Descriptive Essay
Eng 101- 033
Professor Ficarotta
February 11, 2015
Maria E. Limpias

Giving Up Is Not an Option A wise man once said “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” This quote Rodrigo Gonzalez identifies himself with and knows that in order to reach his goals giving up is not an option. It is not easy when you come to a foreign country at a very young age. You are presented with many obstacles in your way, but when you have that desire to succeed and have your whole family counting on you. You have to go over the obstacle and do whatever it takes to reach your goals. For this young man his family is his motivation for him to keep going, and the reason why giving up will never be an option. Rodrigo Gonzalez knows that his parents and two younger siblings are counting on him to be his inspiration and motivation and he will not give up, until he gets to where he desires and makes his family proud. Born on September 23, 1998, Rodrigo Gonzalez traveled with his parents from Uruguay at the age of 6 years old. Leaving his country, culture, family members, to come and take on a new adventure in the United States. Upon arriving his family and him had to get accustomed to a lot of new things. One of them being the climate, coming from a country where most of the year it is a hot weather to a cold climate in United States where it can reach 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Another obstacle was the language; he didn’t speak, read, or understand English, since his first language was Spanish. He had to learn English on his own and in school whenever he needed help with homework he couldn’t ask his parents, because they also didn’t speak English. He had to find a way to understand it and ask other people for help. Gonzalez had to get used to the fact that he couldn’t see his parents for most of the day. They both worked two full time jobs and when they had a day off, they would rest their body and sleep to recuperate energy because the next day was back to the same routine. Gonzalez went from having his parents in Uruguay every day being able to play with them, and share a meal everyday to barely seeing their faces on a daily routine. That in fact hurt Gonzalez, spending most of his time with a babysitter a woman whom you don’t even know or talk to, just sitting in the living room and your only companion is SpongeBob. Rodrigo made a promise to himself that whenever he has siblings he will be that older brother that they could trust be there to help with their homework. He would take the roles of a sibling, parent, teacher, babysitter, role model. When the time came Rodrigo Gonzalez did and is still keeping his promise. He now has two younger siblings Michael and Stephanie where he has become their role model and is making sure what he went through as a kid, Stephanie and Michael don’t suffer through that. Gonzalez now is 18 year old with many goals, lots of ambition, and desire to reach his dreams. He works at Sketchers in Jersey Garden Mall as well as the Costas Restaurant in Elizabeth. He is majoring in Automobile Moto Technology. When I asked him “what is your goal?” he said it with a glow on his eyes “Open my own mechanic shop, fix any type of cars, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford, as well as the luxuries car like Mercedes, Audi, BMW”. For an 18 year old he has a vision of where he wants to be after receiving his college degrees. His