Adam Rivara
Mrs. Enk
E319
9/16/11

Moving is a big event in a persons life. For me it was a horrible thing to think of. I lived in Arizona for about 14 years of my life, and I had never known anywhere else. Then everything changed when I found out my family and I were going to be moving to Illinois. But because of this move I became a better swimmer than I could ever have been in Arizona.

I lived in Arizona from the time I was two years old until I was 16. Arizona was the only home I ever knew. When I was growing up I played all of the sports, but I mainly swam and played baseball. I swam from about six until about eleven then I took a break for a couple years. When I went into high school my parents made me start swimming again so that I could become involved with something. I thought that I was going to hate it, but I came to love being on the team with all of the great people that I met. I swam on the Pinnacle high school swim team for two years. After my second year I had to say good bye to the friends I had made because I found out I was moving. This was a hard thing to do but in the end it turned out all right.

I found out that I was moving one day in about April of 2010. I was visiting my sister at the University of Arizona with my parents. We were staying at a hotel and my parents choose that time to tell us, because the whole family was together. When they told us my sister and I were both very sad because we would have to leave a lot behind in order to move to Illinois. For my sister, who had grown up in Illinois, it had always been her dream to move back, but for me it was going to be a new adventure. The only good thing about us moving was that the majority of my dad’s side of the family lived there. After a while things calmed down and we prepared for the move by putting up our house on the market and packing everything up that we didn’t need. While we were preparing my sister had decided that she was not going with us. She had just graduated college and she didn’t want to leave her boyfriend of seven years. This only made the move harder for the whole family because we were all going to miss her so much. Because of her deciding to stay behind she got engaged and that made it a little easier to leave. When we were packed up and ready to go we left the only house I ever knew and went to live in an apartment for the remainder of the school year. Once the school year was over we again packed up the stuff we had and moved to Hoffman Estates, Illinois. We had been looking for houses for a while and finally we found one. Ironically it was across the street from my dad’s sister and my cousins.
Once we had moved in I spent the summer hanging out with my cousins and just having a good time. Then my parents told me that I was going to have to swim over the summer so that I could meet some kids that I would be going to school with. I thought that they had ruined my summer because I was going to have to get up everyday at 5:45 A.M. in order to get to Fremd by 6:00 A.M. After a while though I learned that it was not so bad, it helped me improve on my swimming while at the same time I meet a bunch of the kids that I would go to school with. While I did this I also got a job working as a lifeguard at seascape pool with my cousin. My summer was revolving around water. I worked and swam each day, and spent time with my family the rest of the time. As the summer went by I was starting to dread school starting. I was thinking what if I didn’t know anyone in my classes, or what if I don’t know anyone in my lunch period. I was so worried that I would have a terrible school experience.
Once school started, my worries became realities. I hated going to school because I didn’t know anyone. I hated it so much that my sister said to my mom that I could go and live with her and go back to my old school. I wanted to do that so bad so that I could go back to what I knew, and go back to all my friends in Arizona. Although I wanted to go so bad my parents said no because they didn’t want to not have any kids nearby. So I had to stick it out. I am so glad that my parents made me stay because I have met a bunch of really good people that are great friends. So finally I didn’t hate going to school anymore. School wasn’t a place that I dreaded to go, it became average old school.
Well I didn’t know many people when I started at Fremd; I met a lot of people in my gym class which is the gym class for the swim team. Through the gym class I have made a lot of good friends and I have been able to adapt to the new school environment. While I still think about my old home, I would not want to leave this great school and all the good friends that I have made.
When I first moved here the only thing that I thought was going to be good was that I got to live across the street from my cousins, and that I got to see a lot of the extended family, that I only got to see about once a year, much more. But after a couple weeks at Fremd I have realized that it was a good thing to move here, and that I am going to have great junior and senior years in high school. While I enjoyed my old swim team in Arizona, I am enjoying this one great deal more, because I am able to bond more with this team than my old team. And all the while I have longer more rigorous practices which will help me become a better swimmer in the long run.
I never wanted to move away from my home in Arizona, but I have found that it has not been as bad as I originally thought it would be. I have made good friend, and I enjoy my classes, all the while I have been improving at swimming. I had a great life in Arizona, but that chapter is closed, and this new chapter in Illinois has opened.