I, RANDY MACARAEG BAUTISTA, came into this world on July 7th, 1982, in Oakland, California. I have two loving parents, Narciso and Rebecca. I'm also blessed with two strong "ate"s in Maria (aka Tess) and Michelle (although neither would I call "ate", and neither would they expect me to). I'd say life in the house was pretty dynamic at times. There were sibling rivalries, like myself tormenting Maria's life or Michelle beating me up (on a side note, I understand that Maria would annoy Michelle a bit in childhood, but I was in the womb at that time, so you'll have to ask them about that), but besides that, we also had family members moving in and out of the house all of the time. We housed my grandparents for the longest time, as well as provided homes for uncles and aunts and their families, usually right after they had immigrated from the Philippines. It also would be the home of the some of the most massive Christmas parties this side of the Pacific! In a nutshell, life in Oakland was good, really good.
School was a joy for the most part, although, at times, school definitely made me restless. I went to Crocker Highlands Elementary for seven years, which was only a 10 minute walk away, spent two at Edna Brewer Junior High, whose era was highlighted by the discovery of an actual Pilipino community beyond my family and the reality of racial tensions, and then four more at St. Joseph Notre Dame in Alameda, which was great the first two and a half years, and then seemed to go downhill from there. And such was my K-12 life in a nutshell. Yeah, I know I left out a lot, but if you really wanted to know, you would've asked me by now... heh!
Nowadays my life has gone south, literally. I now spend most of my days in Westwood on the greatest campus on earth, also known as UCLA (Go Bruins!). As of the date this bio was written, I'm in my second year as a Computer Science & Engineering Major. My life outside my academics is just as vibrant (...ok, a helluva lot more vibrant), singing with the University Choir for two quarters now and working with UCLA's Samahang Pilipino as their representative to Asian Pacific Coalition. I'm having the time of my life right now, and there's still so many things left to do. I guess you'll just have to go to my journal pages to see how it goes, huh? :-P
