My name is Oscar Alejandro Hernandez Manxz (most people call me Oscar Manxz).  I am a follower of Jesus Christ and a disciple of his teachings.  I am a Pastoral Studies major at Simpson University in Redding California.  I am going to tell you the story of how I got to today.  Here we go:

June 21st 1989 was the day which I was born on.  I’d like to think that I am special, but I know it.  From an early age I developed a sense of sarcasm and this had been a tool for breeding fun at times, but has also gotten me in a lot of trouble.  The first nine (9) years of my life I spent in the southern-urban part of Mexico–Guadalajara, Jalisco.  I attended school there and had no concept of the “American Dream,” that is, until my uncle moved in with us.  He [Uncle Javier] has always been a great influence in my life and has taught me his “do’s and don’t's about life.”  I never really paid attention to his “philosophy” because I never held him in a high place in my life, until later years.  School in Mexico was great.  I got to play Miguel Hidalgo in one of the school’s play (yes we had a play in Mexico).  We did all the acting and walking around (almost naked) in the back of the school, or what we called the “patio.”

Almost everyday after school I would walk back home to find my friends (they were lazy enough to stay at home, and lucky enough to be given permission to stay at home, at least I thought) playing outside.  We would usually play a game called “Changais.”  This game was simple and quite fun.  This was the Mexican version of baseball.  You needed to sticks. one about 1 1/2 feet long and the other about 1/2 foot long.  Here is how you play:  dig a whole in the ground (where I lived there was no pavement) vertical to where you are facing and wide enough for the stick to fit in it.  place the smaller stick on top of the whole horizontally, and scoop it forward with the larger stick.  There were usually people in front of you trying to catch the stick to get you out.

I don’t really miss that game because I got hit in the face with the stick, trying to catch it, a lot.  And it hurt.  One thing I really miss, though, is eating full-on traditional Mexican food with ingredients straight from down the street.

Since we were close to the beach, and we owned a beach house there, we would go there every summer.  The back of the beach house was amazing.  We had hundreds of exotic fruit trees (some were even illegal in the U.S.A.).  I remember watching the same cartoon every morning with my uncle Francisco; we watched Donald Duck in one of those cinema-reel machines.  I thought that was pretty awesome.

After 9 years of living in Mexico, we moved in with my uncle Gustavo in LA (Los Angeles, CA). This is where my great journey begins:

My first day at my middle school I met little Mexican kid (I can not remember his name, but he was the fastest runner in the whole school).  Blah (this is what I’m going to call this kid) was my best (and only) friend, for the first couple of months.  We used to have competitions to see who was a faster runner.  He always beat me, except one day I tripped him, and chipped his tooth.  We were no longer friends after that incident.  So, I still could not pronounce or say a single word of English.  After living in LA for one year, my mom decided that she hated living with my uncle Gustavo, so we moved in with my aunt Rosa in Chicago.  Those were some cold years, and there were a lot of black people there.  That was different.  Schools there looked like prisons.  One flat room, 50 stories tall.  Often times walking up and down the school building was our P.E. excersice.  Many things happened in Chicago and we decided to move back to California.  I still could not speak English.

San Diego was our final destination.  We got involved in church and my mom finished school.  I started going to school, again.  I was in 6th grade.  Just in time for 6th grade camp.    It had not been 3 months after we got to San Diego and I was speaking english, fluently.  I was surprised of myself.  Middle School went by really quick and it was now time for high school.

San Ysidro High School was the name.  I was part of the first generation of this school.  The city built this city just for us, kids of the community.  My high school journey was a pleasant one.  I was a popular kid.  I am smart–still– and quite the flirt.  I took every possible AP class available and gained excellent grades throughout my high school education.  I graduated as the top 2student in my class and exited high school with a 4.58 GPA (Grade Point Average).  I met many people through this journey and many, I consider, to be life-long friends.  This could not stop me from moving away though.

Even though I applied and got accepted to many Ivy League Schools and High-Tech Savvy Schools, I (God had the better plan for my life) decided to go to a tiny private school in Redding, CA; Simpson University.  My freshman year, I got homecoming prince and acted in childish manner as a result of it.  I didn’t start my career as a Pastoral Studies Major, but instead was a business major.  I wanted get rich.  This was not the greater plan.  After a chain of events that took place in the summer of 2008 I switched to my current study major, Pastoral Studies.

I believed I have changed tremendously over the past 10 years that I have been in this country and I know I have made a difference in someone’s life.  I have met many different kinds of people and will continue to do so in the future.  I am now a junior and plan to continue my studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

I have the best mom, brothers, friends, and roommates.  Thank you guys for all of your support.

Blessings,

Oscar H. Manxz