Both of my parents are from Laos originally, but they moved to Thailand before I was born. My older sister and older brother were both born there. Then they went to the Philippines and had me, then we moved to California where they had my little brother. They came to Providence for the job opportunities and because we have family out here, but I miss California, and the weather. I really want to visit my family in California this summer.
I'm excited to graduate, but I'm also a little scared, scared to move on. I'm going to college at Syracuse in New York. It's a big school and I don't know anybody there. I was doing some research online and talking to some people in the Syracuse chat rooms—they seemed really nice.
I play soccer, volleyball, and basketball. This year I only played volleyball, but we only lost one game, so we were on the top of our division. But we lost our playoff game. It's too bad, because everyone was working and stuff, so we couldn't really practice together—so I totally understand that. I used to work at the movie theater, but I quit this year because I wanted to be able to attend all the senior events. It was great-we got free passes and stuff like that.
I'm going to miss all the vocational classes, like Culinary Arts. Our freshman year they let us explore a bunch of different classes: Culinary Arts, Carpentry, Electricity, Graphic Arts, Auto Mechanics, Cosmetology. I did Computer Science, then our junior year we went to Cisco Networks where they teach you how to network computers. They showed us how to connect everything like in a big school or a company.
When I leave, I'm going to miss my friends, and my teachers. I guess just the school in general. The teachers are really caring. They talk to you when you need help with something. Like if you need help on your work they talk to you. They'll meet with you after class or after school. You can talk to them about anything—personal problems if you want to. Anything, really.
I'd make the academics more challenging if I could. They could give us more work and be stricter about that work. I wish they'd just throw all the work at me—all the hard work. I'm ready for it.
I was scared about coming to Central before I started. If you say Central High School people look down on you... But it's not true at all what the outsider thinks. I don't really correct people when I hear them saying things about Central—I know that I'm not going to change their minds. They need to come here and see it for themselves. And if they're not willing to do that, then it's not worth my time to worry about what they think about my school.
When I was in ninth grade I had a negative impression of this school. But now as I'm graduating and four whole years are almost behind me, my view has totally changed. I don't even want to leave now. I feel a sense of ownership over this place. It's like home to me.
Cassandra Santos>>
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