Of all the people, in all the world, how to choose one person who is my hero? Jesus? I can’t be sure of his accomplishments, so no. Gandhi? I don’t know him personally, so it’s hard to judge him. Therefore, I choose my father. He is the one man that I know for certain has lived a life that I can emulate. He is the man that inspires me now to continue my education. As a forty year old student who has finally decided to make up for my single greatest mistake of dropping out of college, I look to my dad who was going to college well into his adulthood. As a teenager, I remember Dad getting home late every night because he was in school. He wanted his Masters degree so after a long day of being an elementary school principal, he would then change gears and become the student. He didn’t need it, he wanted it. He already had a great job and was loved by his students and faculty alike. He took years to go to finish what he wanted. And now, decades later, I see myself in him. I go to work through out the week and then come the weekend, I go to class for six hours on Sunday so I can finish my degree that I started twenty years ago. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted. All I had to do was look at my father to see what I wanted to become; an educator. I am now working towards a degree in theater so that I can continue my education to become a New York City public school teacher. I want to do for students what my father did for students. He inspired them and made them appreciate school. To this day, I can’t walk through a store in his small South Texas town without seeing one of his former students. When I am with my father and one of his former students calls out to him, it’s easy to see the respect they have for him. I want that. I want it because I can see how much joy it gives my dad. So who do I look up to and aspire to be? It’s easy. It’s the first person who ever had any influence in my life and the one person who will have it for eternity. My father. My hero.