Parents often make the biggest sacrifices, unbeknownst to their children. Growing up, like most other kids, I was made oblivious to our family's financial situation. Occasionally my father would indulge me in an ice cream sandwich at school movie nights for a dollar or two. Ever so often my mother would buy me the Mexican chocolate marshmallow treat at the checkout stand, there to allure customers into making impulsive purchases. And so, I thought I was no different from any other child. It wasn't until middle school, in seeing my father struggle to pay rent to upkeep his failing business that I realized that, maybe we were poor. All those sparingly given treats as a child, masked the financial instability over the years, of never being able to attend school field trips, or having to have sympathizing teachers pay for a couple of rounds at the arcade to be able to play with the other children. More than that though, it opened up my eyes to the perseverance of my parents over the decades. From the stories they told me of their life in their home country, working at odd jobs, to living in the basement of an apartment just to afford a living for their newborn child, gave privy to their own struggles in life. Later they divorced and remain on bad terms to this day. Being still in middle school, this affected my mental health immensely, leading to a lack of motivation and focus in my studies and personal relations. However, unlike myself, my parents approached the situation head-on; my mother found a job as a deliveryman, often working into late hours of the morning to fulfill Uber orders, and my father persisted, attempting to find a way to make ends meet as a single parent. Seeing their tenacity, looking back, they were the biggest influence in teaching me to both be kind and have drive. I began to take my studies more seriously and reach out to those in need, volunteering at a local Petco. In high school, I took as many APs as I could to compensate for my low SAT scores, even signing up for four in my sophomore year. Though TRHS only offered two of the four at that time, I put my fullest efforts into the sole AP class that I could take, vowing to myself to do my best with what I was given as my parents had. I stayed up many a late night, binge-watching Heimler's history videos to reinforce the lecture the teacher had given the day prior, furiously trying to transcribe every word she'd said, hoping to review and compile it later to be used as study material before the AP test. Had I known about IB classes earlier, I would have also signed up for them, but I arrived in my junior year, so AP was the only avenue. In my senior year, I took two dual enrollment classes, college algebra and psychology, and am currently taking AP LIT, though I know the class won't be weighted in my college application decision. Rather, I want to challenge myself, by taking my least favorite (and weakest) subjects. These classes have helped me develop technical soft skills and stronger confidence in my academic and social abilities. Although the term “hardworking” is subjective, and I believe I have not embodied it to its fullest yet, there is always room for growth and as I also work a part-time job after school, I believe I'm trying to the best of my abilities to fulfill that legacy of hard work within the family.