Sherman Oaks, California, United States
Please paste your biography here... Will Blanke
Biography

Biography: Much to Learn

The word I have to use to begin a recap of my life is adversity. Adversity has

been the most important part of my life in recent years. I am a completely different

person than I was five years ago when I started college. I barely know him. I surely do

not agree with him. My life has been very interesting as, I believe, everyone’s is

interesting. Though mine is mine and not another human knows how it has actually been

to live it. My adversity does not mean that I have been down a rough road, but it

definitely has been empirical. I, of course, would not be writing this piece now if it

wasn’t for the ways my life has so cleverly taught me.

I was an only child growing up in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. I have three

older half-sisters who were already out of the house by the time I came along. I am also

adopted. One would think if you combine these two elements of growing up then I

would be spoiled. One would be right. I never heard the word “no.” My father owned

his own business that created decorative concrete designs for driveways, patios, and pool

decks. My mother worked as a personal secretary to a multi-millionaire. Things seemed

to be stable as long as my father’s business was stable. I went to a good Catholic

grammar school down my street for eight years named St. Angela Merici. The grade

school years were some of pride and happiness. I ended my career at St. Angela in

seventh grade with the most cherish able event of my elementary years. I was one of the

stars of the school play “South Pacific.” I learned at this time that I liked acting and had

potential to be good. Also during this year, I became fascinated with my mother’s video

camera. My neighborhood friends and I shot full-length movies and short skits whenever

we met on the weekends. I spent a lot of my time writing the projects and editing them

after we finished shooting. I knew I had a natural attraction to creating films with a

distinct view of the way it should look lingering in my mind. I was forming a fetish that

has only grown since then.

I started eighth grade inside of a Catholic high school called Brother Martin in

1995 at age twelve. High school was the best thing for a soon-to-be teenager. We had

dances, football games, and an eclectic lunch menu. The most important thing to me

about high school was my new friends. I quickly made several new friends which are the

ones that I still talk to today. My friends are extremely important to me. These people

were very accommodating throughout the years of realizing that my parents were fallible

and did not know all the answers to my burning questions. My friends make me laugh.

Their success makes me proud and their tears make me cry. No matter how many books

I read or how many girls I date, they seem to always bring me back to the age of twelve.

My writing remained in secret throughout my high school years. I wrote dozens of

songs, poetry, and my first short film in high school.

I matriculated into Louisiana State University in June of 2000. I still had no

responsibilities except for joining a fraternity. I did not know what I wanted to do at

seventeen in college so I became listless. I was on my own and I had no motivation to do

well in college. I assumed that I was going to take over my father’s business for some

lost reason. I was extremely immature and undisciplined with no inkling to an original

career. I had never been exposed to any problems or consequences so I stayed afloat in

an oblivious revelry. I concentrated on all the fun and on none of the school work. As

my second year came to an end my parents began to lose money rapidly. My father’s

business wasn’t doing well and my parents sold my house that I grew up in for the first

nineteen years of my life. My parents moved into my grandmother’s old house that they

use to rent out. I moved back home in August of 2002.

I felt the impetus to get a job to support myself and not worry about school

anymore. My parents could not afford my expenses for the first time in my life. I got a

job that I didn’t like, I had no direction from myself, and my parents were on the verge of

getting a divorce. My sweet adversity made its presence disrupting my fragile and naïve

head. After this life for a couple of months, I woke up from my now downtrodden

revelry. I realized that I was twenty years old and had very little college behind me. This

would be the biggest turning point in my life. I finally made a decision. I decided to

move from my depressions into my new life at my sister Catherine’s house in Knoxville,

Tennessee. I started to work on the side as I went to school at the expense of my dear

godmother. I was starting to show some good grades to myself for the first time in a

while. The motivation was buried in me the whole time, but I had finally galvanized it

for good use. I also decided on what I wanted to do. The choice was so easy; I don’t

know why it took me two and a half years to settle on it. I began writing my first

screenplay in the room that my sister provided for me.

I moved back to New Orleans a year and a half later because my parents were

long divorced and I felt like I now knew what I was doing. I moved in with my mother

and started attending the University of New Orleans in August of 2004. I knew they had

a great film program to prepare me for my next step. I was on course to graduate in May

of 2006. I was finally pushing myself to a place that I had never been. Adversity then

felt like it may have left my side for too long. On August 29, 2005, a category four

hurricane, named Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast which inundated the city of New Orleans

with water. I evacuated with my mother and my godmother to Alabama (my father lives

in Knoxville now). I soon picked up classes at my old home, Louisiana State University.

I was pushed into the situation by more hard times. I welcomed it as my second chance

attending my favorite school. LSU was my home all along; I just took a long vacation.

I graduated from LSU in August of 2006. I know my passions and I know my

goals. I know what turns me on and what makes me get up everyday. Most important of

all, I know myself. I cherish my education and my godmother who still provided it. I

wouldn’t be typing this on the computer she bought me, in the living conditions that she

supports me in, or with the stability that she has granted me, if it wasn’t for her

benevolent soul. I adore her existence. In hindsight, I still

wonder if I could have realized this without my troubled years. I think maybe. I think it

would’ve taken a lot more time without some sobering adversity. Adversity woke me up

just in time for a belated second start. And I now love my life. I enjoy saying that

because not everyone can.

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