My Senior Prom

Friday. May 11, 2001. John O’Connell High School. Atrium. I shake hands with my U.S. Government’s teacher.
“Good morning, Mr. Bruni. Today is my birthday.”
“Happy Birthday!”
I shake my teacher’s hand as I smile casually. This is my way of getting other people to wish me a happy birthday, which might seem immature to some people, but it works!
While today is my 18th birthday, I am not happy, personally, because it’s the last year I’ll be able to
earlier this year after realizing that I don’t have anything to look forward to, even if I am a senior at John O’Connell High School and in Special Ed
Today is my. Should I be happy? Yes. But am I? No, because I have been feeling apathetic. Being apathetic
The answer lies at the end of the tunnel.
I’ve been in Special Ed since the First Grade. Taking a test the second time while at UCSF is what put me here. I had woken up from a 21-day-coma in Peru from a traumatic car accident I had been in. I had suffered the worst pain imaginable, which was why I had to endure being in this circle of students. I’ve been on the Honor Roll on-and-off since my Freshmen year, proving to teachers that I am not as dumb as I seem. This year, however, has been tough since the school relocated back to its district of origin, the Mission, on Folsom Street.
I’ve been taking Study Skills since my freshman year. The class was assigned to
me because of my learning disability. I acquired it back in 1987 while on vacation in
Peru, my father’s home country. I was 4 1⁄2 at the time. I ended up in a 3­week coma.
The day I woke up, I said: “Alex.”
Over the years I’ve heard different versions of what really happened: That the
pickup truck my family and I were on flipped over down a hill. An ambulance that drove
by noticed the upside down vehicle on the road and rushed us to the hospital. Because I
was in the worst condition humanly imaginable, my father and I were the first to return to
San Francisco wh