My Experience In High School

It was freshman year in high school, and I was ecstatic about the fact that I can officially refer to myself as a high school student. However, not everything was perfect, nor filled with sunshine and rainbows. It was just two weeks into the school year when I faced my first arduous obstacle.

I remember the first day I started high school I was so nervous. As a kid I always remember I would had an anxiety problem for almost every little thing. I wake ever morning nauseated, even though there was nothing to worry about because I mean after all it was just school. I remember thinking damn I just got out of middle school here goes another 4 long school years. But what I didn’t know was that those years would go by so fast. After all like everyone says, a lot happens in 4years. On my first day everything was amazing. I had made new friends, so far I liked all my teachers, and I got into this Culinary Arts class that I didn’t even know I liked. I learned so much in Culinary, Everyday I would go in excited to see what I would learn the next.it amazed me so much I even started to help my mom cook, I learned so much in so little so that’s when I discovered I had a passion for learning how to cook and for food. I can honestly say I’m so glad I got into that class because now I know how to cook a little bit of Italian thanks to my culinary class and to wonderful godfather who is an excellent chef in New York City. I learn a lot from my mother who I’m forever thankful I just don’t tell her as much. Thanks to her I learn how to cook almost all kind of Mexican food, I learn how to be a little more responsible, I got into finishing my Diploma.

The hardest part about college are(is) not the classes, it’s not being away from home, and honestly, even though constantly having $1.16 in my checking account is not ideal, it’s not the lack of money. The hardest part about college is socializing. I know the people from my town- how they act, how they think, how they live. Here, all I know about the people is that they are attending the same school as me. Making friends is second only to breathing because no one wants to walk to class, or go to school events, or eat lunch by themselves, and socializing becomes when everyone seems to know each other, and I seem to know no one. Because of unchangeable truth, I decided to spend the day in my room instead of attempting to make friends.

As I begin my final year of high school, I reflect back onto my last graduation. I consider myself lucky to have attended a unique educational program. The school I attended for 9th grade wasn’t traditional. It was a 25 student Montessori program, serving grades 7-9, in accordance with Maria Montessori’s 3-year education system. I was in 7th grade when I entered the program from a traditional school, and I had never seen anything like it. Whether students were bringing back vegetables from the farm next door, cooking coffee cake for their peers to enjoy, feeding our flock of 5 chickens, or ordering this week’s office supplies - I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Yes, we had the traditional math, science, English, history and language classes, but the unique practical life aspects made it so much more than just a traditional school setting. It was a community full of opportunity and new experiences. This new take on education sparked a love for learning that I will carry with me for years to come.

“I’m only going to college to party!” This is a phrase I’ve heard more times than I’d have liked during my time in high school. It’s always followed by a round of raucous laughter something that has always floored me. Of course, it isn’t my job to judge the motives of my peers, but the nonchalant response always seems to get my blood boiling. For me, college has always been an exciting prospect; a wider scope of information, different points of view, freedom to learn. Ever since I first entered my educational journey, I have been drawn to bettering myself, educating myself, and making myself into a more knowledgeable person. I find myself most comfortable around people who possess different ideas and skills, and enjoy learning new things, no matter how trivial.

Before graduating elementary and jumping into middle school my homeroom adviser always advises us to try and enter the school program in this particular high school. The thing is to enter the program you need to take an entrance exam and get at least 85% on it. The first week of May 2012 my mom and I went to my elementary school to collect my transcripts that I needed to enroll for grade 7. At that moment and for the last time I saw my grade 6 teachers. Upon getting my transcripts I can hear my grade six teachers asking my mom if I will take the entrance exam.

Another day in this school. Maybe if I keep my head down the entire class the time will go by faster. The most valuable part of my day was when the last bell rang. School was a cycle that felt eternal. My greatest passion and aspiration is Basketball. My life had no other purpose, sophomore year of high school and already I was scouted by two universities. I was bound to at least after college play overseas, so I didn’t think of a career. Before I get ahead of myself it was inevitable that I had to graduate high school first. At one moment of a person’s life, we stumble across something that will change our lives forever. During my early years of high school, I had no passion for academics. I was introduced to a book by my favorite teacher, and my mind experienced a shift, I was able to see myself beyond a basketball court. My Coach Carla would always tell me “you’re a student-athlete, the student comes first”. However, whenever I fell behind in my studies my teachers would always give me extensions on assignments because I was a part of the Lady Cardinals. If it wasn’t for my athlete title, I wouldn’t have the grades to make the team.

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.

I watch from the beige colored sidewalk as my Ma pulls away in the Nissan Pathfinder that we dubbed as the ‘Blue Shoe.’ I turn and look up at the newly built building. There it stands in its newly built glory, the sun is rising behind the building and it seems to cast a halo effect on it. Little did I know it would be like Hell more than Heaven. It was my first year of going to a public school, I was a 6th grader this year, as I had been doing my schooling at home. With this came the ability to be a grade ahead because Ma said that I was to busy when I was younger.

After 3 years of crawling my way up from the bottom and finally reaching the top, I’d say that I’ve learned quite a bit about the ins and outs of high school. I remember being a freshman, looking at all the seniors and thinking, “I know way more than these people give me credit for”, but over time, I realized that I knew about as much as they thought I did, which was nothing. I wish that I could go back in time and give myself some advice.

My life has currently led up to now, the end of my eighth grade year. This year has been quite the experience. Academically, I've learned so many new things and gotten good grades. What I've learned about life though has been a completely different experience. This year has taught me what hard work and perseverance provide, how to be myself, and self-acceptance; All of which are lessons I will be able to bring along with me to high school and on.

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.

In the late months of the two-thousand and fourteen first semester, I had begun my dangerous excursion into a precarious realm of stress and irritation to a juvenile network of literacy and instruction. I was beginning my first year of high school, which was still a new territory for me. I had previously attended at Howe middle school, but I was not prepared for high school. At my high school, the building is different than any other building on the campus. The high school building is on one continuous slab of the concrete foundation, but there is a gap in between the two halves of the building. In this gap, there is a connecting concrete flooring that is level with the two previous halves’ floors. The Howe students, faculty and I called this structure the “breezeway.” During a hot school day, the wind tunneled through the breezeway and brush across me like an ocean of cool air. Of all the memories in the breezeway at my high school, I can remember one moment where I saw something that changed my outlook on what I wanted to become.

Until the summer of my sophomore year, I was unquestionably shy. I was the kid whose raised hand lifted four inches off the table and who slouched over her sketches of strangers. That summer, I was forced to change.

At first I thought high school was going to be a breeze, but was not a breeze at all. The classes seem very hard for me. I tried my very best even though I thought it was hard. I gave my freshman classes my all but still getting ok grades I wanted an A on my class work but I was not getting those grades. I felt like a big failure. So I started not to care I gave up really gave up. I started not doing my work and stop participating in class. I was skipping class not giving a care in the world. I kept getting into trouble. Always in the dens office and that was just my freshman year. My report card was really unacceptable I would cry when I see my grades but I know It’s because I would skip class and not do my work. Summer was coming up school is getting to an end and I got my report cards again and I see my GPA was so horrible and my guidance consul Mr. Martin called me down to his office to talk to me about my grades and that I’m starting freshman year all over again . He was telling me to get on track, it’s not the end of the world that I can still do it if I focused on my work. So I told my guidance consul Mr. Martin I would do my best.