Category: Piece of the Week

-CG, Sacramento On the outs I have a fun and simple life. Most days, I’m with my family spending it playing video games, watching TV, or playing sports at the park. After school, I go over to my friend’s house and we go out to Fire Wings and have some fun. My friends and I go out and do some stuff I can’t say. I’m up till midnight out with my friends and having fun. In the day, I go to my brother’s house and play some Assassins Creed. After that I’m back at home and then I go out

-Priscilla, Santa Clara If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple: know what you are doing; love what you are doing; believe in what you are doing.  For years I’ve defined success as knowing your purpose, growing to your potential, sowing seeds that benefit others, by making the right value choices and living them every day! Success isn’t something you achieve. Successful is something you are.  For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train,

-GH, Stanislaus People say dreams are “a way for our brains to process information gathered during the day.” I beg to differ — I don’t always agree with this statement.  It’s actually ironic that I was just talking to my mom at visiting (because I’m currently in juvenile hall) and somehow the topic of “dreams” came up. I told her I had a dream of my grandma, which is my mom’s mom. It was odd for me because my grandma passed away three years ago in July.  Ever since she passed, I would ask God why he wouldn’t give me

-Siam, San Mateo  I chose “sharing my passion” because I like playing football and boxing. And what makes me wake up in the morning and to keep going is my family because I want to make it to the top to get my family out of an apartment and the ghetto. And also I want to be the first one to make it to the top playing football, hopefully making it playing football or the NFL. If I don’t make it to the NFL I’m going to try to invest in real estate because I would love to sell houses

-Serenity, San Diego The movie of life changed my perspective; not social media or an actual movie. The story of people like me changed the way I act and my perspective on people.  We were introduced to this lifestyle at a young age. Whether we were raised like this or not, our destiny always catches up to us.  Even if we try to change, the system won’t let us. We’re labeled as the product of our society or our past. If nice girls finish first, maybe my attitude would change. The only question I was left with is, does it

-B, Sacramento  My first experience with true love, pure love is with my daughter. My moms tried to provide that for me. My child’s mother tried to give that to me, but the love my mother showed me didn’t process in my mind what it really was.  So, I suffered from abandonment issues and I would push away the people who loved me, until I met my daughter in person. It changed my whole world and perspective on love and how to love, so I’ve been working on myself.            You have to love yourself before

-Efrain, San Mateo My proudest accomplishment has to be learning how to learn from my mistakes. Even right now, I’m taking every loss as a lesson instead of letting it get to me and letting it make me feel worse. Even in situations like this, I’ve got to learn to not let things get to me.  Even if the situation is big or small, I know eventually I’ll go home. Even if it isn’t anytime soon, I’ll use this to endure and hopefully not go back to what I used to do, because I don’t want to end up dead

-Mardell, San Bernardino Change is one of the most mandatory aspects of life. With change comes growth and new experiences, even if these new changes come off as scary or terrifying.  They need to happen for our character, our lives, our relationships. Change can be beautiful — things like flowers, caterpillars, nature in general. Without change, we wouldn’t see these beautiful things. Change is wonderful, terrifying, and necessary.  If we do not change, we do not grow. 

by Londell, San Francisco This is a breakdown of 2023. This past year I learned about accomplishing things and doing better things. This year I experienced some things that are not healthy and some that are. It’s difficult looking back on 2023 because it was a better year than the one that just started.  The start of my 2024 is kind of going bad. It’s bad because I can’t go home. When I look back on 2023 the biggest lesson I learned was not to come to jail, but I still came. It’s important to reflect on what we have

by SB, Sacramento  “Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.” -Lord Byron When they say, “Always laugh when you can,” it’s true because I have a cousin at the age of twelve who had surgery. He lost both his legs and all his fingers. He was depressed because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do the stuff that he wanted to do.  Before the surgery, he was playing flag football. He didn’t like the fact that his friends were still having fun and he wasn’t. His friends stopped being friends with him for the fact he