Personal Narrative: Coming To Iowa

Moving from the South to the Midwest was a huge change in my life. For my whole life I grew up to the southern hospitality and the tang of salt in the air since the beach was always less than 5 minutes away wherever I lived. Now I moved to a place where they flip you off to say hi, and the closest thing to an ocean is a sea of grass that seems to go on forever. Although I am now adapted to the change for the most part, it took me awhile to break in to the social norms of an average Midwest kids.

Well the week of our trip to Memphis Tennessee had finally arrived ! My colleagues Beverly,

Looking back out of the small window, I catch a final glimpse of corn fields and lonely railroad crossings before they dip below the horizon. For my first time on a plane, the excitement of adventure meets me as I depart from the comfort of home and enter a world unknown outside of Nebraska. Seeing the world in God’s view as the landscape evolves below, I fall in love with flying. Looking down from 30,000 feet and seeing earth on such a vast scale, I realize how much there is to discover.

I have written many essays since I was in middle school yet most of my writing was not that important besides for a grade. Yet there is one piece of writing I wrote that change my life and felt that it had an important impact to The City of Chicago. My teacher during that time wanted the class to enter in a citywide competition, which is called “Do The Write Thing”. It is a way for students to voice their opinions on how to stop the violence in Chicago. I wanted to help reduce the violence in Chicago since many youths are being killed in the streets every single day. In my paper, I mainly focused on three body paragraphs. The first one was why the violence in the city was increasing. The second one was some type of violence that I have witness in my own personal life. The final paragraph

I witnessed my cousins boyfriend corpse lying on my neighbors lawn. It was a humid summer night around 3:30 when I peeked through my window and saw my devastated cousin sobbing uncontrollably on my decaying porch. Being from East chicago, Indiana has transformed me into the person I am today.

Sioux County Iowa isn’t so different from any other rural county in the Midwest. We have rich and poor towns, public and private schools, good and bad police officers, and plenty of rowdy teenagers. The Midwest however is a very unique place to live. I lived in the country, about ten minutes outside of Orange City, Iowa. One summer Wednesday night at about 9:00p.m., after I had just gotten back home from work, I received a text message from my friend Jon, “Get the truck ready. Be at your house in 10”. I sighed. I knew that meant we were up to no good. I’m not sure what really bothered me, the fact that Jon was expecting me to drop all of my plans to go on another escapade, or the fact that we both knew I didn’t have any plans.

On October 5, 2010, my mom made the permanent decision to move to Iowa from Indiana. I was very nervous. I knew I had to switch schools, I had spent three years at that school getting to know everyone and getting used to the school, but now it was time to leave not only the school but also the state. While on the road, I couldn’t concentrate. We’ve been to Iowa numerous times so I knew the drive quite well. I ended up going to sleep by worrying myself so much.

I remember that i was five and my parents decided it was time for a change. They had decided that we were moving to Indiana with my dads family. They told use it was going to be a good change for all of us. My three brothers Jose, Monico,Luis and I didn't want to move. But since we were kids we had too. The hole way their i was crying,because i didn't want to leave. I was going to miss my family and the church people.

Everyday gets harder and harder to survive. The storms are getting worse. They make my husband's farm all dry. It’s very hard to find food when we can’t grow our food either. The stock market just crashed a few years ago and everything is just getting worse. Everyone in our little town in Kansas is struggling it's not just our family. Last week the dust got so bad outside we were trapped inside our house for almost two days. The wind would be so strong and the heat would also be so bad it would burn our skin if we went outside. I know the whole town is struggling even though I haven’t been outside for a few weeks. We lost all our chickens from the wind. I wonder if anyone else has lost any of their animals too? If my family was strong enough

A toast to a place above all the rest, this place though odd has captured my heart. I know this isn’t a conventional Burns supper toast, or even a real toast at all. But as I was thinking about which toast I wanted to give; I realized that there was only one place that I wanted to talk about. So firstly, I would like to ask you guys have you ever been to a place that makes you feel happy. A place that even at the mention of its name, you can’t help but think of happy memories you had there. The place that does that for me is the Black Hills of South Dakota. I spent my summer working at a campground in the heart of the Black Hills. So here’s a toast to the Black Hills and all of its natural beauty.

The city of Chicago has been displayed as a dangerous city in which all residents are affiliated with drugs, gangs, and misconduct of firearms. Whether someone fits into this stereotype or not, is normally based on their surroundings and their interactions with others. Growing up in Gage Park, named one of the worst neighborhoods, falling into this stereotype and becoming affiliated with drugs, guns, and gangs, would not be too hard for someone to do. However, I have lived in Gage Park my whole life and have not fallen into the status quo. I have had family members and friends fall into this realm of unpleasantness and watching them become another wrong kind of statistic is upsetting. I have been faced with the decision of continuing to have

Started off with me having to move back to Indiana. First, my mom was nowhere to be found, so I wasn’t able to say good bye and that I loved her. I really wanted to be able to hug her one last time. She did the same thing when I was a kid. It made me feel unwanted all over again, so I got on the bus with nothing but 3 bags and no money.

Over the summer Megan and I went to Wisconsin with her family . It was an outstanding trip with my best friend. We went to many different places and got all kinds of things. We stayed for 6 days. We stayed in a cabin on Lake Twin.

Rosewood. The school I'll be attending for the rest of my three years of high school, and to be completely honest, I'm not al that excited. I'm not good at making friends, which usually ends up with me being alone. Last year I made two friends, Isabelle and Roy. That's only because I had to do a group project with them second term, sure they were nice and welcoming but I never talked to them, I'd smile and wave in the halls or exchange small 'hello's' but other than that I was alone. The only good thing I can think of is that I could have a new outlook and not that of -what the school called me- 'Emo' and I'm not. Perhaps moving to Illinois could be a good thing, but if I get labeled a Emo again it's 9th grade all over again. Three days from now I'll be on my way to my new home..

My mom wanted to move to Indiana and my dad wanted a cat. My mom didn't want to take Shadow on the long drive, so we ended up giving Shadow to my dad. My mom and I moved to Indiana. When we got here I still really wanted a cat and really missed shadow. My mom got me a surprise that we still have today! She got me a new cat named Sylvester! He is a short haired tuxedo cat. I remember getting him and being so happy I had another cat.