Growing up, I seemed to have struggles when it came to reading and writing. You tend to take in many things you learn from lessons or just people willing to teach you new things. In school I’d sometimes have some struggles like understanding stories and connecting it to real life. You know those types of questions where you’re asked to make a real world connection and I just sit here confused like “oh shoot how do I do this?” or “What ways is it connected to my own life?”  The story would be easy to connect to but at other times the story could be so different and it’s just like how do I even connect this to the real world? Now when it comes to things like writing, expressing myself through it, that wouldn’t be as hard because I could write about many different personal experiences. Things like free writing would be fun and would keep me active and engaged with the class. I prefer writing anyway as opposed to reading. It would be this way throughout most of my school life. High school I felt like I would really be tested.

 First year of high school had started and I had this English class with this teacher but the way he would teach would be complex. Nothing too crazy but he’d give us a nice challenge and actually push us to really think hard. At first I’d struggle but that was mainly in the beginning of school only because he would get straight into the topic or the Agenda. Right off the bat, he’d given us a first project and for that project we had to do some analysis for a book we read. At least 1200+ words Minimum. In my head I would think, “Shoot this many words for a book I don’t really understand.”

 The complexity of this project was huge. I’ve heard previously that this teacher specifically gives the most work out of all the teachers in the literature department. I could see why people didn’t really want him. Now all his other projects involved deep thinking related to Society and analyzing. Over time he would grow on me as a teacher. His mini lessons about ways of getting through a text, to break it down, Conflict, Rising/Falling action would help out and would be really honest with me which was important to me. Looking through my work and preparing me for the real world outside of high school. His feedback with my writing would push me to try and become a better writer. I’d go to office hours a couple of times for one on one conferences for classwork and homework. I wanted to be the best I could and this was really important to me because I just really wanted to give it my all. As a saying once goes, You get out what you put in.

On the side, besides school I really seemed to struggle when it comes to a new language. I grew up in New York and most Family members on both of my sides were born in Puerto Rico. They spoke mainly Spanish, and I didn’t understand it. I still don’t speak it as much because I have yet to learn it fully, but I try to understand what I could. Going to family gatherings and family get-togethers where there was a lot of Spanish speaking involved around me, I’d felt left out a bit. I do wish my parents, well mostly my father, would’ve taught me at a young age that way I’d get the hang of it. But hey I figured it would be nice if I tended to learn it down the line. My father speaks Spanish really well. My mom not as much but her side of the family they speak it pretty well just like my father’s side. Most of my relatives were born in Puerto Rico.

 In middle school I had Spanish classes almost every day. It was also mandatory to take them, if you didn’t then you wouldn’t have passed. In this class we would learn both basic and complex spanish. Could range from basic phrases to long sentences. I was taking these classes but still couldn’t get the language down fully. I was able to get some things down like how to say your name, where you live and how old you are. Real basic stuff it wasn’t all too bad to learn of course. Slowly but surely as time passes you manage to get better at it 

You know what they say practice makes perfect and I sure wasn’t. Fast Forward to today and I got some practice in. My dad always told me that he’ll show me one day and he stuck to his word. Each week or so he talks a bit in Spanish and says what it means and so I repeat it then he’ll repeat phrases and I’ll have to say it back. Other times we’ll have a small conversation to sort of show. Slow start but I know that as time goes by I will start being more fluent and it’ll be awesome to communicate.