Reflection 1

Last year I decided my fate of my education like I do every year. Aka: meeting with my guidance counselor to make up my schedule for the following year. Unlike other students i only had 5 periods of classes. English 11R, Algebra 2/Trig, U.S. History, Gym, and a free period every other day? SWEET. My year was set.
I heard about this program from my other friends called BOCES. It's a career oriented high school. It gives juniors and seniors a head start on their passions. There were mostly bad rumors about BOCES so I wasn't really sure if I wanted to apply. My sister never went to BOCES because my parents always thought it was for the bad kids, or the kids with behavioral problems. So that was just another obstacle I had to get over. If my sister didn't do something, I can't do it. If my sister did something, I'm usually allowed to do something. But I saw the good in the BOCES program that my older friends showed me. They were happy and enjoying themselves in a career they'd like to pursue. I always told myself I want to be a person who loves going to work when I got older.
Most of my friends that are girls and are going to/have gone to BOCES entered the Cosmetology program. Cosmetology has always been something I've been passionate about. My sister is the one who really opened the whole, "make-up world" to me. She taught herself everything she knows. And she is one of the most talented people I know. I could have asked my sister to show me all the tricks to make-up, but I really wanted a teacher. I felt like having a teacher could be more beneficial to me because in the future I would like to own a beauty store. And all the teachers that work in BOCES are professionals in their line of work. So not only would I be learning about my dream career, but I would also be learning about how to make my dream career come true. In most of the careers, once you graduate from
BOCES 2 year program you're able to get your license in the career you've chosen.This includes Cosmetology. Having a license just after 2 years would open so many doors for me, and this is what I want. I want to have my own business and be surrounded by everything I love. From these reasons I was able to convince my parents into letting me attend BOCES.
My parents said yes and ever since then it might've been the best decision in my life. BOCES has not only changed my life but it's changed me as a person. Because of BOCES I've been able to meet different people from different schools and learn things that I want to learn. I love being able to come home from school and talk to my mom about the things I learned in BOCES. It makes me happier. Just the atmosphere my classroom in BOCES has makes me feel like I'm at home. My teacher Mr. A acts like a father and a friend. I've never really had a close relationship with a teacher until him. I'm able to have fun and joke around with him, and our relationship is great.
Finally I think BOCES is an amazing program. I think our school should show it to more students. Not just a selected few. It's a really great school and atmosphere and I can't wait to start my second year!
I heard about this program from my other friends called BOCES. It's a career oriented high school. It gives juniors and seniors a head start on their passions. There were mostly bad rumors about BOCES so I wasn't really sure if I wanted to apply. My sister never went to BOCES because my parents always thought it was for the bad kids, or the kids with behavioral problems. So that was just another obstacle I had to get over. If my sister didn't do something, I can't do it. If my sister did something, I'm usually allowed to do something. But I saw the good in the BOCES program that my older friends showed me. They were happy and enjoying themselves in a career they'd like to pursue. I always told myself I want to be a person who loves going to work when I got older.
Most of my friends that are girls and are going to/have gone to BOCES entered the Cosmetology program. Cosmetology has always been something I've been passionate about. My sister is the one who really opened the whole, "make-up world" to me. She taught herself everything she knows. And she is one of the most talented people I know. I could have asked my sister to show me all the tricks to make-up, but I really wanted a teacher. I felt like having a teacher could be more beneficial to me because in the future I would like to own a beauty store. And all the teachers that work in BOCES are professionals in their line of work. So not only would I be learning about my dream career, but I would also be learning about how to make my dream career come true. In most of the careers, once you graduate from
BOCES 2 year program you're able to get your license in the career you've chosen.This includes Cosmetology. Having a license just after 2 years would open so many doors for me, and this is what I want. I want to have my own business and be surrounded by everything I love. From these reasons I was able to convince my parents into letting me attend BOCES.
My parents said yes and ever since then it might've been the best decision in my life. BOCES has not only changed my life but it's changed me as a person. Because of BOCES I've been able to meet different people from different schools and learn things that I want to learn. I love being able to come home from school and talk to my mom about the things I learned in BOCES. It makes me happier. Just the atmosphere my classroom in BOCES has makes me feel like I'm at home. My teacher Mr. A acts like a father and a friend. I've never really had a close relationship with a teacher until him. I'm able to have fun and joke around with him, and our relationship is great.
Finally I think BOCES is an amazing program. I think our school should show it to more students. Not just a selected few. It's a really great school and atmosphere and I can't wait to start my second year!
Reflection 2

For the past 16 years of my life, I’ve been learning how to love myself. And I think this year has been the year I’ve been able to honestly say I love my body. Body positivity posts and plus size women have been flooding the internet this year. I envied the girls who were able to put up pictures of themselves confidently. They truly love themselves. And I wanted to be like them.
Growing up thicker and bigger than the average girl in Great Neck was tough. Everyone here is the size of my pinky. Even some of the boys. In elementary school I wasn’t really bullied or anything. Maybe a few couple comments from kids that don’t know how to think before they speak. For example, one of my friends in 4th or 5th grades was literally 5 inches shorter than me and a stick. We were going to the computer room and he says “You have 3 stomachs!” and begun to laugh. He was clearly speaking of my chest and my stomach fat. In that moment I didn’t really say anything. It didn’t hit me like it should’ve. All I could manage to do was laugh too and say shut up. Besides that life was pretty good as a kid.
Then came middle school. And this was the time that my size mattered a little more. I tried dressing nicer, tried doing my hair and experimented with makeup. I was the biggest in my friend group at the time. Sometimes we’d go out to get pizza and they would get full off of one slice. But me, I always craved a second slice just to make sure I was really full. I didn’t order a second one though, instead I’d pretend to be full and then we’d go out and walk around town. Being in a room with skinnier, somewhat prettier girls, was a little uncomfortable once they would start talking about their weight. Sometimes they would whine and groan at how “fat” they’ve gotten and I just look at them and roll my eyes. Like stop complaining. Just because your stomach isn’t flat doesn’t mean you’re fat. Whenever the topic of weight came up I wanted to disappear and hide. In 7th and 8th grade everyone started dating. Except me though. Boys didn’t like “fat” girls. Because I was bigger than my other female friends, that also meant I was bigger in other departments. That was the only time boys would really pay attention to me in middle school. But besides that I didn’t really date boys in my last years of middle school.
I always battled with my weight. I’d either lose a lot, or gain a lot. I’d try and go one diets, even in elementary school. But then i came to realize reality. My body is always going to be shaped the way its shaped. The beginning of high school was the beginning of my self-love journey, I was now surrounded by girls that are a little smaller than my size. I'm surrounded by beautiful thick girls who make me feel good about myself. I don't really worry as much about my size now, I am who I am. And I'm happy about the way I look. At one point in my life I let the Great Neck look be my inspiration. But not anymore. My new inspiration are the plus size models I see starting to come out onto the internet. Those are the girls I want to be. I want to show off my body because I love it. My body is what makes me happy. Thunder thighs won't ever become an insult. I will take it as a compliment because I love my thighs. I love my thighs, my stomach, my gut, my EVERYTHING. I am beautiful and i will never let anyone make me feel less.
Growing up thicker and bigger than the average girl in Great Neck was tough. Everyone here is the size of my pinky. Even some of the boys. In elementary school I wasn’t really bullied or anything. Maybe a few couple comments from kids that don’t know how to think before they speak. For example, one of my friends in 4th or 5th grades was literally 5 inches shorter than me and a stick. We were going to the computer room and he says “You have 3 stomachs!” and begun to laugh. He was clearly speaking of my chest and my stomach fat. In that moment I didn’t really say anything. It didn’t hit me like it should’ve. All I could manage to do was laugh too and say shut up. Besides that life was pretty good as a kid.
Then came middle school. And this was the time that my size mattered a little more. I tried dressing nicer, tried doing my hair and experimented with makeup. I was the biggest in my friend group at the time. Sometimes we’d go out to get pizza and they would get full off of one slice. But me, I always craved a second slice just to make sure I was really full. I didn’t order a second one though, instead I’d pretend to be full and then we’d go out and walk around town. Being in a room with skinnier, somewhat prettier girls, was a little uncomfortable once they would start talking about their weight. Sometimes they would whine and groan at how “fat” they’ve gotten and I just look at them and roll my eyes. Like stop complaining. Just because your stomach isn’t flat doesn’t mean you’re fat. Whenever the topic of weight came up I wanted to disappear and hide. In 7th and 8th grade everyone started dating. Except me though. Boys didn’t like “fat” girls. Because I was bigger than my other female friends, that also meant I was bigger in other departments. That was the only time boys would really pay attention to me in middle school. But besides that I didn’t really date boys in my last years of middle school.
I always battled with my weight. I’d either lose a lot, or gain a lot. I’d try and go one diets, even in elementary school. But then i came to realize reality. My body is always going to be shaped the way its shaped. The beginning of high school was the beginning of my self-love journey, I was now surrounded by girls that are a little smaller than my size. I'm surrounded by beautiful thick girls who make me feel good about myself. I don't really worry as much about my size now, I am who I am. And I'm happy about the way I look. At one point in my life I let the Great Neck look be my inspiration. But not anymore. My new inspiration are the plus size models I see starting to come out onto the internet. Those are the girls I want to be. I want to show off my body because I love it. My body is what makes me happy. Thunder thighs won't ever become an insult. I will take it as a compliment because I love my thighs. I love my thighs, my stomach, my gut, my EVERYTHING. I am beautiful and i will never let anyone make me feel less.
Reflection 3
I had a lot of fun writing my Pierce The Veil poem. They’re my favorite band in the whole world. I love their personalities and just everything they do to make their fans happy. I think it’s super cool that they use their fan base as inspiration for some of their songs. .I saw them in concert in November and I can’t wait to see them again this summer.
I really enjoyed writing that poem because i was able to include one of my favorite bands in the world into something I had to do for school. Which is what I think made writing this poem more enjoyable. I don’t usually enjoy writing poems like I used to, but this was different. They’ve impacted my life and cheered me up so many times when I’ve been down. Just listening to them makes me automatically happy.
I really enjoyed writing that poem because i was able to include one of my favorite bands in the world into something I had to do for school. Which is what I think made writing this poem more enjoyable. I don’t usually enjoy writing poems like I used to, but this was different. They’ve impacted my life and cheered me up so many times when I’ve been down. Just listening to them makes me automatically happy.
Reflection 4
Last summer I had gone out when with friends who had just recently graduated. We went over to my friend Claudia’s house and her parents then told her she needed to help them find the way to a house in Kings Point that her mom was going to work at that night. Claudia told Dolly (my other friend) and I that we could stay at her house in the mean time but Dolly and I told her we weren’t going to leave her and we’d go all together.
And so the drive in the maze called Kings Point began. The sun was setting and it suddenly became night. What i want to know is, why doesn’t Kings Point have more street lights? Its literally scary as hell driving there at night. Especially when you don’t know where you’re going. We had been driving around for probably almost thirty minutes, we had drove up to a stop sign. Claudia looked left and right to make sure no one was coming. She drove straight until a Kings Point police car hit us on right. This scene replays in my head every now and then. I can still hear the screams in my head sometimes.
When my mom came and picked me up from the accident scene, my anxiety was uncontrollable. That night I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop shaking at the thought I could’ve died. I just wanted to be alone even though my parents wouldn’t let me. For the next couple days and weeks I wasn’t allowed to do pretty much anything. I was always home. Always under the watch of my parents.
This is the number one reason why I’m scared to start driving now. I don’t want that to ever happen to me again. The one thing I thought would never happen to me happened. Luckily i came out unharmed. Just a little traumatized. But unharmed.
Driving safety is such an important thing to me now because I’ve been in an accident. But sometimes I wonder, what happens if I was hurt? Who would come see me? What people would suddenly appear in my text messages pretending to care?
And so the drive in the maze called Kings Point began. The sun was setting and it suddenly became night. What i want to know is, why doesn’t Kings Point have more street lights? Its literally scary as hell driving there at night. Especially when you don’t know where you’re going. We had been driving around for probably almost thirty minutes, we had drove up to a stop sign. Claudia looked left and right to make sure no one was coming. She drove straight until a Kings Point police car hit us on right. This scene replays in my head every now and then. I can still hear the screams in my head sometimes.
When my mom came and picked me up from the accident scene, my anxiety was uncontrollable. That night I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop shaking at the thought I could’ve died. I just wanted to be alone even though my parents wouldn’t let me. For the next couple days and weeks I wasn’t allowed to do pretty much anything. I was always home. Always under the watch of my parents.
This is the number one reason why I’m scared to start driving now. I don’t want that to ever happen to me again. The one thing I thought would never happen to me happened. Luckily i came out unharmed. Just a little traumatized. But unharmed.
Driving safety is such an important thing to me now because I’ve been in an accident. But sometimes I wonder, what happens if I was hurt? Who would come see me? What people would suddenly appear in my text messages pretending to care?
Reflection 5
I hope reading my portfolio was worth while, although it might not be as impressive and elaborate as other portfolios. I am proud of what I have created for not only you Mr. Weinstein, but for everyone else who might see this one day. This year has been a fantastic year in your class and I can't wait to have you next year in Creative Writing. I think it'll be cool to see how much I've progressed from now until senior year in my writing and my creativity. This is farewell for now :)