My life began in Seoul, Korea the fourteenth of June in 1995. Until the age of 5 I lived my most comfortable life in Korea and then my family moved to the U.S. During the sixteen years of my life positive influences such as life changing childhood friends and negatives influences like death affected me in various ways.

From watching videos and looking at pictures of my childhood in Korea helped recollect special memories. Before I moved to America my family and friends went on many vacations. One Year my family visited Saipan, and one memorable event I remember was walking up gigantic stone steps to a temple. I was scared, but excited at the same time. Unfortunately fear was too powerful and the next thing I knew, my pants and underwear were soaked. My days in Korea flew by, and before I knew it I was living in Richmond, Virginia, a whole new world.

I attended elementary school in Chesterfield, Richmond. School life was horrible. I couldn’t speak English, I had no friends, and everyone was freakishly pale. It was not until I met my life changer. Kyle my first white friend radically improved my life. I might have not known it then but as I reflect back into my life, without Kyle and his family I would not be the same person today. They were the first ones to teach me English, first ones to feed me pizza and hamburgers, and first one to teach me how to play baseball. They were American in every single way and I loved it. They were there when my parents were not, and they were just a neighborhood friend. To go out and help me was more than a blessing, it was a miracle. My friend Kyle was obsessed with Nascar and eventually I got hooked. I went to my first Nascar show and I was thrilled. Kyle and his family were more than just friends, but my second family. As I kept growing somehow we started to drift apart. My family had moved to a new neighborhood and my life felt so mundane. It felt as if someone had come into my life and took a big bite out of it.

It was at that time when everything went downhill, again. I hit a stage in my life where I felt a surge of negative emotions just clouding my vision. I felt depressed, raged, and stressed out of my mind. I was only 11 and I had so many responsibilities. While my parents went out to work I was left to take care of my sisters. didn't’t get to do what normal 11 year old kids got to do. I stayed home taking care of my sisters while going to school. I tried to tell myself I’m being the good son and helping my parents, but after a while it changed. I felt angry and raged that I was doing what my parents were supposed to do. Around that time many of my family members in Korea passed away. These deaths affected my family so much we had to move again. My parents were not improving and the family was falling apart. Next part of my life takes place in Fairfax, Virginia.

New school, new jobs, new friends, a fresh start, were what my parents were thinking as we moved to Fairfax, Virginia. It was all true, everything was new. Life was more city-like compared to Richmond and I had more freedom, but almost everything else was the same. The family problems were still the same, my role in the family never changed. Instead of going against what was going on, I just started to accept my fate. This opened opportunities to meet new friends and started reversing the curse, called my family.

I feel my childhood ends here. My life up until I moved to Fairfax is what I believe to be my childhood. Although my childhood ended in depressing and bleak terms, the past is the past and it is time to look to the future. A lot has occurred bad and good since I have moved to Fairfax, but that is not my childhood. My childhood just ended three years ago and I am now sixteen. I am awaiting for the day when I’m in college writing another biography about my childhood, but this time including my life about Fairfax because I will probably feel that part of my life is now a part of my childhood and life in college is adult hood.