By Katie MacBride, Online Editor-in-Chief

Picture this: After enduring an exhausting day of school, you’re on a five-hour night-shift at work, followed by a drive home where you voluntarily give your revenue to your family. You get a quick night’s sleep that is interrupted by a 5:30 a.m. alarm. You then slip out of bed and get ready for your morning class that starts before the first-period bell has even rung.

 A student who completes this schedule almost every day of her school year is junior Ingris Jimenez.

Jimenez is a member of the FFHS orchestra, a class that starts at 7:10 a.m. every school day except Wednesdays. Her love for music motivates her to attend the early class. She has had a love for music from a young age, and with the inspiration of her private violin teacher, Leslie Erickson, Jimenez joined the school orchestra. 

“I started to play the violin in the middle of seventh grade and I was really scared to do orchestra, but my violin teacher would always hype me up and tell me ‘Do orchestra, you can do it, it will teach you a lot.’ So I finally did it,” Jimenez explained. “She had a large impact on me to do it.”

After overcoming her fear to join the group, Jimenez has grown to love the class and all of her talented classmates.

“Everyone in orchestra is really nice and they have such a great passion for music, so I am in an environment that I get to share my same passion with them. Just playing music makes me really happy,” Jimenez said with a smile.

Her love for music stretches past the walls of the classroom, as Jimenez aspires to make music a part of her future. Fellow orchestra members, as well as orchestra teacher John Buford, play a major role in Jimenez’s musical career.

“In orchestra there are a lot of students that I look up to and just the way they play inspires me because they play so beautifully and the way Mr. Buford conducts is cool,” Jimenez said. “I want to keep music in my future, but I do not know if music will be a career path.”

Though Jimenez looks up to members of the orchestra class, she is also a unique and positive attribute to the class herself. Her hard work has been unaffected by the class’ early start and her dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Ingris has really stepped in and worked diligently and at such an early time of day, too. She is very focused and you can tell she is taking everything in that is going on and working her best to strengthen her playing skills,” Buford said. “I think her determination and positive outlook makes her unique, yet in a way, she is similar to the type of student you find in this class. While most students haven’t even had breakfast, we are having class. It takes a lot of special people to make this work so brilliantly, and Ingris fits right into this team of hard-working student musicians.”

When Jimenez is not doing something music-related, she can be found at the Thai Room Restaurant, where she works multiple days after school and on some weekends.

“At the Thai Room I get to eat a lot, I learn so much about the restaurant and about life lessons, (the staff) always cheers me up and are always making me laugh,” Jimenez said. “It’s like my second family.”

Before becoming an employee at the restaurant, she was a regular customer. Jimenez frequently visited the Thai Room growing up with her father, Carlos, and on a visit around two years ago, she was asked if she wanted to become an employee. Jimenez happily accepted the offer and has loved working there ever since.

“One of my favorite memories was when I would eat dinner with the Thai students. One day they made a really big meal and I just sat down, talked to them, laughed – and it was summer, so I was in a good mood,” Jimenez said with a laugh. “Also one day in the summertime we had a lot of flies in the Thai Room because the door was open and (my boss) P Pai said for every fly that I got, I get 50 cents, so I killed around 12 flies.”

Jimenez’s love for orchestra and the Thai Room leaves her with very little free time during the week. Not only do her two passions keep her busy, she doesn’t keep the income that she makes, but gives it to her parents. 

“Growing up I would always notice that my parents would struggle and they have done so much for me. They have always tried to give me a better life,” Jimenez said. “Just working for them and giving up my money is sometimes hard, like, ‘Oh, I want this,’ but then I am like, ‘No they deserve it, they need it more than I do.’ I know one day in the future I will get to buy myself something, so I do it for them. That’s all I want to do.”

Jimenez’s parents have been a big factor in her life, from raising her, to supporting and driving her to orchestra, as well as giving her rides to work and giving her moral support when it’s needed.

“They have made me proud my whole life and one day I hope to be as strong and smart as my father and mother,” Jimenez said happily. 

Junior Katie MacBride can be reached at [email protected].