Hi! My name is Gonzalo Rodriguez and I come from Venezuela, a country in South America. I am currently studying at Cheshire Academy, where I enrolled before my junior year of high school. As of today, I am a senior at the school and recently got accepted to the college of my choice, Marist College in Poughkipsie, New York. This was my top choice and I managed to get in because I applied Early Decision during the Fall. 
I lived in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, for about 15 years and my family still lives there today. I am the eldest son and have two other siblings, my brother Lorenzo (also my best friend) and my sister Daniela. Lorenzo is 13 years old and started 8th grade this year, which is the first year of high school in Venezuela. My sister Daniela is 9 years old and recently moved up from 4th to 5th grade because she was at the top of her class! My parents, Gonzalo and Daniela work in Venezuela, but travel a lot to the United States and other places around the world. My dad is a corporate attorney for an international law firm and he can practice law in three different countries, Venezuela, the U.S. and France! My mother's job is a bit harder to explain because it is a bit unorthodox. She works for a community service program that teaches music to underprivileged children around the world. The program takes children that live in poor areas of the country, and teaches them to play music, especially orchestral and classical, and this allows them to have an education and experiences that they could normally not afford, there have even been kids who have gained scholarships to major arts colleges thanks to the program! My mother helps organize the concerts where they play, and she is also part of the board of directors in a few conservatories around the United States, the most prominent being the New England Conservatory, the oldest conservatory in America! She is definitely the most interesting person I know, and she is also fluent in four different languages, English, Spanish, French and Italian.
As for myself, I am 17 years old and am fluent in Spanish and English. My hobbies include, reading, listening to music, playing video games (arguably my favorite) and recently, playing football. This year at CA I joined the football team, even though I had never played it before in my life, and enjoyed it greatly and found out I was actually pretty good at it and managed to play a few Varsity games this season! It was a great experience and I wish I had joined my junior year so I could have played more. As for the rest of my hobbies, I have been reading since I was very young and actually was the first person in my grade that learned how to read. I find reading to be a great pastime, usually finding myself immersed in the world that the book provides. My favorite hobby though, is playing video games, especially when I'm playing with my brother Lorenzo. He and I have such a great chemistry when we work together that it makes the experience all the better. I feel like video games are like a way to escape from reality, much like a book but it is more interactive. My favorite types of games are FPS (first person shooters), games where you see through the eyes of the character you control, usually fighting against enemies with your weapons. My favorite game of this genre is the Halo series, a sci-fi game where you control a genetically augmented super soldier who fights against aliens to safe humanity. I also like RPGs (Role Playing Games), where you create a character and progress through a storyline that can be altered according the decisions you make while playing. These are also classified as open world or sandbox games because you can basically do whatever you want while you are playing the game. My favorite world from this genre is The Elder Scrolls, a game series where you control a character in a fictional medieval world. But my favorite game of all time is a recent release named Destiny, an online sci-fi shooter mixed with the aspects of an RPG. It was also created by the developers of Halo, which makes me a bit biased torward it. 
I chose to take this class so I could improve my presentation skills, especially for senior speeches later in the year. By the end of the year I would like to be able to present efficiently without any major difficulties.
