I was reading Phoenix Gamma's and Nessie's blogs, it got me the inspiration to write about how was my life as a gamer and how much has it changed thanks to it. I hope you enjoy this.

As same as Phoenix, when I got to study over here in Norway, many asked how did I decided to be a English teacher. I boldly respond "Because of Video Games". The same people look at me weird, but then again, most people would do that but I really don't care. Why because of gaming you say? Well, let's start from the beginning.

It was a summer of 1990, my first time I hold a NES controller and I was just 3 years old. Me and my mother where exiled from Chile because of the political problems over there, and we got to live in Norway. I was invited to one of the neighbors house, and in there there was a girl 2 years older than me, and she wanted me to play with her. The first game was Megaman 2, then with Castlevania 3 and to finish, a bit of Super Mario Bros. That day we became the best friends for a long time and she was like a "Master" for me in gaming. Not only that, little did she know that she would change my life thanks to that.

As I got 5 years old, I learned to read almost by myself, since my mother was never at home. A day when I want to her house to just play as always, I tried to figure out what I was reading in The Flinstones game. It wasn't Norwegian so I was completely lost and then she told me that language is English. It was pretty weird for me, but as I got older, I got more into it and started to say the same things as in video games and some movies. Dunno why, but I was really attracted to that language that wasn't Spanish nor Norwegian so I decided to read more in English.

A faithful day, and I got my NES, but at the same time she got the SNES with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It was the first game where I tried to use as much I knew in English but it was still not enough, I was just 7 years old by that time. Still, we played it and decided not to use the Official Guide, since it would ruin us the surprises. Sometimes when we played Street Fighter II (she handed my ass a la oránge in a silver plate), many of the kids thought that "KO" was just "OK" backwards. It was kinda hard to try to explain that it really means "Knock Out", but for them it was just "OK".

Back to my Homeland.

I was 10 years old, and my mother decided that we would live at Oslo, the capital of Norway. My grandmother thought it was a really bad idea that I should go with my mother so both decided that I should live in Chile again with my grandma. Both of the options was bad for me, because I wouldn't see my best friend again. What happened to her you ask? Let's just say that she is happy in a better place. Anyway, as I got to the land where I was born, the first thing I did was to plug my NES because thankfully, someone really nice decided to change my PAL NES for a NTSC one. At the same time I decided to save money to get a SNES, since they were cheap because of the new generation of consoles. It was 1996 when all this happened.

I got my SNES as I desired, plus a Sega Genesis with some great games, and was really hooked, not just playing, but try to read even the instruction manuals that came in the package. I got into school already and I was a bit surprised that they didn't have English classes until the last two years of school. I was a bit disappointed, but I got to knew other persons and got to love science somehow.

The last years in school was coming, and I was 14 years old. At that time I still had a Genesis and my SNES, plus all the Game Boy's until Advance and a PC that I used a lot. Many had Play Station One at that time, and the next-gen was coming and I was always going to gaming places, just to look at the games or to play any console paying 400 pesos for hour. Since I had good grades in school, my grandmother gave me money so I can buy anything. My PC had a PS1 emulator (I know, sad), but I saw a game that I really wanted and wanted it original. That was Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I played that games for HOURS, never getting bored of it and I still have it as my most cherished game.

At the ceremony, I was surprised, I won a medal for the best English grades in the school in years. The funny thing is that I never studied for English.

As came high-school, still gaming and I was confused, since the last two years you have to choose if you want to be in the section of Spanish and History, or in Science, with different sections, that is, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. I choose Biology, since I was starting to like it a lot, and at the same time I had English, so I wasn't going to lose.

Many has problems in English in this country, and in many other Latin American countries. So I decided to perfect it in a British Institute that the city had, and it had a direct connection with the Cambridge University. On the three years I've been studying in that institute, the three exams, KET, PET, and FCE were all pass with merit. I was really surprised that I was achieving so much just because what I have been learning from Video Games since my childhood.

I have seen many people with English problems, and as English is integral to get a good job position, I decided to be a English teacher. Also, in all that time, I have been working in many Latin American web pages as the Gaming guy, but all of those communities weren't that much fun.

Now, I'm back here at Norway, studying what I want to do and trying as much as I can to get a scholarship so I can study in England, hopefully in Cambridge.

Thanks to video games, I have learned the language that I love, meted many great people, formed clubs, to meet my fiancé, and to do many other things, as to get over here at Destructoid.

I may be new on the community, but I have met awesome people over here and on the IRC Cartel, this is the first time that I really like a community and that is thanks to Video Games and English, I'm here right now and want to be for a long time.

I hope you enjoyed this piece, a bit to personal maybe, but I really wanted to share this with you guys. Cheers for this awesome community, because it's helping me a lot to write better things and to practice even more my English.