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Being Born
In the middle of a war in Baghdad, Iraq, I was born. This was a very good moment in my life because I was born, I took my first breath of air in May 6, 2007, and it was the most refreshing breath of air I have ever taken. -
Coming to America
My family first came to America when I was just a year old. Around this time, my whole family, including my extended family, split up and went to different parts of the world. We came here because of the condition of our previous living spot. Since I was just born, it was very hard for my parents to raise me in a country with constant terrorism. We first lived in a relatives house for about a week or two and then moved out to a cozy apartment. -
Pre-school
This was my first time ever going to pre-school and the first day was the absolute worst. Thus far my mom has been taking care of me every second of every day and I suddenly had to be somewhere away from her. My english was very bad and I had heavy accent, I went to a diverse school and everyone there was like 4 years old so it wasn't too much of an issue. In the end of the day, when I was getting picked up, I was very happy to see my mom. -
Confidence
I sort of taught myself to be confident. This was my first day of first grade and I was very nervous at first. Our teachers made us introduce ourselves and I payed close attention to how everyone introduced themselves. I noticed that some people just didn't look right when they were introducing themselves. Some talked quietly and others stood with bad posture. Therefore, I decided to be confident and introduce myself "properly." -
Getting My First Electronic Device
This was my first time ever getting an electronic device, it was a very old Samsung Tablet. I was in first grade and my classmates were talking about playing video games all the time. We eventually played games together and built strong bonds. My tablet really made me happy and I would spend about 8 to 13 hours every single day on it for about 3 years. -
Responsible
Around this time, my father told me to clean up after myself whenever I ate. He also told me not to make a mess and would get mad every time I did. This led me to being very responsible, not only with cleaning up after myself, but with a lot more things in my early childhood. I still am training myself to be more responsible as I get older. -
Gifted
This was the first day of 2nd grade and my teacher told me that a selected group of students have been promoted from first grade straight to third grade. I was a part of the selected group. We were still in second grade but we sat in a different part of the classroom and we received more advanced work. -
Accountable
I got in trouble in school for misbehaving and messing around. I would make bad decisions and I didn't know why I was getting in trouble. I thought that a simple "sorry" could fix it all but that wasn't the case. My teacher told me that actions have their own consequences, whether it be good or bad, and I didn't really understand it at the time, but now I do. -
Going To My First Competition
In 7th grade, I was in a program called Science Olympiad. It is an extracurricular STEM based group where you study for certain topics and then compete with other schools to see who gets the highest scores. All of the exams were college level so we all did pretty terrible. However, doing terrible on a college level exam in 7th grade is very good. I remember going to the first competition, it was in The University of Chicago. I did many lab experiments and competed. -
Empathetic
This was my 11th birthday and it was around the time we moved into our new house. We didn't have a birthday party for me and no one remember it was my birthday, the only person who remembered was my sister. My mom felt very bad for me but I told her that I didn't feel sad or really care at all that we didn't have a party for me. I knew that we were all very busy and just didn't have time for a party. -
Going to Monterey, California
My mother, sister, and I went to Monterey California because my mom wanted to meet up with a good friend of hers. Her friend has kids and they are around the same age as my sister and I, so we got along very well. My mother's friend took us on a mini tour around the very popular cities of California and it was great. -
Disciplined
On this day, I made a very bad mistake and got almost all of my friends involved with it. It took a little bit away from nearly all of them. Understandably, all of them got very upset with me and I had to make it up to them. This mistake taught me to be disciplined, think way ahead of time before you do something, and to think of all the possible events that can happen after you do something. -
8th Grade Graduation Party
When I was in 8th grade, school was all online and we didn't really have an official 8th grade graduation party. However, I had a pretty big friend group and our moms had planned to set up a party. There was a lot of people there and it was some of the most fun I have ever had with my 8th grade class. -
The Best Summer Vacation
The Summer of 2021 was the best summer I have ever had. My little cousins from California came over and we had a good time together. -
Determined
I got sick and missed nearly 2 weeks of school. I was in freshmen year of high school and everything was going good until this moment. Once I got back to school, I had almost 40 assignments I had to do. I never felt this determined to work so it was very stressful but it was worth it. -
Aware
At this time, I used to trust a lot of people, I don't know why. I would even trust some strangers on the internet and would talk to them about things I shouldn't talk about. However, on this day, I talked to a stranger and learned the lesson "don't trust strangers," in the hardest way possible. I won't get into detail but it completely changed the way I talk to people and had a huge impact on my social interactions. -
8th Grade Meet Up
The same group of people who went to my 8th grade graduation party, were at this party. My friends and I randomly started talking again and we all got back together and threw a party. It was similar to the 8th grade graduation party but we told a lot of stories and had so much fun. -
Visiting Armenia
My mother, sister, and I visited Armenia for a month. At first I really didn't like it at all because I was getting used to the time zone change and we spent the first week going on adventures back to back. When the first week was over, we went on many parties from afternoon to midnight and it was very fun. I got a cross necklace from the first church in Armenia and one of the first churches ever built. -
Respectful
This was when I was in Armenia. The people there treat random people they don't even know like family members. It was the first time I ever experienced true respect and could actually trust people there. Not to say that I don't get respect by others or that I don't respect people, I just felt very comfortable talking with the people there. -
Thoughtful
This is the first day of school in Junior year and I don't have any friends in any of my classes. This is a good thing and a bad thing. It's a bad thing because every class is really long and boring. It's a good thing because I get to think to myself every day for 7 hours a day. I think about every single detail about every event that has happened in my entire life.