My Year Of My Life

Basketball was my favorite sport growing up. I’ve played since I was little and I still play the game today. I played basketball at my elementary school, St. Cecilia, from Kindergarten till 8th Grade and also played AAU basketball for about 2 years before entering High School. Going into my freshmen year of High School, the first sport I played was basketball. Tryouts began in about the start of November and ended about 2 weeks after. I had made the Freshmen A team. I was excited and as the season progressed, we didn’t win many games but I still had fun playing. Nearing the end of the season, golf was another sport coming up that I also wanted to try and play. I say “try and play” because at the time, I was also going to play AAU basketball. I had set in my mind that I was going to play basketball for all of my four years of high school, but my parents pushed me to tryout for golf. When the basketball season ended, golf tryouts started. Tryouts lasted for about 2 weeks, and I made the JV team. When I found out I made the team, I was very surprised. I hadn’t put in the hard work as others before tryouts came around, but the coach saw potential in me and that I can become a great player. The coach saw so much potential in me, that every week, I kept progressing in skill and fine tuning my mechanics. Halfway through the season, about 4 or 5 weeks after I made the team, my coach gave me the chance to play with the Varsity Golf team for a couple days. I was excited and eager to

When I left middle school, I was extremely frightened. Coming from Magnolia, I only knew about 5% of my classmates and I didn’t know them that well because I went to Piney Grove Elementary School. The only thing I knew when I got to St. Pauls High School was that I did not want to be the same person I was in middle school. The person I was in middle was self absorbed and constantly trying to be better than everyone. Upon entering high school, I knew I had to do something, anything to make a change. At Freshman Orientation, the tennis coach was searching for some girls to plays. I had never played tennis, but I knew it was my chance to make friends and have

Personal Statement Fourteen and homeless is where I found myself four years ago. My mother (a hard working single parent of two.) set sights for a better living situation in the big apple. Unfortunately with one suitcase, no money and two young children the only choice for my mother was to seek refuge in a homeless shelter. Contrary to popular belief, that growing up homeless could potentially harm a child, it has had a positive impact on my life while being a reminder of the humble beginnings I came from. Growing up homeless assisted in building my character, a blood thirsty determination to achieve, and self awareness.

Basketball is something that is really big in my family. For example, when I moved to America, my cousins and uncles would play basketball with me during Sundays. These Sundays are important to me because while we were playing, I could forget about my situation without a complete family. In essence, basketball with my family really fostered my love and interest for the game. Another sport that I'm heavily interested in is tennis. I started learning the game just under a year ago. I wasn't really inclined in playing but after playing for a bit, I had found my new hobby. A couple weeks later, I was playing tennis for my high school: McKeel Academy of Technology. However, since I was new and inexperienced, I did not get to play much; but this upcoming season, I got a whole lot better and am expected to move my ranking

I had never faced homelessness before.I have heard of it, witnessed it but I never thought of it actually affecting me. It started when my mom was unemployed for a short, period between ending of my 8th grade year and throughout my Freshman year, I was thirteen on my way to turning fourteen . I managed to keep a positive attitude and hold my own against it. Ultimately it got to me , when my mom was ordered to court and came back with the news that we had to move out by the end of August.This was the most punishing blow. Thousands of thoughts raced through my mind. Where would I sleep or eat?The thought of the humiliation of being seen on the streets hungry, dirty, made me feel like a subhuman.

It would be easy to say that homelessness looks a certain way but that isn't true. Gladwell (2006) points out a certain percentage of homeless people who use a lot of resources. I believe it is these people who are what most people see in their mind when they think homelessness. They don't see a person who gets evicted because their mother goes to a rest home and the landlord kicks them out. They don't see stories like Brian's from St. Mungo’s (2016), where mental health issues caused by death in family leading to homelessness. The reality is that not every homeless person is the same. Although there may be common themes in their story, no two people are the same. The case studies this week, for me, showcased hope for something better. The

The struggles I've faced have made me mature into the ambitious and goal-oriented individual I am today. I've suffered economically to the extremity of homelessness which revealed the harsh reality of life and drove me to work harder for a better life. Moving countless times also gave me the ability to adapt to anything and take charge of my circumstance. Also, my unstable life never stopped me from accomplishing my goals or contributing to my community, on the contrary, I’ve worked harder to make an impact and pursue a better, more stable life. Firstly, being homeless really opened my eyes and made me realize that if I wanted a better life I had to put in the work. I worked a couple jobs throughout the week while trying to keep my grades up

Before being homeless, I was just a normal school girl. I had turned 17, and from the outside world; it was like I was on top of the world. I had

The sport of tennis has taught me several life lessons that have translated into other areas of my life. Through the discipline of tennis I felt what it was like to love, be passionate, and be determined for a specific interest. Tennis also opened my eyes to a world I had not seen as a player. That was the, so-to-speak, “behind the curtain” scene. All of my hard work developing as a player not only came from the will within, but also the aid of others such as tennis foundations, non-profit programs, and many tennis mentors who held deeper purpose/meaning in the knowledge that they fortunately shared with me. With the experiences (uphill and downhill) the sport has provided me, I am now able to provide mentorship to other children with economic, racial, or

Once a week, homeless people can come together to create art pieces and to have a meal together. They can hang up their art pieces outside the church, where they can sell it. While I was there, I talked to many people and they were telling me how they became homeless. I remember one homeless person had graduated from Harvard or Brown. He had a good job, but he had to get surgery and the surgery used all his money, and he was homeless ever since. Even with a degree and going to such a good college, he couldn’t find any jobs.

Homelessness occurred as the leading result of my mother’s constant gambling addiction. This experience of homelessness occurred during the spring of my Sophomore year of high school, which involved her telling me via a phone call “I did something stupid.” After hearing that I already knew what she meant and she even told me that maintenance men placed our belongings and furniture outside on the patio. Afterwards, we resided within the residence of my cousin and the residence of

As we go about our daily life, we tend to assume that our perceptions, of the world, our world view, sights, sounds, textures, tastes are an accurate portrayal of the real world. We think nothing of the struggle of our fellow men. When we stop and think about it or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the real world, but rather our best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. From time to time, we should look inward and tried to understand the harshness and the cruelty of homelessness. What that does to one state of mind and remember that no one set out to be homeless. It’s the circumstances of life that sometimes lead one

I felt happy when my parents signed me up for soccer the year we moved to Tennessee. I had never really played Soccer before then, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Never would I have guessed that that first year of youth league soccer would lead to the best 6 years of my life.

I was homeless at one time because I gave what I had to help someone else out. That caused me to lose everything I own. No, it was not a good feeling but that's

For years, I convinced myself that the story of my life began when I arrived in America at eleven months old. I tumbled through the clichéd white-picket-fence childhood, never realizing how impossible it was to completely discard the first year of my infancy. While I had always known about being adopted from China, I did not fully comprehend the weight of this detail until my late teenage years.