My Autobiographical narrative of me moving to Lindsay and being scared of the unknown
An event that changed my life was the moment i moved from Salinas, a town like Lindsay known for it's agriculture with mixed fruits vegetables like berries, and different types of leafy greens and and its mexican heritage. It was 2004, we were preparing to move to a small town called Lindsay, of course with me being around the age of four and a half i didn't know much at the time except we were gonna move to a new place, which means i had to lose all my friends that i made throughout preschool, and move out of the only house i had at the time. I was scared and terrified of what a place called “Lindsay” had in store for me and my family.
First thing that i noticed was the heat, It was around the end of summer and to me the heat was a harsh stranger to my old home with mostly cold weather given by the ocean breeze which was around an hour away. Our neighbors who were cousins of my grandpa gave us a welcome as warm as the summer heat, the gave us a tour of the small town then fed us with cold lemonade and hamburgers after, i was starting to like enjoy this small town until the next day started. Me and my mom and my sister went school hunting it was a quarter into the school year, at the time i would be in kindergarten while my sister would be in middle school, no school would take me in because most classes were full already but we found a school called Washington around a mile and a half from my house while my sister enrolled in the only middle school in town which at the time was called Steve Garvey Junior High, my sister fit in perfectly making new friends within the week and already catching up with the locals. Myself however was a completely different story, i had a hard time fitting in and i didn't want to stand out and catch the attention of the teacher so i did my best i could do to keep my head down and only answering when called to, but all that was about to change soon enough, a girl sitting at my table misheard me say “gum” and she thought i said “Gun” which got myself in the attention of the teacher and the principal, i was terrified, two weeks in and i am already getting in trouble for a misheard word, i was always a well mannered kid so i was deathly afraid of what they would think of their 4 year old son being called in to the office for a word that wasn't bad but wasn't something someone would want to say out loud.
Pretty soon, i was in the principal's office waiting for him, i started to read out loud posters i saw in his office, the overly cliché ones with the ones about learning and saying no to drugs. The principal took notice when he walked in and he was surprised of how a kid one year younger was able to read so quickly and accurately, he pulled up scores from a recent reading test and was shocked how i was more adept at reading than my peers, i took a sense of pride but that didn't ease my worry of how i was gonna be punished for saying “Gun”. He told me that i was a bright kid with a big brain and he then told me to explain to him why i said “gun” in the first place and i told him that i never said “gun” but instead say “gum” and once he understood what i said he let me off scotch-free and told me to keep up with reading. Before i knew it i was making friends and fitting in, but sadly all things must come to an end, i thought i was gonna move to 1st grade and stay in washington, but boy was i wrong.
Before i knew it i was being transferred to a school called Jefferson, i was familiar with the school since it was so close to my house. Again, i was terrified, new faces and no old friends in sight, I again was afraid and alone. School seemed easier, the books were simple and the questions were just as hard, but out of shyness and embarrassment i didn't want to tell my teacher that i knew more that this, only for the sake of keeping my head down, it wasn't until one day where i was on everyone’s radar, the annual STAR test was coming up and no one knew what it was but all i knew is that we had to practice for it and we were given these practice tests. Again the questions were simple, i was the first one finished with the test before everyone else and everyone was shocked including my teachers, after the test we went to lunch and everyone bugged me on how i knew it all or if i cheated or not. Many wanted me to let them cheat but i declined because it wasn't how i was raised, but out of all the questions i found some good out of it all, i started to become more sociable as a person and was making more and more friends each day.
Turns out that just being myself and having confidence in myself helped me break through my shell. Moving to lindsay taught me many things, that i wasn't the only one afraid of new places and people, my parents were just as scared if not more. Throughout all of this i realized that all i had to do was just take that leap of faith like my parents did moving here with no friends except their family. I realized that i shouldn’t be scared of the unknown, but excited because if i never took the steps that i took when i was still a child then i would be probably still be the shy kid that never talked.
An event that changed my life was the moment i moved from Salinas, a town like Lindsay known for it's agriculture with mixed fruits vegetables like berries, and different types of leafy greens and and its mexican heritage. It was 2004, we were preparing to move to a small town called Lindsay, of course with me being around the age of four and a half i didn't know much at the time except we were gonna move to a new place, which means i had to lose all my friends that i made throughout preschool, and move out of the only house i had at the time. I was scared and terrified of what a place called “Lindsay” had in store for me and my family.
First thing that i noticed was the heat, It was around the end of summer and to me the heat was a harsh stranger to my old home with mostly cold weather given by the ocean breeze which was around an hour away. Our neighbors who were cousins of my grandpa gave us a welcome as warm as the summer heat, the gave us a tour of the small town then fed us with cold lemonade and hamburgers after, i was starting to like enjoy this small town until the next day started. Me and my mom and my sister went school hunting it was a quarter into the school year, at the time i would be in kindergarten while my sister would be in middle school, no school would take me in because most classes were full already but we found a school called Washington around a mile and a half from my house while my sister enrolled in the only middle school in town which at the time was called Steve Garvey Junior High, my sister fit in perfectly making new friends within the week and already catching up with the locals. Myself however was a completely different story, i had a hard time fitting in and i didn't want to stand out and catch the attention of the teacher so i did my best i could do to keep my head down and only answering when called to, but all that was about to change soon enough, a girl sitting at my table misheard me say “gum” and she thought i said “Gun” which got myself in the attention of the teacher and the principal, i was terrified, two weeks in and i am already getting in trouble for a misheard word, i was always a well mannered kid so i was deathly afraid of what they would think of their 4 year old son being called in to the office for a word that wasn't bad but wasn't something someone would want to say out loud.
Pretty soon, i was in the principal's office waiting for him, i started to read out loud posters i saw in his office, the overly cliché ones with the ones about learning and saying no to drugs. The principal took notice when he walked in and he was surprised of how a kid one year younger was able to read so quickly and accurately, he pulled up scores from a recent reading test and was shocked how i was more adept at reading than my peers, i took a sense of pride but that didn't ease my worry of how i was gonna be punished for saying “Gun”. He told me that i was a bright kid with a big brain and he then told me to explain to him why i said “gun” in the first place and i told him that i never said “gun” but instead say “gum” and once he understood what i said he let me off scotch-free and told me to keep up with reading. Before i knew it i was making friends and fitting in, but sadly all things must come to an end, i thought i was gonna move to 1st grade and stay in washington, but boy was i wrong.
Before i knew it i was being transferred to a school called Jefferson, i was familiar with the school since it was so close to my house. Again, i was terrified, new faces and no old friends in sight, I again was afraid and alone. School seemed easier, the books were simple and the questions were just as hard, but out of shyness and embarrassment i didn't want to tell my teacher that i knew more that this, only for the sake of keeping my head down, it wasn't until one day where i was on everyone’s radar, the annual STAR test was coming up and no one knew what it was but all i knew is that we had to practice for it and we were given these practice tests. Again the questions were simple, i was the first one finished with the test before everyone else and everyone was shocked including my teachers, after the test we went to lunch and everyone bugged me on how i knew it all or if i cheated or not. Many wanted me to let them cheat but i declined because it wasn't how i was raised, but out of all the questions i found some good out of it all, i started to become more sociable as a person and was making more and more friends each day.
Turns out that just being myself and having confidence in myself helped me break through my shell. Moving to lindsay taught me many things, that i wasn't the only one afraid of new places and people, my parents were just as scared if not more. Throughout all of this i realized that all i had to do was just take that leap of faith like my parents did moving here with no friends except their family. I realized that i shouldn’t be scared of the unknown, but excited because if i never took the steps that i took when i was still a child then i would be probably still be the shy kid that never talked.