Being a senior myself is scary, not knowing what’s to come after you graduate. You have so many paths in front of you and must pick one. The twelve long years we’ve all been waiting for are finally coming to an end, on June 8th at 6:00 pm the class of 2024 will be graduating. It felt like just yesterday my older brother was graduating with the class of 2013, now it’s my turn. Watching my older siblings graduate always made me so eager for it to be my turn.
I still remember the first day of kindergarten (ask me how I don’t know) throwing the biggest fit when it was time for specials, being afraid that I wasn’t with my teacher but instead this frail old lady in the library. Every morning my grandpa would come over and help my mom do our hair and then take us to school everything was fine until I would get to school, I would feel a ball of nerves in my stomach that would just pile and pile until I couldn’t keep it down anymore, for a long while I would throw up every day during breakfast because of all the nerves. To this day I don’t know why I felt so anxious all the time.
1st – 2nd grade was one of the toughest times we had, we lost our mom so my sister and I kind of had to step up and be the older siblings to our younger ones. It was a hard hurdle to get over and get used to our new daily without her. But no matter the situation my sisters and I grew to love going to school, creating friendships, and keeping us distracted.
In 3rd-5th grade I learned to have a voice no matter the situation, voicing what I thought at the moment would start conversations instead of judgment. I grew to stand up for myself and grew close friendships with the people around me. I grew to be myself slowly but surely. To this day I value every single teacher I had in elementary, moving from Whittier Elementary School to Robert Frost Elementary I was nervous about my move but as soon as I went to Robert Frost I felt so welcomed.
6th- 8th grade in my opinion were the best years I had, I had two amazing teachers Mr.Castilleja my 6th grade teacher at Robert Frost, and my 7th grade math teacher Mr.Whitemarsh at Stevens Middle School. They influenced me to actually try in school, get those good grades, and push my way of learning. These teachers taught me with patience and showed they genuinely cared for me and my learning. To this day I like to send an email and see how they are doing, it feels like just yesterday I was in their class but it has been 6-to 7 years ago. I will always be so appreciative of both of them.
9th-10th grade has been a roller coaster, my freshman year was during Covid-19 I wasn’t able to have the experience that everyone else had. Zoom classes were our new normal, it was challenging for us all. Adapting to something completely different caused me to fail 1 Spanish class. Through it all, it showed me how to self-discipline and how to be responsible. Once we came back to in-person school, I got distracted and steered away from going to class every day I got in trouble a couple of times for skipping and not doing what I was supposed to, but I got back on track after I lost some of those friends who weren’t good for me.
11th grade this year was very challenging for me. junior year I decided to take the CBC Running Start program, knowing how challenging it was I still wanted to do it. I stuck it out for a year but that year was a long tough year, with doing CBC you have to stay on top of all your work. I would procrastinate a lot I didn’t do my best but I did finish my junior year strong.
My senior year, I decided to drop CBC and focus on working the two jobs that I am currently working for and making sure I graduate with all of my high school requirements. Once I graduate I want to go on to a college that holds an Ultrasound Technician program, I am hoping to go to either Spokane or Bellevue. Excited to see what the feature brings.
