Lina Lahdhiri

Point of View: It’s the first day of school and you’re walking down the halls of Troy High and you see a frightened doe-eyed freshman running to catch the third hour bell. She can’t even look a senior in the eyes, but the clock is ticking and she summons the powers of Usain Bolt, attempting to turn a three-minute walk through hallway traffic into 20-seconds. She’s almost there, her arms are stacked with books twice her weight. Just when she’s about to reach her class, she trips, landing flat on her face, causing her books to go flying to China. The first day of high school, and I got myself a broken nose. In front of what felt like half the school. Yet all I could think about was “GOD IM LATE”.

Hi, I’m Lina Lahdhiri, a senior at Troy High School, and I think it’s safe to say that while I have definitely grown from the freshman I was that day, this story gives you an accurate representation of me! See, I wasn’t upset that day that everyone watched me fall, or that I broke my nose, I was solely upset that I had not made it to class on time. I could talk to you about how I am fluent in Arabic, French, and English. I could talk to you about how I’ve been a swimmer all my life. Or about how I have perfectionist tendencies and value hard work. But above all, I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t grown and learned from my past mistakes. Throughout my four years of high school, I learned many new lessons that shaped me into being the leader I am today. I seized every opportunity as a learning lesson, rather than a bad memory. Since then, I have come to recognize and fully appreciate the value of knowledge and determination, and have incorporated it into various other aspects of my life –not just school.

I got out of my comfort zone, left my “clique” and found a part of me I didn’t even know existed. I guess you could say my alter-ego was lurking around in my brain, waiting to be unleashed.

I took up a cashier job at Panera Bread, and I have been working there for over two years now. I hated it at first. Actually despised it. But after you start to view learning from a different perspective, everything in life gets easier. Set aside the “ugh that was so embarrassing!” remarks and replace it with, “next time I’ll do this…” Of course it wasn’t all fun and games, there were still many instances where I had dropped a tub of dressing on me, or even burned a whole order. But hey! That’s bound to happen to even the best of us.