Throughout my entire life I have always been known as an “average” person through my families eyes. I don't underachieve but at the same time I don't overachieve. I don't know why but I've always feel the most comfortable being just average. Is it laziness? In a way I think so, but at the same time being like everyone else never made me the outsider. I defiantly learned that after my early years.....



On the morning of February 23, 1994 at approximately 2:35am I, Dean Martino, was born. According to my mother I was a happy healthy 6 pound baby. It was like any other delivery. I was taken home and was taken care of by my 16 year old mother. ( which is not normal, haha) Me and my mom lived at my grandparents house til I was about 1. We moved to Spangnolam Germany, where my dad was stationed for a few years than we moved to South Korea. We pretty much moved wherever my dad was stationed. By the time I turned five I ended up living in Boston where I started Kindergarten.


From what I can remember Kindergarten was odd. I was often the weird kid, and was singled out because of it. I was often called geek and nerd simply because I knew my ABC's without singing it. I didn't know what a geek was at the time so Ignored them. But as I progressed through 1st and 2nd grade I became aware of what those names were. So that was when I began to start my horrible habit of being satisfied with being average.


As I started the 3rd grade My family and I moved back to Arizona. My Dad was still in the military at the time, and he would often call me on special occasions and send me presents on my birthday. I progressed through the third grade finishing with mostly B's and C's. At the same time my parents got a divorce. Knowing that I was only gonna see my parents together on special occasions, affected me a lot. I was old enough to understand the situation and it was always on my mind. Even though I dealt with moving and the divorced I still enjoyed life. My mom had a cool boyfriend named Greg and we all had good times together. The birthdays were great, the Christmases seemed to get bigger and better, and we lived in a big two story house in Glendale. Life was at its greatest and I had the time of my life. But as always, everything eventually goes bad. We eventually sold the house in Glendale and moved to Peoria.



5th grade was the lowest point in my life. I moved away and I slowly started to give up. Instead of getting B's and C's, I began to get D's and F's. It was the first and last time I ever failed anything. But as I finished my 5th grade year my dad got out of the military. He got himself an apartment and started to get more involved in mine and my brothers lives. My dad found a job and then took my mom to court and got custody of me and my brother as I started my 6th grade year. He eventually won the custody battle and my brother and I moved to Mesa to begin my 6th grade year.



My 6th grade year was a huge turn around for me. I started to get A's and B's for the first time. My dad was made a big intervention with me and from that point for the rest of that year I continued to be a success. I concluded my 6th grade year with straight A's and because of that my dad awarded my achievement with a trip to Six Flags. It turned out to be the best summer ever.



As the summer was coming to an end, my dad bought a house out here in San Tan Valley. So we moved and I began my 7th grade year. The school I was newly enrolled in was already four weeks into the school year, so I was even more nervous going there than I already Was!!! Eventually I adapted and made friends. However, my grades slowly began to slip again. I was grounded many times because of my grades, and me and my dad argued a lot because of it. He always yelled at me and told my that I could do better and I needed to be the best. But as he kept grounding me I felt like I wanted to just give up. So to get out of trouble I started to Get B's and C's again. My dad frowned at my C's but he didn't punish me for them. That was petty much my anthem for the rest of that year. Getting B's and C's just to get by, and to keep me from head-butting my dad.



My 8th grade year was weird way that I cant even explain. I managed to get straight A's and graduate. But my dad still told me I could do better. I did get mostly 90's but still that was great!!! I was so happy that I got the grades, and felt very proud. I remember me giving him my report card and he nodded his head in disappointment and told me I could do better. I was devastated. I gave it my all to get those grades and he spit it back in my face. At that point I didn't care and only wanted to get by because I was tired of trying to satisfy his needs. So I started and ended my freashman year with just getting by. That entire year I only wanted to get by. So I got the grades for just getting by. Whenever a teacher asked me to write a 3 page paper, I did just that. I didn't write under that requirement and I didn't go over. I just did what was required. And that was my mindset for my sophomore year as well. The arguments with my dad increased at home, but I learned to ignore him because I felt that I could never reach his requirements. But the more I just blew him off the more he gave me crap at home. The constant arguing, football, and school put I number on me mentally and physically and my grades suffered because of it. So in the final months of my sophomore year I busted my butt and pulled myself out of my mindset of doing average.



Now that I have been in high school for two years now, I would think I would have snapped out of that average mindset. Wrong!!! The constant nagging from my father has me always wanting to be average. Even at home!!! Whenever I cleaned or worked out I always end up doing an average job. I did it because doing average not only gets my by but it also keeps my dad off of my butt because at one point he realized that doing average is the best I can do. It sounds bad but it helps keept my old man off my back!!!



This year I work on trying to do better than average, but I still feel like I am in the average mindset. Me and my dad argue every now and again but for the most part I get by. I do better than average in some areas of my life better than others. I am slowly beginning to outgrow my sense of doing average. Just because I am at the point where being average just doesn't cut it in the world. I don't regret my average past at all. But after all of this time, I now realize that, that son of a gun was right the whole time. It is painfully true but he was in the right for nagging at me, but in the end it never hurts to be average, after all it did get me through most of my life.............