Struggles of a Sixth Grader

Artist Statement

When writing my memoir Vignette I chose to write about my 6th-grade experience because it was a key event in my life that made me the person I am today, similar to how Trever Noah wrote about his education and how that also affected his life in Born a Crime. Some examples of this are in Chapter 10: A Young Man’s Long, Awkward, Occasionally Tragic, and Frequently, Humiliating Education in Affairs of the Heart, Part I: Valentine’s Day, Chapter 11: Outsider, Chapter 12: A Young Man’s Long, Awkward, Occasionally Tragic, and Frequently, Humiliating Education in Affairs of the Heart, Part II: The Crush, Chapter 13: Colorblind, Chapter 14: A Young Man’s Long, Awkward, Occasionally Tragic, and Frequently, and Humiliating Education in Affairs of the Heart, Part III: The Dance. The Sixth Grade experience, though painful, molded me to be the person I am today. I discovered that I am a pretty cool person regardless of what others think about me. I developed compassion for the downtrodden and rejected in society because isolation and rejection is an unpleasant experience. Not only that, but I realized that in life, shallow people exist and there is nothing you can do to impress them that will cause them to change their attitudes and impressions about you. They are self-conscious people and are consumed tremendously by how others view them. This experience prepared me for the Science Leadership Academy. I learned to be bold in new environments and to not try to adapt to who I was to fit in the environment. As Winston Churchill stated, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” I had a lot of failures that 6th-grade year, however, my failures were not fatal. In fact, my courage to continue made me a stronger person, therefore, leading me to future successes.