Well, I am in my late 20's, recently married, and a teacher.  I have a brother named Marco and a sister named Angelica.  My mother's name is Juana.  I was born in Gary, IN and lived in Aetna for about 10 yrs.  My father passed away when I was in the 4th grade.  Shortly thereafter, we moved to The Lakes of the Four Seasons in Crown Point, IN.  I then attended different schools in Crown Point: 5th grade at Winfield Elementary; 6th at Solon Robinson; jr. high at Taft; and finally Crown Point High School.  Crown Point has a weird school system, and I had to go to each of these schools because I lived outside the city itself.

For many years I felt a bit of prejudice from many of the students and a few teachers.  I didn't have many friends, but those I did have meant the world to me.  I used to be beaten alot in and out of school because I was too short, not white enough, or just because I was an easy target.  Between my 8th grade year and my freshman year in high school, I joined a local Tae Kwon Do school.  This was mainly to defend myself.  Only 2 of my closest friends knew about this and they kept it a secret.  I learned very quickly and my instructor told me that I was a natural.  I loved the martial arts.  A year after I joined, I was forced into a situation that I did not want.  A group of older kids had decided to pick a fight with me.  I ignored them until the leader of the group decided to make it very personal.  It's a long story.  Needless to say we got into a fight and everyone learned that I was not such an easy target anymore.  I ended up severely injuring him and putting him in a hospital.  What I did was not right.  I gave into my anger and became what I despised.  I learned alot from the confrontation though.  I also gained the respect of many of my peers.  Sadly, it was gained through a violent act, and I wish it could have been gained some other way.

I was in the Drama club in high school and it opened me up more than anything else, other than Tae Kwon Do, has.  I made many friends through drama.  I also realized that I loved to be the center of attention.

I decided in high school that I wanted to help adolescents.  I made up my mind to become a child psychologist.  When I graduated high school, I began taking psychology courses at Indiana University Northwest.  I had the opportunity to go out and see what it would be like.  It was a terrible experience.  I witnessed things that made me angry and sad.  I realized that I would become too attached to cases and would burn out quickly.  I would not be an effective psychologist, if I were to burn out so quickly.  After much consideration, an old high school teacher of mine suggested that I go into education.  She felt that I had the talent and a gift for teaching.  I decided that I might as well give it a shot and realized after some field experience that I was born to teach.  I loved it.

I transferred to IU Bloomington to complete my education and graduated in 1996.  I couldn't find a teaching position immediately due to lack of experience.  I couldn't gain experience, if no one was willing to hire me so that I could gain it.  I did get lucky and was able to get a position working in Aetna Elementary for the Title I program.  I was later hired by East Chicago to teach at the high school.  After teaching there for three years, I had the opportunity to take a position teaching at Blackford High School in my wife's hometown.  After living there for 2 years,  I accepted a position at Edison in Lake Station.

I met my beautiful wife, Stacey, during the time I was working at Aetna.  We actually met here on the internet during the spring of '97.  She was going to school at Ball State University.  We began talking everyday online until we finally met in person months later.  We fell in love and have been virtually inseparable ever since.  We married June 26, 1999.  We had our first child, Eluides Johnathan, on March 6, 2002.