Anthony Daniels wakes up every morning with a single word in his mind: focus.
It 麻豆精品 S檚 taken the UCF student years to get to this point in his life; a place of acceptance for the abuse he suffered as a child and the disappointments he has had to endure. Now, as the 30-year-old is one semester away from becoming the first person in his family to earn a college degree, he 麻豆精品 S檚 grateful for the focus and drive that brought him to this point in his life.
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Daniels was born in West Palm Beach and was in kindergarten, the oldest of three brothers, when his parents split up and his mother soon after began dating someone who was abusive. He says he went to school with bruises, sometimes a sprained limb, until child services eventually intervened.
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Once Daniels was deemed a ward of the court, he was placed with his grandmother, who he says welcomed and adored him. Daniels and his youngest brother, an infant at the time who went to live with an aunt and uncle in Massachusetts, kept in contact over the years and saw each other during the holidays. His middle brother stayed with his mother and moved to the western part of the country. Daniels rarely spoke to either of them.
When he graduated from high school, Daniels planned on enlisting in the Air Force to become a pilot. Just before he was set to head to boot camp, he found out he had a blue-red color vision deficiency, which meant no flying.
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For a while he did odd jobs. He worked at Panera Bread. He sold nuts and bolts for an industrial-supply company. He was a car salesman for a couple days.
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He enrolled at St. Johns River State College and eventually transferred to UCF to major in computer science. When he quickly realized the required math classes weren 麻豆精品 S檛 for him, he took an aptitude and personality test he found online. Lawyer popped up among the list of professions he matched with, and he started to think about the lawyers from his childhood.
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He says once he pays off his student loans, he would like to offer legal services pro bono to help children who are in the same position he was in as a child. Daniels is most proud of the work it took to get this far, and that his youngest brother has told him he wants to go back to school, just like Daniels did.
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