My Senior Year Of High School

My eighth grade year of Middle school. I had many challenges, with making friends and subjects. But one challenge was mathematics.I knew my eighth grade year was most important when it came transferring into my high school years, yet I didn’t do anything to raise my grade in mathematics at that time. It wasn’t until two I had a very low grade in mathematics on my report card at that I realized I needed to do something about my low grade. So after that report in math, I really was determined to really bring that F up to at least a B or A. So I remember I started to go to after school tutoring to get help with my math subject. They placed me with a teacher named Ms.Alice. And she really helped me with my subject.

When junior year ended last summer, I felt like I knew exactly what was coming my way-- after all, I watched three different groups of my friends go through senior years of their own. It was finally my turn to experience senior year, something it seemed I had known about for years, and I felt like senior year would be easygoing and uneventful. Now, it has taken just a few short months to realize how incorrect I was. If senior year has taught me anything, it is that one never really knows what comes next for them, even if they have a good idea. The monumental highs, as well as the deepest of lows, have kept me on my toes throughout my senior year.

My memories are blurry. They are fragments of disjointed moments, without a linear narrative. I remember reading. It was in Mrs. Davidson first grade class. My reading proficiency skills were very poor, the English language still thick and unnatural on my tongue. While some of the other students took a Gifted class, I had to take a remedial course—English Learners (EL)— just so that I could hold onto the edge. I remember reading. I had a hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in my little hands, reciting only the first page of the book from memory. The classroom was dark; the stream of sunlight filtering through the windows served as our only illumination. The rest of the words on the book looked like a mess of jumbled letters. I couldn’t make out anything other than the words “the” and “and.” I remember enthusiastically pointing out my “fluency” to my teacher, seemingly applauding my menial abilities: “The catpater at droo!” (The caterpillar ate through). In the first-grade, my free time was spread sporadically between watching The Little Mermaid, catching ugly black crickets and pretending that I was Sailor Moon, guardian of the galaxy. In the first grade, I was not at all concerned with words, literacy and books. In the first grade, I did not know the power that words hold. I did not know that books would change my life.

Culture is according to Zimmermann (2015), “the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts”. One culture that I am not affiliated with and did not grow up in is the Hispanic/Latino culture. Today, this culture is one of the fastest-growing cultures in the United States of America (“Understanding the Hispanic/Latino,” n.d.).

I began my higher education at Antelope Valley Community College in pursuit of these skills, and graduated cum laude in May 2012 with my Associates in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Shortly after, I was admitted to California State University, Fullerton for my Bachelor’s in Psychology, where I also joined the University’s Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honor Society. It was here that I also discovered how useful philosophy is in understanding human behavior, and added the subject as a minor to aid me in my studies. My belief is that while psychology generally explains why a person reasons in their particular manner, philosophy explains the different ways that said person could reason. I believe that this will be useful in treating clients, since the philosophy aspect will help me understand the perceived logic that the client holds, which in turn will support the overall treatment.

Sophomore year in high school had greater demand on my time and made me realize about my future more than my freshman year. Time management has been a theme I was constantly reminded with academic and extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the realization of entering college and pursuing a career is closer than before. These two factors have transformed my outlook of my junior year.

The people, our surroundings, and our memories are what make the years of high school go by at the blink of an eye. Freshmen year, scared of all teachers, classes, and new people. Sophomore year is a breeze because you finally understand the bell schedules, and you’re aware of the teacher’s expectations. Junior year, the stress hits you all at once. You’ve got the ACT, EOCs, and many other tests that are a major part of your future education.

The time came when I was sitting in my guidance counselors office my sophomore year of high school. The pressure was on, I had to decide what classes to take to help me not only prepare for the ACT but that would impact my future. With the support of teachers and counselors I was able to choose and pick out difficult and challenging classes that would help me excel in the future. The list grew long, I signed up not only for my junior year classes but I also planned out my senior year schedule as well. My counselor took the time to explain to me the honors classes that were weighted, helping my GPA, and were dual credit as well. I signed up for several of the dual credit courses and weighted such as Composition 2, American Lit 1, AP U.S. History,

In my Freshman and Sophomore year of high school, I was not really involved in extracurricular activities. I did some community service hours and I joined a club. In my Junior year of high school, I started to get more involved in school activities. Such as football and soccer games. And in all honesty, I can say that Junior year has been my favorite year so far.

The concept of culture is something that defines many aspects of one’s life. From physical objects to different ways of thinking, culture adds significance to human life and makes groups of people distinct from one another. Culture is essentially a group of people who come together with similar interests and points of view. According to the Center for Advanced Language Acquisition of the University of Minnesota, “culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization.” From a more sociological perspective, culture is a way in which people come together in order to fulfill their needs. These shared patterns and ideas identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.” Culture is one of the things that sets the United States apart from the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world is not cultural, but the circumstance here is different. Many people of different cultural backroads come to this country in search of a better life. As a consequence, the United States has become a place where many cultures merge together like a colossal pot soup.

I’m not quite sure when it started. My best guess would be freshman year of high school. I was transitioning into a new school which initially hadn’t bothered me. The problem was that I was split up from a lot of the friends I had before. Some were in different high schools and others were just in different classes leaving me by myself as they made new friends. Adding to this was the fact that I was in an honors program I struggled to keep up with. The work suddenly didn’t make any sense, I was unprepared for the amount of work required of me and I was alone in a lot of my classes. With all of this happening at once I was faced with an identity crisis. I had always been the smart and responsible kid both in my friend group and in general. If I wasn’t either of those things anymore then who was I?

Having just finished my junior year of high school I’ve gotten by thus far with lazy study techniques that don’t require much effort and grab an A or B. But have I retained all the information I spent many an hour studying for? Vaguely. This is due to my poor study habits. I am a procrastinator; it’s possibly my most favorite and least favorite thing to do at the same time. I don’t try to procrastinate it’s possibly just an innate skill of mine. When I would rather binge watch Netflix or play video games on my PlayStation, a break of about 20 minutes from work seems harmless until 20 minutes turns into two hours. These breaks are enjoyable to an extent, except for the overwhelming feeling of regret that lies still in the back of my mind until I cease to ignore it. This is a fault of mine that deeply intrudes on studying time, accompanied by easily accessible distractions and poorly willed motivation. I’ve learned through this module that when I am not procrastinating and actually studying I don’t make use of my study time well and have adapted (through old habits that helped me get by in the past) a shallow level of learning.

During my senior year of high school a program called Genesys Works started at my school. Genesys Works is a non-profit organization that teaches high school seniors professionalism. Genesys Works takes upcoming high school seniors through an eight week training program that trains them in Information Technology (IT) or Accounting as well as ways to become a better professional so they will be able to have an internship during their senior year of high school.

My senior year of high school rolled around and I realized that I was in need of loosing weight. In stead of searching the next new diet plans or asking my friends what they thought, I just kind of used conmen sense. Finding foods with low calories, controlling how much I was eating and making sure I kept myself on a regular exercise plan. I figured since the most important meal of the day was breakfast, I needed to start there. I stopped eating my sugar cereals and went exclusively to eating one "Smart One 's" instant meals for my breakfast. I know for a lot of people it is hard to eat non-breakfast food in the morning, but quite frankly it made me feel better. Every day I was starting off with protein and veggies with my starches. Normally I would eat there Swedish meatball or chicken alfredo do entry, but to mix things up I once in a while would try other random entrees like there fajita plates, but that wasn 't the best food breath-wise for socializing at school. Next came working on my lunch. In stead of eating pizza, fries or burritos at school, I started bringing my own lunch which consisted of a Wrap; a bottle of water and that was it. To make this wrap I started out with a "light" in calorie extra wide wrap and added eight super thin slices of meat(I usually used roast beef or pastrami). Then I would drip on a little Iguana Deuces vicious jalapeño pepper sauce just to add more flavor. This hot sauce pretty much is just a flavor thing in my opinion, I am a hot

In my senior year of high school my classmate was beaten and robbed for the mere five dollars she had at the time. The young man who robbed her was a friend of many in my peer group, and was looked up to by a great deal of the under classmates. The woman, on the other hand, was a party girl and she was in fact, walking home from a party intoxicated that very night. With all that being said, we were still all outraged at this young man. We blamed him for putting her in the hospital, for stealing her money, and rightly so. There were no questions asked. No one asked if she had been paying attention, or if she had the money out in the open for all to see. Now imagine if, instead of being robbed by this man, she had gone home with him. What if while they were at his place, he coerced her into having sex with him? Would we still have so easily blamed him for the offense of rape? Or instead, would we maybe question the woman 's sobriety, her past history, or her decision making skills. Would we have wondered what she was wearing, or if she actually told the man to stop? Victim blaming in sexual assault crimes is, in large, an accepted thing here in America. With so many people believing that it must be the victim 's fault, we are, in a sense, making light of the crime. Victim blaming can lead to less rapes being reported, less rapists ever going to prison and suicidal thoughts.