Before I moved to Seward, I was not focused on my future. I was always out with my friends, didn’t care if I got in trouble at school, and didn’t care about my grades. I knew I wanted to be a teacher or a marine biologist. I thought I would never be able to do either of them, because my test scores were too low for colleges, so it didn’t matter what I did in school as long as I was having fun. I was somewhat of a bully. I didn’t talk to kids with special needs, nobody in my school did, and it was considered uncool. I barely was home and never saw my family.

When I was in eighth grade, it was my dad’s fifth year working in Seward. He had week on, week off shifts. At the end of my eighth grade year my mom told me we were going to move to Seward over the summer. We had lived in Big Lake for almost six year, and were very attached to it. This was a big change, the school I went to has at least 600 students, while Seward high school had only about 187 students. Over the summer my mom and dad moved our stuff, while my sister got a job and moved right away. I stayed behind in Big Lake with my best friend all summer. We spent the entire summer fishing and camping. Then it came time to leave and start school in Seward.

I started school at high school, not only as “the new kid”, but also a freshman. I have always heard people say that they hated freshman and that was especially true at this place. I was nervous not to start high school, but to be a new kid again. The first day of school was okay; I didn’t talk and nobody talked to me. The second day of school is when things really started going bad. I had P.E. fifth hour which was right before lunch. It was a very big class; people started picking on me and calling me names. I called my mom after that class and had her come pick me up, I had to talk to the principal. My mom had applied for a job at the high school, and she started the second week of school. She was a teacher’s aide and worked with students that had special needs. When she started working, I would go in and hangout during advisory. This turned into me volunteering in their everyday. It quickly became my favorite part of the day. There was another teacher’s aide that started working with the student as well. My mom and her became very good friends and found out that we lived in McGrath at the same time. McGrath is a very, very small village where everybody knew everybody. Over the school year, I got bullied a lot and didn’t have very many friends. I was extremely focused on my grades, never got in trouble in school, and was always home. I didn’t talk much at school. I ended up passing all of my classes and cared very much about my future.

During the summer I was with my best friend pretty much the whole time. We went to Bethel a few times, and went back and forth from living in Seward, to living in Big Lake. We applied for many jobs, we got a called back from one of them and we went in to do a drug test. We both passed and got the job, but by the time we started working my best friend had to go back to Big Lake for cheerleading. I started working for ALPAR doing litter patrol and there were a few kids that would make fun of me. We only ended up working for 5 days because our leader ended up quitting. School rolled around and I told my mom I wanted to do home school. She said, “Okay”, but I had to take two classes in the school. The first day of school I decided I couldn’t do homeschool, I wouldn’t be able to keep my grades up. My mom did not work at the school anymore and she had a full time job. So she came in and signed me up for school. I still get bullied quite a bit, and I still go into the class room to volunteer with the special education students. I have decided that I would like to be a special education teacher. I love working with special education students because we have a bond that most people do not have.
I am now moving back to Big Lake over Christmas break, and I plan on keeping my grades up, and going to college to be a special education teacher. I plan to stay focused on my future, and to be nice to people no matter who they are or what they look like. I did not want to move here, but I am glad that I moved here, because it has changed me in a good way, and put me on track for my future.