My Freshman Experience In High School

I would like to pretend that the bridge between elementary school and high school did not exist for me—that junior high just did not happen. I was a seemingly thoughtless kid, determined to make it out of school entirely and live in my own world where nobody could tell me what to do. I was awkward, irrational, and rebellious, three qualities I cannot thank my parents enough for dealing with. But the experiences and people I encountered in my junior high years almost made that whole chapter of my life worth reliving. I went through a lot in junior high, and have many memories of ridiculous instances that make it easy to make fun of myself.

Growing up, my parents had given me everything that any child ever wanted; a good home, loving parents, and lots of materialistic objects. I went to a private school, where on paper I looked very involved. Though I was very active during my time in high school there was always a disconnect, an empty feeling that I had within myself. Day in and day out I was just going through the motions of life, not looking or hearing what God 's will was for me. That empty feeling I had would all change when God put Fradwin in my life who had taught me a valuable lesson. Unknowingly, Fradwin helped me understand the value of hard work and how to become grateful; two important lessons that have been forever ingrained within my heart.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of small, reflective moments when life calms into a soft, background noise. I keep remembering things that I never thought could be forgotten in the first place. I’m still a senior in high school and nostalgia, coupled with intense anxiety for the future, leads to these memories resurfacing. Some are silly or fun, and others are overwhelmingly emotional. Particularly, the night where I decided to keep living and moving forward. I truly am who I am today because of a heartfelt conversation in the middle of a country field.

I remember being in elementary school watching, “That’s So Raven,” on Disney Channel, wishing I was already in high school like Raven so I can have the same pleasurable experiences as she did. As I grew older and wiser, I realized “That’s So Raven,” was a fantasy and life is not that easy. Although I had challenges throughout my academic journey; my successes did outweigh my failures.

Throughout my life, I’ve experienced periods of time where my interest in an activity would peak. Sometimes it was a television show, other times a game, and, on rare occasions a class I had at school. When I first got to high school, I was unsure how it would shape me as I grew into an adult. Before going to my first day at high school though, I had my first day somewhere else: Millstone trails, where I would spend much of my next four years after school running for cross country practice. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Joining the team had been an on the whim decision to obtain a P.E. credit while saving a block in my schedule for a class I could actually learn in and enjoy. I had never run at all before, much less the distances that were expected from me. What I truly never expected though was for that sport to have almost as big an influence on me as my entire high school education did.

Since around my Junior year of high school, I became extremely involved in community service. I started by going on a Junior Service Retreat to Camden, New Jersey where I learned a lot about the city, and heard stories on drug and alcohol addiction. It started to open my eyes to what could really go on only 45 mins away from my hometown that seemed so innocent. I then continued serving and traveled to El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico where I studied immigrants. This is so far the best experience of my life. I entered into these stranger’s culture and life to try to help them, and hopefully impact their life. They went from strangers to friends and they didn’t realize it but they were helping me and impacting my life significantly. When, coming to The Catholic University I expected nothing less than the best service opportunities and that is what I received. I attended the Little Sisters of the Poor on Tuesday at 6:45-8:00 and that is when my love for service was re-sparked. After reading Lumen Fidei, the concept of “light” resembling faith and grace meaning life really stood out to me. While helping out at Little Sisters of the poor, I saw Lumen FIdei’s “light” in Mariam.

When I entered ninth grade, I was someone totally different from the person I am today. The experiences I have gained during these long four years of high school have shaped me into the young adult I am. I have had to learn many lessons about myself and friends. Many failures have had to be taken in stride, and I am glad to say that I overcome and dealt with them all in the name of evolution.

4th grade was a filled with chaos. Even if I try to remember one moment, I can only pull out blurry images. But out of all of these foggy memories, one stands above all. Three years back, I’m standing in front of the whole class; face as red like blood as everyone gawks and laughs. How I got into this situation is a long story. Very little did I know, it would alter my singing ‘career’.

It all started in Junior High. Before then I was just a normal everyday kid attending eighth grade. Hyper and careless. I had no worries and I lacked motivation in school, even during classes I would not listen to the teacher. But It all changed during my ninth grade year in school. In my course of the school year I started to become more aware of myself and other people around me. Peoples opinions and what they thought of me started to matter a lot. This caused me to become self conscious and shy around new people. It was hard for me to start conversations with new people, and because of that I did not make many new friends. I later realised that I had social anxiety and it would not get better anytime soon. Because following that year my family decided to move somewhere new. I was transferred to a new school with new teachers,new faces, and a new environment. I would be entering the scary unknown all by myself. My first day in the new High School was extremely scary. I did not know anyone or how to find all my new classes. The school’s hallways were cramped of the students talking loudly and slowly shuffling their way to class. My body was shoved up against other people's sides while I was looking around frantically trying to find the correct room number.The hallways were white and narrow as the flow of the students pushed me down the hallways. In my first class I had to introduce myself to the class as the new kid. Introducing myself nervously to the in the front of the

It was a typical Thursday just like any other, or so I though. This happened senior year of high school. I never knew that one day could change my life so much. I went from being excited about all my senior activities, to worrying about my health and if I was going to be okay or not.

Whats that? Don't you just love that sound? Ahhh the sound of school calling at 6:30 in the morning. And what school do you ask? High school of course! Now when you think of high school, what do you think of? The excitement, anticipation, or joy? I for one was one of those people who was ready to be a high school freshman. Like most, I craved that high school experience. As a child, I believed that high school musical was real and that my high school experience would be amazing, but truth be told it wasn’t as joyous as I’d thought. I can’t necessarily say that these years were my worst years, but they weren’t my best either. Truth be told the four years I’ve spent in high school were some of my most enlightening. I’ve learned so much about who Raesha was and who she wanted to be. Honestly, without the trials and tribulations of these four years, I doubt I would be here, at the illustrious Clark Atlanta University.

Like other kids, high school is a place where one tries to understand who they are and

As much as I would like to claim that today was a regular day, it wasn't. With me getting ready for my college applications and personal essay, I had a lot on my mind, and the last thing I needed was another confused teammates adding to my worries. Sitting on the bleachers and I quietly working my outline for my college essay, my little cousin ran into the gym crying. We, the Obi, prided ourselves on being manly, smart, pride, understanding and thick-skinned and there was only one thing that could make him cry, and that was him getting taunted about his accent.

My educational past experiences before high school that were positive was; being a tryhard and even though I wasn’t always the brightest in my classes I always tried my hardest to strive and succeed in most of my classes. Another positive aspect in my life before high school was that I had so many friends and we would always have fun in classes we had together so none of my classes were boring since i had a friend in every class. Lastly, the last positive experience I’ve had before high school was being a child, not having to worry about my homework all day long and just being careless since I didn’t have the need to take care of myself, I was provided for. The negative experiences were that I was struggling

Senior year of high school is the most nervous and exciting time in anyone’s high school career. You are applying to college, stars of your sports team, and not doing any work. I knew where I was going to college when I was 13 years old, my parents met here in 1983 and by the time I was a senior my sister just started her freshman year here. So unlike most of my friends I wasn't sweating applications or acceptances because I was comfortable with my transcript and my application. As high school students started getting accepting to school, the group chats start. You wake up one day after you get accepted and your in eight different GroupMe’s with 20-30 kids you have never met before. In one of the groups, mixed with girls and guys, people were writing about meeting up in New York City at a bar so we can all meet face to face but we couldn't decide on a date or a place. At the time, I thought it would be a smart idea to have everyone over my house so it can be a little more relaxed and no one would have to worry about not getting into a bar and being left out. Everyone agreed and we set a date for 2 weeks later for everyone to come over, the GroupMe had 50 people. As I check the GroupMe each day the number of people kept getting bigger and bigger and when I woke up the day of the party it was up to 120 people. At this point it was to late to back out and I decided to have the party regardless of the amount of people. People start coming over sporadically, starting right after