" I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are burning bright

I arise from dreams of thee,

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast:--

Oh! press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last."

~~Percy Bysshe Shelley~~

Hola bloggers! Allow me for some reminiscing this time. I still remember my childhood days, we lived around the rolling hills and near a river with lots of cedar and bamboo trees. I was living with my grandparents and I used to spend just about everyday at the river, fishing and swimming and playing in the park. I specially loved it when we were sitting on the rocks, the sun was going down and it was a bright orange. It was very beautiful lookin' over the river at it!

I don't know how we did it but grandfather and I used to walk over town to mow yards to make money for fishing. We would mow people's yards and take the money to the hardware store and buy what we needed to fish, go to the state park and fish with an old man for hours at a time. Oh, boy, but we caught mostly rainbow trout! We wanted to buy bait and hooks and we spent a lot of time making little forts and camping at grandpa's friend's house to fish. We never caught too much, but we had fun. At grandpa's friend's place, there were a lot of bamboo patches and we would take a machete and cut trails and have a pretty big room. We tried to camp in there but we were too scared to stay whole night in there because of snakes, yes and yikes, we came close many times to getting bit! But oh, it was so much fun for me! Anyway, this is just one of my fondest memories of childhood days.

The whole time in high school, I would go to school and would go to work at our grocery store right after. Unlike other teenagers, I didn't go out much for fun, instead I worked because I wanted to help mom with the bills. I seldom went out to any parties but my friends understood why. I was a bookworm with the capital B. I love reading, I read everything, from books, to magazines, to mom's grocery list. I was so much fascinated with the classic authors, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Louisa May Alcott and I had heaps of volumes of English and American poetry and spanish poetry as well. I used to spend all my savings on books. High school was pretty easy, and yes, I was very shy, painfully shy. I always wanted to go to the school where my grandmother went to.

In college I went to an all-girls university for my Bachelor's Degree in Communication Arts under university scholarship as a student assistant. I would work at the University Treasurer's Office in the morning and would attend classes from afternoon till early evening. This time I had overcome my shyness. During summer it was sooooo hot and right after work, I went to class where the teacher kept the room at about 65 degrees. Every night after class, I was very tired and the temperature change even made me more tired. One night after class while driving towards home, I almost had a wreck........

T o B e C o n t i n u e d