Julio A. Alvarez
Literary Narrative
ENG 1101
OUTLINE
I. INTRO: A beginning
II. BODY 1: Adapting to School
III. BODY 2: Changing Paths
IV. BODY 3: Missing 1 Credit
V. CONCLUSION:
A.Things I learned as young adult
B. If you try things can get better
A New Beginning to dreams to a High School Graduate
My name is Julio A. Alvarez, and at the tender age of 9. I had to leave everything behind for a new life. The day was quite hot and warm, yet refreshing and soothing gusts of wind came down from the mountains. I was in my little house made of cement block walls with thin grooved steel sheets for a roof, and a 2 by 4 wood framing as structural support for the roof. My mother came into our room and told me and my younger brother that she had good news. She then proceeded to tell us, “Nuestras visas han sido aprobadas.”(Our visas have been approved.) What did this mean? This meant that we will be moving from the Dominican Republic to a whole different country, and I would have to leave my life behind. Trust me, at the time I wasn’t too keen about that idea. This new beginning drastically helped shape my educational journey through having to overcome my language barrier, to changing my career for something that brings me more joy, to being able to graduate early.
I remember being really nervous to go to school and meet new people that I couldn’t understand or communicate appropriately with. Around the time of summer of 2010, my mom took me to the Roberto Clemente Public School(P.S.19), which was the nearest school when I used to reside in Williamsburg. As I was approaching the building, I remember thinking to myself, “Do they speak my language? Can they understand me? Are they people with short fuses?” As I entered the building I was guided by a lady to sit at any table; naturally I went to sit at a table by myself. As I looked around I began to notice that it seemed that there were other kids that looked similar to me, “Perhaps they also spoke my language?” I uttered to myself. After a while of sitting by myself , the bell signaling class went off.. Kids began to line up in lines for their respective grades. I took my line which had the number 3 in it, which stood for third grade. As we were walking up the stairs, I took out this little paper my mom had given me. Inside it said “Cuarto 330, Señor Vargas.” Which meant my room number was 330, and my teacher’s name was Mr.Vargas. As I was going to my classroom, I saw a man with slicked back gelled hair, and a light gray suit standing outside of 330. He says to me in Spanish, “Oh, you must be Julio. My new student. It’s nice to see you, welcome to my ESL class.” I looked up at him confused as he was speaking to me in spanish. This was my first interaction with someone other than my family who spoke English and spanish. From here Mr.Vargas, taught me how to comprehend english and how it was very similar to spanish. He gave me books to read, assignments to practice my writing skills, vocal practices for pronunciations, which helped me develop new skills to overcome my struggle of adapting to my new environment, my new language, and my new school. As time went on, I had left Mr.Vargas’s ESL group at the end of fourth grade. This leads to me being proactive to take actions and learn new things that I don’t know.
I always loved fixing things and solving problems, yet I decided to be a mechanic. Shortly after I chose my new career path as a mechanic, I applied to Automotive High School. Which was supposedly one of the best schools to learn how to become a mechanic. I was really excited to try new things, and get placed in a shop class on how cars work and stuff. Well here was my issue, I was one of the few applicants which couldn’t get an intro class, this then placed me on a list which wouldn’t be able to do any shop classes until their second semester as a sophomore. I was extremely disappointed when I heard this news. This made me feel as if I wasted my time and effort. After my first semester I didn’t really feel all that interested in becoming a mechanic anymore. I had decided I will pursue a career with my other joy, which was technology. I remember Bila romani’s “Chronicles of a Once-Pessimistic College Freshman ” where he said how much he disliked how the high school system sifted through kids, and sorted them arbitrarily. This was similar to my case, since I wanted to do a shop class but due to a random selection program I wasn’t able to do an early class, but this then led me to take another means of action. I now began the search for a new school. I attended the school fair, then the transfer fair, and finally applied for my transfer. After a month of research and picking out which schools interested me the most. I had narrowed my choices down to two schools. First was a school named Performing Arts & Technology High School, the other was William E. Grady CTE High School. These schools were great candidates for expanding my interest in technology.
As I patiently waited for my transfer response to arrive in the mail, around the middle of March, my mother got a call. This call was from the Department of Education (DOE), stating that my transfer was denied since the distance is within an hour of travel. The following day I then proceeded to head down to the nearest DOE office, and we requested a hearing for further as to why it was denied. I was then again tld that I was within an hour of time to get to my Automotive HS. I had to explain to them that if service was delayed by even 15 minutes. I would be arriving late and it would end up with travel over one hour. They went on and said, “well why don’t you take another train?.” We then discussed how much time it would take if I were to commute via another train, the traveling time would be well over an hour and twenty minutes. I kept persisting with them that it would be a better decision to allow me to go to another school as I would not be happy with what I’m currently working on at this present school. Finally they gave me an option. The only option I had was to get a stamp of approval from the principal agreeing to a safety transfer. Thankfully, after explaining the situation and showing the letter of denial the principal had made the decision of approving my transfer. I would have to bring the approval and a new transfer form to the DOE office so that I would be allowed to change schools. Finally after two weeks of waiting I received a letter with my approved appeal to transfer schools, and seeing this letter gave me hope for my new future.
After getting used to my new school and almost nearing the end of my tenth grade at Performing arts & technology, I had decided that I would graduate early, although things didn’t go as planned. After passing my tenth grade I went and discussed with the guidance counselor that I wanted to graduate early. She then gave me a list of requirements and an agreement to stay on task, and happily I agreed. As my junior year of highschool came along, I was excited to try and give my attempt at graduating early. I had regular classes, an AP class, a college class, online classes, and finally I had my internship. Somehow I managed to juggle all of these at once whilst also losing all of my social life, and believe me I had a lot of stress piled up. My only ways of relieving it was by playing video games, or being alone reading, listening to music, or by enjoying the company of my own silence. As the second semester came in I had decided that I won’t be doing the extra college credit class, nor the AP class. The semester went by normally. I was aware that I wouldn’t be able to graduate with the senior class and had to do summer school. Prior to this I had sorted out my paperwork to join City Tech CUNY, as a freshman in Fall 2018. As I was diligently working on my final online classes, and trying to get all of my final credits, I got called to the guidance counselors office. I was expecting good news and that I was finally able to have the merit of graduating early. I was told that I was missing one credit and that I would have to stay one more semester. At that moment I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost and as if I had failed. I had asked, “why didn’t you tell me this sooner? I wanted to graduate, I wanted to leave and be free.” I had then been told I needed one more credit to graduate and that one credit was english. I asked “what happened to my english credit that I had tried to get on my online class?” My counselor told me, “Due to a computer error that credit was not imputed and therefore you’ve to redo the course again.” This pissed me off for a bit. I now had to go to my college and drop all of my classes, and go back to school for one period. Funny enough my last assignment for graduating that semester was the last essay I ever wrote and that was exactly a year and one months ago. After a year of figuring who am and what I want to achieve
Still to this today I’m still on my educational journey not as a child learning to understand people, but as a young adult trying to understand how the world works. I try my best to not let unnecessary bureaucracy push me down, and try to give my best try to stay on top of things. I understand that things won’t always go my way, but if I put in the effort and persistently try. I know I can achieve greater things. As a young adult I’ve learned how to manage my finances appropriately, how to talk in appropriate tones, how to manage my time better, how to de-stress appropriately, and many more valuable skills. I also had the great opportunity to meet great new people at the Brownsville Justice Community Center (BCJC), they taught me how to guide myself appropriately through risky situations, so if they ever were to occur. I would have the knowledge on how to handle it or move around it. Altogether I can say that I still have much to learn, so as a young individual I came to understand that one never stops learning.
From the end of it I came to understand that life works in many wonders. You will never know what you will get. Like in my case I was lucky my school had ESL and this gave me the opportunity to adapt quickly. After persisting that that’s not what I wanted to pursue I changed majors, Also nearing the end I was able to graduate early. Not exactly when I wanted to, but I still was able to do it. Remember this if you try you can do it, if you don’t try nothing can be done. So go out there, and enjoy your life.
Google link for better format: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fnp-LrmtlHhwt-ZkCpkKObRrqEHReOwfufY41cwEQRI/edit?usp=sharing
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