Have you ever been told you aren’t good enough to go very far? I’ve been told that. In fact, I have been told that too many times to count. Ranging from my singing to my grades, I have beaten the odds. I’m a very competitive person, and I guess that comes from my sister, being the eldest of two. The fight for attention is big in my house, Jen and I only being five years apart. I guess I’ve been a fighter since birth.
I was born one month and five days early. That’s right, I was a preemie. I was really tiny and had trouble breathing. During my first five years of my life, I lived a great life, beginning dance at the age of four. I sang constantly through those years, beginning when I could talk. My grandma was my biggest influence and would sing with me any chance she got. Then, when I was five, the day I will remember for the rest if my life happened.
It was a chilly but sunny December day in Las Vegas and I was at day care. It was the time of the day when I was outside playing with my friends. I looked up when I heard my name called, expecting to see my dad standing there to pick me up. Much to my surprise, it was my aunt and uncle. My baby sister, Jennifer, had been born and they had come to pick me up. Let the battle commence.
At the age of six, I started karate lessons. I slowly aged and continued until the age of ten. I made it all the way to blue belt, four belts to go and I would be a black belt. Unfortunately, I was forced to quit karate at that point. I didn’t want to but I didn’t have a choice. I was far too old for day care.
As for school, I made my way up, after I started kindergarten and made straight A’s all the way until my sixth grade year. My sixth grade year I was accepted into Jim Bridger, the NASA magnet school in North Las Vegas. It was there that I was told that I couldn’t make an A in a class because I wasn’t smart enough or go anywhere in life. I started my choir career in the third grade and in the sixth grade I was placed in the beginner’s choir as most people were. That year, I was told by about twenty different people that I would never get past beginner’s choir and that I wasn’t very good. I ended up finishing that year with only one B, being in my Aerospace class, and got plenty of good lucks seeing as I was moving.
That summer I moved to Texas. We bought the house I live in now and I went to McMillan Junior High for my seventh grade year. I never thought I would fit in and for my seventh grade year and about half of my eighth, I didn’t. Boy, did I prove myself wrong there. I ended up meeting my best friend Victoria and my major crush Joe. We’re waiting until he’s sixteen which will be the very beginning of our junior year. He’s liked me since seventh and I’ve liked him since eighth grade. I plan on sticking with him for quite a while. We may have fought but that’s natural. In my seventh grade year I was placed in the Woman’s Select; pretty good for it being my first year and was moved up to the top group my eighth grade year. I still am, to this day, extremely happy about it, for already, at the beginning of seventh grade year I had already proved a lot of people wrong, including my mom. The year I was in top choir, I met my soul sister as I prefer to call her. Nita had made my life just so much brighter, and still does to this day. I wouldn’t give her up for anything. Already I was showing everyone that, yes, I could sing and sing well.
Ninth grade, my first year of high school, and I had to spend it at a freshman only campus. The best thing about it was that I was in the yearbook staff, having started in eighth grade. My best friend Victoria was in that class with me and I never really had a day I wish to take back. I began in the middle choir again and I do admit, for a while it upset me. Too bad for the director that she promptly figured out I didn’t belong there and moved me up at the semester. This is where I met one of my best friends, Megan. She had always been there to help me through tough times. Nita and Megan were there for me when I got a two on my solo at solo and ensemble and when I got the huge solo at the end of the year last year. I truly am blessed with amazing friends.
So now here I am, in tenth grade at Wylie High School. I hope to be a history teacher when I’m older because history just rocks. If not, I want to be an English teacher because people just can not get a good job without proper grammar and a pretty big vocabulary. I hope to change the world someday, though some of my friends claim I already have. I’ve changed their worlds and their lives in so many ways. I guess my life has shown who I have become in the long run. I’ve become a strong and kind human being with great talent for beating the odds.
