Sometimes I worked at a fast food restaurant, passing imaginary meals to my sister through the window. Sometimes I was a famous singer, dressing up in my fanciest clothes and lip syncing to my favorite CD as the pretend crowd went wild. And sometimes, I was a lost child having to survive in the forrest all alone, the wildlife around me being my only comfort.

            I have always LOVED to make up stories. I’d create magical worlds where the hero would fight some sort of mega-monster and save the day. I’d create worlds like our own where a character, usually much like myself but what I considered cooler, would do all sorts of cool stuff and go all sorts of cool places. Now a days I either keep these stories in my head or every once in a while write them down, but when I was little I would act them out, either with toys or people. Sometimes I acted out my stories on my own but often I played with another, often my younger sister.

I'm an only child. Growing up I didn't have a lot of friends. This may sound like a how to manual for lonelyness in children, however I wouldn't have ever said I was lonely growing up. Although most of the time I was sitting in my room playing by myself or reading in a small corner of the playground during recess, those are not the memories I treasure and look back on fondly. Instead, I remember the vacations my parents and I would spend in North Daktoa or New York with my cousins. I remember climbing trees and pretending they were my castle.  I remember swinging in a hammock piling as many cousins in as  we could. I remember both riding and driving a tractor around my grandparents farm. These are the experiences that shaped me as a person.

Surrounded by apartments of fifteen stories everywhere, finding somewhere to play was always a difficult task for my friends, my brother and me. There was seldom a park around to play, but lined spaces for cars to park. But my friends and I, at the age of seven, and my brother at five, always made our journey fruitful using our infinite range of imagination. 

I have included my experimental essay in an attachment because of formatting purposes. Apologies for the inconvenience!

I was addicted to video games when I had gotten my first computer as a birthday gift in primary school. Since I had learnt how to play them, video games became a part of my life. I played it after school without doing homework; I stayed up late to finishing my game tasks, and I kept thinking about them every time when I was awake.

 “De tín marín do pingüe, cucara macara, títere  fue, cuantas patas tiene un gato? Uno, dos, tres, cuatro!” My left foot was out the game, now I only had my right foot left to win. “De tín marín do pingüe, cucara macara, títere  fue, cuantas patas tiene un gato? Uno, dos, tr-“ *BANG* Loud screams and the sound of people running almost muffled the sound of my sister yelling for me to run inside. “Corre, lola!” I scared but I wasn’t surprised. My grandma’s neighborhood wasn’t the safest in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I watched as all my neighbors ran into grandma’s house and locked the doors as to protect us from the bullets. It was going to be okay, it would just be a little while until we felt safe enough to go back outside. And we would continue with the game.

I was very competitive when I was a child, so my experience of play was a little bit strange and funny. I remember I was into riding unicycle, exercising on the bar, doing jigsaw puzzles, and making shining balls of mud since I was three. They were really interesting to do even now, but the reason I got into them was to show the accomplishment to my mother. At that time, being recognized and praised by her was everything. I could keep on practicing a unicycle for more than five hours alone, so that I became a best unicycle rider in the area. I did more difficult jigsaw puzzles than my older brother did. I was better at the horizontal bar than anyone. I tried to make shinier balls than my friends’. It was all about winning and making my mother happy. I gained confidence through play.

Up until the age of six, I lived in an area by the sea in Hong Kong. There was a (what I later found out to be) artificially-constructed beach near our house where there was a path that we would go for 'walks' every weekend on. I say walks, but really it was just my parents pushing me on a stroller. That is, until my brother was born a little less than two years later. By then, my mom highly encouraged me to walk along while she pushed the stroller where my brother was sitting happily and obliviously.