hopscotch

1. 21 October 1974: Born in Bucaramanga, Colombia to Alvaro Martinez and Susana Gonzalez.
2. Three months later: Moved to Caracas, Venezuela. Tossed Matchbox cars off second-floor balcony -- apartment overlooks park (get address from dad). Vanished for several hours on two ocassions.
3. January 1979 - January 1983: Lived in Guri, Venezuela. Played in construction sites, was terrified by Jaws, fascinated by Caterpillar trucks, picked fights, doodled obsessively, encountered several varieties of snakes (one had been stuck to our A/C vent), develops lifelong devotion to Maé and ark clams (Argentinian neighbors are to blame), eats pounds of green mango with salt, collected Star Wars figures, was hit by several heavy rocks and fell and scraped and bruised several times over while riding bikes, was friend to dogs, well known to nurses at local hospital. Played a lot of tennis and swam for several thousand hours.
   1. 1981 February 7: Maria Martinez, my little sister, is born.
   2. She is now living in Boca Raton, Florida, and is pursuing a BA in business and international law at FAU, on an athletic scholarship for her formidable swimming abilities. No timeliner could ask for a better sister.
   3. Maria's boyfriend is British, and she has vacationed with him in London in the summers of 2001 and 2000.
   4. Maria has competed in just about every country in South America. She has also competed in Cuba.
4. January 1983 - May 1985: Moved to Barranquilla, Colombia. Continued to swim. Was picked on in school, developed deep overpowering crushes on girls, doodled obsessively, launched paper airplanes into impossibly extended flights. Attended Liceo Cervantes. Was slapped hard on the cheek by the dean once for walking on the grass.
5. May 1985: Brief stopover in Ames, Iowa. Family decides to pursue dad's education elsewhere. Long drive punctuated, according to dad, by repeated descriptions of the landscape. ("Corn! Corn! Corn! Corn!")
6. May 1985 - January 1987: Moved to Akron, Ohio for dad's Master's in Environmental Engineering at Akron University. Timeliner attends St. Vincent's Catholic School, will not stop doodling, plays a puppet sheep in school production of The Sound of Music, discovers Orwell's Burmese Days, reads incessantly, watches Transformers and G.I. Joe on the telly, takes cousin to Quaker Square to look at tin soldiers and to play arcade games, wrecks sled by slamming into hay barrier with aforementioned cousin, makes up stories for the sis involving the Pac-Man ghosts and the Care Bears, orders 101 Dalmatians and the novelization of the Young Sherlock Holmes movie from Scholastic.
7. January 1987 - June 1989: Moved to Bucaramanga, Colombia. Attended la Quinta del Puente. Swims, draws, grows distracted, fails to learn to dance, reads Nancy Drew and Piers Anthony books found in school library, reads anything he can find in English (lots of Asimov and lots of King), falls hard for Metallica and Cinderella and Poison and Megadeth and the Pet Shop Boys.
8. June 1989 - August 1993: Moved to Orlando, Florida for dad's PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Timeliner scribbles movie reviews for The Orlando Sentinel, graduates from Oviedo High School, attends (more or less) the University of Central Florida, decides to return to Colombia.
9. August 1993 - August 1996: Returns to Colombia. Lives in Bogota. Drifts, scribbles, discovers Nabokov, drinks too much, attends (more or less) Javeriana University, writes for Colombia's only English-language weekly, meets interesting people, grows disillusioned and disheartened, picks up a nicotine habit, says goodbye to the city.
10. August 1996 - Present: Returns to Orlando, Florida, graduates from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Creative Writing and a minor in Applied Computer Science (December 2000), writes first draft of this homepage in 1997, creates Nabokov site (early version) shortly thereafter, works as a consultant in the on-campus computer lab, is promoted to assistant lab manager, scribbles, reads, quits drinking, quits smoking, works out, drinks buckets of coffee, begins Master's in Creative Writing, writes timeline, replaces old long-winded bio, eats tons of green mango with salt.

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Last updated 13 May 2002
Created and maintained by J.M. Martinez