The Essence of Sylvia

All giggles and smiles, Sylvia Rodriguez sits in her chair spinning slightly. The 16-year-old El Salvador native will be entering her senior year at Cedar Shoals High School in Athens this fall.

Rodriguez, a member of her school’s swim and varsity soccer teams, enjoys making jewelry in her spare time.

“In the summer, I make a lot of stuff I don’t wear,” she said with a laugh.

She recently got beads from South America and likes to make jewelry because she can determine the size and colors herself. As well as jewelry-making Rodriguez loves shopping, dressing up and swimming.

“I love swimming, I could swim all day,” she said.

Rodriguez, with a smile to match her cheerful personality, spent half of her life in El Salvador and the other half in Georgia.

“The food’s different. Pupusas are really good,” said Rodriguez about the stuffed tortillas with beans and cheese.

Rodriguez describes her perfect day as warm but not to warm where you’re sweating with a lunch and ending the day with a walk in the park to watch the sunset. In the future she sees herself in a dentist office and hopefully married in ten years. This is much different from her childhood aspirations.

“I wanted to be a teacher, ”she said. “I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.”

Her best friend is Ecuadorian and was born in New York, she’s sad that she’s in Chile because she can’t see her but when they are together they like to act silly and have fun.

Sylvia enjoys being happy and rides her bike in her free time.

“I’m always laughing, smiling—I can’t stop,” she said.