I may have it harder socially than most people, but I have experiences that nobody else does. It is important to embrace what I have gone through and continuously learn and progress. Allowing a struggle to become an excuse is a way of conceding and being defeated and I think that is the weak thing to do. To brush off what has happened with a smile and embrace new challenges is the strong thing to do and will only increase personal growth. My advice for anybody who will be moving soon to a new place, most likely college, is to keep an open mind and heart to people that they do not know.
For the first year, I stayed in contact with my friends through Facebook and we would meet up once in awhile for playdates and birthday parties, but it would not last. Eventually, after a couple of years, I became more and more engulfed in my new circle of friends in public school. As a result, I grew more distant with my old Schechter friends and would only see them a handful of times a year. Fast forward seven years later, I’m a senior in high school and I’m at the point where I see them close to
The only place that I have ever resided in was Miami, Florida so moving meant that I had to go to new schools and meet make new friends. Surprisingly, I made friends with people within the first two weeks and they are still my close friends going on three years. Despite having made friends, there was always a void in my heart. At school, I would sit in class wishing that my father was still alive or that I was still living in Miami.
I was struggling to find out why I was losing sight of my favorite trait: being a social butterfly. When I first entered college, I was so energetic and spontaneous with all the people I met. But, after my sophomore year, I realized something changed within me. I stopped trying to keep friendships alive and barely surrounded myself with others, besides those who are close to me. Through this course and backpacking trip, I was able to gain insights on why I was like this.
Last year I moved from Guttenberg to Manchester, which moved me from Clayton Ridge to West Delaware High School. The whole move was a speedy process. Before we moved I only knew 3 people that attended West Delaware and out of those people, none of them are my age. I was upset with my parents for putting me in the position of leaving all my friends that I had finally gotten used to, to move somewhere where I didn’t know anybody. A rush of emotions were coming onto me; fear of losing friends, anger and resentment towards my family for not telling me until they had already bought the house, but also excitement because I would be starting all over again and meeting new people.
Freshman year came along and I wanted to attend Sullivan High School. I wanted to come back to my hometown, I was just missing the people I started it all out with in the beginning. My dad and I had all of the paperwork finished already to go for me to attend Sullivan High School in August, but my mom refused and wouldn’t budge to let me go. She didn’t want me going to Sullivan, she wanted me to stay with all of my new friends I had made at Owensville. She thought my best bet would be to stay and proceed to go to OHS.
Through the experience of working as youth leader for freshman connection I have grown as a better leader. To help incoming freshman was incredible experience for me. I joined freshman connection to serve school and defiantly to get knowledge and team building skills out of it, so that it can help me make my college experience better. I think I have achieved all the goals that I wanted to through working as youth leader. Additionally, not only that but also to work on community service project on bullying has really allowed me to serve as teacher helper.
Something such as returning back to school was long gone and in my past goals. After a couple of years I never thought I would end up going back to school since everything that I wanted was going good and according to plan. However sometimes we are faced with tough situations where we must find other resources in order to improve and better ourselves. Going back to school was one of the most important and wise decisions that I have ever made. Finding well-qualified candidates for a job or career nowadays is a challenge, especially in the field that I am currently in; law enforcement.
A hard time in my life was when I moved here. I did not want to leave my life in Maricopa, the place I moved from. I loved it there. I had my girlfriend, my many friends, my marching band family (I call them my family because they seem like it, I hang around with them so much they are my life), and a lot of other stuff too like school rank, grades, and most importantly the teachers and classmates I really liked to be around. I, when/while moving here, went through the stages of grief, or so I was told.
This created a great rift between me and the people that had been my friends. I began trying to hang out with friends but found they were always busy while I was home reading, waiting for an adventure. I had managed to keep a few of my friends and these people are still my friends today, but first I had to deal with being solitary for a while. After I accepted the way school, and friends were going to go I only faced one obstacle. Almost my entire life changed after my move, I had a new routine, some new friends, and a new way I had to learn.
After leaving Jewish day school in the sixth grade and moving to a public school, I struggled to maintain my connection to my faith. It was difficult for me to return to synagogue on Saturdays, as there was a social pressure to make connections with new friends, and manage the new workload. Slowly but surely, I saw the parts of made me Jewish fade into the background. In the seventh grade, I had an enlightening conversation with my grandmother, who suggested I take part in the Ivry Prozdor program at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where my grandfather had received his rabbinical degree. On Sunday mornings, I engaged in fascinating classes on Jewish law, heritage, history as well as conversation Hebrew language.
With senior year of high school coming to a close, comes an overwhelming amount of stress about moving away to college. At the beginning of this school year, I was eager to leave and excited to go away, but I came to a realization that leaving home alarms me. At this point in time, I began to notice just how much my parents do for me and just ruminating about everything I would have to do on my own now, makes me nervous. School has never been an issue for me but what my friends say about college, makes it even more petrified to go. Being constantly asked questions like, “how do you always get your work done?” or “how do you have such good time management?” reassures me that I will do fine in college.
August 14th, the day when it really hit me that I would be moving into college in one week. Up until that point I was really really excited! Although I was still excited the nerves started to kick in, I felt that I was not prepared to start a whole new chapter of my life and that there was still so many things that I needed to do, so honestly I started to panic a little bit, but that is just between me and you, no one else knew that I was stressing so bad. The Monday before move in day comes and now I realize that I seriously need to start getting ready, so finally I start packing everything in my room to make sure that I do not forget anything, but at the same time I have no clue what to pack seeing as this is my first time ever packing for college. The day finally gets here, move in day, all at the same time I am nervous, excited, sad and happy.
Since a very young age, I have loved learning. My sister, Jessica, started attending kindergarten when I was four years old. On that day, my father walked us to Jessica’s first day of kindergarten. She was excited, but when we were going to leave I said that I didn’t want to. I told my father that I wanted to go to school too, but my father said I wasn’t old enough.
As 7th grade started, my social life came to a definitive close. I struggled greatly with friends, primarily because one of my good friends had left Trafton in 6th grade to receive home schooling, and because all of my other friends from elementary schools attended other schools. I attempted to reach more friendly terms with people who I previously
