from failing to thriving

By: Lois Solorio

Yerba Buena High School student Marlene Martinez had started her high school years getting into a habit of skipping and failing. She is now trying to finish off her last year of high school by listening to the music she loves and having family there for her. It motivates her to do good in her last year of high school.

 Freshman year Martinez would skip a lot with her friends and got comfortable with doing it because she was easily influenced.

 “I would skip during my freshman year because I had bad influence from friends. So then they would tell me, “lets skip” and I would go with them. It was easy for me to do it so I kept doing it

During her sophomore year, Martinez wouldn't do classwork, which caused her to fail classes that she would have to retake her junior year. “I wouldn't do my work so that made me fail some classes and I had to retake them junior year.” 

Martinez would skip classes with her friends which was the cause of her not being able to keep up with school work.

Consequently, Marlene became stressed with work and having to figure out ways to be able to do good in classes.

Marlene had to find a way to stop the constant cycle of having the habit of skipping classes. She figured out that listening to the music she loved helped her concentrate and keep up with school work. “when i would fall behind on homework and i would have to do all of my work in one day so i think music really helped me concentrate”.

Marlene loves listening to music. It can help her in certain situations whether it's stressful, sad, or just needs to clear her mind. Her favorite genre of music is Mexican music. 

“to listen to Junior H or Ivan Cornejo. I've been to the Ivan Cornejo concert before. I relate to their music in the way they express themselves in love.

The stress of school work also comes with being sad at times because of that stress but Martinez had her family to cheer her up.

“When I feel sad my mom is always telling me everything is going to be okay and like you're not going to be sad forever.”

Martinez is now in her last year of high school trying to push through stressful challenges that might come her way once again. But now with the support of her parents by her side she feels more motivated then she has before.