Senior Portfolio Presentation

Kiara Alcantara
Autobiography
My first two years of high school were the worst years of my life, but I have
no regrets. Because of those two years, I learned the importance of life. A week
before my first day of high school, my beloved cousin Luis passed away. The
sudden tragedy left me with unbearable pain that I did not know how to cope with.
I began rebelling by skipping school, disrespecting adults around me, and just not
caring about life itself. All I wanted was comfort and I was looking in all the
wrong places. This was not me. This was not the person I was raised to be. I
caused my mother so much pain. She cried almost every day trying to understand
why I was doing the things I did. How could she not see why? Did she forget that
a person very close to me died? I asked myself those questions every day. I just
wanted her to be there for me, understand that I was still hurting, and that I needed
help. I felt completely alone.
The shadow of his death loomed over my freshman year. I failed all of my
classes that year. It was my second time in the ninth grade at Snowden

International High School, yet I still did not care about the things that surrounded
me. My mother was called in for a meeting in May and I was pretty nervous. I
had become good at keeping school a secret. My guidance counselor and principal
sat us down in a room and explained to my mother that I would be repeating the
ninth grade for a third time.
The look on my mothers face broke me completely. All I heard was my
mother yelling and crying. She did not understand why they would let me fail for
that long and not talk to her about it, since something was obviously wrong. My
mother did not deserve the pain that she felt that day. For two years, I was stuck in
a nightmare where I had my hands tied, feet stuck in cement, falling to the bottom
of the ocean, trying to yell hopelessly under water. But that morning, I finally
woke up from that terrible nightmare.
After that day, I switched schools, got a completely different group of friends
and focused only on school work and my family. During my first year at Greater
Egleston High School, I got grades that I had never imagined getting; I was an
honor roll student. My mother and I have become best friends again and there are
not anymore secrets between us. I love my mother more than anything and I
cannot express to her more how much I appreciate her. She has been helping me
grow mentally every day and because of her I consider myself a strong young lady.

I have no one to blame for my mistakes but myself. I also have no one to thank
for fixing my mistakes but myself. I am ashamed of myself for using my cousins
death as a reason to act the way I did, but I know he must be proud of me for my
accomplishments. I am glad to have had the chance to meet him and be a part of
his life. May he rest in peace.
In October, I will be attending New England Institute of Technology to study
Criminal Justice. I hope to become a crime scene investigator.