Growing up, I never really had a good relationship with my mom but I always held admiration for her. My mom was born in El Salvador, a tiny country located in Central America and immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 with nothing more than the clothes on her back. When I was younger, I would always hear stories about how she started working at the age of 7 and how as the oldest of her siblings, she had to learn how to be responsible at a very young age. Although my mother faced many hardships in her life, one thing that I always admired about her, was her perseverance. Because she is from a third world country, she has had to endure much more difficult things than I ever have and despite that, she never once has given up. She has had to fight for the things that she has but she never let the weigh of her problems crush her and to have been able to endure the things she must really be a real life superhero. She has always been driven and her willpower has always amazed me and continues to amaze me even to this day.

I have always lacked confidence in my writing and harbored doubts about whether I am actually a good writer and I think that I have gained more confidence now. Although I have always been told that I can write well, I never truly believed it myself and it always showed in my writing. Now that I have had more practice writing often, I’ve gotten to a place where I can trust myself to do well and I think that this will improve my writing in the future tremendously.

The one thing I’ve ever felt confident about is my ability to write. Since as far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved reading and writing has always come easy to me because of it. Not only that but I have always enjoyed writing about everything whether it be about what I am going through or simply writing short stories about fictional people. I’ve always felt a sense of pride and accomplishment in writing and rewriting knowing that each time I am improving my writing skills. Even though I know that I have a long way to go before I can say that I am a good writer, I do believe that it is something I am good at and each day I continue to better myself as a writer.

When I was 10, I fell in love with the movie “Grease.” Even now, I can remember the exact day that I became obsessed with it. It was an ordinary Saturday morning and the movie was being aired on VH1. I’m not sure if it was John Travolta and his dazzling smile or the music, but for some reason I couldn’t get enough of the movie. I would watch it all the time—sometimes twice in a row— and, I made it my mission to learn all the words to every song until practically everyone knew it was my favorite movie. After that i fell in love with all 80’s movies such as “Dirty Dancing” “Pretty in Pink” and my all-time favorite, “16 Candles.” For some reason the movies always made me nostalgic ,and even watching them now makes me think of the days when all I spent my time on was watching 80’s films. Though “Grease” is no longer my favorite movie, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

One of the most embarrassing moments that I have been unable to forget even after all these years, is the time that I fell in front of the entire school. Maybe not literally, but it sure felt like it. It all started one Thursday afternoon in 6th grade. Of course, this day was no ordinary day; it just so happened that on Thursday’s my friends had a game we like to call “Corn-dog Day” which involved kneeing each others butts. Why we played this game, I can’t really remember, but as always: my bad luck was out to get me. Because all 6th graders ate before the 7th/8th graders, there was always traffic as they walked to the lunch line and we walked down to the field. My friend and I were walking together when we spotted one of our good friends walking ahead of us. Once I saw her, I saw the perfect opportunity to, you guessed it, corn-dog her! Without a second thought, I immediately started racing towards her, stepping around everyone until I was only a yard away. I drew back my knee and swung it towards her behind when all of a sudden, she turned. My knee sliced through the air, connecting with nothing, and its force sent me reeling my body did a 180. As I felt myself losing my balance, I tried with all might to keep myself upright, but to no avail. My arms began flapping at my side and I shuffled backwards all the while tipping over and sealing my doom. It couldn’t have been more than 3 seconds and yet it felt like a lifetime. Once I hit the ground, all the life was sucked out of me and all I could do in that instant was lie there as peals of laughter rung out all around me. Even now I can still hear echoes of it. The worst part is my crush watched the whole thing and was laughing the hardest.

My most prized possession is my laptop. I never really liked to spend my parents money going up, especially on expensive things because it alway’s made me feel guilty so when I first bought my laptop I was ecstatic. It was the one thing I had been wanting the longest and I got to buy it with my own hard-earned money and best of all, I didn’t have to feel guilty about it. So now, whenever I use it or even look at it, I don’t have to feel sorry for making my parents buy it for me because I can say that I bought it myself.

A misconception people have about me is that I am not very intelligent. For most of my academic career, I wasn’t a particularly good student. I wasn’t a a terrible student but I tended to have bad grades throughout most of the year and at the end I would pass with B’s and C’s usually with the occasional A’s and sometimes D’s. Overall, I was perfectly content being, well, average. Due to this, many people were often surprised when I would get the highest score on a test or a paper because they were under the impression that I just wasn’t smart. Of course, that really isn’t the case but it’s still funny seeing the look on people’s faces when they realized that I’m not as unintelligent as everyone thinks.

Ever since I was young I’ve always told myself that I would be that kind of parent that would be involved in their children’s lives. When I was younger, my parents were never really around and when they were all the would do was fight with each other and ignore my sisters and I. Because of that, I never really had a relationship with them and they didn’t know what was going on in my life. When I have kids of my own, I want them to trust me and tell me about the problems they’re facing, whether they might be bad or not. I want to know what’s going on with them and if they’re doing okay. I want them to know that even if they have no one else that they have me.

Once, there was a man named Henry who were tuxedo’s every single day. He was a young fellow with grayish, green eyes and ivory skin in contrast to his dark, black hair that was slicked back perfectly every day. He strictly wore fancy tuxedos, each one a different color than the last. One day he would wear classic black tuxedos with a white button up and the next he would show up in a burgundy suit and black button, not a hair out place. When asked why he only ever wore tuxedos, he would always reply the same: “Why dress casually, when I can look good every single day?” Many people didn’t understand him and his quirky personality but they liked him all the same and enjoyed his company.

One day, Henry was walking down the street in one of his riskiest suits to date: a cream colored suit with a white button up that complimented his fair skin tone perfectly. Walking down the street opposite from him was a young woman carrying a bowl of food, a water bottle, and a neon blue backpack. She seemed to be in a hurry as she maneuvered around people in a brisk stride, her backpack slung over one shoulder and bouncing with each quick step. As she neared the young man and stood a mere 3 feet from him, a man on a bike suddenly swerved to avoid a trash can, crashing into the young woman. The young woman’s bowl of food flew out of her hands and Henry watched helplessly, frozen on the sidewalk knowing it was too late to move out of the way. The bowl of food hit him square in the chest, its contents splashing all over his white suit. The smell of fish filled the man’s nose and he quickly realized that the woman was eating none other than sardines marinated in red sauce. He stared down at his beautiful, white tux now ruined by the smelly sardines. The woman feverishly apologized and even attempted to clean the food but the it was too late, the damage was already done.

My favorite place to be is my sister’s house. When I was younger, I never spent that much time with my parents and a lot of the time I was always with my sisters. Because I’m the youngest of three, I always had to be watched over and my sister’s were really the only ones who could so I ended up spending a lot of time with them. Once my sister moved out, it felt like I had lost something that I would never get back. She ended up moving all the way to San Bernardino, leaving me and my other sister all by ourselves 45 minutes away. So we would always visit her over there and even though it wasn’t my home, it felt like it was because thats where my sister was. Whenever I go over there it’s always a good time whether we’re watching movies, baking brownies or building a huge puzzle together. Every time I’m there, it’s like I gain back that piece that I thought I had lost.