Even at a very early age I was always very interested in creating things. Naturally, I was drawn to Legos, Which bring me to my earliest memories and my first and one of my best friends. In preschool, if you wanted to be cool, you played with legos. this was okay because i already played with legos all the time. This was also a period where everyone was obsessed with beyblades. There were legos at preschool, but only one single sacred piece cherished by all who found it. the single stud that would allow for the creation of tops. Kids would fight over this one piece just for one use. Some would go to war and not come back, banished to “the office. ” The office was the principal's work place, and was the ultimate punishment for any misdemeanor. I was sent to the office regularly.
There were other forms of legos though, not just the blocky ones you played with at school. The bionicles. Self assembled action figures, that were arguably the coolest thing to me at that age. Kyle also happened to take an interest in bionicles, and we quickly started playing together during our coveted recess time. And so, my first friend was made. Kyle and I would go on to be great friends later in life. But I had other things that would happen to me between now and when I’d see him again.
Age six. I was out of pre school, free from nap time, able to ride a bike and do all sorts of big boy things. This leads to the summer of 2003. I was “sneaking” into my parents bedroom to deliver a pair of paper fans I had made as a surprise for them. My mother called to me from the dining room, and the smell of lunch wafted into the room. Immediately ran from the room, not looking where i was going, and slamming straight into the corner of the bookshelf. At first i reassured myself repeatedly that it was “Just a bump.” Turns out i had split the skin of my head and nearly fractured my skull. Quite a bump. The thing that first tipped me off to the gravity of the situation, was the profuse amounts of blood that began to drip down my face and to the carpet. My mother was surprisingly calm about the entire situation. She called my dad, who naturally freaked out, and they met at the ER. Evidently, blood pouring out of your head isn’t that much of an emergency, considering the fact that I was waiting for 2 hours.
Since this was right around lunch time, I was starving, and the only source of food I had was a small package of M&Ms out of a vending machine in the lobby. I should note that M&Ms contain chocolate. This will be big later. So I finally got to see a nurse... doctor... medical professional, who promptly instructs my father to apply LIQUID COCAINE to my wound. After a few minutes, another nurse walks by, and double takes at the site of my dad giving me hard drugs. “What are you doing?!” She asked, as If my father was breaking the law. “You're not supposed to have that!” “I’m just doing what the doctor said” My dad responded defensively. Eventually I’ve gotten stitches, and all is well. Until that night.
At this age my family was only just becoming aware of my GERD. If you don’t know, that’s an acronym for gastrointestinal esophageal reflux disease. In short, I was allergic to a lot of things. Those being chocolate, peppermint, lime, lemon, and any strong citrus for that matter. This would also be a good time to mention that there’s a history of pre existing conditions in my family. My father had crohn's disease, meaning he was very weak, and I didn’t have much interaction with him as a child. most of it was me playing while he lay on the floor beside me.
So I lay there, experiencing the hell that was my stomach when exposed to any of those substances. I would get a horrible ache in my side, or if things got worse, which they so often did, vomit.

I remember many a night, sitting in the hallway in the still of darkness, clutching my stomach waiting for the pain to subside. It was hard, but I got through the pain. What was worse was having to turn down all of the chocolate, peppermint and other things of the like that would tip me off. It was hard, and I often felt alone and left out. But after awhile I got over the allergy, and now, I can eat anything. Within reason.
2004. The point in time in which three words would pick up my world and drop it on the ground, stamping on it repeatedly until unrecognizable. Turns out over the next nine months, my mother would be developing within her body, a large female child named Harper that was soon to wreak havoc on my small world. As I mentioned earlier, I loved Legos. Every last lego was to be put away once the baby was here. EVERY. LAST. LEGO. This, was an outrage. *sniff* all... all the legos... all my creations... my friends... my life... gone. I was overreacting a bit of course, having a small child sister wasn’t all that bad. I had to get rid of all small toys, but I was actually quite fond of her in her early years. We had a lot of fun together and I ended up spending a lot of time with her.
Now Middle school. Probably the worst school experience I have had or will ever have. Boring, remedial, even the gifted program was boring for me. These became the troublemaker years of my life. And what thing was I so good at that I could use it to my mischievous advantage? Computers. Nearly every class used computers, and all of them were very poorly supervised. This was my chance. My chance to leave my little mark on the school. Mission one. PUBIC schools. People were constantly changing their wallpapers, and the teachers had no copy of the original background, so I put one up on the share drive. What people didn’t know, was that the logo in the bottom right corner was missing the L in public. Every computer in my english class, including the smart board had the modified background.

The experiment was mainly to see how many people actually payed any attention to the background, and the results were a conclusive zero. My next experiment was more for myself, and was more complicated. I was too boot the computer in ubuntu, a separate OS, from a flash drive. This was admittedly a bad Idea. I was successful, but there was a huge problem. All of windows was now labeled a “Lost file.” Normally, this is no big deal, but when you’re on a school computer and it takes an hour to find windows, it is most certainly a problem. After rebooting the computer, I freaked out and put it away in the laptop cart, and left it alone, later overhearing a conversation about the very same laptop while sitting in the school library.

Now, 2010. Turns out my mother wasn’t finished with children. It still eludes me why she decided to have another child. “Keenan, you’re going to have another sister.” My mother said, exhausted but happy. “WHAT?! NO! YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY??” turns out she didn’t, and I didn’t find sitting in my room for the day funny either. Jillian came in september, and I was already used to the whole baby thing, so it wasn’t as big a deal as previous events.

Just after Jillian was born, we had to move, the house being too small for five people. The move was hard. Very hard. I had to leave all of my neighborhood friends behind, and the house that I knew so well. It was a huge change, and looking back on it now, I see it was for the better. The house was much bigger than before, and there were two usable floors. There were also two bathrooms which was a HUGE change. I practically got my own bathroom.

Next came Juniour high. Well, I’m still in junior high. Only a few big things have happened here at west. Firstly, my first relationship. I asked out Alex in december of 2011, and we’ve been together since. It’s a slightly tough relationship, because she’s now at a different school, but it’s still better than nothing. We get together every weekend to watch movies, and thats one of my favorite things that I do every week.

Over all my life has been a pretty normal life, not too bad, not too amazing. I’d rate it about a nine out of ten. My life has been like a movie to me, looking back at it is like watching an old movie.