ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

My name is Rolando Rodriguez, I graduated with a degree in International Studies and a minor in Spanish. I’m bilingual in two languages, English and Spanish. My family is from Mexico City, Mexico. They migrated to the America in 1988, and one year later I was given birth to. I grew up in the city of Whitewater, Wisconsin and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the age of 25 after I graduated from college. I was the first of my family to graduate from college and made my family extremely proud.
I grew up only knowing one language in the U.S, and it was extremely difficult making friends and communicating with teachers and classmates. One of the hardest obstacles I had to overcome was the racism that was around me because I was the only Latino boy in my entire school. My skin color didn’t match the kids in my class and I was an “alien” in their eyes. I was bullied and picked on for most of my childhood. Surprisingly, I actually grew up very well-mannered and respectful to others. I was happy to leave high school and start a new life in college, but once I arrived at university, I still faced many obstacles.
My family was going through a financial crisis and I was trying to find out who I was and what I wanted to pursue, so I ended up switching my major three times. At one point, I wanted to be a manger for a large corporation, but looking back now, I’m happy that I didn’t pursue that field. I also thought that I would want to be a psychiatrist, but that would mean I would have to have more schooling to get my certification. I ended up deciding to pursue ‘international studies’.
At one point, my previous boss and I met in his office and we discussed my future and what I wanted to become. I think the most important question that he asked me was, “What’s something you enjoy listening to or doing?”. I told him that I like getting to know other people’s cultures, customs, and other perspectives. I could enjoy sitting for hours listening to someone from a different background and having them talk about their culture. I’ve always sought out people who are not Americans in school and struck up a conversation with them. I had no idea International studies was an actual field of study that you could get a degree in. I decided to look into it a bit more and see the classes I had to take. They were exciting classes that intrigued me and so I decided to make the final decision to switch my major. Since then I haven’t changed nor regretted my decision. I’m currently using my degree as an English teacher for a school.
I moved to Japan in January of this year with my partner, even though
it is bitter sweet, I will be leaving very shortly and traveling around the world with my partner. We want to enjoy the world while we are young and before we settle down. This has been a goal of mine for a long time and it’s something that I want to accomplish before I die and also so that I can inspire others to do the same. The world is very big and our time is of a value, so we shouldn’t take what little time we have left for granted.