Things I Hate About High School

There are many things people hate about high school. In fact, there were many things that I hated about my high school, De La Salle North Catholic. For example, I hated the low student and teacher retention rate. I hated being required to buy uniforms from a retailer that had limited plus size options. I especially hated how the administration treated their staff and faculty members like second class citizens. But the building itself made much more of a positive impact on me than some of the negative people inside it did. It was what the building stood for that helped me develop into a more confident woman of color. De La Salle’s mission was to provide a quality education to young adults whose families were not well off enough to send their

I went to church every Wednesday and read my Bible as a “good Christian should.” I never thought that when I left high school that I would consider myself more spiritual rather than religious. This was mainly because of the monthly masses my school would have in the auditorium. During my freshman and sophomore years, the auditorium chairs were wooden and blemished from the building formerly an elementary school. The windows frames were horizontal and rectangular. The glass let in the sunlight like God’s blessing was raining down upon us low income city kids. The stage was unpolished and had its fair amount of abuse over the years, but we made the best of it. Cultural dances, controversial plays, and speeches were made on that chipping, old

It had a beautiful sky blue background along with trees, splashes of red, and our popular TriMet bus system. By my junior year, there was a brand new grey couch with a soft plush grey blanket. However, one could never see the couch or use the blanket because so many students would leave their bags, purses, homework, and clothing on the it. But Ms. Maher never minded because it was the evidence that the students who brightened her days decided to come to school that day. Her office housed the Lasallian Youth Ministry, which was simply called LYM among the school population. During all of my years at De La Salle, LYM was bustling with students who needed to get work done and sign up for service trips. There were times when the two white tables were dirty with crumbs of chicken burritos from lunch time and when the tables were unusable due to paint splatters of blue, grey, and orange. The many days I spent in this room managed to change my perspective on the terms “religious” and