review edit

Parker Hood

Amica Parker Hood

Professor Ritt

23 January 2019

Non Fiction SFD

The Day I Graduated from High School

It was a sunny, hot Tuesday in June. The second tuesday to be exact. I woke up thinking to myself, wow Mi you did it. With all the obstacles I had been put through, I never thought I’d see the day I’d walk across the stage. I went to a charter high school. More specifically, a noble charter high school. Of the eighteen campuses, I attended a relatively new campus that is Hansberry College Prep. When I was a freshman and the school was brand new, it was called Noble Auburn Gresham College Prep due to the neighborhood it was in. It was so close to me and my neighborhood, that it was literally through my alley, which made my mother ecstatic and thus my main reason for attending. Although when graduating from eighth grade I had no idea where I wanted to go for high school because I didn’t know there was a such thing as high school, I knew I didn’t want to go there.

Now there are regular high schools, and then there’s my high school. At regular high schools, there are multiple floors, one cafeteria, a football field, you get the idea. However, at my high school, there was only one floor, no stairs, no football field, demerits, which were a punishment if you broke a rule, and a multipurpose room that was our cafeteria, our gym, our auditorium and anything else we needed it to be. We had a strict dress code that if we broke, we weren’t allowed to go to class. We could accumulate demerits for doing almost anything. Being late, talking in class, running in the hallways, just about anything they deemed “inappropriate”. If we didn’t do our homework, we went to lasalle after school, which was like a silent study hall. If we didn’t go to lasalle, we had detention. Detention was a weekly “punishment” that altered locations every week. It was three and a half hours long, and it consisted of students writing the student code of conduct. If you talked, didn’t write the SCC, fell asleep, or almost anything other than writing, you were removed. Removals meant you had to come back the next week to try it again, along with another four demerits, which meant another detention.

I wasn’t a bad student necessarily, but I got demerits, lasalles, detentions and annual suspensions. I had my moments where I would lash out and get frustrated with the rules. Almost everyone did. It wasn’t the normal high school atmosphere and we as students didn’t believe it was fair. All throughout my four years however, I grew. I grew as a female, as a person, and as a student. Before high school, I was very lazy, didn’t have much drive or motivation, I was very naive and complacent. However, throughout my four years I developed a good work ethic, I became captain of our girls soccer team, and most importantly, I learned. Regardless to the rules, I always secured the most important part of school, a good education. So, yes I had my complaints about the discipline, but I never missed out on the most beneficial element. That’s what made me forever grateful for the high school that I attended. I knew years from then I would look back on my high school experience as a well learned lesson on how to handle situations, and focus on the most important task at hand.

The morning of graduation I laid in bed for a few minutes and began to reflect on everything I could from my four years. All the laughs, relationships, tears, stress, and frustration that brought me to that day. From being suspended once a year, to not being able to play an entire season of soccer because of my grades, I endured it all. But with all bad moments come the good. From me being on honor roll one quarter, to getting recognition from my teachers about my changed behavior, I had that to outweigh my downfalls. It all led up to this day, graduation. Our graduation was at the field museum, and all the seniors had to attend the final rehearsal before graduation. Graduation was at 6:00 p.m., and rehearsal was about an hour long, so we had about four to five hours to get ready. Because I was so tired, I tried my best to take a nap before I had to get ready. It was almost impossible though because I was getting so many texts, and phone calls of family and friends who told me congratulations. So I slept for like 30 minutes before my mom came in to see if I was up getting ready. So I got up and got ready.

An hour later my dad came to get me and all I honestly wanted to do was sleep. I tried my best to smile for pictures and sound happy when people walked past and yelled congrats, but I was so sleepy I barely responded. The whole ride there all I could do was stare in the rear-view mirror at my cap and say wow I really did it. It didn’t seem real until we parked, I got out of the car and saw everybody in their caps and gowns. There was so much excitement in our room before we lined up to file in, we were all proud of each other even through all the disagreements. So when we walked in and heard all our families cheering for us, it finally sat in that this was happening. I was graduating from Hansberry College Prep. I really didn’t think I’d be emotional, but I was completely wrong. I cried from the time the national anthem was sung to the time I walked across the stage and got my diploma.

I wasn’t aware of how surreal the moment was until our advisor spoke on all the trials and tribulations we went through. As I approached the stage to hear my name being called, it still hadn’t hit me. Even with all the tears steadily rushing down like water on an icicle, I still couldn’t believe that I had did it. After the ceremony everyone was outside taking pictures and laughing and talking. I kinda didn’t want to take any pictures because my face was all red from crying, but I managed to give a huge kool-aid smile. By that time I wasn’t sleepy anymore and I wanted to go out to celebrate. But my feet were killing me because of the heels I had on, I didn’t have earrings on so I felt like I looked like an alien, and my curls fell, so ultimately my appearance was not up to part to be outside. I settled for fast food, more specifically one of my favorite fast food places in the world, Harold’s. I ate and watched tv and went to sleep like it was a regular day.

From then on, I was set for my future. At the time, I was scheduled to attend Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. I did the most important part to get there, and all I had left to do was get there. From the time that I was in grammar school, I new that 2017 would be the best year of my life. I knew that opportunities would not come as easy, but I was more so focused on the idea that I controlled my future. The fact that after high school I was on my own with everything made me excited. I wanted to take everything I learned from high school and make it a reality. Education had made a clear tunnel vision view for the rest of my life.

I declared myself a political science major with the intentions and hope of changing how people thought about the government. Because I took IB courses, which were similar to pre-college classes, I took theory of knowledge, which shed light into how and why people think the way they do, I was determined to use the technique and manipulate it to my advantage. As a child, I always questioned why things were the way they were, and I knew I could change that. I knew I could assemble a new system of ideas that would make people feel more comfortable with politics. All I needed was the information and an opportunity. I saw that opportunity and I seized it. It started with me graduating from grammar school, then me graduating from high school. I have a few more graduations left in me, but my high school graduation was the most important because of the doors that it opened.