7“You're a man now” was how my parents started the conversation. I learned from a very young age the realities of poverty. While my peers enjoyed their early teenage years playing video games, sports and watching Netflix, I was tasked to help my parents do janitorial work. At first, I felt frustrated and thought the situation was unfair. I had to spend multiple hours every weekday lessening the burden of work from my parent's shoulders. Not only did I have significantly less free time on my hands. It also started to affect me academically, emotionally, and physically. I needed to follow a strict schedule to continue getting grades that pleased my own and my parents' standards. I started to envy other students who had a simpler life than me. I was always tired after my long weekdays from school and work. I felt like I was out of place in the school because not many people had schedules like me apart from my twin brother. With high school coming up, I was still working many hours throughout the day. This made it difficult for me to balance work and keep my grades afloat. However, ap classes were one of the options for me to learn new things. It was a rigorous path. The other option was the IB course. My current situation where I had to work every weekday did not allow me to take on the challenge of continuing the program. I felt like it was my duty to help my parents provide for the family and even if it comes at the cost of my education. Working as a janitor allows you to work at many locations. I worked at many different types of doctor offices and electrical engineering offices. When I was cleaning the electrical engineering offices I was amazed at all the computers, gadgets, papers, and scribbles on the whiteboard they had. I wanted to play with the technology but I didn’t for obvious reasons. I want to expand my knowledge so I can help others like them Right before I started my senior year of high school, my parents informed me that it was not necessary to continue working as a cleaner. I was happy that I didn’t have to work and have more free time but, I do have a new respect for the people who do the dirty work to keep the world running. I try my best to keep things clean and pick up my garbage in public areas seeing that I worked the tiring job of being a janitor for almost 5 years. Janitorial work taught me firsthand who has to deal with the carelessness of others when cleaning up other people's messes. I had also, experienced others looking down on me because I was working as a cleaner so they made messes on purpose for me to clean since they were higher on the social hierarchy. This difficult job humbled me and encouraged me to develop the respect and discipline to pick after myself and to treat others equally. I also used my newly acquired free time to join clubs at my school and to be more involved in the community. I did community service for the couple of days I had left before I became a senior at cypress creek high school. It was a campus cleanup. I wanted to help the janitors at my school out by helping them clean up the school before the new school year started. My outlook on reality changed that summer.