I was born in Central America on a military base. My father was in the US Navy and my mother was barely out of high school. A while after I turned one years old we moved to the States, Washington. Later, we moved to California, and finally we moved to Oregon. My mom and dad were very supportive of me having interest for discovery and knowledge by buying me science books, magnifying glasses, microscopes and telescopes. However, at about 10 years old my parents divorced and my mom took me back to Central America. I went to a private school where I learned Spanish and probably got a better education than I would have in the States taking 13 different subjects including chemistry, physics, and biology (with the evolution).
School was hard for me. I hated being pressured to memorize formulas or text without an in depth understanding. I was lucky to have good friends that were also interested in knowledge and science. I remember all the times we would have deep discussions about scientific theories and mathematical problems.
I graduated a year ago and came to the States to live with my dad in hopes of a better higher education and in hopes of making better friends since even though I had lived in Central America for so long I still got a lot of crap for being North American and my older friends were already a couple years into their higher education.
I'm 19 now and I'm pretty sure I want to join the Air Force. I don't want to depend on anyone anymore. I just don't trust anyone. The Air Force will be hard sometimes but it's a chance to meet a lot of people, see a lot of places, and retire early.
This whole post has very little to do with my becoming atheist. I'll save that for the Conversion forum. The most I'll say about that here is that my mom and dad's support or conditioning of my curiosity of the universe lead me to see the world as far as my eyes could see in a way and gain knowledge from books that made clear how spirituality was a state of mind and not an 'unknown force' among other things.
School was hard for me. I hated being pressured to memorize formulas or text without an in depth understanding. I was lucky to have good friends that were also interested in knowledge and science. I remember all the times we would have deep discussions about scientific theories and mathematical problems.
I graduated a year ago and came to the States to live with my dad in hopes of a better higher education and in hopes of making better friends since even though I had lived in Central America for so long I still got a lot of crap for being North American and my older friends were already a couple years into their higher education.
I'm 19 now and I'm pretty sure I want to join the Air Force. I don't want to depend on anyone anymore. I just don't trust anyone. The Air Force will be hard sometimes but it's a chance to meet a lot of people, see a lot of places, and retire early.
This whole post has very little to do with my becoming atheist. I'll save that for the Conversion forum. The most I'll say about that here is that my mom and dad's support or conditioning of my curiosity of the universe lead me to see the world as far as my eyes could see in a way and gain knowledge from books that made clear how spirituality was a state of mind and not an 'unknown force' among other things.
