Category: Piece of the Week

-DLR, Sacramento  I identify myself as a good man and a God-fearing man. I hope it isn’t different than how my friends and family see me, but I think they see me the same.  If they see me differently it’s because they see the old me. I would like to change how people see me if they still see the old me because I am changing every day.  A decision that was incredibly challenging for me was to take a plea deal for my case. I had the option to go through trial or take three years, even though I’d

-Heart Broken, Stanislaus To be honest, I feel like the hardest decision I’ve ever made was probably to stop giving my love to my first love. Reason is because at first sight, I was so in love with her I almost felt like we was meant to be.  Every day I felt like I needed to talk to her to see her or something that gave me some type of contact with her. She was selling the dream so good I almost felt like it was real until she kept on cheating, and even then I thought it was somewhat

-Fred, San Francisco  Hard work to me means getting through the day without doing anything that might get me in trouble.  Hard work to me also means taking care of siblings when my parents are out because it’s always something going on between them. I’ll have to decide what I should do to keep them from hurting each other or messing up around the house.  I know that my mom has a hard time waking all of my siblings up for school because my siblings go to different schools and she has to take the little ones to school somewhere

-PJ, Marin  I do believe I am my worst enemy. I believe this because I feel the only person holding you back is yourself.  There are times where people blame others for when things are going wrong in their life. But I’ve always believed that you are in full control of what happens and you can separate yourself from people you don’t agree with. You can drop bad habits by yourself alone, even if it may be hard.  You have no one — and I mean no one — to blame. You decide what you doing what you don’t, which

-Sanguine, Santa Cruz  I like to express my creativity in a lot of different ways. I like to draw, write, take pictures and play instruments, especially the electric guitar. Sometimes I cook. I mix a couple of different desserts together to make a new one or sometimes I make crazy sandwiches, instant ramen and add a couple of extra ingredients or just go simple and cook a steak.  I especially like grilling. When my family has carne asada(grilled meat), it’s usually me or my pops who’s grilling and my mom mixing the salsa, guac, beans and rice. I’m not such

-JP, Sacramento Support systems are important. My family is my biggest support system and they come to all of my court dates.  I think it’s important to have good support systems because if you don’t, people will not have good mental health. If I didn’t have the support I do have right now, my mental health would not be as good. My mental health is not the best, but it would be a lot worse if my family wasn’t able to see me.  People need support even if they think they don’t. I believe they need them a lot more

-Samantha, Marin   Forgiveness. I always wish I knew how to forgive, truly forgive. My biological mother just came back into my life recently. For the first time since I was five years old, I hadn’t seen or heard anything about her since then.  I was scared of her to say the least. She exposed me to things no child should ever be exposed to at that age. No person or child should ever, I mean never, be exposed to what she did. She ruined my childhood. I never will be able to really be a kid.  At six years

-Sanguine, Santa Cruz I rarely receive any compliments honestly. The times that I do it’s often on my outfits or my taste in music. My usual response goes like, “Thank you.”  I feel a little awkward after, like I should’ve said something different or my response was too dry. I don’t really know how to take compliments because, like I said, I rarely receive them. What I find even harder or more awkward is how to respond to people after giving them a compliment.  Usually, when I give someone a compliment they usually respond with something like “Aw, thank you,”

-Chucky, San Francisco In ten years, if I receive a letter from myself, I will be very surprised and proud of myself that I’ve made it this far. What I would tell my future self is to never give up on your dreams. Your dreams and aspirations will lead you to what is destined.  I’ll tell myself to always keep your closest family and friends, and never to give up on them. Family and friends are all we got.  What I want to tell myself is that, although you had an extremely rough start with childhood, you can’t let this

-Smalls, San Diego  Being grown up, in my honest opinion, I think requires being responsible and respectful. I think that I’m somewhat grown up, I just goof around too much and growing up my parents taught me to be respectful. Today was pretty alright. I woke up late. I lowkey had a weird dream about aliens and two hundred animals, which was plenty. Well, then I called my lil girlfriend and she had to go ‘cause she had school. Then after I hung up on her I worked out with the homie.  I remember as a kid how I would