During the summer of 1997, I had graduated from Occidental College and was working at LAX as I was deciding the next steps towards my education. I knew I wanted to become a teacher but I was hoping to take a year off to explore my options and travel. I received a call from my high school college counselor, Mrs. Cassandra Roy, and she mentioned that her husband, Dr. Ernie Roy, and principal of King/Drew was looking for a Spanish teacher. I was not very eager to begin teaching because I looked so young and I had only taken 4 classes of my education coursework. However, I could not miss the opportunity and made an appointment to have a talk with Dr. Roy. At the end of our conversation, he offered me a job on the spot. I was shocked because I did not think it was an official interview. At that point, I could not say no because I was intrigued with the idea of teaching in a small school and I committed to one year.

Well, the 1997-98 school year was a year full of learning experiences, many evenings of falling asleep on my couch without dinner due to the exhaustion, sharing a bungalow with Andrea Paige and Ms. Alvarado, having 3 levels of Spanish at any given time period in one class, not having a normal bell schedule, roaming to different locations and having Mr. Segal in the background while I taught in his class ( the pressure was on), organizing the Cinco de Mayo celebration with the help of my mom and Ms. Alvarado, sharing a door with a scary looking Mr. Miller who would burst in at any given time, and having many Peruvian lunches.  Through it all, I created friendships and had a great cheerleader in Dr. Roy who gave me the best feedback when I thought I was failing. To this day, I owe Dr. Roy and Dr. Woods a great deal of gratitude for being my mentors and giving me the confidence to continue my career in education.