Question: What nationality is your name?
Answer: Nigerian.
Q: How many generations removed are you from Nigeria?
A: I’m the first generation. My parents grew up in Nigeria and they came here to the Seattle area for school. They were looking for a better opportunity to get work because times economically there were hard. They came here to the United States to find an opportunity to kind of jump start their careers.
They had me here and my siblings. My dad moved over here to live with his older brother and went to school, became an engineer and works for the DOT (state Department of Transportation). And then my mom came and went to Shoreline Community College and the University of Washington and is now a nurse.
Q: Has your family lived here in Lynnwood for a long time?
A: Yeah, pretty much my whole life.
Q: What are your main activities?
A: I enjoy working around the school, so I was lucky that my former PE teacher, Mr. Taylor, he’s now a life fitness teacher at the school, chose me to be a part of the Link crew, which is basically a program where upperclassmen kind of help lowerclassmen get acclimated to the school. I remember my freshman year, I was really scared about what to expect from high school, I didn’t have any older siblings to ask, so I felt like that was a good way to give back.
I’m in the National Honor Society, and I’ve tutored math at all levels, algebra 1 and 2, geometry, pre-calc and a little bit of calculus.
What really got me involved in school was cross country. My freshman year I took life fitness, and my teacher told me I was a really good runner, and that I should look into doing cross country. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it, but after asking a couple of people, they said you should give it a try and I went in and did it. I met a lot of upperclassmen who taught me the ropes of high school. I really took off with it and I stuck with it all four years. Last year I was co-captain, and we were able to get a lot more people to come out for the team this year.
In the winter I did basketball all four years, at all positions. It was a lot of studying in school and on the court because I needed to know pretty much five positions. I wasn’t a starter. It taught me to be prepared, even if you don’t know when you’re going to play. It’s always good to be ready whenever your number’s called. I kind of viewed it as a life lesson, because you never know when you’ll be given an opportunity to do what you like to do. It taught me that all that hard work and preparation may not come to fruition immediately, but it’s a life skill that’s really valuable.
I picked up track and field last year. I wound up going pretty far in it, I was surprised. I made it to the district finals for the triple jump.
Q: Do you have a favorite or best subject?
A: My favorite subjects are math and science — it’s what I want to study in college. Now I’m taking AP (Advanced Placement) calculus and physics.
Q: Do you know where you’re going to college?
A: My plan is to go to the University of Washington, and if not there then maybe transfer in from a two-year community college, go that route.
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