Lost Bond
One thing I stole from myself is my relationship with my sister. I used to mean more then my mom to my little sister. I protected her, loved her, cheered her up, and comforted her. But growing up, I guess I didn’t pay much attention to her and sadly I lost that close bond with my little sister.
Nowadays we are always yelling at one another and constantly complaining about one another. When we do this I’ll usually say, “Ugh! I wish I could have my old little sister! Give her back!” I don’t know how this makes her feel, but I know it’s not just her, it’s me too. I try to understand her, but she’s just different and annoyed by me. One way to patch things up between me and my little sister is for me to pay closer attention to her. I have to show her that I really do care about her and she can count on me. I have to show her that yelling doesn’t have to be the only way we communicate.
-Angelina, 17
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Taking It Too Easy
Sometimes I feel like I’ve robbed myself of my education. My freshman year of high school, I took AP Human Geography. I felt like I gave myself a challenge, but when it came to my sophomore year, I felt like I didn’t want to take AP classes.
I remember the day we did pre-registration for my sophomore classes. Everyone knew what classes they wanted to take. Everyone knew which teachers taught what and what classes were challenging. Most of my friends signed up for AP Euro, and I decided not to. I wanted to have free time to myself and I wanted to take it easy that year. Ever since my sophomore year, I felt like taking it easy. I am now a senior, taking it easy.
I now regret taking it easy these past few years because now I’m worried about college. What if colleges look at the classes I’ve taken and realize that I like to take things easy? What if, for the rest of my life, I take things easy? If only I were able to turn back time, but seeing how I can’t turn back time, I guess I should be happy that I’m challenging myself with AP Calculus this year.
-Arena, 17
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Summer Love
When I think about robbing myself, I think of the time I robbed myself of the opportunity to love and be loved. During the summer of 2009, I met and fell in love with a boy named Keith. We met through a friend and since then we’ve been attracted to each other.
Every night, we’d talk about our hopes and dreams and happy times. He’d tell me of the times when he grew up in Galway, Ireland. His amazing Irish accent made me fall in love with him even more. I’d tell him of the times I was alone, thinking and praying for the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He’d listen. I’d laugh at his jokes. We’d comfort each other.
After spending 37 days talking and getting to know one another, he took me out on our first date. We went to a river dance recital. It was amazing, just to see him light up. He lit up even more when we got the chance to dance. We had so much fun. For the next two weeks, we spent every day with each other, singing and laughing. The beginning of August, we had a week together before he went back to Galway. He told me that he wanted a relationship and he was willing to stay here and make it work. But I robbed myself of a chance to love an amazing person and to be loved back.
I explained to him that my heart felt like it wasn’t ready to love again. My previous relationship was abusive and to love again was such a hard thing to do. We cried when he left on the 11th and I felt so guilty for “rejecting” him. But we didn’t end our “romance.” Though he lives in Ireland, we still talk through Myspace and phone and letters.
-Ena, 15
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Live And Learn
I personally believe I have stolen part of my education and youth from myself. Getting into a relationship my first year of high school deprived me from doing things that most normal teenagers did during their first year. Not only that but having a relationship so early caused many problems for me, which caused my grades to decline and I wasn’t able to bring them up high as I would of liked.
The same thing happened with my sophomore year. I was in a relationship most of that year as well, but it caused even more problems, which screwed up my academic GPA. I’m still having a hard time raising it to the point where I want. But hey I’m trying my hardest and it’s gradually getting better. I’ve made some mistakes that I can’t fix, which have taught me not to be so naive as I was my first two years of high school. Live and learn.
-Gracie, 17
In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.
Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.
The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.
