Andrew Groch:  

OK, here it goes if anybody is interested in reading it. I was born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma to my mom, a Korean immigrant who met my dad, an officer in the army reserves, while he was stationed in Korea. I have one brother who was always good at everything and by comparison I have lacked for as long as I can remember linearly. I lived in Germany when I was a baby for I think a year when I learned to appreciate grey skies and walking like a duck; although don't get offended, I didn't make that up. I moved to Colorado Springs where I started attending grade school a year early and met the best friends, and consequentially the most meaningless, that I ever had in my life at a young age. We moved to the mountains outside of that city soon after. I was an avid Transformers fan and entertained myself drawing. We then moved again to Illinois; to Wood Dale, by my Grandparents' house. (All this moving was at first because of my dad's military occupation and later because of my parent's looking for further work). This happened when I was in second grade. I met some good friends over the next few years but I don't think any of them stuck for the long haul how friends you meet when your very young do. Growing up for me there was tough. I spent a lot of time just being some nerdy pervert playing Dungeon's and Dragons(I had thick glasses). I never learned to play baseball or football with my Dad, so I was one of the kids in gym class last to be picked. I remember that one clearly. My mom would use me as a screaming pillow primarily because I wasn't up to my brother's standard; and also because I was largely inactive. Thats a bit personal but since I have no superficial form of pride, I feel free to share it with anyone who is willing to read this far into this thing. Continuing, I got through it. The mexicans in Wood Dale and Bensonville were getting a bit thick and their gang affiliation was no secret, and my mom wanted to live closer to where she worked; so we moved again after 8th grade. To Carol Stream. I didn't know anyone, but an old friend taught me how to swing and I grew up playing an adequate amount of basketball, so that part wasn't so bad. I got contact lenses right before Freshman year so nobody knew how much of a complete dork I was. It was a perfect deception, which was self-fulfilling because I never played another game of Dungeon's and Dragons after that point. Anyway, I met a few kids in class, and had already been a fan of fighting video games so I got along with some people, and started taking Tae-Kwon-Do, thereby finally falling into the stereotype that had been my worst enemy all through junior high. Going from one friend to others, and from one activity to another, I started breakdancing. Little by little, I began to transform into somebody with a little more attention to personal taste. By senior year, I had been in and out of the gymnastics club, had been breakdancing for nearly three years, and had more then a few stories of my own. I also started smoking heavy amounts of marijuana over those years. Not as quick as the stoners, but what I lacked in initiative I made up for in mass quantity. I already mentioned that I was never as academically inclined as my brother, so after high school I took me, my drug habits, my deteriorating breakdancing skills, and my hidden away artistic talents to community college, the College of Dupage county. I spent about a year and a half there, anomolous as it was you see; because I remember getting straight A's those first few quarters being that drugs and meditation brought me to a life changing experience in which I became active from inactive, and motivated and inspired from the otherwise, and yet now I can readily see my own transcripts with my own eyes and my grades were far from straight A's. Perhaps I was delusional from excessive pot use? Perhaps, perhaps my life has since been stolen from by more substantial and probably promising young people. Regardless, and I use the word heavily... I eventually dropped out to pursue my long had dream of being a complete screw up...Expand for more