In my life I had to do things I thought I would never do, but had to do for us to survive. My mother decided that delivering newspapers was a better job opportunity for us. We deliver the Examiner Newspaper in San Francisco on Saturdays from 8pm to 4am. This job was exhausting. I was often hungry because my mother could not afford food and the stacks of newspapers were heavy. During this time, we often had to skip meals because we could not afford to buy food, so we did not eat until midnight. In order to finish the work faster, I regularly had to carry a 40-50 pound bag on my back of the shoulders. I had to walk 1-2 blocks to deliver each newspaper on the doorstep. I sometimes felt ashamed of myself because people often saw me at nights having a bag with me. I thought people would say a bad comment and laugh at me because of how I was dressed for work. But I soon realized few other people were willing to do this job, so I learned not to care what others thought. While delivering the newspaper, I realized I want to be treated fairly. Personally, I have seen my mom take huge responsibilities in her job and not get paid enough to satisfy our needs. I started to look at education as a way out of this struggle. When I was in the back of the truck tossing the newspapers, I did not complain to my mom because it was the only way for us to finish the work faster. She did not have options to choose a decent job but to take what people were offering her. With a college degree, I will have more options for helping my mother financially. I often wish I had two parents to support me, but sadly I only have my mother. She never had a chance to attend college because she had to contribute to her parents’ income. They did not have enough money to pay for her education, instead she worked to contribute to help support her family. Despite the challenges I had experienced, I took the initiative to apply for a program called Build S.F. I’m one of the few from my school who took the initiative to pursue my passion, which is to be an architect. Build S.F helps me learn new skills of what an architect does in the real world. It has allowed me to work with other high school students in presentations, graphic designing, making models, and having the opportunity to intern in a structural engineering firm, Holmes Culley. Despite the challenges, I do not settle for the minimum, but challenge myself to try to participate in activities that would prepare me for college.