The Veteran of Poverty Hello my name is , I have been enrolled in the access program since March, 11 2010. I would like to start this essay with a brief story of where I come from in life, and later show how I evolved not only as a person but as a student as well. Each paragraph in this essay is pretty much like little chapters of the book of my life. I want to thank everyone on the ACCESS staff for everything they have done to help me achieve my high school diploma. I am highly looking forward to college in the fall and further expanding my knowledge and education. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart thank you. Growing up as a child was a mixture of good and bad times. I come from a family that has always been low income. I never owned anything of value in my life. People always say that money doesn’t buy happiness. I always found that statement to be incorrect. I know for a fact that money would have bought my family a lot of happiness. My house would be better described as a warzone rather than a nice loving environment. Every single day was chaos! My parents went through many custody and child support court hearings and were always dragging me in the middle of it. They would both try to use me as a pawn to get at one another. Both my parents are crazy, my mother would always scream at the top of her lungs and my father was an extremely violent person. Growing up was a difficult challenge especially with the family I had. I never understood why I couldn’t have a normal family, why we didn’t have a nice house or how come I didn’t have the things other kids had. I was jealous of the rich and stared a developing a sense of hatred for towards them. It wasn’t fair to me that they could have whatever they wanted while we struggled just for food to eat; and while they slept in there nice big house I would sleep on cots in the homeless shelters. My teachers would often ask me why I didn’t do my homework, and I would simply reply because I don’t have one. Times at home were always so bad so I sought peace in streets. Peace is a funny word to use referring to the place where I come from. I grew up in a poor, drug and gang infested neighborhood. I think I was only 10 when I saw a man get shot with a shotgun right outside my house. I was one of the smart ones though; I never affiliated myself with the gangs. I chose a non-violent group of friends; I had enough violence to deal with at home. I never participated in the gang violence although I was often a victim of mistaken identity and was stabbed and shot at on numerous occasions. I know your probably wondering how I could find peace in a place like this, but compared to my household this was a utopia. This was the only place where I could laugh, smile, have fun, and socialize with normal people. One of the things that I always loved doing was learning. I am just fascinated with learning new things. I just love having the answers for stuff. I have always been a highly intelligent individual the only issue that I “had” was that I didn’t push myself hard enough. I understood the school work but I just lacked the drive to do it. My family just assumed I was stupid or something. They would always complain about me not doing well in school. But that’s all they did “complain”. They never once sat down with me and tried to help me with my work. I was just yelled at and ignored. I had poor grades in school but my extremely high test scores are what pretty much saved me from flunking. I loved to learn in school and spending time with friends. But the thing I hated about school was all the authority. They run schools these days like a hierarchy. They are always telling you what to do and how to do it. I think it was pretty ridiculous that I got suspended one time just for wearing a plain white t- shirt. All the authority they gave made me lose my interest in school and learning. It made me rebellious and I started ditching my school classes. A very high majority