When I first arrived at Belleview

Middle School I didn’t know

anyone. I was a skinny

cow in a field with fat cows. I

was so nervous that I wasn’t

paying attention to the

teachers. I started getting to

know people and I started learning

who to hang with and

who not to hang with. I don’t

remember much of the 6th grade but

I know that it was a

boring year. When I got to the

seventh grade, everything went

down hill. I was shy and even too

scared to talk to people that I

already knew. My teacher told me

that for some reason 7th

graders go through a change and I

went through that change. It's not

a good change.

There's two phases to the change.

The first part is you think

everybody has to listen to you and

you only have the right answers

and that make you self centered.

The second part is

worse. I started not caring about

school and I started causing

trouble. My parents started

to notice this and they tried to

stop it but every time they tried

to discipline it got worse.

I just tried to change by

myself, for my own reasons,and

that worked. After I

made the basketball team

things started to get better. I

made a lot more friends and I even

got over my fear of

talking to new people. In the

eighth grade I have changed so

far. I might not change all the

way, then again, I might but I'm

hoping I will.

I'm going to make the basketball

team again but this

year the team is going to win the

tournament. I'm also going to do

something I've never

done before and that is to try and

get straight A's and that will

change my attitude. Also in

8th grade I've learned to be

myself. I use to do everything my

friends did thinking that

would make me cool but it didn’t.

That’s what made me do sports

because you can't do

what everybody else does because

you might not have their physical

abilities. I am trying

to survive middle school and all

the difficult situations in this

process of growing up.