The thing that I hate the most is when people don’t appreciate life and how far you can go if you make the right decisions. Some people say “what’s the point were going to die anyway” “life is short” “you can’t take anything with you when you die”. Yeah, that’s all true, life is short and so much can happen in so little time, you at least want to leave this world with people having good memories and accomplishments to remember you by.  Life is just a piece of paper and ink. You won’t be acknowledged as a person without it, you won’t get that high school diploma without it, and you won’t get that well paid job without it.  You have to strive to do something in life because its people in this world that’s taking advantage of their life, while its people that would kill to have your life even if it’s not much, its better than someone else. Don’t walk around acting like you don’t care, at least try and do something positive.

My freshman year of high school was the best year so far and I’m a junior now. I thought everything revolved around me; I was a spoiled little brat. For my 15th birthday which was on Friday, December 14th 2012, I stayed home from school crying my little heart out because I couldn’t get my hair done and a new outfit like I always did. The Wednesday before my birthday I had got in trouble at school, so my parents told me I wasn’t getting anything and all my plans were canceled; I cried that whole morning. The day after my birthday my parents decided that I could get my hair done and a new outfit because I was mad at them. Later on that Saturday I found out about the sandy hook shooting. Twenty elementary students were shot and killed along with seven adults including the shooters mother. I was stunned and racked with grief; it was horrible, how could I act so silly, childish and foolish when children younger than me and people that tried to protect them lost their innocent lives in a matter of five minutes.

It was hard for a little, I thought about how will I ever get over this; No, I didn’t know the children, their parents or the adults but all I could do was cry. It was humiliating knowing that while I’m in my room crying over something so little people, innocent people were losing their lives. I felt so bad for the families of all the victims and I hated myself for what I did, all I could do was pray for the families that lost loved ones and I just apologized to god and myself repeatedly for what those people had to go through. The fact that people died on my birthday and had no control over it was just unbearable. My birthday just past and I thought about those victims that could not have nor celebrate their birthdays or Christmas or anything that they would have loved to do. They children were too young to even realize what was going on at the time because they were so young put in a situation that was so wrong.

You see, I even had a moment where material things mattered but now I just don’t pay it any mind anymore; I witnessed so much in these three years of high school that I thank god for my life, my family and my education because without it I don’t know where I would be.  I had this robotics and engineering class freshman year that I couldn’t stand, but the kids in the class were what I looked forward to. There were these six kids that I looked forward to seeing every time we had that class. Two girls and four boys, they are Danazia, Ariel, mike, Jermaine, Jesse, and Raymond.  we use to have so much fun, ariel went with Jermaine, I went with jesse, danazia boyfriend was not in the class and neither was mike’s girlfriend, Raymond didn’t have a girlfriend. The whole year everything was fine until the next school year. Jermaine got killed two weeks after tenth grade year started, ariel went to a different school, danazia and ariel are cousins but after the killing they fell off and stopped talking. Mike ended up getting his girlfriend pregnant and they had a baby girl. Jesse and I stopped talking and we fell off really bad, Raymond started to smoke a lot and he gave up on his grades, while danazia’s boyfriend got locked up on gun charge.

A lot of those things affected me being as though I was so close with every person but sometimes things happen. You should value life no matter what happens because death is just around the corner; you can go from rich to poor in a matter of seconds and vice versa. These things that I witnessed changed me for the better and maybe from me telling you this can be some kind of help to you or anyone you may know. Life’s too short to be walking around with your head in the clouds, get your head screwed on straight because once you’re in this world it’s going to be a challenge surviving in it. Have fun, live well and don’t take life for granted.