BUSY!

I have so many posts that I want to make, but alas school season has commenced (strangely early this year for the east) and I'm bogged down with tons of work!! I already know that my roommate this year is really studious which gets me feeling like I should really hit the books more, especially since I'm applying to college next fall! 

On a funny note, last year Sergio helped me move into my dorm since he's down the road at MIT and my parents didn't want to fly from CA just to help me move back in for one day. Since his visit to my school, he has become creepily facebook stalked by many high school girls. Does he find this amusing? I think not!

Languages At Home

Something everyone always asks my sister and I is what language do we speak at home?

I've pretty much spent the whole summer with my friend Nina who lives on the east coast. She and her older brother moved from Japan when she was around two or three because her mom remarried an American man, Mr.D (short for DuPont). At her home there is always a combination of Japanese and English being thrown around.

My mom attempted to learn German on several occasions. It's really horrible, when she tries to pronounce the words they come out with a spanish accent. So, she generally just sticks to teaching Spanish.

When Sergio first moved to America, we made a really big effort to speak only English in the house. But after he became fluent in it, he and my mom spoke Spanish a lot. It's one of her life's passions I guess you could say. She's probably a really good teacher because she is so enthusiastic about it. Julia and I know basic Spanish but that's about it.

When we were little my dad spoke a lot of German to us, and we visited my dads parents in Germany almost every summer and sometimes during winter break too. So we almost always speak German when we are around my dad.

BUT

Above all we speak English the most!

My dad thinks it's rude to speak German around non-German speaking people. Since mom can't speak German, we usually stick to English. Which kind of sucks because everyone (including Sergio) can speak German.

The Norm

Ask anyone who knows my family, and they will tell you that we are anything but normal.

My story is short. So I was born and raised in Sacramento and my parents still live there. But it can get a little complicated. Lets start from the beginning. 

Dad

Born in Germany. Turkish mother, German father. Interesting combo. Twin brother Karl. My grandma speaks Arabic and is Muslim. My grandfather speaks German and is Lutheran. No one ever believes that my dad is really German though. Mostly because he has no accent when he speaks English. Well my dad happens to be incredibly smart, got into Stanford and moved here to the US. My grandmother wasn't to happy about this generally. Anyways he later went to UC San Francisco where he became a dermatologist.

So actually he's pretty normal. It's my mom that's the crazy one.

Mom

Born in LA. And honestly I think that's what did it..

She's just regular old African/Black American. Went to San Diego State, majored in Spanish. Immediately ran off to Spain for five years. Her and her then Spanish lover, Antonio, had my now 24 year old brother Sergio. Antonio's parents basically took over the responsibility of then baby Sergio. Two years later my mom comes back to California ohne Antonio, and Sergio. Sounds cold, but there was also something weird going on with her visa.

And so she and my dad met. A year later my sister Julia was born. Then my parents finally tie the knot, and then I was born a year after that. 

Some of you might be wondering about baby Sergio. Don't worry! 

Sergio moved to California to live with us when he was 10 (I was three and Julia was five). It was an awkward thing because Sergio has bright green eyes (kind of like that National geographic picture, "Afghan Girl") and looks Brazilian and spoke with a latin accent, which isn't so awkward but everyone always asked if he was a foreign exchange student. This was before he really learned to speak English, and his accent has since disappeared. Also my mom had never really lived with him before except for a couple of months after he was first born. They had to restart the whole mother/child bond all over again. Of course she visited him in Spain a lot before he came to the states, but she was never like a mother to him until he was much older.

phewww. On to the current.

now I am seventeen and Julia nineteen. Sergio = twenty-four

Me

just trying to finish up with boarding school in Mass.

Julia

legacy at Stanford this fall and will probably major in Architectural design. She was pretty inspired after she spent a semester of her senior year in Japan and fell in love with their architecture.

Sergio

graduated from Cal Polytechnic with a degree in "Liberal Arts Engineering Studies" whatever that means.. and is now at MIT probably getting a masters in mechanical engineering. The cool thing is that when Segio came to live with us, he picked up a lot of German and so in college he got an internship with BMW in Germany, and he REALLY wants to work there now.

yes I know my siblings are geniuses.

Did I forget to say my name? I'm Celia btw!