Personal Narrative Analysis

Sunday mornings used to consist of lethargic snuggling underneath oversized thermal blankets while binge-watching Netflix for hours with family. Weekends were my favorite because it was the one time during the week I was able to laze in the comforting presence of my mother whom I rarely encountered because of her hectic work schedule. Since my parents divorced when I was only about five years old, I was raised by a hard-working single mother for the majority of my life, 2,614 miles away from my estranged father whom I rarely talk to except on birthdays and national holidays. Not only did my mother have to balance supporting me, but also my grandfather in the Philippines who was in critical condition after his third stroke in May of last year. My aunts and uncles could not cover the medical expenses on their own, so my mother invested as much as she could for the sake of her father. The distress and devastation my mother

Mondays consisted of strenuous battling of heavy eyelids while sitting through monotonous lectures. The rest of the week became a repetitious cycle of attending school, working, and coming home late to finish hours of AP coursework. Because I worked a minimum wage job, I had to take on as many shifts possible and accumulate as many hours as I could to earn a decent amount of money. However, I found the job extremely time-consuming and fatiguing. Luxuries of "sleep" and "leisure time" vanished from my vocabulary. I had less time to focus on school and could not create opportunities to do my usual after school tutoring for my peers. Because I arrived home close to midnight during the weekdays, I often rushed to finish my homework just so that I could go straight to sleep. Gradually, my grades began to slip. Though I was physically present in class, I was too busy dozing off to be mentally present and absorb any useful