autobiography

English 11

Period 1

October 2, 2014

Autobiography

I am Liliana Madrigal, I’m currently 16 years old and my birthday is on February 4^th.  I have 2 older brothers and 1 older sister; making me the baby.  I’ve never lived anywhere else other than Los Angeles.  I currently reside in South Los Angeles, also known as South LA.  

I remember when I was 8 years old, my sister and I were in our room when we heard gun shots being fired.  A few seconds later we heard a young woman screaming out, “Help, please anyone help!” and when we went outside, we could see that the young woman was on the street floor holding one of my neighbor’s  hand while my other neighbor contacted the police.  Personally, growing up in South LA hasn’t been as frightening and vicious as everyone portrays it to be.  Yes, it isn’t the safest and most practical of neighborhoods, but I’ve always grown up knowing and having this mentality.  

I’ve always believed that the people you associate with define and reflect the type of person you are to society.  So, growing up I never quite misbehaved.  Yes, I’ve lied and yes I’ve done things that I shouldn’t have done, but I’m thankful that I did do those things.  Thanks to all those past experiences I was able to learn valuable life-long lessons.  I was able to find out who I was, what I love doing, what my passions and interests were and what I want to do with my life.  I also learned a valuable lesson on who I want to associate myself with and who I want to dedicate my time to.  

I’ve always been the type of person who always daydreamed about the future and tries to see the different ways life can play out; you would think I would be one of those people who try to be so perfect that their future can turn out just the way they planned it, but unfortunately, I was the complete opposite.  I was so stuck thinking in the future and what my future could possibly be like that I was forgetting about the present.  

Last academic school year, was a very rough year for me, but it was also a very good one as well.  I hit the lowest point I could’ve ever hit,  it was rock bottom.  I completely shut down; I stopped caring about everything that had to do with school.  It’s like that saying goes, “our greatest glory is not ever falling but in rising every time we fall”.  Since I was able to see myself at my lowest point, I was determined to make an effort to succeed and end the year off, strong.  I’ve noticed now that I’m a lot different than the person I was before.  I’m very well aware of how easy it is to just fall behind and simply give up, but the self-satisfaction of trying and achieving goals is a feeling that makes trying all worth it.  I feel as if I’m finally on the right path in where I need to be, to do what I need to do in order to be ready and get high school over with.