Arrivals? There Goes the Neighborhood

I remember back in 6th grade, I transferred out of a private school to Ogden. I was pretty scared that I wouldn't know how to use my locker or buy school lunch since I was a newbie at all of this. I was entering into the pre-IB there for 6th-8th graders.

I actually didn't make it into the program just like that. I did pretty well on the test and was invited for the interview. I told the interviewer Ms. Dawn that I was a pretty independent person--which I am. I never ask my parents for help on homework or anything. I could tell that Ms. Dawn was pretty impressed since I was only a 6th grader and I didn't need any help from my parents. Then she questioned me if I was going to go straight to Lincoln Park for the actual IB program. I said I wasn't sure which threw everything off. My parents told me that I should've said that "I would consider". I received a letter saying that I didn't make it in which made me cry. I don't know why I cried. It wasn't a program that I was looking forward to, but I could tell that my mom was disappointed.

A couple weeks later, they sent another letter saying that I was accepted into the program. I was pretty excited going to a new school. On the first day, my mom dropped me off in front of the school. It was line up at the playground and I lined up with kids my age who were also new to the school. I felt kind of lonely since the girl in front of me had her mom with her.

We entered the school and it turned out to be a pretty nice school. The library was stocked with all kinds of books and one half was dedicated to nice computers. My first class was homeroom with Ms. Slavens. She was woman only about 5 foot 5 with pinkish tannish skin. Her face had unusual wrinkles. I don't know her age so maybe she was pretty old to be having wrinkles. She had black sunglasses on her forehead that matched her raven hair and dark eyes. She seemed kind of strict at first, but I could tell that she loved to laugh.

My next class was with Ms. Hueberman. If any of you guys know Ms. Heesemann, I'll tell you that they're similiar. However, Hueberman was way more sympathetic. She was a nice lady who explained the pre-algebra to us pretty well. However, I don't consider her as a good of a teacher as Mr. Calderon. He was my social studies teacher at Ogden who up to this point, is my favorite teacher. Mr. Calderon always wore dress shirts tucked in with the kind of pointy shoes that stars in Mexican movies would wear. He was a very cool teacher.

There was another person who worked in the school that was...interesting. HEr name was Miss Hogan. She was by far the scariest security guard EVER. Yes, even scarier than Mr. Engstrom. Throughout the year, she would turn up at school with her hair every color from blonde to purple. She was nice to the good kids and mean to the troublemakers, but I was always afraid that one day she would suddenly yell at me for doing something. Like many of my teachers, she was strict, but she would smile occasionally. Let's just say she was a very respected woman.

Before Ogden, I went to a Christian private school. Back then, I was VERY innocent until I went to Ogden. I didn't know who Rihanna or Fergie or even Chris Brown was. All of my friends at Ogden exposed me to this kind of stuff. At Ogden, I also LOVED how we had off-campus lunch. State street was filled with places like Subway and everything. My absolute favorite place would be Go Roma. It had the best pizza and 'potato sticks'.

Overall, I enjoyed my year at Ogden. However, when I came to Whitney for the academic center, I kind of lost touch with my friends and now some of them are here. I rarely talk to them or even say hi to them because now they're preppy and showoffs, but I'm happy here at Whitney Young.