A Hero’s Journey

This story is about me in third grade. At this time, I was eight years old. It was around 2012 or 2013. In third grade, my family and I moved to Morgan, Utah. I had to go to a different school, where I knew nobody. I had to make new friends, and meet new people. Odysseus had to overcome many challenges, such as fighting a cyclops, just to get home to his wife after twenty years.

In kindergarten through second grade, I went to Lake View Elementary School.

This school goes from kindergarten to fifth grade. They try to have every student, “reading at their grade level benchmark.” (Lake View Elementary Website). I had a lot of friends who went there that are still my friends. Odysseus lived in a place called Ithaca. “Ithaca is an island in the Ionian Sea in Greece, which was an important setting in one of the most famous myths of ancient Greece, the Odyssey.“ (GreekMythology.com). He had a son named Telemachus and a wife named Penelope. Penelope was just as clever and intelligent as Odysseus.

Before we moved, we were living at my grandma’s house, in Brigham City. We used to live in a house, but we moved into my grandma’s. I don’t remember why we moved. At our grandma’s house, she had a nice garden. “My garden overflows, Thick and wild and hidden” (Homer 655), but our garden wasn’t as big as Calypso’s. We would grow fruits and vegetables and harvest them and use them in food.

My dad was a police officer in Weber State, and he got a job offering in Morgan County. He didn’t want to drive all the way to Morgan every day, so my family moved to Morgan because he took the job. Odysseus was a very trustworthy counselor, adviser, and he was also a skilled warrior. Odysseus made it possible for the Greeks to conquer the city of Troy. It took ten years to finally sneak into the city of Troy and claim it.

I did not want to move because I had close friends I didn’t want to lose. I didn’t have any way of communicating with them when I moved. In the Odyssey, Odysseus did not want to go to the war. He tried to dodge drafts. He tried to act like he was insane so he wouldn’t have to go fight in the war. Palamedes eventually saw through Odysseus and saw that he wasn’t insane by putting his son in front of the a plough. In second grade, we never had our own emails or phones. I eventually got over the fact that we were moving because I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Before the school year ended, my friend gave me some his Pok?©mon card, and I still had them when I moved back to Brigham.

My mom, my sister, and I drove down to the school we were going to one day during the summer to meet our teachers. The School was called Mountain Green Elementary School. My sister was going into 5th grade, and I was going into 3rd. I still remember my teachers name. She was Mrs. Duncan. My sister had the teacher, Mrs. Bait. The principal was called Mr. Mac. We talked for a little bit and then we drove back home.

Crossing the threshold was going to school on the first day. At the time, I barely knew the layout of the school. The school was still fairly new being built either that year or the year before, so it was clean and nice. Classrooms were organised by grades. There was the rest of the school and then there were doors going into medium sized rooms that had more doors which went into the classes. Each classroom had windows so you could see in from the big room. On the first day, I didn’t know anyone. I was alone, and I didn’t know how this school worked. When we went out for recess, some older students who were still outside said, “The 2nd graders just went inside.” (The older students) They thought I was a 2nd grader, when I was actually a third grader. I looked around for some kids I remembered seeing inside the class. After a day or so, I eventually started talking to some kids and I made friends pretty fast. My reward was getting an A and making some new friends.

While in Morgan, we lived in apartments. We were on the top floor. They were really close to a Walmart store, so we went there pretty often. The apartments were pretty nice and they had a pool and hot tub. This was one of my first times in an apartment. We didn’t have a garage and none of my friends from Mountain Green lived nearby. The person who would usually come to hang out with me was my cousin.

My ordeal was definitely going into 4th grade. For some reason, I didn’t go back to Mountain Green. I went to some other school. I didn’t like this school, or stay at it very long so I don’t remember the name. This school was still somewhere in or near Morgan. We went to the school to visit our teachers just like before. I met my 4th grade teacher and my sister met her 6th grade teacher. I hated every second of being in that school compared to Mountain Green. It was dark inside, and it had a confusing layout. This school was nowhere as organized as Mountain Green. We stayed in that school for a week then came back to Brigham City.

The way back was a lot easier than leaving. I knew I had friends back in Brigham City and I was excited to see them for the first time in a couple of years. I got the 4th grade teacher named Mrs. Ball. The first day I was back at Lake View Elementary School, one of my old friends noticed me. I didn’t have my best friend, Kyan LaRose, in my class, but I found him during break. He had the teacher that was two classrooms down the hall. We instantly noticed each other and started hanging out again. “With eyes brimming tears she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissed him,” (Homer 708), when I saw him, I didn’t run up and hug him, kiss him, or cry, but we caught up with our lives.

In conclusion, my reward was finding my old friends and making some new ones when I came back, that are still my friends to this day, and getting experiences at different schools. It was cool meeting new people, although I probably won’t see them again. Odysseus’ reward was finally getting back home and finding his wife again.

Homer. from the Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fitz?µerald. Holt Rinehart Winston, 31 March 2006

Lake View Elementary, Blogspot, lakeview4922.blogspot.com/

“Ithaca.” Greek Mythology, www.greekmythology.com/. 

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