Personal Narrative: My Trip To Rice Middle School

I have always felt that there is a difference between a house and your home because a house is where you live, but your home is where you feel that you are connected to your loved ones. Your home is where you breathe and all you feel is peace. My entire life I have been adapting to new environments, which makes me feel comfortable about leaving for college, meeting new people and studying the career that I have always had a passion for. At the age of 6 my parents decided to move to the Dominican Republic, which I considered to be a different world.

I’ll never forget how I felt the first time I walked into Prairie Ridge High School. I was surrounded by approximately sixteen hundred other students and I knew exactly none of them. I had never been that alone before and when I walked through the cafeteria doors, I felt the first seed of doubt that maybe I should have stayed in Union, with my mom. At that moment, I wanted to turn around and run out of Prairie Ridge, hop in the car, and drive the four hundred miles back to my friends, my teammates, and the majority of my family. Instead, I took a deep breath and sat down.

Any fifth grader would be happy advancing to middle school. But I was an exception to what I just stated. I recently moved from a fantastic house in New York City into a junky little house on the bay of California. Even worse, I lost all of my friends, and was starting fresh off the bat. My first day at school was hard enough.

Growing up I spent a lot time gazing out of car windows. Through the lens of my mom 's 2003 Mazda 6 I observed the contrasting worlds that exists within miles of each other. I did not grow up in the Austin advertised in brochures, nor did I spend summers by the lake, walk down 6th Street with friends, listen to the live music at night. I grew up in the Austin never depicted in travel guides or on TV. I drove down poverty-stained Twelfth Street, danced in the sprinklers under broken street lights, attended midnight barbecues at Gibbons park, and listened to R&B and Mariachi music blasting from car stereos on my grandma 's porch.

Growing up, I went to a small town school in Kieler, Wisconsin. It was a class of 12 from kindergarten to eighth grade with no new kids. Growing up in Kieler made me who I am, it made me think about how close you can get to know others. Being with them for 9 years you get annoyed, frustrated, excited, and thankful. Going anywhere else I could never imagine.

I grew up in a small town in Mississippi in a neighborhood about a five-minute walk from the Mississippi River. I spent the majority of my younger years growing up within this southern bubble. This place that I still call home and my experiences here helped to create the person that I am today. In my neighborhood in Greenville, MS we didn’t have much to do but staying out of trouble was the motive. Even when thinking of the activities to do they were pretty limited but that’s what caused for us to become creative.

Moving, Starting a New Life. I was ten years old in fifth grade and my parents’ said “we 're moving to Idaho son”. I was depressed I knew I would lose my friends and my school. This was on my parents minds for a while, but I never thought they were serious.

During my last year of Middle School I was diagnosed with depression. This illness caused me to discourage my abilities and it deeply affected my social skills. At the same time I was also being bullied by other kids at school. I remember silently crying every day as I walked home from the bus stop. When I was first diagnosed, the doctors told me that isolating the problem was a good thing.

My first impression of Will was that he was extremely small for the average sixth grade student. He was about 4’10” or so and maybe 75 pounds. He was perfectly dressed in Under Armour sports attire and matching Nike athletic shoes and socks; an outfit I have since learned defines his “away from school” character. Will came to school with every possible supply on the list the sixth grade team had mailed to him weeks before properly labeled with his name and homeroom teacher. This young man was ready to begin life as a middle school student.

Larry Smith was speaking some true words. Do not confuse passion with interest. Passion is deep down, that 's what you want to find. It is a deep down love. Interests are things you like but not love, its not a deep down love for something.