Hi, my name is Tami. I am a senior in High School, and am currently in my fourth year of Japanese. My Japanese name in class is Chika. Right now I am also taking Algebra II, Clothing II, Concert Band, and Select Choir. In band I play the flute, and I'm a soprano in choir. I am seventeen years old, I have blond hair, green eyes and am about five feet and three inches. I live with my mom, dad and my younger brother. We live in River Falls, Wisconsin, in a big red house that looks like a barn on Fremont Street. I have an older sister too, but she's already moved out. My dad's name is Dennis and is forty-seven years old. His profession is an electrician, and currently working at a place were they fix coffee makers and toasters. He is trying to find another job though; one that pays better. My mom's name is Amy and she is forty-three years old. She is a Pharmacist's Assistant at Freeman Drugs down town on Main Street. My parents have been married for twenty-one years and will probably never split up, which is a good thing. My older sister's name is Tyleah, but we all just call her Ty for short. She is nineteen years old, but will be turning twenty in a month. She is a freshman in Collage and is living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She's going to school to be a nail care technician. Ty is engaged to a guy named Jacob, but they're going to wait to get married until they are both out of school. No body in my family really likes him, but that's beside the point. My younger brother's name is Brion and he is fourteen years old. He is in eighth grade and plays percussion in band. He is also really hyper and annoying, but surprisingly we get along very well.
      My family has been through a lot in the past two years. About two years ago in December my grandma, my mom's mom died of leukemia. If you don't know what leukemia is, it's a kind of cancer that affects your bone marrow. But any ways I guess I'll start from the beginning so you know what happened. About five years ago she had breast cancer, and breast cancer runs in our family, but she had to go through kimo therapy. Which wasn't a hood thing, I mean it got rid of the cancer, but it gave her permanent heart problems. Then a year later she got emphysema from smoking since she was twenty, and that didn't help anything. The two of those things mix together caused her to have really bad bones, which caused her leukemia. The doctors said that if she had kimo therapy again she might not make it, because of what happened last time. But she would have a greater chance with that then with nothing at all. After she went through kimo again it made her heart worse and the doctors said she only had a year to live. She only made it six months and dies in December of 2002. I was really close to my grandma and am really sad that she's gone. But I'm also glad because near the end there, she was in a lot of pain. When we were doing better after her death, something bad happen again. Last summer my dad went into the hospital because he had two strokes. I was from smoking of course, but when he was there they found out that he had a blood clot that was blocking blood from going to his brain, hence the two strokes. He was there for a month getting better, mean while my aunt Mary Jo was getting weak because she was getting cancer. She had a lump on her neck and it's a type of cancer with a really long name that I don't know. But she had to go through radiation treatment and lost a lot of wait. They are both doing fine now but it's been really difficult for us all to go through so much at a time, but we're getting through.
      Once I graduate I plan to go to a four-year collage. I want to major in graphic arts and minor in music. I don't know yet if I seriously want to do something professionally with my flute, but I know I'll never stop playing. I really love graphic design, because I love to draw and I make up a lot of cartoons all the time. See I have ADD, and when I don't take my medication I have a lot of voices that like to come out. The thing that got me into making my cartoons is when I sat down one day and put names and faces with these voices of mine. Then I just kept on adding characters and started making cartoons. Besides drawing I also love to make things, like crafts. I sew a lot of stuff and make boxes and jewelry, and I even at one time wanted to open my store and sell crafts. So I took a Business and Marketing class and decided that that wasn't for me. So I just keep that dream as a fantasy. I have other hobbies too, I like to rock climb, and I'm the only one in my family that isn't scared of heights. Actually I love height, and when I was little I use to climb up on the roof because I wanted to fly. I also like hanging out with my friends and watching movies. And doing stuff out side like gardening and climbing trees, because I love the out doors. After collage I want to move to California and start a family there. I want to have eight kids, and mom says that I'm crazy. I don't have a boyfriend right now but maybe I'll find one in collage. I'll have to find someone one whose going to want to manage eight kids with me, and it's probably not going to be easy.
      Well that's pretty much my life in a nutshell. I hope you enjoyed learning about my life, because I had fun sharing it with you.