Gabriella Seabra Cendoroglo

I was born In Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1991. In 1995 my parents and I moved to Boston for a fellowship program with Tufts school of medicine. During this period, I became alphabetized and fluent in my second language: English. In 1997 we moved back to Sao Paulo, were I would graduate from high school in 2009. Throughout school I learned my third language: Spanish. In my senior year I began learning piano, violin and studying my fourth language, Japanese, in a language course. After graduating school and completing basic Japanese I took a couple of years to study for the SAT, as I had decided I wanted to go abroad for University, and my fifth language, German, at the Goethe Institut in Sao Paulo. During this period, I also worked at the Unifesp medical research lab, preparing ELISA kits, sorting blood samples, collecting and photographing DNA from the blood samples and translating research papers to English for scientific journal publication (this last one I would continue doing sporadically as a freelancer, and currently all papers I have translated have been accepted at first submission). Though I was not officially part of the university I do have my name thanked for my participation in the published papers. In 2012 I was accepted into CSUN as an undefined music student and began my college carrier. Throughout my first three years I made good use of my opportunities and studied many fields beyond what I was required. I developed the ability to speak publicly thanks to the required courses and continued my study of Japanese. In 2015 I was accepted into the Music Industry Studies program, however, unfortunately I had developed a lumbar hernia which hampered my ability to stay sitting for long periods of time and had to drastically decrease my instrument practice times. Because of my hernias I was forced to take medical leaves, drop classes and fail others, as my body couldn?t cope with much and I hadn?t learned how to properly deal with my condition, and my graduation was postponed greatly. I tried to learn my sixth language, French, and though I had a rough start as I missed the first three weeks of classes due to immigration bureaucracy and haven?t yet continued studying it in an official capacity I can somewhat converse with native speakers. In early 2017 I developed a second hernia in the cervical region and have since been unable to practice piano for more than 20 minutes without feeling pain and risking further long-lasting issues. This also affects the amount of time I can stay in one position for long and necessitates intermittent resting periods. I am currently battling against this and slowly but surely improving my health. I have always been very lazy. By this I don?t necessarily mean I don?t accomplish objectives or uphold my responsibilities, but that I feel compelled to not work hard or make great efforts, even though I can. Because of this I have always developed ways of working smart rather than hard and making processes efficient to reduce effort. I have learned to not study hard, but rather, find a way to make any subject interesting to me to the point learning it becomes leisure. I find a way to see any obstacle as a puzzle or game, so I have personal interest and joy in solving it. I find ways to streamline, simplify and facilitate any form of work to reduce the amount of effort I must put in. In this way I believe I have made what would be my greatest weakness into one of my greatest strengths.