Marika Gonzalez was born in 1988 in Houston, Texas. Marika was taught early on the virtues and freedom one can attain from being personally responsible. She took that to heart by always being an excellent student and always having respect for others. She learned that being spoiled was getting "stuff" for nothing. She earned her "stuff" and, to this day, she sports a shoe collection so vast that if you stacked each shoe on top of each other and magically balanced them, the high-heeled pumps at the top of the stack very well might float into space for lack of gravity. Early on, Marika began her life-long love of sports by picking up basketball. By the time she was a senior in high school, she was varsity captain of a 5A team. The sport seemed to fit her personality; you might say Marika knows what she wants and will fight through the "picks" of life to find an opening so she can at least "take her shot". She's definitely "goal" oriented. Marika started her college career at the oldest university in Texas, St Mary's University in San Antonio. Two years later, she transferred to the University of Texas where she continues with her Advertising undergraduate degree. She will graduate in Spring 2011. Marika is bilingual and well traveled having been to England, Singapore, France, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Italy, Mexico and even Mongolia where she was tricked by the locals into living out the old cliché "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse". At least she didn't eat the tiger cub she got to feed a bottle of milk to in Thailand. Presently, Marika is happy with her ultra-busy lifestyle finishing up her degree, training for marathons and working with the super-talented radio talk show host Sean Rima on 98.9 The Big Talker in Austin, Texas. She views herself as blessed and totally responsible for passing those blessings on to others.