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I was born in the late seventies on a small island in the West Indies. The island was owned by my father, and as such there were no schools. While there is a general stigma attached to being home-schooled, it worked fine for me. I attribute this mainly to my father being a worldly man. What I mainly took from "school" was creativity in art and mathematics, as well as a strong acceptance for other cultures and ways of life; something we focused on heavily.

Though the surrounding isles were populated mainly by blacks, speaking English with a Jamaican, British, or French accent, I somehow escaped having any accent at all. While my tone may often be described as "worldly," most people never suspect that I am not from mainland America originally. This is of little importance, but I often find, when reading journals such as these, having the author's tone and accent in mind to be helpful and to add a certain sense of personality to the writings.

It was only when I grew to be approximately twenty years of age that I started to question my surroundings. My father was a hard working man, but not overly so. Certainly not to the point that he should be able to afford to live in such luxury. My mother, who died when I was but a boy, had not worked, nor had she come from a wealthy family. And so it was that I discovered that all the money my family ever earned had come from the selling of illegal drugs. When I confronted my father with this we got into a very heated argument, one that ended with my father picking up a machete and cutting two fingers from my right hand.

I left only a few days later, to start a life in the cities of America, and never to return to the island of my birth.