January 15, 2019

Dear Professor Presnell,

My name is Gabriel Christopher Marquez but just about everyone I know calls me Gabe. I was born on
July 26th, 1999 in Miami, Florida and moved to North Carolina when I was about 7 years old. My family
consists of me, my dad, my mom, my 12-year-old sister, and our cat, Clark. I am the older sibling
entering my second semester of my sophomore year of college while my sister has just started middle
school. Some other important people in my family would be my grandpa and my uncle. My past pets have
been cats along with some fish that never seemed to live that long. Our other cats were named Stinky and
Puddy. Stinky was our family’s first cat and was introduced around the same time I was born and passed
away because of old age while Puddy was only with our family for a little bit before he went outside one
night and never came back. My whole life I have had cats as pets but when I am older, I plan on getting a
dog. I’ve always wanted to have my own dog that I can play with and take care of. This reminds me of
my uncle’s past dogs and how they have kind of been my temporary dog pets whenever I was at his house
or whenever he came into town. My uncle’s past dogs that I can really remember have been Dobermans,
his past dog being named Riley and his newest puppy named Kona. I went to high school at Panther
Creek back home in Cary where I live when I’m not in Charlotte. My high school experience was fun, I
played football and soccer outside of school and I made friends that I still know and hang out with to this
day. My current roommates here at UNC Charlotte all went to my high school and even my middle
school, too. Out of recent memory, I could tell you that things went wrong last year during my freshman
year of college when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease to start off 2018. During my first semester of
college I started to notice that I was losing a lot of weight which surprised me because I thought it would
be the opposite due to the popular myth of the “freshman fifteen.” If I’m being honest, that was probably
the worst time of my life. Even though I was surrounded by my friends and fraternity brothers, it was
terrible. Everyday I would struggle to get out of bed and do simple everyday things like shower, brush my
teeth, and put clothes on. The worst feeling of all was knowing that while other people were having the
times of their lives at college, I was not. Instead, I was struggling to live an everyday life that I had taken
for granted. It eventually got better as I started to take different medications, but I still couldn’t do things I
used to be able to do like play sports which is one of my favorite interests and activities. Not until
recently, September to be exact, was when I had arthroscopic surgery to remove approximately eight
inches of my large intestine that was infected. Going into the surgery I was nervous because not only was
this my first-time having surgery, but I had experienced some complications before when I was originally
supposed to have it in July. The first time I went in to have my surgery, I went into anaphylactic shock
due to the use of two different substances that I turned out to be allergic to. When I woke up, I was later
told that my blood pressure had started to rise while my heart rate began to drop and that the head doctor
had never seen what I had gone through in his thirty years of work. Since then, I have been focused on
school and getting good grades to offset my first year. It was a tough experience that no one should ever
have to go through, but what I’ve learned about myself as a result of that is something that I am very
grateful for. Not to sound corny, but I feel as if I have found a new appreciation in my life and the people
in it. I think about how lucky I am to be healthy again and to be able to do the stuff that I love to do again
whether it be spending time with friends or playing sports again. My favorite sports teams all come out of
Boston and that’s thanks to my mom’s side of the family for raising me that way. Of all my favorite
teams, I am probably one of the biggest New England Patriot fans you’ll ever meet. One of my dreams is
to go to the Super Bowl with the Patriots in it and to see them win. When it comes to writing, I’m not sure
of the kind of writer I am. To me, I just write about whatever it is I need to write about and sometimes I’ll
get carried away kind of like in this letter about me. I once wrote a picture book when I was in elementary
school that I won an award for that I was very proud of but right now I am looking forward to a new
semester.

Sincerely, Gabe Marquez