400 word autobiography

When we were young, we were a pair, partners in crime. My sister was my confidante, my role model and my best friend. We were inseparable. One of my favorite memories with her was when we entertained Old Orchard mall by singing, “We are dageos”, a song from the TV show, The Angry Beavers, on the outdoor patio of the restaurant Hulahands.
I remember the time we had to sleep in our basement for almost a month while our bedrooms were being redone. My parents still say to this day that they can’t believe they let us sleep down there alone, since I was only 8 and my sister 12. We caused havoc wherever we went, out of our parent’s sight of course. We mixed drinks of ketchup and water and salt during dinner and stole packets of sugar to eat later in the night when we were supposed to be sleeping. Stephanie was someone I could always turn to, someone whom I could plot with about our next crazy scheme, and most importantly, she’s my sister.
But all of that faded too quickly, Stephanie is 4 years my senior, and she grew up faster than anyone could have predicted. The summer going into her freshman year of high school Stephanie went away to camp, and came back a new person. She wore makeup now, wanted to get her belly button pierced, wore a lot less clothes that showed a lot more and she just was not the person I remembered her being just a few weeks prior. I didn’t like this new person; she was mean, never home, always on the phone and always fighting with my parents about something. This was the start of the downward slope.
Stephanie went to high school and made new friends, friends you wouldn’t want your daughter hanging out with in high school. She started dating a football player who was a year older. His drug and alcohol problems trickled down to her, and she became addicted. I can’t say I remember much about this time in both of our lives, mainly because I’ve blocked it out. Our house was constantly filled with the screams of my sister and the angry words of my father, I would lock myself in my room, watching the TV my parents of given me, for the sole purpose of having something to drown out the screaming from downstairs.
After high school, Stephanie went to ASU for not even a semester, having to drop out due to excessive drug use and the fact the she never went to a single class. She moved back home during my freshman year, just when I thought I had escaped the madness, it was thrown back upon me.
I guess I could say I’m almost thankful for Stephanie’s struggles, now that she has conquered them and is finally doing something with her life. If it weren’t for her problems and constant mistakes, I wouldn’t know first-hand how destructive drugs can be to oneself and the people who surround them. Today Stephanie and I can talk openly about her drug addictions and what triggered them, it’s been the first time in a long time where I actually feel like I have a sister again.

Rough Draft

The University of Illinois Fantasy

In the beginning…

“I’ve got a surprise for you.” My dad said, his face full of excitement. Being only 12, any kind of surprise from my father was compelling.

“What is it? What is it?” I shrieked with delight.

“We’re going to take a little drive down to one of the best places in the world; The University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.” He exclaimed with a dreamy look in his eyes.

This was how it all started, the ‘University of Illinois fantasy’. Every parent wants their children to get the best education possible and for them to be the best that they can be. In a lot of situations parents have a school that they dream their kid could get into, obviously in my case that was U of I. I would assume that once it became clear to some parents that their kid’s GPA, ACT or SAT scores just aren’t good enough to get them into that dream school, they would come to terms with reality and would adapt their ideas of a dream school to something more realistic. Unfortunately this was not the case in my family.

History Lesson

It started with the pizza, Papa Dell’s pizza. Every pizza we would have now he would compare to Papa Dell’s, the pizza he would have at the U of I. My dad had lived in an apartment above Papa Dell’s while attending college in Champaign. He would always tell me stories about how he and his roommates would have the pizza delivered, despite being only a flight of stairs away. I thought this was hilarious and brilliant, and I still do because if I were him I would do the same thing. Stories like these are what made U of I my new dream school.

High School Blues

As high school progressed, reality set in, with me that is, that acceptance to the University of Illinois was slightly out of reach. It wasn’t that I was getting bad grades; they just weren’t U of I material. The truth was, as I got older and realized that there were actually other colleges out there other than the University of Illinois that I would rather go to, I let the dream of going there slip away. Unfortunately, my dad held fast to this fantasy, and in his mind, there are no other colleges that would be good enough for me out there. It’s either go to University of Illinois or go to a community college for a year or so then transfer into U of I, like what he did back in 1971.

Obviously, being a high school senior, those are not my plans. I’m applying to, and will end up going to the school I want to, and it’s not going to be U of I. Sorry Dad.

Overall…

We went for the pizza. My dad raved about the pizza. I had heard so many stories about that pizza. But when we finally got there my nose was too stuffed up, and I never even got to taste it. This ‘famous’ pizza was at Papa Dell’s on campus at the University of Illinois at Champaign – Urbana, my dad’s alma mater.

Probably ever since I was born it was my dad’s dream for me to go to the University of Illinois. He had enrolled there in 1971 after transferring from Chicago City College, with only a 19 on his ACT. He went there to be with his friends, not for the academic, and ended up having the time of his life. He is still best friends with the people he had met there and I know he wants the same thing for me.

Things are much different than they were in 1971. If you tried to get into the University of Illinois with a 19 on your ACT, I’m assuming the admission staff would throw back their head and laugh at you and your feeble attempt for acceptance. Not that I got a 19 on my ACT, a 27 actually, but a 27 is still sub-par when trying to get accepted into the best public school in the state of Illinois. So, despite my dad’s dream and my hard, but not hard enough, work, I still won’t be able to get into the University of Illinois.

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We went for the pizza. My dad raved about the pizza. I had heard so many stories about that pizza. But when we finally got there my nose was too stuffed up, and I never even got to taste it. This ‘famous’ pizza was at Papa Dell’s on campus at the University of Illinois at Champaign – Urbana, my dad’s alma mater.

Probably ever since I was born it was my dad’s dream for me to go to the University of Illinois. He had enrolled there in 1971 after transferring from Chicago City College, with only a 19 on his ACT. He went there to be with his friends, not for the academic, and ended up having the time of his life. He is still best friends with the people he had met there and I know he wants the same thing for me.

Things are much different than they were in 1971. If you tried to get into the University of Illinois with a 19 on your ACT, I’m assuming the admission staff would throw back their head and laugh at you and your feeble attempt for acceptance. Not that I got a 19 on my ACT, a 27 actually, but a 27 is still sub-par when trying to get accepted into the best public school in the state of Illinois. So, despite my dad’s dream and my hard, but not hard enough, work, I still won’t be able to get into the University of Illinois.