My Experience In High School

At the beginning of semester, I was not sure if the course was going to be enjoyable. There were some classes where I thought I had already learned some of the lectures in High School. I asked myself many times, “Why is this course required?” However, as the semester went by, I sort of started to understand the reason for the course. I had never attended college before, and I didn’t really know what certain things were,for example, Financial Aid. The topic time management was also influential across the semester. Learning a little more about my personality was also something that was influential across the semester.

During the first two years of my high school career, I experienced intolerable levels of hardship which I eventually vanquished and was able to preside over. In case It doesn’t become evident, I have a “type a” personality which I’ve been more than conscious of since my middle school days. The feeling of unease that tormented me all throughout middle and half of my high school years when I wasn’t excelling further more than I was in my previous years. Personal goals, and ambitions, that I wasn’t quite living up to, it raged me, It wasn’t who I was, I was better than that. I always thought I’d be destined for greater things, I never imagined it’d come with sacrifices and failures, at least not like mine. It wasn’t until I began high school when I realized how different things were and it wouldn’t be your ordinary middle school level material.

High school teachers tend to give “easy points” and not care too much about what students do and learn. In my experiences in high school all my teachers acted as if they didn’t care, leading to my inability to be prepared for college.

I recall the beginning of my freshman year when I was thrown into the chaotic and hectic mess that is high school. Not only was I given a much harder course load than ever before, but I also started the year off with volleyball. This made my life so incredibly difficult. As if getting home from a game at 10 o’clock was not enough, I typically still had about an hour of homework to complete due to my honors classes. That season felt longer than a giraffes neck . From the long nights of homework, to the complete mental breakdowns, Freshman year was one of the worst experiences of my life.

I walked into Urban wearing Abercrombie and Fitch Jeans, a maroon v-neck t-shirt with a cardigan, and tan Sperrys. I had planned the outfit out the night before, wanting to impress my peers and show off my mature and put together high school self. I came into the big cold Urban gym in with my head held high, believing, no, knowing that I had made the perfect outfit to represent myself on the first day of school. However, my confidence quickly deflated and red rushed to my cheeks as I realized my mistake.

I’ve never been one to jump in without looking. I can count the times I have been impulsive on one hand. My time at school is spent shifting from one class to another and then eventually heading home at the end of the day. I considered deciding to hang out with friends for an hour after school spontaneous. At school, I played tennis on a team and hardly ever wore my hair down. I was beginning to settle into the routine of high school -- the steady plodding along with backpacks spilling over with textbooks. I assumed that this would occupy the rest of my time during high school.

Starting off as a freshmen I was very quiet, I was scared of the teachers and classmates. Everyday was a struggle to get into the classrooms my body would shake, my hands would sweat, and my voice would tremble. Each and everyday felt like the first day of school. I hated the way I acted and looked at school as if it were a challenge. Being social became like solving a binary code. I could not figure out how to talk to people everyone made it seem so easy to connect to one another. I felt like a foreigner who did not know how to speak English. For the rest of the year I let myself be in isolation only speaking to my friends I have meet in middle school. As the new year came around I felt compelled to break the habit of being preserved. I went in with the intention of making at least four new friends. I knew it was something I needed to come out of if, I wanted to succeed in the near future and interacting was definitely needed for internships or job applications. Being very serious about wanting to grow as an individual I tried out for our school cheer. As I waited in line for a number to try out I was ready to just drop it and leave. My friend told me it was gonna be fine and I remained in line. As tryouts went on I felt so confident I was surprised myself. While learning the motions and dance I felt relieved. For the first time I was alive interacting with everyone who was trying out it was truly the time of my life. Two days later time to tryout came. I was me again.

Experiencing High school is where it all began for me. Of course my middles school teachers tried to make us all feel as if high school was going to be hard and a bit scarey, but it wasn’t until I was ending tenth grade and the beginning eleventh grade when i started feeling that way. I had an idea of what my future wanted to look like but didn’t know how or if I could get there, until I took a class called PFM (Personal Financial Management). My experience taking PFM taught me why i needed to get serious about what today millennials call “adulting”.

“So, why did you choose to come here?” a dorm proctor asked the very first time we met, right in front of my room in Bancroft Hall, which would be my new home for the next nine months. Confused and a little jet lagged, I did not respond; I nodded, smiled, and stepped back into my room. As the door closed, locking me into my little world of isolation, I thought about the question. I did not know the answer, for I did not “choose” to come to this school. In fact, I expected to attend a school in the UK. However, as a Thai Scholar, I did not have much choice but to go wherever the Thai embassy told me to go. As fate had it, I was placed in one of the most prestigious high schools: Phillips Exeter Academy.

Growing up, I had always been the best. The best student. The best son. The best athlete. Learning came easily to me. I don't recall having to study very much. I was a sponge of information. I loved reading. My room is adorned with books, certificates, and trophies, all of which I had earned. Naturally and easily. It didn't go unnoticed either. I was in Pre-K for the second year, because legally I was too young to start Kindergarten when my mother took a chance on a school that would allow me to start a year early. This school had more rigid standards (yes, even for a 4-year-old), but I was able to not only get into this school but excel. During my middle school years, my parents decided that public school was not enough for me. I noticed it too, but I was having fun. Being the best if fun. By the end of the 7th-grade year, my mom talked to me about attending Central Catholic High School. PCC was among the most prestigious private schools in the City of Pittsburgh. They were the creme de la creme of high schools. Most people call it the Ivy League of high schools. You can only get in by a combination of tests, recommendations, and interviews. It's a college preparatory school in every sense of the word. It too was the best.

It was the beginning of a new cycle. Every year was similar to the last. I would wake up Monday through Friday at 7:30am despising my past self for staying up so late playing video games or watching videos. Then I would take a shower, eat breakfast, and be driven to school. Once summer break would begin and I would stay up all night and sleep during the day. Then near the beginning of the school year my anxiety would strike, from me thinking of meeting new teachers and knowing if I would have any friends in my classes. This day changed all of that in the blink of an eye. It was May 14th, 2017, the day of graduation.

As a little girl I knew school was going to be a problem for me because I remember I was always having a hard time doing my homework in kindergarten. I lived with my aunt and uncle and they had notice that I was not understanding any of the work. They would try to help me, but when I still didn’t understand they would end up getting frustrated and leave me to figure it out on my own. I would just sit there trying to do the work and then giving up, but they would always make me sit at my desk till I finally understood and finished all of my homework. Even at a young age I knew I was not going to be very good at academics. In elementary I was doing well in most of my classes except for reading and English. I used to go to a different class when we started on those subjects and I never knew why till I found out that those classes were for children with lower reading levels. After realizing that I was alright with it because I was actually beginning to understand some of the lessons. I was also getting the help I needed from the teachers who were helping me bettering my education.

My freshman year in high school was rough compared to the normal high school things. On August 12, 2013, I almost lost my best friend; he had smoked for twenty some years when he had a devastating heart attack. I remember the fear and the thoughts of death that made my skin shudder. It was the second week of school on Tuesday when I got a pass at the beginning of my World History class immediately circled three or four times. The pass made me baffled considering I didn’t know about any appointments I had, and I didn’t ask my mom if I could go home early. Leaving the class and entering the empty hall, thinking about what’s going on as my footsteps echoing through the halls. What’s going on? Why would I be leaving this close to the end of school? As I walked past the office to my locker, I saw my mom with red eyes and purple bags under her eyes. At that moment, my stomach flipped and knotted up, because it’s at that moment when I realized something very wrong has happened. My pace quickened to the point of almost running; shoving my French one book and Algebra one in my backpack before sprinting to my mom. She met me by the big glass doors in the lobby of the office; laying a hand on my shoulder, she told me my dad had a major heart attack. I had felt my body instinctively lunged toward the door, but my mom held my shoulder tightly. As we walked to the car, my sister was in the front seat with her hair all messy in a bun and in her pajamas. She looked as though she had been

When I first attended Park fall of last year I was vastly unprepared for college, so when I entered as a nursing major I quickly realized two things. 1) I had no clue how to study 2) I’m not very good at anatomy.

Whaaaannnnn! I hear as I wake up wiping my eyes. My one year old son Ashton is screaming his eyes out. I then waddled into the bedroom where he was laying and quickly put him back to sleep. I finally started to fall back asleep myself before I heard knocking on the bedroom door. It was my mother saying “Wake up it’s time for school”. I then laid in the bed and closed my eyes as I tried to get a few more minutes of rest when my mother then yelled from the other room “Get up, you are going to make me late for work”. I then knew from there it was going to be a long school year.