Her Love

Looking at the screen with a nervous face, cold sweat dripping down onto the keyboard. Nikolay Marunov looked away from the bright computer screen and into the eyes of his mother as always soft and gentle. “It’ll be okay, just fill in your information here” she touched his shoulder to help him calm his breathing and focus. He took a deep breath and began filling out each question with his mother by his side, guiding him on what to say and what not to say. Confidence began to circulate through his blood and the closer he got to the end, the more at ease he felt pressing the button “submit.” The button that would pave the future he will have after his high school career.

Marunov described himself as an average student academ- ically wise, sometimes having no motivation to finish a small assignment. He described a moment when Mr. Morrison, the physics teacher at Rocklin High School, gave his class a speech on doing their best. Marunov felt very impacted by his speech and coming out of that classroom he told me he realized that, “the small steps count, I realized that doing those little things will make a greater impact.”

Marunov said, “I am pretty introverted so I like being alone. I do have some friends but nobody I’m super close to.” One instance persists however, Marunov had a friend dear to him in sophomore year that sadly moved away. He said, “my sophomore year I was pretty close to someone but they moved away.” Marunov and his friend were very close, but when he moved Marunov had to go back to his introverted days.

His mother had one of the biggest impacts on him. When it came to college applications, Marunov said, “I didn’t know where to start, I was panicking and she walked me through it.” His mother walked him through the process and built up his confidence throughout the application process. He is now on track to go to Sierra College for 2 years and then transfer to a different college.