Autobiographical Fragments

This was probably the most comprehensive personal essay I've written about myself. I expressly wrote about myself, as a witness to the miracles that God did in my life, and also as an insight into who I truly am and my foundation. This novel is about 10 pages long, originally written on March 2nd, 2018.

It all starts on January 1st, 2002 AD. I am a healthy baby boy, the firstborn to two amazing parents. Setting: Egypt, specifically the city Asyut, almost 450 kilometers away from the capital city of Cairo. It seems as if I will be a healthy, amazing little child with only the future to determine what will become of me. The day is full of celebration; joy abounds everywhere. The surreal moment of the birth of a person is mixed between the pain of childbirth and delivery and the exceedingly great joy that after many laborious months, a baby is born into the world. Names start flying across the room, from Abanoub, meaning father of gold, to Mark, meaning hammer. “His name is Mina” my mom said. Mina; It is a name you do not quite hear often. It means honest and loving. Mina; It has a certain ring to it that is distinctively different than other names. Maybe that was how I was going to grow up, distinctively yet specially different from people. Who knew what the future would hold?

Little by little, the tiny infant starts to grow, one tiny bit at a time. 7 days later, my parents bring over a priest to do the bathing prayers for me, which is the first official blessing I receive as an infant. 40 days later, I am baptized in the Monastery of St Mary in el Moharraq, near the city of Asyut. Down I went in the baptistery; three times down in the water. With that, the old and fallen nature I received as a human was removed; I am clean. Aside from the beautiful sacrament of baptism, this monastery is unlike any other monastery. The Holy Family stayed there for 3 months, the longest they have ever stayed in Egypt. This is also the only place that Jesus Christ himself blessed and consecrated. And just as Christ himself consecrated this beautiful monastery, I was consecrated with the Holy Oil of Chrismation, and Communion was the final bowtie to top everything off. The Monks proceeded me around the church, joyfully singing hymns of old as the new life was born within me. Their harmonious tunes filled the air and declared that from here on out, the King of Peace, God himself, chose this little infant to become his beloved son. Little did my parents know of how much I will love the Church, its hymns, and its traditions. But the days would progress to finally show what is to come.

I grew up living a regular life, living and loving those who I grew up with. I very easily became a chocolate enthusiast; a lover of sweets and sugars. Life is as sweet as can be, and nothing is more amazing than to hear the savory voice of my mother as she read to me the Bible. “Again! Again!” I said, with much enthusiasm and absolutely no understanding of what I listened to. But I ended up loving it.

Two years have gone by. I start to grow up and understand, even for a little, about the world around me. I start observing the way I eat, drink, and sleep. And then I start to see that there is this one place that we go to often, more than anywhere else, something like a second home. “Church,”that is what mom told me. I start to learn about someone named God and about someone named Jesus and how they are the same person. To me, it is simple, even though what happens later on in life is much more complicated than the obvious simplicity of it. I start to learn about Jesus’ mom. My mom told me that her name is Mama Mary, and that we are all her children. I love Mama Mary. She looks so sweet and kind. Her face, just like Jesus’, is kind and compassionate. When I saw Mama Mary, I saw in her the same instilled kindness that I saw in my own mother, despite the fact that I never saw her with my eyes except through the pictures and icons in our church. And then my mom surprises me. She told me that I was named after someone with the same exact name as me. As we walk down the isle of the church, I see many pictures of people. I stop my mom and ask her to tell me about each one. “Who is this person?” I asked curiously. My mother would reply “This is Saint George. You know him from the dragon under his horse.” The same, routine, and painstaking question-and-answer would have us stop at every single icon. Then we reach the picture of a tall man. He looked young and had a smile on his face. He was wearing a large, golden breastplate and something that looks like green shorts. He was also wearing a large, red cape that surrounds him. And with him, he had two animal. Camels are their names (Jeez, I’m learning a lot now!). My mom tells me “His name is St Mina.” Mina! That is him! I’m named after this tall man! You could not believe my joy. I love St Mina from all my heart. He was truly my first friend in this cruel world. (Later on I meet his friend, Pope Kyrillos VI, and the three of us would be best friends forever). As we continued to walk, my mom told me the story of St Mina, my new buddy, and how he was a good kid and he was killed for the name of Christ. This is truly how I was raised, based on the lives of the saints. The lives and stories of the martyrs, people who died just for living their faith, was always on my mother’s tongue. I was lead by their example on how to act and live and behave. I grew up to love their lives and to love how they behaved. And later, they would be my guide on many uncertain issues that I see in the near future . I would go to church really early and attend Liturgy at 7:00 sharp. In Asyut, they started on time and were never late. And throughout the liturgy, I take the same laborious tour with my mom, always stopping at every single icon and asking “Who is this? What is his story?” I liked to move. I cannot sit still for long. Later on, I prove myself wrong, but as for now, I am an energetic boy filled with the curiosities of a new life. But while service and mass are going on, I become a great disturbance and bring embarrassment to my family, especially my mom. So what does she do? She has me start drawing the pictures of these saints. She makes me look at the picture and then draw as best as possible and then returns to paying attention to the service. I, being the young and energetic person I am, find an interest in art. So I start drawing, moving my hand freely to resemble what is supposed to look like a saint, or even a person. When my mom sees that I might be struggling, she takes my hand and teaches me how to draw certain body part and clothes. Armed with this new knowledge, I take to the sheet of paper, drawing what I think would best represent what the picture is. After the service, I am greeted with the wide smile of my mom after she sees what minor accomplishment I have done. As the days passed by, every time I go to church, I was given a new task to work on to busy myself with during the service. Little by little, I became attracted to how these people called “saints” actually looked like. I started to try and dress like them and then have my parents guess which saint I was. The enjoyment I partook in learning about these saints was enormous, and this grew more as I started to perfect my basic talent in drawing pictures of saints.

Now flash forward, I am 3 years 9 months old. My sweet life changes when something wrong starts to happen. In my really short memory, this is the only time I actually feel pain. Wrong. That was the first time I discovered what irregularity meant. It all starts when I start to go to the bathroom often, and I am fatigued really easily. I start getting really sick. In all this my parents are wondering, “What in the world is wrong? Why is this happening to him? He is a normal kid, what is happening?” And as the days progress, I am more sick than ever. I.... do not....... know.............. what................ is.................... happening.

* * * *

I wake up finding myself in the hospital. I hear voices everywhere. Doctors are scrambling to get me on medicine, finding any possible solution to my deadly problem. I see lights everywhere. I start screaming “Mom! Dad! Where are you?!” I find them near me, comforting me with their soothing voice. I am so confused and lost and everything around me does not compute or make any sense whatsoever. I feel pain all over my body, more pain than anything in the whole world. Why did all this happen, actually, how did all of this happen to me? What is going on? Where are my parents? Who is that guy in white? Where am I? All these question drift around my head, giving me more of a headache than I already have. The headache comes not just from being tiered or from experiencing pain, but add onto that the confusion and mass hysteria I was succumbing to, I cannot really control myself. Many days later, I am back home, not knowing what has happened to me. With all this confusion, the words to describe such an event are almost always lost in the wave of confusion the same event occurred in.

And now, everything, my whole world, turned upside down. My parents start poking me with this weird needle thing and it hurts like hell. I do not understand the reason behind all this, but all I know is that I need to do it. I do not know what is happening to me. Why do I need to go through all this suffering? Where was God during all this? Little did I know though that He was beside me the whole time.

“Diabetes.” That is what my parents told me when I asked what I had. My dad explained that: “It is a disease where your body does not produce insulin to burn the food you eat. So you need insulin from outside.” I, being a very young toddler at the time, do not understand fully what diabetes can do to me. Soon, my chocolates are gone. I cannot eat the sweets I once loved. I’m always hungry, yet I do not really know why. Everyday, I’m tired and fatigued. And the weird poking thing still hurts, but I’m starting to get used to it. By the time I enter school, I have learned to embrace this. I knew that there were some foods I could eat and others that I cannot, or to be more honest, not always eat.

The clock ticks faster, and now I’m 6 years old. I start going to this place called “School.” I do not really understand what I do, but I routinely start doing it. We line up every day by the order of our class, and we start to follow this person, called a “teacher”, into our classroom, which is basically a room we all sit in and listen. We start learning how to speak other languages, such as English, and they taught us how to speak Arabic, which apparently we are already picking up as the days go by. We then have to learn about numbers and how to add and subtract and all these complicated stuff. And as the days go by, I am starting not to be fond of school. The only thing that I like to do is play with my friends, whom I got to know when I was very small. I was always the odd one in the group. I always tried to do the funniest jokes despite the fact that I did not know sometimes what the end result of such would be. I was creative; I always had a very broad yet detailed imagination. I was special, not just because I have diabetes, but because despite that I still lived a semi normal life.

As I started to grow, I learned more and more about the world I live in and especially about the faith that I am called to live. By the time I am 7 years old, I start to learn how to read on my own. I remember the first book my mom got me to actually read was a book on how the Bible was made and compiled. I instantly fell in love with reading after I read this book. From then on, my love for reading started inching its way into growth. As for my schooling, I had always got stellar grades; 100% in every single subject except for English, in which I got 95%. This same trend I had maintained ever since kindergarten and kept until I left Egypt. I was fortunately blessed not only to be in a Language School, which are very expensive to enter, but I was also lucky to find out that my teachers at the school were my mom’s friends, which made it easier for me to communicate with them. I did not know then, but I was also related to the principal of the school through my dad’s family. All of these blessings, along with my love for reading and an open imagination, opened up to me the floodgates of creativity. I had started to get aquatinted with something called a “computer” and I starred to make interesting conceptions with this machine called “computer.” The computer has been in our house for a long while, but I never really understood what it was used for. For all I know, I only made presentations and slides with it that I would show to my family. I had always sought to impress and wow people with my creations, no matter how interesting and complicated it can be.

There was one season that I always love; summer. Summer was always the hallmark of every single year. During summer, I used to always travel and go somewhere, whether it was down south in Upper Egypt, up north in Alexandria, east towards Port Saeed, or north to Cairo, the Capital City of Egypt. Each of these locations was special in some shape or form. When we went deeper into Upper Egypt, we would go to very old monasteries and churches that date back to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. The smell of those monasteries was a bliss that could not be comprehended. There were many blessings in each monastery that were amazing and full of awe and glory. The stories of the people who made these monasteries and how they livd was amazing to hear. As we pass by each monastery, we may end up staying there for the night and awake to the liturgy in the morning. We would keep going on this same trend for about 2 weeks, and to me, that was better than any road trip. These kinds of trips made me love my church even more and enjoy the time that I spend in the monasteries. Many times I would lose my parents hand and have them search for me all over the monastery until they found me. But as I started to grow up, my first test of responsibility would be to tell my parents where I am and keep in touch with them.

If we did not go to Upper Egypt, we went to Alexandria. Alexandria is a beautiful metropolis on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. My grandparents moved to Alexandria to assist my aunt, whose work is there. Whenever we go to Alexandria, we go to two main destinations; St Mina’s Monastery in Mariout and The Churches in Alexandria. St Mina’s Monastery in Mariout was special, though, because it was named after my buddy, St Mina. The Monastery is huge and is amazingly beautiful. What is special about the monastery is that not only is St Mina buried there, but also his best friend, Pope Kyrillos VI, is buried near him. I love both of them and it was always a joy to go and visit their place. You can relate it to going to your best friend’s house for the day, because it was literally like that. As for Cairo, we would occasionally visit my mom and dad’s father in confession, who lives in Cairo.The only other destination that we could have went to was back to my mom’s hometown of Port Saeed. We would only go there if my grandma, who happens to live in the United States, would come visit us. But there was one visit to Port Saeed that was unlike any other.

It is June, 2010. I am 8 years old and I am starting to memorize some hymns. From hearing the hymns at my church, I started to catch on and learn how to say these hymns. My love for hymns was starting to grow, little by little. And as my parents started taking me to church more often, I became not the observer but rather the partaker with all the rituals in church. My involvement in church started to grow because of the change in my role in the service of the Liturgy. In summer of 2010, we went to Port Saeed to vacation with my grandmother, who was coming from the United States. One day, after a liturgy, we stop to talk to a priest who happens to know our family very well. I was happy when I saw the priest for reasons I do not know of till now. My mom had me recite a hymn in front of the priest and, needless to say, he was impressed. He was so impressed that he told my mom that he will try to convince the Bishop, who also happened to know our family very well, to ordain me as a deacon. At first, I was not familiar with what a deacon does, but I was all the more excited. Later on, we went to Port Fouad, a city that is just across the Suez Canal. The only way you get to it is by boat. We spent a couple days in a guest house that was made by the church there. The church itself was still being built while we were there, but I still got a chance to pray in it. While we were there, I was surprised to see that, days after we came, the Bishop came by complete coincidence. We, of course, greeted the Bishop with everyone else, and then he started talking directly to me. He asked me some questions about the book I had in my hand, which was a book about the History of the Coptic Church, and I answered him with answers that were very impressive for a boy my age to answer (remember that at that time I was only 8 years old and I was talking about topics that 30-50 year olds still debate about until this day). The Bishop’s chaffeur, who was an older deacon, was also impressed by this, and later asked me to tell him more about what I read. Later on, I would remember this as a sort of bonus challenge in my way to being a deacon. Apparently, the time was set, and the Bishop was going to ordain me as a deacon. Although he promised earlier before I came that he would not ordain anyone as a deacon for the next month and a half, he said that he would ordain me on June 15th, 2010. The days afterwards would fly like the breeze, as I was carried away by the excitement of being ordained. And then, just as we came, we suddenly had to leave back to get to Port Saeed.

The next day, June 15th, was probably one of the most amazing days in my rather short life span. I woke up very early to get dressed in my best clothes, which were a blue, collared shirt, a blue clip-on tie, and nice pants and shoes. We went to the church near us, where I would be ordained, that just coincidentally was named after my favorite saint, St Mina the Wonderworker. I had managed to come to the church super early, before anyone came. And since then, I have made it a habit for me to get to church very early every single time. For the most part of the liturgy, I stood opposite of the deacons facing south outside the altar. I had managed to stay in that position for a long time, practically almost half the liturgy. When the time was near, the same priest who nominated me for the diaconate came and told me what I was supposed to do and what moves I need to do after the ordination. When the moment came, I stood in front of God’s altar and in front of the Bishop and the council of priests and was ordained “Mina, Epsaltos (Psalter) in the Holy Orthodox Church of St Mina in Port Saeed.” After the prayers were said on me, I was clothed with the assistance of the priests with all the parts of my tunic and stole. After that, I prostrated myself in front of the Altar of God and in front of the Bishop and asked for his blessing. Then, while the Hymns were being chanted to celebrate my ordination, I took pictures with the Bishop and with the rest of the priests. There were about 10 priests, all fitting into one picture. After the service was over, I was proceeded with hymns and a procession to celebrate my ordination. I was given a candle to carry and I was proceeded with all around the church. Afterwards, the Bishop gave me an autographed Kholagy, or The Book of the Services of the Church. Afterwards, we ent out and celebrated this wonderful occasion.

Flash forward a bit, and I am now nine years old. I had started to hear rumors spreading of a revolution about to hit Egypt. I was already scared after the attacks on Coptic Christians near where my grandparents live in Alexandria. We had started to fear for what is to come. And that is when my dad decided to apply to get a visa to come to America. I had always imagined that America is a land where everyone has a huge, green backyard and barbecue every single day. But hey, the stereotypes we think come from what we see on TV and hear on the internet. I find out later that, had we not moved to America, we would have suffered greatly in Egypt. It was all in God’s plan that we move to America and start our life anew there. My dad left us before 2011 started in order to prepare for us the papers in order for us to move. It was all a miracle when you consider how quick and efficient the time was in order for our papers to be accepted and, when the time came, we were the last people to have our visa application accepted and issued before the revolution forced the United States Embassy to shut down. Sooner than later, we had acquired three tickets for us to take the plane to Cairo and then to London, from where we take a plane to America. I was anxiously anticipating the worst to happen in order to keep myself realistically in check. I had to constantly remind myself that at any given moment, we could be attacked or, even worse, killed. This was all just because we choose to believe in a different God than other people and we were getting cracked down for it. Thankfully, though, we made to Cairo in one piece. We spent our last night in Egypt in a 5 star hotel right by the airport. Early in the morning, we awoke to go to the airport and take our flight out of the country. This is it, we are going to London, then the US. Finally, I will meet my family. “Wait, why is the plane so empty? Wow, there are not that many passengers! Is that because of this revolution?”, I wondered. Then I heard the clearest words I ever heard: “Welcome aboard Egyptian Airlines, We will be leaving from Cairo International Airport to Heathrow London International Airport connecting to San Francisco International Airport”. I knew from that moment on that my life will never be the same. I was going to a foreign country with the pride of an Egyptian and the heart of a Coptic Christian. The plane ride to London was not bad at all, but it was rather my flight to America from London that was quite uncomfortable. That did not matter to me though, because I knew that in America, I can finally be at ease for once. When we reached San Francisco International Airport, the sun was just starting to set. The air was crisp and clean, and there were many trees all around. We were greeted by my uncle, who transported us to his house with his van. We had carried many bags and rode so many planes that by the time we came, we were all tired and hungry for fresh food. When we came to my uncle’s house, we were greeted by our entire family, who were joyful in seeing us after hearing about what had already happened in Egypt. They claimed that we, for the most part, were living under very bad conditions, and although this is 80% true, the rest of the 20% were fabricated by the media. But despite all that, I was finally happy to be in a safe home.

I had started school in Montevideo Elementary School in the spring of 2011. I was 9 years old. When I started school in America, I was not up to speed in everything they learned. What was different though is that the homework load in American schools was very drastically lower than that of Egyptian schools. This is when I discovered something; that American schools know how to teach well but do not have a stable and solid curriculum, and Egyptian schools have a solid curriculum for everyone, but their teaching methods are way out of order. I was very shocked to receive only papers for homework and not have to copy down notes or write the lesson multiple times. What shocked me even more is that we went to school wearing regular clothes and not the traditional uniform that I always went to, which is likened to a 3 piece suit in the midst of the intense Egyptian heat. All these changes took time in order for them to be adjusted, but they changed rather quickly. When I first came to school, I did not know how to speak English properly, because the English I had learned at the Language School in Egypt was a mixture of British with an Arab accent. It was so crooked and weird but, until now, there are still some remnants left of it. I was blessed to have a good friend who knew how to speak Arabic and he helped me understand and translate some of the concepts that were difficult for me to understand at the time. My passion for reading was now split into two, Arabic and English. I still maintain my Arabic skills until this very day because I continued to read in Arabic and not stop. But at the same time, in order to learn English, I had to start reading in English. I had started to read simple books, such as The Cat in the Hat and Geronimo Stilton. With this, my vocabulary soon started to expand and I had started to learn more complicated words. By the time the STAR test came along, I had scored proficiency on the English exam and Advanced on the Math exam. With that, my first semester in the United States has ended.

During the semester I spent at Montevideo, we had moved to a single bedroom apartment that was farther away from where we first stayed, which is with my uncle. Once the school year ended, my parents made the amazing decision to move me to Quail Run Elementary School, which was more near to me than my previous elementary school. At first, I was very disappointed in their decision because I had wanted to stay with my newly made friends at Montevideo. But the decision proved worthwhile and, in the end, amazingly good. I had the opportunity to spend not only my fourth, but also my fifth grade years, with my favorite elementary school teacher, Miss Williams. From her, I had started to grow in my reading and I had started to find a newfound love for history. I was paying more attention in class as I began to understand what I was listening to. And when the next STAR test came along, I was prepared to ace it without a doubt.

By the time 5th grade comes around, I hear news that we have the option to enroll in an orchestra or band. I have longed to play an instrument for a long time. It started out with learning the guitar, but then it was professionalized into learning the violin. I had always wanted to join such an orchestra, but neither knew if it was good for me or how I can even join. So what I did is I started asking everyone around me if Orchestra would be a good choice for me. They all told me that “Yes! Orchestra is an awesome choice.” Among those who recommended it for me was the previous Principal in the same elementary school. She not only recommended it for me, but also assured my dad that by doing such, I would do myself a great service and that he would not have to worry about paying for it. And it was because of her work at convincing my dad that I joined the orchestra at 5th grade. I had quickly progressed through the beginning orchestra and joined the advanced orchestra, all in the same year. This unlocked to me a world untapped and enabled me to choose my electives carefully when the time came to go to Middle School.

6th grade came around in the blink of an eye. I had graduated from elementary school just like that. I never knew what lay ahead of me, but I can say that 6th grade was the most insignificant year of schooling ever. Nothing new was done, and I started to descending into unsuccessful paths. When 7th grade came around, I had learned from all the mistakes I had made in 6th grade. I continued in the orchestra for my 3rd year, but I decided to make a decision that would change my musical career forever; I had decided to play the bass, the Contrabass. I never knew how one can even play it, but I was interested enough that I practiced every single day after school was over for an hour at the least. During that time, I got to bond with the music teachers and learn from them. Overall, I have a God-given talent in talking my way to adults. I had already manifested this with the Bishop who ordained me in Egypt, and now, I was doing the same exact thing, but with my teachers. I use this opportunity to learn wisdom from them that is beyond the curriculum taught in class. Little by little, my talent in playing the bass started to become more smooth and clean. When 8th grade came around, I had joined the jazz ensemble, joined a full orchestra at school, and became principal bass in my orchestra. That was the first time I ever filled a principle chair. 8th grade was one of the most wonderful school years overall. Everything was working out for my good. Much of the school year was preparation for high school, which was a dread for me at the time. I had not been too fond of school until I was in 10th grade. For me, school was ok, not too bad yet not amazingly awesome. I guess that is the condition with much of what we see in life.

Church was always my refuge during the weekend. Every weekend, for the past 6 years, I would go to church on a consistent basis. It was so consistent that it became a routine, and then a habit, and then a lifestyle so essential that without it, I feel like I am missing a part of myself. This regular attendance made me not only a partaker in the liturgy, but rather more. I became a leader, leading the people through the course of the liturgy through my duties as a deacon. I had started to not only follow along, but rather lead other people into prayer with little responses such as “You who are seated stand” or “Greet one another with the Holy kiss” and so forth. Because of this, I started to grow a fondness to Coptic Hymns. This fondness later grew to a love and respect, then it became a matter of everyday repetition until the hymn stuck to my mind. By the time I was in 6th grade, although the time was insignificant, I had started to lead people into mass completely on my own. At first, I was a nervous wreck. I could not do every task at once, which led me to be nervous and anxious that I might mess up some parts and then embarrass myself in front of everyone. And to be quite honest, there were many times that I was embarrassed and humiliated because of an action I did. When it started occurring so much, I became conditioned to handling my embarrassing moment and then handling the situation in a timely manner appropriate of the time and place. But later on, I became so conditioned to leading mass on my own that I did not need anyone else to guide me, but rather I was guiding people throughout the whole entire service. This, of course, would not have been possible if it were not for my mom and dad pushing me to attend church until it became something that I love and cherish.

The days leading up to the summer before my high school freshman year were some of the best days in my life. The first of which was the graduation party. By that time, iI had encircled myself with good friends that supported me in everything I did. When the time came for graduation, I made sure that I spent it with the right people, so that the year can end on a good note. I did so many different things with my friends in the graduation party, including photoshop, trampolines, laser tag, eating desert, and caricatures. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. The day after that, we all went together to Great America and enjoyed our time there. I came in without anything and left gilded in new merchandise that I earned there with the help of my friends. We went on so many rides and had food and threw it up later and enjoyed ourselves in every little manner. Then came the final moment I have been waiting for; graduation. I dressed myself in my beige suit and walked down the platform, receiving the diploma that declared that I officially graduated from Middle School; that this stage in life was over.

Summer began, and we had moved for the 5th time already and still we moved again. This time, we moved near my old elementary school. The summer itself was spent in preparation for the awaited competition that I have been doing ever since I came to America. It was a competition between all the Coptic Bay Area Churches called “St. Mark’s Festival.” For 4 consecutive years, I have received multiple awards in the areas of Spiritual Studies, Hymns, Coptic Language, and much more. This was an ingenious way to involve the youth in church over the summer while they were not doing anything. I involved myself in so many fields in the competition, which eventually pays off in the end when I receive multiple awards and certificates. I represented our church well and was commended for doing so multiple times over the years. Concerning my involvement in church, I was pleasantly surprised with something I did not expect. In late August, I received a call from my hymns teacher that I was nominated to be promoted into the second level, or Reader, in the Diaconate. I was one of the first ordained readers in our church, which is a special privilege and honor I do not deserve. So on the 22nd day of the month of August, I was promoted to the level of Reader. I was overwhelmed with how tremendous of a responsibility I must bear, but I rely on God to help me fulfill all that needs to be done.

High School, a word that I dreaded with all my heart but now live as a part of reality. I had entered High School in the infamous Dougherty Valley High School, a school known for students working extra hard and taking many APs. The rumors, as they seem, were true to a certain degree. The amount of stress I have found in Dougherty Valley is unprecedented to such a level that even my old school in Egypt does not compare to the amount of stress in Dougherty. I was scared from everything and above all for myself. At first glance, Dougherty is not too bad. It really depends on how much you want to tire yourself over schoolwork. I was already starting to get tired by the beginning of second semester. I have pain in my chest and I……don’t………know………why.

* * * *

I was coming down with a type of pneumonia I never heard of before. It was so bad, that even the doctors suffered with me and were in the end clueless and puzzled about what I had. I had been taking antibiotics and I did not know why I was still suffering pain. I was laid in bed, unable to move or even breath. My illness became like an endless marathon, too long to comprehend. I was losing the battle to a small fungus that completely neutralized my body and left me incapable to complete even the smallest of tasks. The condition lengthened and as the days fell of the calendar, so did my grades. I was once a proficient student but now I was a failure, a mockery amongst my companions. It took three doctors and countless antibiotics and shots to the gluteus in order to find out what kind of pneumonia I had. “Fungal pneumonia” the doctor told me. It came as a result of me celebrating my 15th birthday with my friends in the Central Valley. I had been prescribed, for the last time in a long while, the last batch of antibiotics. And after a couple of weeks, I was given the opportunity to be homeschooled and even take my tests and make up my work from home in effort to catch me up to speed on everything else that is happening in my classes. I end up finishing the year better than I had started it, or at least I tried to.

The start of 10th grade was by far the most weird start to a year. To start off, our music teacher broke her kneecap on the second day of school and, since then, I have been indirectly tasked with leading the class through the rehearsal. As for my other classes, they are all in good condition and I manage to do well in all of them.

It is March 1st, 2018. I have definitely come a long way since my birth. I have many projects to catch up with, such as TEDx and the Student Recognition Project. I have decided that I will write the entirety of my life and present it as a memoir, a record to tell people of how interesting of a life I have lived so far. But I ask myself, “How should I start it?” The idea popped into my head! I will start it as such: “It all starts on January 1st, 2002 AD.” It is 2:10 Am, March 2nd, 2018.

The End.