Sixth Grade Personal Essay

Rohan PanugantiPer23/12/13

When someone tells you about stressful times, they usually talk about high school and

college, when fitting in was everything. The pressure from friends and bullies causes students to

take drastic measures. But when you know how to handle the peer pressure and bullies, life is

easy. All you worry about is class work and tests. But when a student is new to a school then

things are a little harder.

When I was in fifth grade I never imagined that I would move away from my beloved city

of Cupertino. My friends and I discussed all the fun electives we were going to take in middle

school (my elementary school went up to fifth grade.) One day my dad walked up to me and

said," Rohan, would you be okay with us moving to another city?" As usual I always replied

absentmindedly, "Yeah." Little did I know my single-worded response confirmed our

emigration from Cupertino.

The new house was nice but not as big. We had a peach tree and almond tree and the

back yard. The neighbors were elderly and kind; they said we could take the apples from the

overlapping branch of their apple tree. There was an extra room in the house which we

converted into a game room (TV, board games, videogames, etc). But there was no one my

age around the neighborhood. So starting then, until the end of summer I sat at home and

played videogames.

Finally, school had started and I was in Mr. Lopez's class. The first few days went okay,

but then came Friday. To get everyone to know each other better we played a game called 'two

truths and a lie', My two truths were: I was born in Dallas, Texas and I have a birthmark near my

knee. The lie was that I had a peanut allergy. When It was my turn to go up I told the three

things. Then one student said I wasn’t born in Texas, I told him that it's true. Then another

person said that I don’t have a birthmark near my knee. I then rolled up my pants to prove

them wrong. What I did not know did I know was that people were very picky on how you lived

your life. A kid walked up to me and said, "What kind of weirdo comes from Texas?" Usually

these things don’t affect me but that day I felt like no one in that school was ever going to be

my friend.

The teacher had assigned us a book report. This time I was sure that I wouldn’t make a

fool of myself in front of the class. I made sure everything in my speech was okay to say,

especially at the part when I had to talk about how I related to a character. When I delivered

the report I stuttered and mumbled, but gave all the correct information. One of the mean

students laughed behind my back, which, of course, went unnoticed by the teacher. After I

finished my fiasco, I walked back to my desk, where the same kid said," Hey dude, you sound

like Chewbacca." After that I lost all my self-esteem. I was scared to go to school on some days,

especially on days with class discussion because I was always excluded. Every day that boy

would shout the name Chewbacca across the classroom, always expecting me to turn around to

respond to my 'name.'

One day I was really getting sick of what was happening. We had a substitute teacher

that day and everyone was messing around. The sub noticed that kid was calling me names and

asked him why was he doing that. He said, ''Rohan is okay with it, he doesn’t care.'' At that

moment I exploded. I screamed things like; 'what have I done to you, what do you mean I don’t

care, and other such things at him. I think I screamed out so much puberty my voice doesn’t

crack anymore. The substitute looked very troubled and sent both of us to the office. The staff

there asked us questions about what happened why I screamed at him. He of course denied

everything I claimed he said. Then the staff asked the class members what happened. At this

point I was scared, because I had no friends and I knew they were going to side with the other

kid. One of the office staff came back and said I was free to go back to the classroom. She saw

my puzzled expression and replied, "You didn’t do anything wrong, your story matched with

everyone else's." I suddenly felt really emotional because I couldn’t believe people in the class

room stood up for me. I felt like what the class did, was a way of saying, 'Remember, you are

part of this class too.'

When I look back onto sixth grade I can see how much of an idiot I was. I had taken

things too seriously and was offended too easily. But that boy had taught me an important

thing in life, people may not like you, but that doesn’t mean everyone hates you. Even though

he had bad intentions, he helped me. Even to this day, he makes fun of me, but I know deep

down he is a hurt, depressed person so I just take his crude comments and not do anything.

There are a lot of things that have changed about me. I have to mentally create comebacks

before school just in case someone tries to verbally attack me. The only people that I have told

this to are my Cupertino friends, the two peer editors and Ms. Allen. My friends are truly

shocked at the aggressive behavior of some of the students here. Coming here has definitely

changed me personality-wise. I hope I can maybe go to a college where people are kind and not

too competitive.