Walking into the locker room about to get ready to go to our last football game of the season. I could smell the sweaty equipment from the kids who never take their pads home. The Hempfield Spartans 7th grade team would be ending their season 0-7 if we didn’t win today. As I was changing into my pads my friend mike walked in the room. I said “you ready for tonight”. “Heck yeah” replied Mike.…
My mother, sister, and I were driving down Highway 124 on a hot July day when my mom screamed and slammed on the breaks. Fear rushed through our bodies. Outside the car window, a short young African American man was launched into the air. As he came down, a loud boom sounded as his body helplessly rolled off the hood of the faint green Toyota Corolla in front of us. The man lay motionless in the road while we waited for what seemed like hours for the driver to exit the car. His red shirt and gym shorts were ripped. The driver of the opposing car threw the vehicle in reverse in a spasmodic action in an attempt to end the man’s life. The injured man made an effort to crawl onto the Wendy’s sidewalk, forcing his body up on the curb to evade the car. The driver drove up onto the curb and blew its tire, just barely missing the wounded man. Realizing the driver would stop at nothing, my mother drove her white suburban in front of the car, blocking the violent perpetrator from doing any further damage.…
It was June 14, 1858, and we were on our way to Mr.Lincoln’s house. My Dad happened to be one of Mr.Lincoln’s colleagues;therefore, he was always helping him compose his speeches. We weren’t too far from his house so we just took our horse and small wagon.…
Filled with nervous excitement, my ten-year-old-self ran to the bulletin board eager to discover whether or not he was accepted to the choir. As he read the list of who were chosen, his heart sank; he was not on the list. “Maybe I should give up singing ” he thought; “Maybe my voice is not good enough”. However, he refused to despair; he was determined to achieve his goals despite this failure.…
At the start of spring semester my freshman year I had an outstanding balance with my home institution. This balance caused me a lot of stress and the time that I should’ve spending study was instead being spent on worrying on thoughts of how I might not be able to return in the fall. Fortunately with the money I earned through my internship that summer I was able to bring my remaining balance down low enough for me to enroll for classes. However in order to not put myself in that position I took on numerous jobs on campus, spreading myself too thin and not leaving enough space for my studies. After talking with my professors and getting their advice I was able to manage being both a full time student and working the hours of a full time employee.…
In sixth grade, I stood before a podium that stared back at my English class. This was not how I envisioned sharing my love for reading and writing; however, it was required. My palms felt sticky, and I just knew that the entire class could see my heart as it was about to hop from the walls that kept it safe. I prayed that I would not forget the lines as I recited The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. In sixth grade, reading, writing, and I started a relationship. Today, we have yet to break up.…
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.…
You guys just did it. Its just unbelievable that you’ve settled my $12,000 account for 24% and my $10,500 account for 27%. I have been in this debt settlement program for about 2.5 months.”Even though I’m enrolled for just 2.5 months but I have learned how to manage my future expenses and avoid getting into debt again. Thanks again for always helping me in making the right choices ..…
Personal background starts off small, it changes and grows over time into something big, it grows into an identity. Walking down the hallway at school, seeing someone standing alone, my first instinct is to make conversation, compliment, or even just smile at him or her. This instinct came from someone once telling me an act so small could turn a person's entire life around. As a kid, reading encyclopedias about random topics, consumed my time. Many days were spent coming home to find an injured wild animal in my dad's arms waiting to be saved. My dad would sit outside and draw animals, trees, and anything else he saw. Nothing excited me more than trying to draw whatever my dad drew, and as good as he did. Any assignment that was handed to…
Growing up with divorced parents from two radically different cultures was at first difficult. My mother’s family was from Peru, while my father’s was from Bangladesh. In my young mind, there was an internal struggle with what my identity actually consisted of. I wasn’t wholly from one culture or the other, and felt like a black sheep when interacting with either side of my family. Due to this, I attempted to keep these cultures partitioned. At the time, they were different portions of my life that simply couldn’t intermix. This mentality in turn led me to foolishly shy away from my joint heritage. I kept myself enclosed in a box, blind to the beauty of my surrounding culture. However, as time progressed, I knew I had to make a change in my understanding.…
My second plan for this summer is to get a job. I will probably work in the field, this is important to me because I am going to gain more abilities. Also I want to earn my own money to start saving some to pay for my college. One of the traditional forms to pay college education is savings. It is generally assumed that I will use saved money as part of my financial strategy for getting through college. College is incredibly expensive, tuition prices are increased every year. The only other options are loans and scholarships. Taking on too many college loans is one of the leading causes of early debt among people new to the work force. I do not want ask for a loan because I do not think I can be capable to pay my payments, so I need to save some money to stay really.…
Growing up, I noticed a lot of discussion about financial problems between my parents. It’s not that we were becoming poor, it was because of our growing family needing more supplies. My mother just gave birth to my little brother when I started noticing the financial issues my family were facing. As a little girl, I do not know how our finances worked all I knew was many bills were due and I knew it because when I was a little girl I liked to practice reading and those bill statements were the papers that attracted my interest due to its colorful paper.…
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “To be yourself in a world that is trying to make you something else is a great accomplishment”. A question such as “who am I”? Really gives me the opportunity to differentiate and express who I really am and who I can be. I am not a complex person who thinks the world is against me, nor am I overly sophisticated “know-it-all” who doesn't take time to pay attention to my surroundings. I can't say that I am like every other person because there are certain things that make me a unique individual. What I can say is that I am progressing towards a brighter future.…
The number of seconds in each day. Everyone have the same number of seconds they can use. The same amount of time to move. But there is a petrification that most teenagers feel when faced with this limited time frame. Each second is another second wasted, another page unread, another drawing not drawn, another achievement not obtained. The feeling of not doing has piled up for so many teens that some have lost the will to do anything at all. We feel the seconds slipping through our fingers and realize how little time we have to do things.…
Most teenagers do not have a clue about what they want to be when they grow up. Most young adults also do not know where their path is in life. Even some full-blown adults are still trying to figure out their purpose. I was lucky. I knew exactly where I belonged from about the time I was seven up until now, at the decently young age of nineteen. I do not see my path changing anytime soon; in fact, I know it will never change. But, I did not just wake up one day as a child and know what my path was, while that would be impressive. Defining moments in one’s life defines who they are. There were lots of things I experienced in my life that made me realize my purpose, my absolute passion. I had four of these defining moments in my short span of…