My Experience In School

I never expected I’d spend the first two years of high school bedridden and suicidal. I was born and raised in Elmhurst, Queens. Attending the same school from kindergarten to 8th grade, I was used to being in the same environment. I was given assurance when my friends consistently told me that I was lucky and that I would be able to adapt to high school life fairly quickly — I was the outgoing one, the one who made everyone laugh.

After graduating from Forsyth Country Day School, an academically, rigorous private school, I knew the real world or the real deal was coming to me and that was college. I wasn’t too worried about college because I knew my high school had prepared me good for college by my high school treating us as if we were at a university. We took college like classes; We even had a dress code. My high school had its own honor code that was took serious. It was a challenge that I conquered. My school was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and I live in Ridgeway, Virginia. I managed to maintain A’s and B’s waking up at 6:10 a.m. just to get to school at 8:05 a.m. It was a hour drive down and a hour drive back. It was worth it as I can see now because it prepared me.

All my life I have attended my hometowns education school districts. I knew every student in school because we had all grown up together since preschool. I recall middle school being the best three years of my life for the reason I was very popular and had a boyfriend who I once thought was perfect for me. As I knew everyone, everybody knew me and wanted to be in my life. This was until I moved on to high school and that's when everything changed for me. I went from being this girl that everyone praised to a depressed girl that was loathed, and for that reason, it encouraged me to switch schools.

I hated school and everything that had to do with it, but I always enjoyed making up stories. It was my way, even as a small child, to escape everything. I have always had a very vivid imagination and writing was my way of channeling that. I enjoyed writing about events in my life but would always add a magical twist or have someone there to save the day. On the day, my teacher approached me as I was sitting in class and not paying attention as usual. My notebook was full of all the workings of my imagination.

It was a Thursday afternoon around six thirty. I was outside, at my school’s practice field, about to end marching band practice. We were outside packing up ready to go back inside and go home. All of a sudden everyone around me starts to freak out, while they are all looking up at the dark cloudy sky with their jaws dropped. The directors started yelling at us to rush in before our instruments got wet because we all knew what was about to go down just by looking at the sky.

It was a good day, woke up early so i could go to the gym and warm my body up and just to get some practice in. Went home to my mother making breakfast as usual, started to get my things together for school like usual made sure I had all my books, computer and pencils. When I got to school it felt just like a regular day went to class like always i didn't have any test so that was a big load off. As it got closer to the end of the day the more nervous I started to feel I started to feel worried, nervous and scared but I did not know why I knew I was gonna be fine. It was an unusual feeling it was like my heart was feeling those emotions but in my head it was totally different i wasn't scared or nervous not even worried. It was my last class of the day the whole class i wasn't even focused on what was going on more on what was about to happen later. The bell rang school was over, it was time for tryouts.

Before I moved to the United States, I went to school in Mexico for about nine years. School has rarely been difficult for me. I’m a fast learner. But as any other thing, school has its bad side too. It was the one that stopped the fairy tale I was living in, and got myself into real life. Movies made me believe that life was going to be easy. That no matter how many dilemmas I’d encounter, people were going to be there for me and help me get through it. School taught me that people don’t want to see other people succeed, it is impossible to compete with the teacher’s favorite, and that good grades are not the only thing needed.

I remembered the first day I started high school, I was so nervous. As a kid I always remember I would have an anxiety problem for almost every little thing. I wake every morning feeling nauseated even though there was nothing to worry about because I mean after all it was just school. Honestly I guess I felt like that because I care so much about what other people would think or say about me. I remembered thinking damn, I just got out of middle school here goes another 4 long year of school. It was just extremely frustrating 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 going fine. 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 was going to liked, I learned so much in Culinary. Everyday I would go in excited to see what I would learn the next day. I even started helping my mom cook, I learned so much in a gnomish time that’s when I discovered I had a passion for learning how to cook. 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 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 kinds of Mexican food, I learn how to be a little more responsible, I getting into finishing my Diploma.

By High school, my friend group had competently changed. I sat at a different lunch table every day and some days would eat lunch with a teacher. Making lasting friendships was hard for me partly because I was shy. I had hoped my freshman year of making new friends on the soccer team. I faced my first real disappointment in my life when I did not make varsity and I made JV. The friends I was trying to make all played on varsity and I increasingly felt more alone and not worthy. My first three years of high school were pretty bleak. I did not have a social life outside of school. My happy place was going home and binge-watching Netflix after soccer practice. My junior year of high school was the toughest. I am dyslexic and have dyscalculia, so basically that means school is really hard for me. Junior year destroyed me in the classroom and to make matters worse, I also hurt my ankle taking me out of soccer the one outlet I had. I was angry because I was finally starting to play on varsity and score. I was heading to a bad place in my mind thinking the world had a personal vendetta against me. I knew I had to do something to change the path I was on because I could not keep living as a shell of a person. I decided in an act of desperation to sign up for church camp. I did not go to church anymore and my view of God was quite skewed. I believed there was a God because believing he created the world made the most logical sense to me, but I thought he had abandoned us on earth. I

n the second grade, after a fun weekend of watching football, I decided to go to my parents if I could start playing football. They decided to get me to play soccer first and see if I enjoyed that, and being the stubborn little kid that I was. So after a year of soccer, my parents asked if I liked it and I told them no. That fall I signed up for the Little Devils, a little league football team. My football career started out great. I was a starter for my first four years at the Little Devils. Quarterback which was my favorite position to play. In my last year as a starter, my team went undefeated and won the championship with me at quarterback. The next season everyone had grown a lot more than I did. I was very short and the head coach decided to not let me start at quarterback and instead moved our running back at quarterback. The next year was my 8th-grade year I started the first game, but I struggled and eventually lost the job. I also broke my left arm ending my little league career.

When I opened my eyes, everything was spinning, the world, the things around me, and my head. Teammates grabbed me and helped me stand. I remembered the concerned looks on their faces, but I had no idea what had just happened and how it would completely alter the fall semester. It was my sophomore year of high school and I had gotten a concussion during cheerleading practice. My teammate was supposed to flip over my head, but the first time we tried this precarious maneuver, she got scared and stopped halfway. Boom! She kicked me hard in the back of my head. Fortunately, I was able to slow her fall with my head and shoulders, but unfortunately she knocked me out cold. After assessing me, the trainer said I had a concussion. The phone call to my mom isn’t very cleat in my memory, but the pain from the headache will be staccatoed in my mind forever. For the next couple days I stayed in bed unable to engage with the word. My memories of that first week are fuzzy, but eventually I had to go back to school. At first it was very challenging. Concentrating and remembering small things in class felt like an impossible task and I found myself struggling with the constant pain. I remember one day in my AP United States history class we were watching a movie and writing a summary on it. My head, like usual, was hurting that morning, but I decided to stay at school and push to avoid falling behind. It was not easy, but life isn’t east and sometime you need to push through pain - both

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.

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.

The day I left home for the first time to start Junior High was a bright day, brimming with hope and optimism. I’d always done well at school, so expectations for me were high, and I had gleefully set foot into a new chapter of student life, relationships and experiences. Now appearances, of course, can be deceptive, and to an extent, this spirited and energetic persona of mine had only been a veneer, although a very convincing one. The truth is underneath of it all, I was deeply unhappy, insecure and fundamentally frightened-- frightened of other people, of the future, of failure, and of the emptiness that I felt was within me. Despite all of this, I was very skilled at hiding it, and from the outside I appeared to be someone with everything to hope for and aspire to. This fantasy of invulnerability was so complete that I had even deceived myself, and by the end of the first year, no one could’ve predicted what was about to happen.

Many of my classmates know me as "that incredibly smart kid who is destined to achieve great things yet is always so helpful and nice and humble". From my interactions with them, I sense that they respect me for my academic excellence, but even more so for my obliging attitude towards everyone around me. Though I believe my classmates would correctly identify my strong academics as issuing from a natural talent coupled with an innate motivation to learn, most are actually unaware of the two major factors in my environment that have influenced my character.