The Change
Once I decided it was time to get a new dog I told my mother, and after a while we found a family in Iowa City, who had breed some English springer spaniel puppies. We went to Iowa City to go pick out which one I wanted, once we got to the families home I went out back and found a horde of puppies. I entered the fenced area where all the puppies were at and they swarmed me, but there was one who stood out apart from the others, almost like an outcast to the others, he was kind of shy and didn’t run up like all the others. I made my way through the group of puppies to the one at the back, I walked up to it and kneeled down extending my hand towards him, he shyly sniffed my hand and walked towards me some more. He sniffed my hand for a little while and after he decided that I was okay he lifted his lip to what looked like snarl at me, I moved back but he continued to do it. I was a little scared but after a bit I realized that he was actually smiling at me, I laughed and went back to pet him. I said “Well you’re not too scary are you boy? You were just being friendly!” I decided that this one dog would be the new member of our family; I decided we would name him Buddy. He to this day is my favorite dog that my family has. He has gone from a shy little puppy that was an outcast in his family, to a smart, fun loving and kind dog. He is a big part of my life and also has definitely helped me with being shy because people always ask if they can pet him when I take him out in public.  I felt like a new puppy when it came to me going to a new school.
There were many reasons why I decided to finally leave my old school after my eight year span of going to school there, whether it was the disappointment of how our athletics performed, the lack of adjustment in the classroom, or whether it was the fact that I felt like an outcast because I just didn’t fit into the expected curriculum there, I finally decided it was time for change. This seemed like a hard decision to me since I had, for as long as I’ve lived in Chicago, gone to a private school. It was all I knew, I had played different sports with Chicago High school but I didn’t know if Chicago was the right fit for me. I knew a lot of people from Springville and I also lived in the school district, but I knew that the school had a good amount of problems integrated into it. I knew it was time to leave my old school but I had no idea where I wanted to go, I had friends in a lot of the surrounding area schools, I was told to go to Springville, the athletic director even called me at my house trying to recruit me to go there. I was told to go to Chicago, where I had played football with their team. I was told to go to Preston so I could focus on basketball, but shockingly enough not many people at my old school said anything about me leaving. I think back and I realize that it made me want to leave even more because of that.  I felt that, at my old school, I was missing out on many opportunities that other schools had. My old school was not a very wealthy school, in fact much of the schools property needed repair but they didn’t have the money to repair any of the problems, I just felt as if I was being held back from my full potential, athletically and educationally.
Once I decided that I would leave, I would make the decision of where I would attend school the next year, which I needed to decide fast because I would more than likely have to open enroll into a school. For a while I had my mind set on going to Chicago, but after a while I decided that it wouldn’t have been the right fit for me because it is so much bigger than prince of peace. In the spring during soccer season, I decided that I would go to Northeast high school the next school year. At the time it seemed like a very easy decision to leave, but later on I realized it was going to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, to leave my friends that I had known since second grade, to face the criticism and mockery from so called “friends”, and worst of all begin to integrate myself into a new system which is so much different than the social system at prince of peace, I didn’t know what would be scarier. 
The first thing I would have to do would be to begin football so I could get to know some of the guys, and to have some friends to talk to once school started. Football has never been one of my most favorited sports, in fact I like it as much as someone stepping in dog poop. In other words not at all. My parents have always “encouraged” me strongly to go out for football, by encouraged I mean they forced me to go out for football. Although this year it was different I began football camp thinking to myself, “alright you can do it, just get through this and you should be fine.” I found that that thought went through my head quite frequently in the next couple of weeks.
The guys on the football team were very friendly and made coming to Northeast so much easier, they helped when it came to beginning school and getting used to the different atmosphere of the school. The first day of school is always nerve racking, let alone the first day of school at a brand new school where you know about thirty people in the entire school of probably six hundred people, where I went to a high school with barely a hundred people before. Although the first day for me was not as bad as I thought it would be, I started off my day with physics which I knew a little about but not much, thankfully I was with a few people that I knew so I didn’t have the issue of finding where to sit during class. I have to say the most stressful thing of starting school at a new school would be the first couple of days during lunch. I myself am not that much of a social bug, I don’t talk very much, I don’t make that many funny jokes but I just went for it during lunch. I found some people I knew and sat by them, the first lunch didn’t go bad at all, the second day though I had lunch with different people, I knew maybe four people in the lunch I was in that day. It was nerve racking until a friend of mine came up and told me to go and sit with her and her friends, this was a relief.
I probably had stood there for a minute or two looking pretty pathetic, I still laugh at myself looking back at it. I was scared at first, like a timid little puppy, I would always be at the back of everything, taking my time to get used to things and used to people coming to me first and very nervous at the idea of changing schools, but after I got used to the school and began to make new friends and begin a new school year with new people. I have to say that coming to Northeast has been a good decision so far and it will benefit me in the future.