Hola!  Como esta usted?

My name is Guadalupe Angelica Maria Theresa Rodriguez De La Cortez.  (My name is bigger than I am!  LOL)  I am thirteen years old; I live with mi familia in Miami, Florida, where the sun is hot (and the nightlife is even hotter!!).

I have my mami y papi, as well as my brothers Miguel (15), Paco (11), and Torencio (9), in addition to my sisters Gloriana (8), Iselda (6), and Carmen (5).  Our abuela Carmen (little Carmen's namesake) and abuelo Diego live with us, too.  As you can see, we have a big familia!  :)

That's not counting my pet Chihuahua, "Graciela", or my kitty, "Sadie". 

I am in the eighth grade at Miami Prep School; it's like high school, but we are taking college-level courses.  It's for gifted/talented students; school is fun, but it is a challenge at times.  The level of homework we get is incredible; we have homework just about every night.  (Don't have any today; I got it done last night.  :) Which means total freedom today!  Yay!!)

I love school; I always love a good challenge when it presents itself.  :)

I have muchos amigos.  Been friends with some of 'em since grade school; we go back a long way.  By those friends I mean Isis, Rachael, Graciela (my friend, not the dog LOL), Hera, Winnie, and Victoria (Tori).  We're still as close now as we were when we were little kids.

For fun, I love walking on the beach, hanging out with my friends and enjoying the nightlife Miami has to offer, talking on the phone or on the IM on the computer, texting, reading (I love books by James Patterson or by Sarah Dessen), dancing/partying, playing futball (soccer), baseball, and softball, and just enjoying life.  I am a very active, well-rounded person, as you can see.

In addition, I love helping out the kids at my school who have special needs.  I help them with their reading, word vocabulary, or spelling, and I let them know that I care for them.  They are great kids for whom life has given them a big cross to bear; it isn't their fault that they are disabled in some way.  I feel sorry for the ones who live with things like cerebral palsy, AIDS, autism, or muscular dystrophy because their lives are so messed up, and it isn't even their fault.

When people see me, they see I have blonde hair.  Yeah, I dye my hair blonde.  So what??  I like the way I look in blonde hair; my usual-black hair is boring, so I wanted to liven it up.  Therefore, I dyed it blonde.  I love how I look with my blonde hair; with my hazel-green eyes, and dark skin,  I look quite exotic this way.  And I look more like the Americanos; sometimes I don't want to look so...so ... shall we say, 'Mexican'??

Nothing wrong with being Mexican, mind you, but sometimes I get tired of people telling me to "go back to where I came from" or calling me a da** illegal when I was born here in America!!  I was born right here in Miami, Florida; lived here all my life!!

I guess that's one of the main reasons why I have blonde hair instead of black or dark brown, like a lot of my Latina/Latino counterparts.

Well,  I gotta go.  Gonna go back to bed now.  Too early for me to be up anyway.  And if I want to be functional by the time we leave for Mass this morning, I'd best get some shuteye, or I won't be worth a *wahhhhh* today!  Until later, this is Guadalupe saying adios!  Hasta luego!

~Guadalupe Angelica Maria Theresa Rodriguez De La Cortez.  :)