When we all got our new semester schedules, my friends and I couldn’t wait to see what off hours we had together. I was so angry when we discovered I was the only one that had fourth hour lunch! I was not going to let that keep me away from my friends though; I had already mastered my ditching skills.

I did not go to my sixth hour for over a quarter, and my friends would take turns ditching their fourth hour to come to lunch with me. We didn’t care at all; we never got caught, so we were all good. Then, one Monday morning I received a letter that if I did not attend to my sixth hour I was going to have to go to Saturday school. So I sucked it up, went to class that day and missed out on all the fun. I went to my sixth hour class every day from that day on.

One horrible day, the most unpredictable thing happened. I got in a really bad fight with one of my friends during sixth hour lunch. I was too mad to go to my seventh hour class, and I had my 8th hour off, so I decided to go to the “pana” the “ditching spot”, until it was time for my mom to pick me up. My best friend came with me and she automatically cheered me up and convinced me to go make up with my friend. We waited for her outside of her class, we only had 20 minutes left of school. We were messing around in the hall, and then I started playing with the fire alarm. I was only taking the dust off of the fire alarm, when out of no where the fire alarm started going off!

My friend and I ran out the doors and I called my mom to pick me up. I told her everything that had happened and she wanted me to go tell the office that it had been an accident, but I was too scared and I told her I just wanted to go home.

The next day I arrived to school, hands sweaty, shaky and cold. I was so nervous. Right away, I was sent to the office. When I got there my friend was already there. We told the principal everything in detail. She was happy we confessed right away, but we were still suspended for four days and had to pay 50 dollars.

When my mom came to the office to pick me up, she was angry. A nice man named Mr. Sena tried to convince my mom that I was a really good student, but little did he know. When we walked into his office, I was terrified. He went to his computer, “Mire señora…” he paused, “oh no, here it comes!” I thought as I tried to shrink into the chair and disappear. “Oh, oh, aqui tenemos algo malo.” Mr. Sena said and pointed at his screen and my mom and him read. They saw all my missing classes, my horrible attendance and my bad grades.

My mom didn’t say a word to me until we got to the car. I was so scared and I started to regret all the bad decisions I had made. She yelled and told me how disappointed she was in many different ways. I got home crying to my room. That afternoon my parents talked to me, very serious, very calmly. They told I was moving to a different school for my sophomore year, and that I needed to find something to do over the summer because I wasn’t going to stay home, or go out with my friends all the time.

That summer I volunteered at the North Suburban Hospital. I was the sunshine cart girl, meaning I pushed this cart full of free goodies and offered them to the patients. I loved it, it was very fun and I got to cheer patients up. The elderly people were the nicest; they would tell me all sorts of stories from when they were young or how they got to the hospital. Many of them told me how much they appreciated young people like me. They made me feel so good about what I was doing, that I always looked forward to going to the hospital.

When the summer ended I started my sophomore year at a completely new school, a very strict, small school, York International. It was all so different to me, I had to wear a uniform, we all had the same lunch and it was completely pointless to ditch. I missed my friends, and my old school and I cried every day after school, but I knew that it was what was best for me.

I made great friends and my grades started to get a lot better. I stilled missed my other friends, but I got to see them every other weekend so I was doing better. Getting used to the school took pretty much the whole year, but I continue attending York International.

My family is always supporting me, my parents corrected me when I was wrong, and they did it with love. My older sister always tells me to do well in school and get a scholarship. My goal is to own my own catering business, but first I want to attend to Johnson and Whales college. Now, after going through all that, I’ve learned that even when you hit the bottom, you can still rise up and keep going.