Growing up I thought that our humble and modest life style was a normal life. However, it was in junior high school that I was rudely awakened to a cruel reality; my classmates made fun of me. I was the ugly duckling always sporting last season’s hand-me-downs. I seldom had money for class field trips and when I did attend a trip I had no spending money like everyone else seemed to have. At the end of the day, however, having money and things didn’t matter to me. Mother managed to keep us together and that’s what mattered most. I will always remember my mothers words; “don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do, if you have a dream follow it until you fulfill it,” she said.…
Growing up, most of the children I knew would go to church on Sunday’s, visit their grandparents’ house to bake cookies after school, and have milk and cereal for breakfast every morning. But I had never set foot inside of a religious building, couldn’t even speak the same language as my grandmothers, and ate congee with fermented soy beans like it was the most natural thing in the world. My little town where I’d grown up, made friends, and built memories was, to say the least, completely un-diverse.…
Many people would say that growing up with parents who could not speak english would be to my disadvantage, but I disagree. Growing up I always believed it to be exhausting having to translate and never really feeling normal. I believed it to be dragging and many times protested against it, but besides it being tiring, I also felt embarrassed. Yeah embarrassed of having to deal with my parents and not being able to communicate with them like other kids did with their parents. As I grew older the issue only grew because at that point I began to resent them for putting me through what I believed to be embarrassing moments of confusion, but all of this changed when I finally realized that my parents did the best they could with what they had.…
Do you remember the transition between being a teenager and becoming an adult? Not wanting to grow up and face the world on your own? I remember as a child I was unsure of what my life would consist of without my parents. Transitioning between having a silver spoon in my mouth to not depending on them. When I was a child, I was so naïve of the world not knowing anything of what life consist of. My entire childhood revolved around the idea that my life would always be easy, full of games, and not one single problem would ever be big enough to affect my life. Little did I know, the life I imagined would not be the case, and I would have to acknowledge that the sugar coating I had around life would eventually dissolve. During my early years of high school, my only concern was to fornicate with as many girls as possible, but as I started to get older my responsibilities started to expand. The last year of high school was my turning point, having to decide what career to pursue, what college I’d have to attend, and how to pay for my tuition along with rent. After graduating high school reality struck me, the idea of a perfect…
One thing that sets me apart from the other candidates applying to the University of California is my hard work. I have always been smaller than other kids my age. At 15 years old I was 4’ 10’’ and looked like I was eleven years old. Although this was an advantage at the airport, when I would begin to take off my shoes and the TSA Officer would look at me and say, “Don’t worry twelve and under can keep their shoes on.” I was often discredited for my size. Especially because I played volleyball, a sport known for its height. I constantly struggled to make a team I deserved to be on because people would see my height and automatically think I was not capable. Although my height often led me to feel discouraged and angry it eventually taught hard work.…
Fortunately, by the fifth grade my parents were able to rent an apartment nearby our school and had found jobs in multiple Brownsville restaurants. After the move, things became much easier and we were able to have a much simpler life, though we were never able to forget the hardships we experienced and the effort we put into enhancing our lives. Today, I am sure my successes as of now are gratifying my parents as I am in the top 10% of my class, the Co-Captain of the Golden Stars Dance Team, member of the National Honor Society, Piano Club, HOSA, and in TRIO UTRGV talent search program. I attend rigorous AP classes to improve my opportunity to attend a university and have the finest future I can give myself. Although my triumphs may not look like much to most, I can assertively say that the trial of going through difficulty to have a superior future has been overcome with the comfort of focus, strength, and the right set of mind to build a better tomorrow for my family and…
The first time in my life that I ever experienced true anger and fear was in the sixth grade. A little before Thanksgiving Break, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, a type of skin cancer, in my lower back. I had a mole there that was removed earlier that year, and the test results on it had come back positive. I did not find out until later, but when my mom sat me down across from her to talk, I knew something was wrong. It was then that she told me what was going on, and I broke down in tears. I had never experienced fear such as I did then.…
I was the kind of guy who always strove in order to get the highest grades but yet hadn’t decided what to do in the future. I wasn’t worried, I knew someday I would find something in what I was good at. I got to live with that thought for some time until I got to attend middle school, where I stopped worrying about my grades and managed only to pass the subjects. I spent most of my time sleeping due to the frustration of not knowing what to do in the future. Most of my middle school experience was tasteless. I hadn’t friends at all, and teachers used to discourage their students about their future. “You're not going to college, you’ll not be able to do it because you’re poor” used to say, Mrs. Vazquez, the math teacher who instead of giving her class, talked on how much his son had accomplished in college and how we would not be able to attend. That was about to change.…
I believe, as humans, we take aspects of life for granted; It’s a fatal flaw we all possess. Many of us are healthy, naturally smart, and grow up in ideal environments, but there are also many who do not. I am privileged enough to have grown up in a well rounded environment, so I have this frequent need to help others. I feel I would be taking my life for granted if not using it to help others. My application would be incomplete if I could not express how helping others makes me, me.…
Is it sad that when it comes to writing a story all about me. Just one story, nothing comes to mind. This is what happens when you dedicate all your life to go to school and try to be the best you can be. Since I was a little girl all I ever did was think about going to school, getting good grades, and just making sure to be able to make your teachers happy. Especially your parents because if you did otherwise you would end up with a beating. When I got good grades it was mostly just so I would not get grounded. I always lived in a nutshell, I do not even remember if I had any friends. It is such a sad thing to me just to sit here and write. Every one else writes about how they went on a fishing trip or some intresting story. What is my story?…
Although there is much I can’t recall from my early days of reading, there are some momentous flashbacks. When I was beginning elementary school my parents were very eager to introduce me to doing a great deal of reading, they wanted me to enjoy reading for a while and they succeeded. We lived within walking distance of the public library which allowed us to frequently visit the library to read and check out books. I always remembered the vast shelves of books that seemed like they never had an end. In addition to reading at the library we checked books out to bring home to read, this allowed me to read as much as I wanted to. Correspondent to the amount of reading I did, the more I enjoyed it and improved at reading.…
First, The kind of goals I made are get straight a’s, and have no discipline records is my graceful Mom (Katie), my dignified Dad (Ronald), my older cool sister is Kayla, my little energetic sister Madison, and shockingly Mrs. Plowman (we are related because she is my great grandma's, brothers, daughter). My friends are Trent, Dylan, Ryan, Hayduke, Jackson, Johnny, Grant, etc. My hobbies/interests are playing sports, becoming an…
This extra blank space is just for me to tell you who I am.An additional blank space here.I have a few words to write my details and just over an inch to write my qualifications.Unfortunately,both for me and for you,entire lives don't fit into such spaces and qualifications cant be completely sketched on this spaces.I therefore have to do my best to show you who I am,and I am very sure you will find me in all these words.Best of luck.As for me,I will write just a few paragraphs that will broaden your horizon of viewing who I really am.…
My first home for many years. This land comes rarer to me as the day…
I was so excited that I could hardly sleep. I spent all the night taking my new colorful school stuff out of my small pinky backpack and returning them in. I checked them billion times, smiling from ear to ear. It was 7:30 am and I was completely awake for my first day of first year of school. After eagerly wearing my first uniform, I bounced about in happiness. I could not keep still as my mother was brushing my curly black hair. She asked me if I was excited about going to school and I nodded and chuckled gleefully. scared and I extremely assured her that there was nothing to be scared of. I remember myself sitting by one of the living room windows impatiently waiting for the school bus. " The yellow bus is outside" I cried in delight. On the journey to the school, I was whistling and humming some of my mother’s favorite songs.…