Personal Narrative: Middletown High School

My parents tell me that I took to swimming like... a fish takes to water. It is a safe place where I can float free of worries. Driven by passion and dedication, I decided to begin swimming competitively. Competitive swimming requires an intense level of determination and discipline. Forcing myself to get out of my warm bed at 5:30 in the morning to put on a still-slightly-damp swimsuit and stand in 40-degree weather waiting for practice to start. Putting up with limited lane space and irritating swimmers who think they are faster. Making a conscious effort to work on my stroke form, turns, touches, and techniques. The water becomes a whirlpool of injuries, losses, wins, friendships, enemies, and sickness. The water becomes home.

When I started Unity High School I felt a little nervous because I didn't knew nobody in the school. In the begging of the first class I was quit and I didn´t talk to noone. I also didn't knew nobody in the class so I could tell them if they could help me on the problem that I need help. I was shy to talk to the teachers and and answer question or ask them for help when I needed help. During lunch time I just knew one person that came from my middle school. So I just hand out with him most the time. But, then weeks and months past I began to have more friends and I was not shy or nervous to ask for help in class. I wanted to join the soccer team of the school but I was to nervous to do it. But, now I know that I´m going to join the soccer team

My eyes repeatedly peered to the stands which had a crowd of at least four hundred students eagerly waiting as we were warming up. Observing the crowd I noticed the left side of the field was full of students in orange Parkview High School shirts while to my right students were in purple Brookwood High School shirts. It was the Lacrosse Region Championships between Parkview, the school I played for, and, Brookwood High School. Both of our schools were ranked top ten for biggest rivalries, we knew it would be a fight to win the most significant game for us.

It just made things easier for the bullies and things worse for me. Louis and I remained in Wildcats East. I was afraid and sometimes I never wanted to go back. I thought the bullying would have stopped. Now that I am not in school anymore, I feel safer, not threatened or bullied by anyone much anymore. Pretty sad I tell you how school life had to turn out the way it did.

Vividly, I can remember walking through the high school doors for the first time as a freshman with shaky legs and a nervous heartbeat. The school was a jungle of wide, shiny hallways filled with lumbering seniors who I thought were going to knock my books down on Freshman Friday. However, time has passed, and now I find myself to be the tall and “scary” senior. As I ponder about the last four years I have spent at Little Falls Community High School, I can not help but realize how much I have changed for the better. As I have matured, I have gleaned that beauty does not come through makeup and clothing brands, but rather through processing a good heart. Also, I have changed my career and college plans after high school, and I know that I will

It was 7:00 in the morning when we arrived at the Johnston City High School. Once everyone arrived at the high school, we got on the bus and headed off to Benton. As we stepped foot on the bus, we all sat there quietly, nervous about the results of this game. This was the game that determined whether or not we went on to state. Coach Simon and Coach Shane gave us one of their what we like to call "before the game warm-up talks". We were all nervous of course, but we were all determined to win this game. We had been looking forwards to winning regionals and going to state the whole season and that day was the day that we gave us the opportunity to go to state. After the thirty minute bus ride, we finally got to Benton and once we got there,

For two years I begrudgingly walked into Fuller Middle School, sometimes staying home because I had a ‘headache,’ my home, as well as other places I was always resentful, pissed off, quick tempered, and just downright rude. I was a typical middle schooler going through family changes. I wore band tees and ripped skinny jeans to every event my mother would let me--including to school, I constantly violated dress coded until I found my way around authority and the policy, listened to heavy metal, colored my eyeliner on until I looked like a panda, and generally tried to make myself appear unapproachable. That’s when my mom began dating the man who I would eventually call my first lifeline.

One balmy summer morning my friends convinced me to come swim in Grapevine Lake, which would be very enticing if I was a strong swimmer or had any swimming experience whatsoever. I was a fairly reserved person, and most of the time the idea of risk or failure decided whether or not I would partake in certain activities. In contrast, my two friends, Austin and Nick, always were willing to take risks and defy their natural comfort, if they even had any. I accepted their request, although there was doubt in the back of my mind. I

Swimming is unique because the team is seventh grade through twelfth grade. That means I got to become friends with younger girls, but also be a role model for them. I took being a positive role model for these younger girls very seriously. I wanted to be someone they could talk to and someone that inspires them.

At my very first swimming lesson it was scary being thrown into something that was so unfamiliar! But despite my fear, I swam across the entire pool all on my own and I was actually pretty good. I was encouraged by great Y staff to keep swimming, and shortly thereafter, I ended up joining the Y’s swim team.

Splash ! Splash! I loved sitting on the steps and playing in the water on my first swimming class at age three. Unfortunately after a couple months of classes I didn't like my new teacher so I would go unhappily. Over the years I would stop and go swimming so I didn't expect myself to be good at it. Fortunately now I'm a competitive swimmer even though my start wasn't the best I'm speeding up and hoping for a strong finish.

13 years. It has been 13 years since I first plunged into the pool to begin my first lesson. I was small, skinny, and shy at the time, not willing to talk to people. I had tried other sports; baseball, soccer, basketball, but I found those to difficult. My dad first brought me to a pool, to splash around in the play area. But I soon found myself wanting to go the deeper parts where the whirlpool and the lazy river were. So I began group lessons on the basics on how to swim, most of the other participants were older than me so I did not make conversation with them. After I finished a couple of lessons and learned how to swim the most basic two strokes; freestyle and breaststroke, I joined a summer team, the Bradley Farm Wave. I was not very

I inhaled the cool, fresh air, and I started sprinting towards the edge of the pool. I took the leap. My feet pushed down on the ground, and I plunged into the deep, blue, water of the pool. I sunk down, little by little, unable to get to the surface. I started to panic. I was sinking down, I couldn’t get back to the surface, and fatally running out of air. My brain was frenzied, I was drowning! I couldn’t get to the surface, I didn’t know how! The water’s greedy, wet hands consuming me, dragging me further down. Dread was in my veins, because I was running out of air. I needed to get back to the surface. But the water just wraps itself around my my toes, up to my ankles, knees, thighs, neck! I have no air. I don't know what to do! The water creeps up my face, forcing itself into my lungs. Why… Why didn’t I listen... Why was I so arrogant… I think as I sink further down into the bottomless depths of the pool. My air was gone, and I was sure my life had gone with it.

At first, it was a couple of years back around the time when I was five years old. I mean of course I had been in a pool before that, but I had to wear floaties since my parents would be scared to death if something awful occurred. When I finally turned five; however, my parents thought it was time for the floaties to come off and I thought so too. I was ecstatic at the thought of the floaties finally coming off after all this time. There was not a glance of fear through my mind until I got to the pool. However, at that first glance looking back into my past I remember the first thought that crossed my mind as I looked towards the pool. “This is going to be easy” I thought. I was delusional, I had no idea how wrong I was until I took those first steps into the deep end of the pool.

The pool was dirty and unkempt. Moreover, the water was green and slimy. We were like “cendol”. My mother asked me to stop swam there because she was afraid I would get skin diseases. Finally, I switch to another sport, which is not in the contact with water. However, my eagerness to swim was very high. Then, I asked my mother's permission for swimming. She was let me, but with one condition: do not swim in the deep pool, so I would not get drowned. In the next decades, I spent my life rock-style swimming in a shallow pool, until my friend introduced me to