My Experience In My Life

Everybody has a mountain to overcome and it's your choice whether you stay stuck in the valley or rise to the peak. An in my life I've had a mountain that not only I have overcome but, learned valuable lessons along the way. The crux of my struggle was the splitting of my parents which put me through some emotional instability. This, in hindsight, was the best for me as well as my parents but being young and selfish I seen it as my world splitting in half.

As I grow older and live new experiences, I realize how my childhood and God led me to the circumstance I am now, which is my last semester of nursing school. I come to appreciate my mother’s hard work to get me through school as well as through life. Growing up in a low-income family in Los Angeles, California with a dad who was a full-time alcoholic and drug addict, was not a good circumstance to grow up. My mother did not speak English or had a job and believed that a married woman is to fully depend on her husband. There were times when my 2 siblings and I had nothing to eat since my dad barely came home with money after spending it all on alcohol and drugs. Due to this living situation and the fact that I was the oldest child, I felt the strong responsibility to drop out of school once I was old enough to work. Education was not an option in my future. Since we didn’t have much money, my mom signed my siblings and me to free afterschool programs at my local Catholic church, so we could learn more about our religion and the importance of God in our lives. I remember my excitement to wake up early Sunday mornings to get ready for mass, even though it took 2 bus routes to get to church. I learned from nuns and priests the importance of caring for others as if they were my own family because everyone deserves the same type of care. Caring was something I learned through religion, and not something I was born knowing. As a way to start fresh, my dad decided to move us to

My name is Alexis Lopez Sevilla. I am 19 years old. I was born in the State of Jalisco, Mexico where I spent fourteen years of my life living there. I am the second oldest and only son of four siblings. Currently, I am living in Long Beach, California, and I am attending Long Beach City College. When I was fourteen years old, my family and I arrived in this country. Coming to the United Sates has been the most challenging experience I have had so far, especially because I did not want to move away from a place that I loved so much, that was my hometown. Therefore, the first obstacle that I experienced on this journey was not being able to accept the fact that my future was going to be established in a place that I knew so little about.

Growing up I had a good life. I lived with my brother, sister, and both of my parents together as a good family. My parents really taught me how to be respectful and responsible. I was lucky to have them as good influences in my life. I am not one to disrespect anyone unless they have done me wrong. I grew up caring about school and always wanting to perform well and anything that I do. There were many challenges and events that helped me become the person I am today. One of which is when my family and I had the opportunity to visit our home country, Zimbabwe.

I grew up in Romania where I called a camper my home for the first eight years of my life. We moved from city to city reaching out to the Gypsy community. A childhood in which one gets lice most summers, intermingles two languages assuming everyone understands both, and attends second grade in three different countries is, of course, an unconventional upbringing. With the unconventional upbringing, however, came extraordinary experiences that have shaped who I am and the life I have chosen to pursue.

I was born in the town called ‘Gang-Seo’ which is the western side of the river that passes through the capital of South Korea. I used to hang around with my friends at the small park that is located on the back side of the old white apartment complex where I lived. When I turned six years old, my family moved into the town called ‘Gang-Nam’ is the southern side of the river. The atmosphere was really different from where I had lived, since all of my new friends went to private institutions after school. I couldn’t communicate and play with my friends for a long time, since I didn’t go to those places. I felt lonely. I didn’t have much time to have a conversation in my home either, because my brother, who is seven years older than I, do always stayed outside until the late evening and my parents both worked at the time. But there was a person who made me smile sometimes: my grandmother. She used to tell me a lot of her old-time stories and play pranks on me, all the time such as making me try weird food which she improvised and answering my questions with annoying wordplay that I couldn’t understand. To me, she wasn’t just grandmother, also my best friend.

I lean against the hospital bed reflecting on my life and where it would now lead me. I have just overdosed on a painkiller and I thought my life was over- no hope, no friends, and most certainly, no support. Or at least that is what it felt like. I was at a time of my life where constant bullying was occurring and being in a small school at the time, there was no place to escape. In my mind, I thought the only way out was to vanish from this world completely and so I snooped around for a bottle of pain killers and took the whole bottle.

I wake up to see it’s only around 7 AM, a considerably earlier time than usual for me wake up since it's a weekend during my junior year. As soon as I exit my bedroom I see my mom, at this point she had been having a hard time breathing for a few days already and today it looks worse. I can see her struggling and gasping for breaths almost. I decided to sit next to her and she says something along the lines of "I think I have no choice but to go to the hospital" I was shocked because she never goes to the hospital even when she feels horrible. The day before was the day that my mom had gotten paid so she hands me her purse and money when the ambulance arrives.

I love to learn. I think of knowledge as having your very own super power, however I do not like all the unnecessary negative aspects of high school. Everyone says you’ll look back and wish you were still in high school; so do not try to grow up too fast. High school has opened my eyes to what is most important in my life. Every difficult experience with the help of my grandmother has shaped me to develop the willingness to look inside myself and to believe in myself.

It is not too long ago that I decided to become a pharmacist. I lived in South Korea most of my life. Back then, I had no idea what I wanted to be other than thinking about immigrate to the United States. I had chance to visit my uncle’s college graduation when I was a little boy and I only dreamed about living in the U.S ever afterward. For example, I decided to go to nursing school simply because there are more chances to move to the U.S as a nurse. The problem was I did not do well in terms of academic performance because I only thought about how to move to the U.S. Additionally, I admitted to hospital couple of times because of a pneumothorax so my gpa bottomed out.

It’s hard to imagine what your life will be like, where it’ll take you, or what the future holds for you. If you told 13-year-old me that I was going to be on the path of 8 more years of schooling after high school, working towards a medical degree, I probably would have laughed and repeated the line that I have said so many times: “I’ll never become a doctor...that’s so gross”. At that age, my dream was to become a pastry-chef in a patisserie somewhere in the south of France, living life peacefully. I thought that I could never follow in my parents’ footsteps, sacrificing the best years of my life for the all-consuming difficulty and intensity of the pre-med track. And it is very intense. If you ever come across a pre-med student, they’re likely stumbling over the clutter of their biology textbooks and boundless research papers, frantically searching for the cure for some disease that no one can actually pronounce, all the while cramming for the MCAT that’s in 912 days because they have not yet memorized every bone in the human body. I’d like to dissociate myself from that stereotype. While most aspiring pre-med students were worrying about medical school acceptance rates, I was dreading my dad’s weekly case-study reading that he absolutely had to have my opinion on. Not to mention the countless visits I made to my mother’s work Christmas parties, where the nurses were constantly dressed in their scrubs, and I mean constantly, and the food unmistakably came straight from

Skrt Skrt! Dust blew through the air as Kiley and I sat in complete silence. Looking around in awe, I realized we finally settled somewhere other than the gravel road we started on.. Smashed and unrecognizable, the tahoe rested in the ditch next to my dad’s cornfield. What just happened? I vaguely remember my mom’s voice telling me in the past that parents set rules for a reason and although kids usually ignore not like them, they provide boundaries to ensure everyone's best interest. Cold and scared, I sat there shivering. I concluded that in this situation if I had listened to my mom, I believe I could have prevented this trouble. I saw my life at fourteen years old flash before me on November 19, 2016. This experience will live in my memory forever.

The beginning of this year felt like my life was so boring. I wanted something, anything interesting to happen. I wanted to know what it felt like to be effected by a situation, I just didn’t know it was going to hit so close to home.

I woke up to the smell of crispy bacon and eggs racing through the house. I went to the kitchen to find a small white paper next to 2 bacon-egg cheese burritos and orange juice. I read the note and it said “ DEAR JONATHON , i am currently at the store getting stuff for the house ill see you later, LOVE MOM!!!” When i read it at first i kind of cringed but i just sat down and ate my burritos and they tasted so cheesey and crunchy it was awesome . Once i finished i went into the living room to listen to the radio. We live in a shaft in the middle of the forest and its never light because the trees but that doesn’t stop me from doing what i want to do, so I decided to go outside and play soccer by myself to waste some time. But out of the corner of my eye i saw a tall old creature with a long beard and a robe, he looked very warned out and tired. He walked over to me as slow as a slug, then i ran into my house because i got scared. Suddenly my face was inside a bag and i was being carried, so i screamed for my life “HEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPP!!!!IM BEING KIDNAPED HHEEELLLPPP!!” No one heard me because the nearest road is about 2 hours away. I woke up in a cave and saw a man mixing something in a huge pot over a fire , it smelt like dead rats piled up in a hole.

The never ending days of summer were quickly winding down. It was that time of year again. That time where every kid dreads waking up early every day. Where we have to sit on hard as rock chairs for hours. Eat foods that look and taste like a mixture of foreign cuisines together in a bowl. My fulfilled summer adventures were now just a mere distant memory like that old shirt tucked away at the bottom of a drawer to be never seen again. Now I have to face reality; it was my final year as a high schooler.