YANA PADTE

Junior

“My brother was born when I was 10 years old, so I was already pretty old when he was born, and my parents obviously had to give a lot of their attention to him because he was a baby. And I don't really know if this counts as a sacrifice, but I feel like in these past years, just because I was old enough to understand that my parents couldn't give me as much attention as they used to when I was an only child, I think I've sacrificed a lot of time that I could have spent with them. I don't ask them for much because I don't want to make it seem like I’m really needy. I've been able to learn how to do things on my own and I really don't ask for help that often from anyone. But I think that because they've had to take care of my brother for so many years, because he's still pretty young — he just started elementary school — I think I've definitely sacrificed a lot of time. That can be kind of sad because [I am] going to college soon so it kind of sucks that I wasn't able to spend as much time with them, but I think that was probably a pretty significant sacrifice that I had to make. 

It just taught me how strong I was and how I don't give up on a lot of things. I don't let go of things easily — if I set my mind to something, I will figure out how to do it, and it doesn't really matter if people are there to help me or not, I'll figure it out on my own. It really just taught me to be super independent, and I think that obviously, as someone who's growing up here, being independent is a huge thing and I also realized that [independence] isn't something that you can learn from your parents, it's more [of] something that you have to develop on your own. I was also able to learn and [absorb] a lot about my environment and the people around me because my parents weren't always there to tell me what I should and should not do, especially in social environments, because they're always busy with work. I really had to just learn all that on my own and if I made mistakes, I had to grow from them, but if I did something well, I was always able to enjoy that because I knew that it was [from] my hard work and I had really just done everything for myself up to that point.