When they first saw me they knew I was going to be the one! That special girl, who after graduating from high school would go to college. My brother never finished high school, and my sister just graduated and decided to start working. There last hope for having a daughter that goes to college was me. But they just didn’t know that first I was going to go through a rough time!
In elementary, I was an A student, I would always pay attention, do my work, and turn it in on time. Yes, sometimes I would get tired of being that little good innocent girl, so that’s when I started to do badly. All my problems started right when I had started middle school. My A’s became C, D, or even F’s, and my attitude towards teachers went from sweet and nice to I didn’t care.

After my first school fight in 7th grade, I didn’t care at all about my grades or anything else! “Mija yo lo unico que quiero esque termine la escuela para que valla al colegio! Y asi despues puede aser algo con su vida, y ganar mucho mas dinero que yo!” (My dear daughter, the only thing I want you to do is go to school graduate, then go to college! After that do something with your life, so you could make way more money than I do!) My dad would tell me. These few words would be in my mind for few hours then they would fly away.

My freshmen year, that’s when everything went down the toilet! Being a cool kid was one of the important things. But in that time I didn’t know that it was wrong. I would talk back to the teachers, have attitude, be late to class, and never do my work. Damn I was good at those things! That whole year I didn’t care about anything.

“Mija no sea pendeja! Usted cree que si yo hubiera tenido la oportunidad de acavar la escuela no la hubiera acabado? Claro que SI! Pero parese que a usted no le importa! (Daughter doesn’t be stupid! You really think that if I had a chance to finish school I wouldn’t have took it? Well you’re wrong, yes I would! But it looks like you don’t care about it!)” My dad would tell me when he knew I was walking through the wrong path.
Half a quarter was left before I realized that everything I had done that year wasn’t worth anything. But it was already too late, ¾ of the year had already past; the only thing I had left was try to and make the best of the last quarter.
Now that I’m a junior and have one more year to graduate, I see everything very different. From me being able to graduate on time as to being accepted to a college! This last two years I have been trying all my best to do good so that I could graduate with a good background. Even though I had screwed up many times in my past, my past is my past and right know the most important thing to me is making sure that everything is right and as ready as it can be so that I could get that chance and opportunity to go to college. Make my parents and my dreams come true, but that all depends on the choice that I make!