My name is Vanessa L, and I am deaf. Ever since I was a kid I had a dream to be an animal doctor which later in life, I realized the official name was a veterinarian. I remember I was watching a documentary of how some animals are abused, abandoned, starved and etc. I asked my mom “Why do people do that to their pets?”, her response was “Because there are bad people in the world”. Another memory is that I used to have a Saint Bernard named Kaya. She had broken her front right paw from I don’t recall how, I remember crying to her how I wanted to help her from the bloody mess, I gave her hugs and everything. Luckily, I am registered to CSN to achieve my childhood dream/goals. This is my first year at CSN, it’s a start but a long way to go.

To be honest, I did not like English classes due to my struggles through reading and writing. It took me awhile to understand the sounds of the letters and as for my writing I am still struggling with grammars, and the placements of punctuation. The main reason for this is because during my elementary and half of my middle school, I was placed in a special eds classes. Keep in mind, some of these classes have non verbals kids, autistic, and down syndrome kids. I visually remember we did pretty much nothing. We would sing songs, have coloring time, snacks time, and play time. Basically,its like a daycare but in school environment. This all changed when I was maybe around eighth grade or freshmen year. I was pulled out of the special eds class due to a lot of fighting with the school system, I was taught in a regular class, I didn’t have speech therapy anymore. I began to understand the alphabet, the pronounce of words, and some of the basic rules of English. I began to love reading, I could never put a book down till I reached the last page, I sometimes write stories about anything.

I am Mexican so naturally I have a huge family. Both of my parents are alive and well. I have four sisters (twenty five years old, twenty one years old, seventeen years old, and an eight years old.) I also have a nephew who is three years old. Even though my dad hates it, but we also have two Maltese dogs, they are eleven and twelve years old. Like every family we have issues, we been through a lot. Things like surgery, depression, family nonsense, my dad being a Route 91 shooting survivor and etc.

Now you know a little about me. In case you didn’t catch my name, Hi! I am Vanessa L, nice to meet you. Maybe next time, I will tell you my story of how I became deaf. Spoiler alert! It is intense!