New England Vs. The Chesapeake

Hello my name is Alma Castro, I am 16 years old and I am now attending Skyline High School for the Child Care Cluster. I live with my mom, dad, 1 sister (Cynthia who is 14), and 2 brothers (Alfredo 12 and Eduardo 9) in a house in Oak Cliff. My house is about 5 minutes from downtown Dallas. My family and I enjoy going to the movies, the park, and going out to eat as a family. But this is only the beginning of what I am about to tell you about my life.

I was born on October 25, 1988 in the Mexico in the City of Juarez. I only lived in Mexico for about 3 years but while I lived there my mom said I gave her the biggest scare of her life. She said that when I was about a year and six months I got out of the house and went to a neighbor's house to play without her knowing. When she started to look for me and couldn't find me she got scared, then all my uncles noticed and so they started to help her. She said that after looking for about an hour I came out from that house like nothing had happened. Then on June 20, 1991 my little sister was born. My mom said that when my little sister was born I became very responsible and helpful. She also said that I was very calm and happy all the time. Then in June 1992 we moved to Dallas with my aunt and 3 older cousins. Living with my aunt was all right we had our good and bad times; we were all bunched up in a small house in Duncanville. A couple of months later we moved to a bigger house in the same neighborhood. Our next-door neighbors were very nice they really made us feel welcomed. Living at this house I started preschool. I went to a school that was only 4 blocks from the house, so my mom use to take my 2 younger cousins, our 2 neighbors (who by the way are twins), and me to school walking. I remember that when we all go home from school we would all go outside and play in the backyard. Then in May 27, 1993 my brother Alfredo was born so my dad decided to get a house of our own. So we looked everywhere and we finally found a nice house in West Dallas.

Living in west Dallas was very cool, we had a lot of nice and cool neighbors. Living here I started going to kindergarten at a school called Lorenzo De Zavala, which was only 2 blocks from my house. Here I had the best teachers and a lot of friends I still talk to. While I was in the 1st grade I remember she gave us the news that she was going to have another baby boy. My baby brother was born on December the 21st 1995 so we almost spent our Christmas in the hospital. When I passed on to the 2nd grade I had a teacher name Ms. Lyons, she was the coolest teacher I ever had. When we were good in class she would take my other friends and me to the movies, out to eat and even once she took my friend Beverly and me to the fair. That is one year I will never forget. This elementary school only went up to the 3rd grade so now I had to go to another school, this new school was called Sidney Lanier. When I got to Lanier I saw that I could play an instrument, so I choose the violin. At first I was not a very good violinist but later on I became quit good. At Lanier I also participated in a couple of plays because I was in theater arts. During my 5th grade year I began going to this center called The Trinity River Mission, here I would go every day after school and they would help me with my homework, they would also give us tutors that would help us in whatever subject we needed the most work on and in Christmas the tutors would buy my family and me presents. During the summer they have a summer program there we would do a lot of things and they would take us to several field trips. But once you go to middle school you enter a new program called Believe and Achieve, in this program you must do 40 volunteer hours every year until you graduate in order to receive a 4,000-dollar scholarship. When it was time to move on to middle school I really didn't want to go because I really had fun from 4th grade to 6th grade but I applied to W.E. Greiner anyways because most of my friends were going there. When I found out that I had been accepted for orchestra I got really happy. While I was at Greiner I met my 3 best friends Edgar, Nathalie, and Gerardo. They were also in orchestra with me and they were very fun to hang around with. But Edgar was my best friend, we hang out all he time and we like to do a lot of things together. For example we like to go to the movies, go to parties, and sometimes we even go to the mall. During the summer between 7th and 8th grade we moved to a new house in Oak Cliff, it's were we live now. In the 8th grade the orchestra went to a couple of important places to play for important people. We would go to hotels and special conventions, once we even played for the mayor of Dallas. Leaving Greiner was one of the saddest things I have ever done, I had to leave a lot of my friend and start over again from the beginning.