell GLYPH. It was done. I went home. Did the local celebrity thing, spelled words that random people would ask me, including that stupid fucking word "supercalafragalisticexpealidotious" I don't think that's even a real word.

Fast forward a few more years to the summer after my 7th grade year. My pops decides it would be a good idea for me to do something constructive during the summer. It just so happens that he was holding a pamphlet for the local junior college in his hands. So I enrolled in an English course that summer. Stupid class started at 7am. I had to be up at 5:30 to eat breakfast and then drive the half hour or so to the stupid school. I can't tell you how many times I fell asleep during the lecture. Once, I noticed it was really quiet all of a sudden. I soon realized that the entire class stopped to watch me sleep. Good times.

Well, for the next several years, I took classes at night and during the summer until one day my sophmore year, an idea struck. I went to the High school principal and asked if I could substitute those JC classes I took for my junior year and graduate in 3 years instead of 4. They had no problem with it, so I had no problem with it. Honestly, I couldn't leave Newman any faster.

Let's see... anything interesting happen in High school? Meh, not really. I almost got trash canned once. I had a few crushes here and there and got rejected. But then again, who was going to go out with a chubby/nerdy asian guy who couldn't even go out after school anyways?

So, in May or June (I don't remember) of 1995, I left Newman, California and was headed to UC Berkeley as a stupid, yet excited 16 year old.