My elementary years were fun up until the end. Everyone was about to start junior high, and everyone started to discover who they were and what their personalities were. I wasn't so lucky, as nearly all the friends I had accumilated at my school either abandonded me for other friends, or turned against me to satisfy other friends. School became a stressful time, and my family life became stressful to deal with, as my parents were divorcing. By the end of 1998, I was living in another state, having to adjust to a new life, at a new school, and to try and make new friends. But one thing remained the same, my video games weren't gonna go away. I wasn't gonna let the stresses of life get in the way of my games! Around the time we were moving, I read about this exciting new game coming to the Game Boy, Pokemon.
The Pokemon games were about collecting all the different little creatures, forming the perfect fullproof team, and befriending others in order to trade with them. It was the perfect game for someone like me, who found joy in collecting and organize things relevant to my interests. And while Pokemon was just another fun game to me at that point, I didn't know that Pokemon would be instrumental in helping me in my first real job, where I helped run a real Pokemon Trading Card Game league at an elementary school, where I worked as an assistant. This was in 2005, seven years after I got my first Pokemon game. I wanted to catch them all, and in learning how to do so, I was unknowingly prepping myself for a career as a future educator.