Leslie Tovar
A Part of My Day
Hi, my name is Leslie Tovar and I am a Wilson High School student. Every morning I wake up around 6:00 am. I take a shower and then I get dressed. After I am done, I eat breakfast and then my brother and me say goodbye to my mom and dad. My dad always thinks about whether or not I am going to do good or bad in school or if I am going to do drugs. He always has me in his mind and just wants me to do well. The song I chose by Frankie J called “Daddy’s Little Girl” relates to me because the lyrics say:
I’ll clean my room
Try hard in school
I’ll be good
I promise you
This song is about how a dad means a lot to his daughter and she doesn’t want to let him go. For example, the words “Try hard in school” mean that she will do homework and be good so she can make her dad proud. When it says, “I’ll be good I promise you” it’s that that the little girl wants to make a commitment to her father. I feel like I am like the little girl too. I see my parents struggle and want to make a promise to them that I would do well at school.
So my brother and I walk to school together, but he goes to Gage Middle School in Huntington Park. He gets there and I still keep walking to Huntington Park High School (HPHS), where I wait until my bus arrives. I am a Wilson High School student but I don’t belong at Wilson—I belong at HPHS. I have to take a bus in the morning to get to Wilson. If you guys want to know why, it’s because HPHS is too full. When I am driving to Wilson on the bus, I see a lot of things. I see cars driving, students going to other schools, stores, and gasoline stations. In my opinion, I think the area around Wilson High is ghetto because there are a lot of people in the streets lying down. There is trash in streets and a lot of tagging on the walls. Huntington Park is better. I am not saying that Huntington Park is prettier because it is not, but it’s just that it has less trash on the streets, fewer people laying down on the streets, and less tagging on the walls.
I get to Wilson High just when the bell is going to ring so I just go to my first period. I have Science and I don’t really like this class, but I have a good grade. We learn about earth, outer space, waves, earthquakes, and many more things. I don’t like Science because the teacher doesn’t teach well and doesn’t pay attention to what we do. He teaches about the periodic table, symbols like the mass number and atomic number, and how we can get electrons, neutrons, and elements. I think the teacher could make the class better if he lets us do more lab work so we can learn more about experiments and projects.
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When I think about this class, I connect with the article called “Subtractive Schooling” by Angela Valenzuela. The article is about kids who are having trouble with their class and teacher. For example, in the article, a student says, “He doesn’t make the class interesting and nobody wants to learn what he’s teaching” (pg 2). This quote talks about the same things I wrote in my narrative. Students don’t learn because the teacher just has us do book work. If I don’t learn then I won’t graduate and it will affect my future.
When the bell rings I go to second period, which is JROTC. This class is like PE because we run and do lots of hard exercises. We do push ups, sit ups, run, and crawl from one of the part of the field to the other. Next is nutrition and I find my friends and head to our “kicking spot”. We just talk and have fun. When the bell rings, I go to third period, which is Life Skills. In this class we learn about our lives, how to get to college, our feelings about school, and what goes on around school. This class helps me a lot because the teacher motivates us to go to college.
Fourth period is Algebra. I really don’t like this class because I am not good at math, but I really try my best to do well. The kind of math I do is addition, multiplication, subtraction, etc. I think the teacher should give more homework so I can get better in math. This class is really boring too because the teacher talks and screams and you can hardly learn. When you need help, she gets mad and yells and maybe that’s why I don’t learn.
After fourth period is lunch. I do the same thing as nutrition and I look for my friends. We just stay in our spot and talk to each other or play around and laugh a lot. When the bell rings, I go to fifth period, which is English. In this class we read and write a lot and discuss the stories we read. But guess what? I have this class again for sixth because I have double English. It sucks because you stay with the same teacher and the same students for two hours. Sometimes it gets kind of boring because we do the same things, but I really think I am learning here. We work on things that I relate to and it makes me put in a lot of effort. Then, I don’t care anymore that I have it for double the amount of time.
When double English class is over and the bell rings, I go to my bus stop so I can go back to my other school (where I belong). When I get to HPHS I walk home by myself or sometimes with my friends. When I get home, I clean up and then eat with my brother and sister. My brother and I do homework and when we are done we watch T.V. or play outside. We go to the park and play a lot of sports and have fun together. Afterwards we go inside and I take a shower and get my clothes ready for tomorrow. Usually I go to sleep around 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm.
When I think about my day, I feel like I’m learning. I know that I’m struggling in math, but I know if I try hard and do all my homework everyday I’ll get better. My day is kind of stressful too because I have to do work in all my classes. I just want to be a good student and I’m trying to improve my grades and focus. I also want to feel like I belong at Wilson and they [the school] should tell me they want me to stay. They could also help me with my classes so I can feel that they like me. It’s important too that students respect each other and study hard so we can all do our best. Well, that’s what I do and think about in a day and it’s really fun!
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