Hello everyone! My name is Leah Prodigalidad. First things first, you should probably know that I live in Roslindale and I take the school-provided 38 bus at Centre Street. To be honest, my transportation life hasn’t been as affected until I went to Boston Latin School. When I started going to Boston Latin School, I was able to experience independence in terms of transportation. I have taken public transportation before going to Boston Latin but I never realized how chaotic the MBTA was until recently. Every morning at 6:30 the bus was supposed to pick students up, which for the first two weeks of school, went by smoothly. Then after those two weeks, the bus started getting later and later. First it was late by 5 minutes until it became a usual for the bus to come 6:45-6:50. It wasn’t quite pleasant especially since everybody was angry about the bus being late. Other students started becoming more violent when entering the bus as everybody wanted seats. I’ve experienced this for four years already and I’m so tired of it. Every morning I wake up and hope to have a peaceful ride to school but it’s hard to be so optimistic when you’re stuck between two huge backpacks and your hair is stuck on someone’s bag zipper. I feel like the transportation tends to have so many delays, which causes people to become reckless and in result, create bigger trouble on the MBTA. Although it doesn’t happen everyday, a conflict of MBTA schedules tends to stress me out when going home. As a student of Boston Latin, I always have more than three hours of homework and studying awaiting me at home. Hour delays, however, prevent me from getting home on an ideal time that allows me to relax like a regular human should do at home. It’s especially tiring when I have school activities after school. Typically my activities end at 4:00 but I end up at home around 5:30-6:00. Then I have to eat dinner, which takes about 30 minutes and then I have another 3+ hours of homework. The transportation itself already takes up so much time, there barely seems enough time to study and rest. My effectiveness of studying decreases, but most importantly my sleep time. It’s even worse for those who take up sports and have practice till 7:00 or even 11:00. By that time, homework and sleep seem like something impossible to do. I know it’s easier said than done, but I believe the MBTA needs to make changes regarding schedule times, maintenance, and friendliness.