Personal Narrative: My Time In High School

My palms were sweating, my heart was racing, I had no idea what to expect or who I was going to meet. I was never the type of girl to embrace new situations, I hated change and I wasn’t very good with meeting new people. I figured once I got to high school it would be my chance to start all over, turn the page in my book of life, and flip over a new leaf. I wanted to finally be the girl that fit in with everyone. I had imagined myself going to parties with big groups of my new friends, having sleepovers and doing all of the things cool high school kids normally do. I was certain that my high school career would be just like one of those really corny teen movies and I would live happily ever after with the homecoming crown and the boy of my

Being a freshman is the hardest of your four years in high school. Have you ever been pressured to be the best person you can be? This is how my year was as a freshman. Freshman year was the most different I never thought I would of found my way around the school when I first started to go there. Freshman year was the best year throughout my years of high school and it was the only year I had friends. During this year I had a lot of anxieties which dealt with me thinking I’m gonna be alone and not have any friends throughout the year to support me through the whole thing. Also, I would think of the pressure of not doing good in any of my classes so I would think it would affect my GPA in the future. The transition from middle school to high school was a different type of thing to do.

Going through high school the days were all the same, except for game days. There was just something different about the culture of the school. You could almost feel the excitement in the air. Every “Good luck tonight,” that was received made it feel like the whole school was rooting for me. This was my senior year and tonight was an especially big game. The game that night would decide if we made playoffs and if I could step on the court as a Hawk again.

After freshman year, I put the past behind me. Being the positive and optimistic student athlete that I was, little did I know that soccer was not in my future for my sophomore year of high school. I've always adored playing sports, but to be able to represent my school would be outstanding. Getting cut from the middle school soccer team multiple seasons really made an impact in my life. Countless hours of training finally led to the one moment I have always waited for. The coach handed me the small, terrifying paper which for once, was not so terrifying. Markings within the paper signaled that I had made the freshman soccer team, sparking new hope in my future with the sport. Having the most ideal soccer season that I have ever had led me to try out the following season as a sophomore.

Throughout my high school education, there have been many factors that contributed to my performance. Some were out of my control and others were solely my actions. I take full responsibility for not pushing myself to try harder in school. Some circumstances made this difficult, at the time I lived at home with my mother, sister, and brother but then one day it all changed. First, my brother joined the Marines and left home and soon after my sister followed and joined the Air Force and also left. Since my mother is a single parent, my siblings contributed a lot financially and helped her tremendously. For this reason, she began to work even longer hours. To attempt to help my mother, I started working a lot when I turned 16. My mistake was

While dressing unfashionably, looking both uneasy and clueless, in a class with no more than twenty students, millions of questions suddenly appear in my chaotic head. Questions such as “what will happen to me?,” and “how can I understand this?” built up the doubt in me. However, who would have guessed that six years later, I would become a girl who has adopted a different vibe with more confidence and enthusiasm, which I thought would never be possible, six years ago.

I currently attend a specialized high school which is lead to be a “non-typical high school experience.” Being surrounded by peers who share the same goals as I do has continued to challenge me beyond my comfort zone. High school has prepared me to anticipate the rigorous work in the BS-MD program while balancing other priorities. Learning from my past experiences, time management is vital in any academic atmosphere. From eighth grade through tenth grade most of my time was spent in the dance studio, up to 25 hour weeks. I’ve learned to balance my passion for dance while maintaining my position on the honor roll. With the challenge of being a senior in high school, dance would not be fit for my schedule. Meanwhile, I was mentored by two extremely

In the last fourteen years of school, there have been numerous memories shared that I will hold with me for as long as I can. From preschool to senior year, I have been with the same group of kids I call my best friends. School has been a place where some great things have happened, and then some not so great things. Some school years have been better than others, and some school days make me want to go back in time to relive the day all over again. Although I may forget everything that happened to me during my elementary and high school years, there is one day that will stick out to me forever. This was a day in seventh grade. The student council had put on a mock accident to teach the kids about drinking and driving.

The honors and advanced placement courses I have taken throughout high have been my most challenging and the most enjoyable. My teachers motivated me to work harder which in turned helped me to achieve great things academically. Often my classes were smaller and taught in a more tutorial / discussion based rather than the traditional write memorialization style. I met and developed great friendships in all of my classes with other woman of color who placed high importance on obtaining a better than average academic experience in high school. If it were not for the support of my Spanish teacher last year, I would not have thought it was possible to spend seven weeks in Paraguay living with a host family who did not speak any English at all.

It was - and still is - more of a painfully slow transformation than an instantaneous alteration. The shift from “too crave to even talk to the teacher” to “can interject across the room sometimes” marked the start of my growth to becoming a full fledge adult.

I would consider myself to be a fiction fanatic. The majority of my high school experience was spent sitting behind textbooks studying the chemistry behind how Sulfur and Oxygen interact or learning about how the colonials overtook the British. So, naturally I turned to books as my emotional release from reality. Fiction transported me to a world where the impossible was possible and forced me to channel my inner creativity. I found that the information I learned in my textbooks would sometimes ironically connect with the stories I read during my free time. I was a logical intellect while at school, but a reader who loved to dream and challenge logic.

If you were to ask me if I liked my high school life here in the U.S. three years ago, I would give you a definite, one worded answer, “No.” It was my fourth year since I had moved from China to New York, I had thought that I had gotten used to the life here, until the first day of high school that screwed everything up. Everything in Midwood was totally different from what I had expected, or, from what I had experienced. Everything was new to me; I had never been used to move from class to class in between periods, and meet different people every time in a new class. As a timid person myself, everything in high school was making me uncomfortable. I felt as if I would never make any friends or even survive in this big school.

Fourteen years ago I was born at Munster Community Hospital. It was March 5, 2001 around 7:30 in the morning. When I was able to go to the house I still live in today. My mom would always tell me that my brother and sister loved me. When I got older I went to The YMCA for preschool. I went there for two years. Those two years flew by, I blinked and was suddenly in Kindergarten. It was the first day and I remember making two friends that I am still friends with today. Next, was first grade, I was in my class with one of my friends from kindergarten. That year went by fast. Second grade was one of the best years because I met my very best friend. We are still really close today. Third grade is when all of friends were in one class except

High school was hell. I went to a small school, very conservative and very athletics based. If you weren’t playing sports you were seen as less than the other students. Since I wasn’t on any teams I didn’t have many friends. The ones I’d had before high school had moved away or moved on from me. It didn’t help that the year before I started my freshman year I’d gotten diagnosed with major depression. Wanting to die every morning and school do not mix well. My freshman year seemed dire.

Once in 4th grade in gym the class was playing duck-duck-goose and someone was chasing after me and after I sat in her spot I fell on my wrist and everyone thought I was laughing but I wasn’t. Then when I got up everyone thought I was laughing but I was crying.Then after that the gym teacher told me to go to the bathroom to wipe up my tears. Then after I did that I went up the stairs and my friend got his arms stuck in between the wall and and the ramp to use to go up the stairs. The nurse had to get butter to get his arm out but they still didn't get his arm out but then finally they did and he was crying a lot. The next day I went to school and I went to the doctors after school. Then the next day I stayed at home because I needed a cast and I wasn't feeling good also so I stayed home. My mom got off work and picked me up so we could go to the doctors to go get my cast. My cast was light yellow. Then the next day it was the last day of school and it was a half day. I had a cast on and I brought some markers and everyone signed my cast.