Every little girl finds someone to look up to as they are growing up, some may spend their whole childhood trying to be just like that person. Whether it’s their Barbie doll, mom, a friend, or a teacher , young children always have some sort of idol that they possess great admiration for as they are growing up. For me, this was my sister.

            Throughout my childhood I can remember that I always wanted to dress the same as my sister, have the same things as her and do everything she did. It’s now that I realize that despite how much I hate to admit it, when I was young I wanted to be exactly like my older sister. And now that I am older I can see that now I look up to her for deeper reasons than I did when I was a toddler. Many believe that people can change, my sister, Melissa, is living, breathing proof of this belief. When my sister began high she didn’t care about her classes or her homework. She didn’t care if she got good grades and wasn’t worrying that if she didn’t do well she might now graduate. My parents always tried to force her to do her work and care about school, but she just didn’t. My parents never stopped bothering and never gave up on her, but their hopes of her graduating on time weren’t very high. They knew that she needed to decide to do her work on her own.

            Personally, I thought she would never change, I thought that I would end up going through all four years of high school with her. It was at the beginning of her junior year that the reality of college and graduation occurred to my sister.

            All of a sudden my sisters once meager-schedule was filled with classes to make up for any lost credits in the past. Instead of going out after school and coming home late at night, she would come home right after school and do all of her homework and study for all of her test. The way she changed amazed me, even showed me now, as a junior looking into colleges and thinking about graduation, that I can still change my future, and it is all up to how hard I decide to work. My parents can’t do this for me, it is something that I have to do for myself. She didn’t graduate at the top of her class, or go to the best school, but she realized that she needed to change, and she did, by herself. I respect her for this because I know that it isn’t always easy to change your life. I learned from her experience because now I know that I should always try my hardest because I don’t want to go through all the extra work she had to when she was rushing to get all of her credits on time. My sisters hard work in her junior and senior year were very influential to me to always try hard.

            My sister is now 19 and in college. She currently attends SUNY Purchase. For the past two years she has gone to school their she has never been happy. Last year she applied to transfer to SUNY Albany and was rejected, but that didn’t affect her motivation. If SUNY Albany was where she wanted to go, she was going to go there, no matter what. She was determined to go there. So this year, as a sophomore she worked even harder then she ever has, and finally was accepted. It was her drive to achieve her goals that makes me want to be like her. I’ve learned from her to do whatever it takes to achieve my goals.

            My sister now, a thin, blue eyed, short-haired blonde girl, was once a purple-haired with so much black eye makeup that you could barely distinguish her beautiful blue eyes. Throughout the years my sister has changed her appearance countless times. Another important lesson that I learned from her was that I should always be myself, and be happy with whom ever I choose to be.

            When I was young I wanted to be identical to my sister. As I look back now, I see many other reasons for wanting to be like her. I know many people who know my sister might say, “you think of YOUR sister as an idol?!?!” But, to me she has done so many things that make her a good person, that cause me to respect her highly. I could only hope to follow so closely in her footsteps so that maybe someday someone might look up to me as I do to her.