Many people think that I’ve got everything going for me. I’m captain of my school’s varsity cheerleading squad, I’m an honors student, I’ve got a talent that works for me, and I’ve got a bright future ahead of me. Few people understand that getting to where I am hasn’t been easy.
For the duration of time amidst graduation and resuming my education I chose to instead take the time to better myself by means of coping with the hand I’d been dealt. High school was discouraging to say the least. Academically I was a failure, which was frustrating for everyone concerned, since it wasn’t a question of my intelligence, but my lack of motivation. Fortunately, I had a large support system, without which I wouldn’t have graduated, however, this support system was unconventional, including my dad and most of the faculty at Golden High School, which left me somewhat isolated from my peers. I struggled relating to most of my fellow classmates on a deeper than superficial level, which left me with only a few genuine relationships
Stepping on to my high school’s campus for the first time, I felt a little nervous, a bit excited and very clueless. I rushed to my friends who were conveniently standing near the entrance; almost as to feel safe. The transition from middle school to high school meant very much to me. I entered high school knowing that it was my chance to finally work towards reaching my goal of attending college; it was the chance life had privileged me with. Looking back it all now, It was a change I didn't feel prepared for, yet, I regret very little and glad I worked as hard as I did.
Back when i was in middle school and i was a pretten and was barely becoming a teenager.in middle school i had just switched schools twice. Switching schools wasn't easy for me it made things harder for me. I was failing most of my classes as a seventh grader; i §had §hit a point in my life where i gave up. Then one day my dad had gone into my room and said Asmariah you need to stop doing whatever you're doing and get started on your homework and get on top of your school work
Going into high school didn’t give me the effect I was expecting. Instead of my usual indifference about life, I found a light at the end of the tunnel. My entire outlook was shifted from one point of the spectrum to its opposite. Everything I thought I knew had been revised in way. My experiences in high school have done a great job in shaping how I perceive the world. Freshman year is when I began learning about the real world.
I walk into a new place where I have never been before trying to find where i’m going next. I struggle to look for my friends in a commons area full of people. It doesn't help that my eyesight is very poor. I start walking straight into the commons in hopes to find someone. I finally find a group full of familiar people who had graduated two years ago from the school I went to. I go up to them and ask them where my classes are, if i have good teachers, and if anybody has the same classes that i do. Unfortunately none of them did but as i spot my better friends i say goodbye and head away from them. I walk up to my best friends alec and tyler they tell me “Gracie there's nothing to worry about, its college!” I figure that they are right but that doesn’t change the fact that it was only my first day and i had no idea who anybody was here. I was scared, i knew it was going to be way harder than high school. Both alec and tyler say they have the first class with me and it was 15 minutes to but they joked with me and said that it's almost mandatory to show up at least 5 minutes late to a college class. So of course it also made me nervous that they were going to be late to class. I had thought about all the times i got threatened for my attendance at the high school and how the teachers would make you go to ISS for the whole hour if you were even a minute late. I had millions of thoughts running through my head, who am i going to sit by? What if the teacher yells that we are
High school is one of those times in life where most people have the best times of their lives, but for me I just wanted to get through it. Coming in freshman year I was done with the cattiness of the girls, the social pressures, and the monotony of school. Then I discovered the joy of ceramics! Ceramics was unlike any class I had taken in my entire life and had far reaching effects on my life. Ceramics kept me in high school by sparking my creativity and all of life’s possibilities. In high school I found joy in ceramics, found out what it was to no longer practice, and what it was like to start doing it again after thirteen years.
Almost 9 years ago, I was just an average teenager fresh out of high school, just living life with no responsibilities other than the mediocre restaurant job I obtained during my high school years and a girlfriend I have been with since the 11th grade. After my senior year of high school, things took a drastic change in my life, which took a toll on how I can live my life. I found out that I was going to be a father!
During the last four years of my high school life I came across a number of different teachers, all of them together had different styles of teaching and some were more positive than others. Be that as it may, despite the different characters that wanted to mentor me and those who care not too there were three women who gave of them self and did their best to teach a young Black girl a few extra things. Distinguished from their co-workers it showed me just what a great teacher is.
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.
It was a hot cloudy day in August. The very first day of my 10th grade high school day at Carolina high, was a day where I decided that I wanted to join the volleyball team. I was so nervous and also devastated because I did not have any money to get my sports physical done. I had until the first week of September. Which was the 2nd week of school to get it done, and this was a day where I had to overcome my fears and worries. However, I did not know if I had a chance to make it on the team or not. I had no enthusiasm to try out because I knew there were other players that were better than me. I thought to myself, “If there were other players better than me, then I would not make the team, and it made me discouraged.”
If I think about who I was at the beginning of junior year, I can’t count the number of times that I spaced out when answering questions about myself. I had never really thought about what really motivated me, and I wasn’t interested in pursuing anything in my life. The “getting to know you” questionnaires that teachers make their students fill out were my nightmare. The people I had ended up surrounding myself with were not the kind of teenagers that I could relate to, and I was wearing, saying, and doing all the wrong things all the time. I came to school wearing uncomfortable clothes because I didn’t feel like I fit in my own skin. Sweatshirts and large t-shirts were a norm for me, because I was worried about my body image. I let my friends take advantage of me. I allowed myself to get hurt, but I ended up forgiving them anyways. It wasn’t just my friends though, as I blamed everyone else for my own problems. I never owned up to my mistakes. I turned on good friends, and created even worse relationships with others around me. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t a bad kid. I rarely got into trouble with my parents, and my grades were pretty good. I thought I was doing everything right, even though I found myself upset at the end of the day. Outside influencers were making me passive and afraid to stand up for myself. I couldn’t speak or act for myself. To be quite frank, I didn’t know who I was or that I needed to change in order to be happy. My routine of going to school and
When people used to tell me that high school would be the best four years of my life, I never seemed to believe them. Looking at where I am today makes me believe them when they say that high school will also be the fastest four years of my life. It is crazy to even think that just yesterday I was mentally preparing myself to walk into the doors of Lasalle Peru High School, and today I am mentally preparing myself to walk out of the doors of Streator High School. Time truly does fly when you are having fun, I wish I could go back just to feel everything one more time.
There have been times in my life in which my decisions have led to negative consequences. One of these biggest mistakes occurred my sophomore year.
I, in most respects, am a perfectly normal teenager. On any given day, you can find me laid across my best friend’s bed, homework in tow, munching on junk food and chatting about the latest gossip. If I’m not there, you might be able to find me curled up in bed, binge-watching the latest shows on Netflix. My weekends are filled to the brim with shopping and team spirit, as my friends and I cheer on our football team under those bright Friday night lights. All of this combined presents a vignette of the typical high school girl. However, my high school experience has been anything but typical, as I have spent the last year and a half of my life attending high school on a college campus.