Personal Narrative: My First Day In America

The alarm clock went “ding….ding… ding.” I woke pretending I couldn’t hear it, because I didn’t want to get up. My mom was yelling at my sister and me, “Get up girls it’s time to go school.” I didn’t understand why she was so excited. I miserably dragged myself out of bed; I just wanted to crawl and hide and the blanket. It was a cold day in March 1999, I was fourteen years old, and it was my first day of school in America.

I was scared. My sister and I got ready, but we were not happy. We knew we had to go to school, and mom would not let us stay home. We walked to the bus stop right across the street from our house. A few minutes later, a big yellow bus pulled up right next to us. We looked at each other and my sister said, “Here we go.”
Once we got to the last step, we could feel everybody’s eyes burning at us. Three rows from the bus door there was an empty seat next to a student. I attempted to sit there, and the student took his back pack, and put it on the seat next to him. I just kept walking. My sister was also trying to sit next to another student; that student also put her bag pack on the seat next to her. One student after another placed their pack backs on the seats next to them. With my eyes full of tears, I looked at my sister with shock. She held my hand very tight, and I felt she might break it. To make matters worse one of the students shouted, “Aren’t you supposed to ride a camel, not a bus?”

Everybody laughed, including the bus driver. Those were the most hurtful words ever. Mark Dombeck, Ph.D., director of Mental Help Net, writes about bullying. He states “it is not necessary to be physically harmed in order to suffer lasting harm. Words and gestures are quite enough. In fact, the old saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me’ is more exactly