A little bit about me.

I'm sitting here wondering what to blog about, and I decided that I would take a break from advertising related stuff and just tell you guys a little about myself. None of you knew me when I joined the class, and most of you knew each other, so I think this fits well (even though Matt already did it). So here goes:

I was born in New York City on January 2nd 1991 - makes me a few months older than 19. I lived in Queens, New York until I was 14, moving only once in that time from an apartment to a townhouse when I was 2. Living in NYC was great, I mean, there are very few places that you can say you have a clear view of the Empire State Building from your street corner. I attended Catholic school for pretty much my entire time there. There used to be (still is) a park across from my old house, right near the Hell Gate section of the East River, and I have quite a few fond memories there particularly with my Grandmother who used to take me all the time. Everything was great when I was little; I didn't have a care in the world.

I lived through September 11, 2001. I was in Queens, my parents used to drop my sister and me off at school, and they did, just like any other morning. I remember a cloudless day, upper 60s to low 70s that morning. And so there we went; my sister and I into school for the day, everything was normal, up until people started whispering about the World Trade Center being blown up. I never understood the reaction of the teachers and staff that day; rather than confront the issue, they hushed it up. People were taken separately to see what they knew. It was evident that something was severely wrong though. I remember the view of the Trade Center from my 5th grade classroom. That day, the window shade on that one single window remained closed. Eventually, parents showed up to take people home early. I remember staying till the end of the day. We went to church to pray for the victims. I guess by 2pm the teachers and staff had finally given in to the gravity of the situation. After school, my Grandfather and I picked up my Mom (she decided to walk the bridge since traffic in and out of Manhattan was cut off). I would later learn that my Dad had seen the second plane hit as he crossed from the parking garage to his office on 1st Ave and 23rd, and he managed to drive home safely later in the evening. September 11 changed a lot. There is no comparison to the smell of death and burning building that seemed to drape the city the next morning. I have, to this day, never smelled anything like it.

A couple of years went by uneventfully (well, around us the war had started and the internet bubble had blown), come 8th grade, it came time to apply to High Schools (in NYC, the application process for the "good" high schools is similar to applying to college - you take an exam (the SHSAT) and the schools give you an offer), I did well in that sense; our class in general did too. No other class since has had as many scholarships and acceptances to major High Schools as our's did. I "graduated" from the 8th grade in mid-June. In late June I lost my aunt, and one of my closest family members to lung cancer. We left NYC later that summer.

We moved to the Philadelphia suburbs in August of 2005, and I have called that home since. High School was oddly uneventful by all standards, through senior year at least. Senior year was the whole college applications deal. I applied to 5 schools - Penn State, U Pitt, U South Carolina, Temple U, and FSU. All 5 accepted me, though I regret not shooting higher. I chose FSU for its traditions and its beautiful campus in addition to its highly ranked Business program. And so here I am, a first year at FSU, just starting off and hoping to make it big. Creative has taught me a lot this semester, and I have had the privilege of working with a good number of you on the various projects. I hope you all enjoyed working together as much as I did.