The Cruise

Out of the many events in my life that have drastically changed my perspective and outlook, a cruise I attended in the seventh grade is a pivotal point in my life that I look back on. I boarded the ship with dull expectations of being sea-sick and bored. However, to my surprise, the cruise would forever change my life, socially and personally for the positive. When I finally boarded the ship, I went to pick up the all inclusive personal package that came with my ticket. I was two weeks shy of being thirteen, and the cut-off for the children’s club was thirteen. This meant that I would be prohibited from being around like-minded individuals around my age by the cruise rules, and I was not pleased with it. No matter how much I begged, the strange Russian man wouldn’t falter with the rules, and accept me into the teen program. The next choice I made was one that forever changed my outlook on social atmosphere, and life in general, even though it had no great consequences. I decided to find out where the teen group was holding their meeting, and attended it to see how many friends I could make. This may sound like a small decision, but in the life of a twelve year old that faced the danger of being socially outcasted for a week, this was perhaps the biggest deal of my life. After the meeting, I stayed out roaming the ship with a group of four high-schoolers and had the time of my life. It was my first real experience of social freedom from my parents, and I was the only middle-schooler cool enough to be with the high-schoolers. That night converted me from being a self-conscious seventh grader, to a confident, courageous young man; because not only had I succeeded, but I did it all on my own. Over the course of the week, I grew closer to these people, and aded on to our original group of four. As a matter of fact, the only time I wasn’t with them was when we stopped at the three different destinations to get off of the boat for a few hours. I grew relationships and bonds with new, and interesting people with ideas and stories that I had never encountered in Burke County. Without parents observing the actions of the group of teens, we were able to do many things that weren’t acceptable for a seventh grader to do. In my mind, the social freedom and new ideas were overwhelmingly amazing. Although this exercise of making friends and forming bonds seemed like fun and games to me at the time, I now realize that the confidence and social skills that I gained from the cruise are the key ingredients to my personality today. To this day, I am a more confident socially versed individual because of the amount of adapting I had to do on the cruise. Another thing that the cruise taught me was to accept diversity, instead of being scared of it. Many different types of