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Hi, my name is Melanie
I am 17 years old. I go to Western International High School
I live in Detroit, Michigan.
and I am finally a senior, and I just can't wait till I graduate.
This is my room. I pretty much don't have any of my posters and stuff up because we're moving.
So, I kind of took almost everything down. I was
in the Greece play, and this is my "Pink Ladies" jacket.
I was one of the main people in it.
I am a Nintendo freak, and I love swimming.
We are 4th in state right now. So, we're
doing pretty good. The most thing that's hard for me
is pretty much doing homework.
and reading. I have a ...
it's called lead poisoning and I was
born with it. So, school work
and papers and stuff like that, that holds me back
because it's like, one, I am a really slow reader.
Two, I can't really comprehend most things.
And three, I have a speech disability. So,
I have an individual education plan.
And what it is, is everything I am going through, everything
You know I need, or what I don't need, what helps me, what doesn't
help me. When I was younger, in 5th
I think that the 4th grade, I used to get teased a lot because
I was in special ed. Then when I hit 6th and 7th and 8th grade
I used to get teased even more. I used to hate telling people
I am going to Miss Harper's class. Because everyone knew Miss Harper was the
special ed teacher. So I used to always keep it really really quiet.
And then when kids started finding out, they were like, "Oh, she's special
ed, Oh you're special". When I hit 10th and
11th grade this year, I was like I don't know if
I still want to finish school, because
all my friends were still saying I was special ed.
Sports and computers just help me get through it. When I am on the computer
it's like, I don't have to worry about speeding it up
or hear someone say "now you're going to slow", or "now you're doing this wrong"
or "you're doing that wrong" There has been times where I just wanted to
quit school. There has been times I did not want to be in school anymore.
The making fun of, the teachers not
understanding, the people nagging
at me all the time. "Oh you can't read" all this.
All of that. There has been times I told my Mom and Dad I can't
do it. I don't want to do it.
This disability thing is going to be with me all of my life.
My biggest worry is if this
follows me, is it going to
affect where I try to work
or where I want to be, or
even if I were to got out of state or
if I were to keep on working with computers and stuff?
would that affect me? That's the thing I am really worried about.
Is if my disability still going to affect me.