“What inspires me the most is my future goals. I think about my future and how I want it to turn out every day and I base all my decisions on it. Whenever I feel discouraged, I think about the life that I want and it keeps me going.  My favorite part of high school is all the events. They’ve made the best memories for me so far and I always look forward to them. It’s hard sometimes to juggle everything, but I manage my schoolwork, social life, and extracurriculars by time management. I plan out my whole day while I’m getting ready for school, which usually includes what homework I’ll probably have and softball practice. I only make plans with friends if I feel like I have time or on the weekend. The people that help me most are my family. They have always been so supportive of me and push me to be the best that I can be. They are also very understanding of the stress that I’m sometimes under and do their best to help ease it for me. Something I admire about Pinole Valley is the staff. I feel like our staff and administration really goes out of their way to form relationships with students. Going to school feels much better when you feel that people are looking out for you and you have people to turn to. Some things that make me happy are my family, my boyfriend, my friends, softball and some of my classes. It’s fun to be really involved with the school but sometimes it can be challenging. I love that I always know what’s going on and that I get to participate in many things. Sometimes it can be a lot to manage but I go back to my time planning and I can handle it. My goals for the future are to attend a 4-year university and major in neurology or psychology and then go to medical school and get my Ph.D. in radiology. I would say one of my biggest accomplishments is attending classes at Contra Costa College during the school year. It was definitely a huge challenge trying to balance normal homework and college homework, especially because of the AP classes I was taking. There were many times I asked my mom to drop the class but she pushed me to keep going and I ended up getting an A in Calculus 2. I was so successful that I took Calculus 3 this year in the fall and also did very well.”