II was born in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Vienna, Virginia. My parents came from El Salvador to live in the United States. My mother wanted a better life for herself and wanted to help her mother out. My father came because of the war being fought between Honduras and El Salvador. After I was born, my mom wanted to go and live in Virginia. She decided to live in Virginia because it was a nice quiet place. However, when I was six years old, we moved back to Washington, D.C. to live.

    When I started school in D.C., it felt weird and I hated it. There was more space to play in Virginia compared to DC, which was too crowded. Also in Virginia, there was less noise at night; in DC, I could not sleep well. Everything in DC seemed too small for me. Even the schools in Virginia held more students and were bigger. It also seemed like the teachers taught me more in Virginia than in DC. There were some things that stayed the same when I moved to DC. There were always friendly people in both Virginia and DC. Another was that there were a lot of shopping centers and stores. There was also a lot of traffic in the streets and the buses were always so slow.  The kids in Virginia and DC were the same, and they treated me friendly when they started to talk to me.

    When I got to DC, I became shy and was not myself. I became more closed off, and until this day I’m still the same way. Everyone noticed that became more isolated. Everything I did was by myself, even if I need help. It seemed to me like no one understood me, and how I felt about living in D.C. When my parents would ask me how was school, I would not answer back. I would just go straight to my room. Living in DC was hard for me I felt weird like if I was a person everyone was staring at me and felt like I was being squished. There was a lot of pressure on me everyone was telling me that I was going to be okay. It took time to get adjusted to living in DC.

    It was difficult to get used to living in my new environment because it felt like there was not enough room for me. Everything was too close to each other. However, there were a few things that I did to over come my difficulties. One thing was going for walks four days a week and spending more time with my friends. Also I would go to ride my bike down Rock Creek for fun. I learned that there are many difficulties in life that people have to overcome not just me. Now when I look back, I feel kind of dumb about the things I did when we moved from Virginia. Now everything feels normal and I feel comfortable living in Washington, DC.