Nikolas Anctil

Immigration

     As I came close to the age of ten, my parents were talking about moving from Quebec to the southern states of America. My reaction was “oh no” because I was going to leave my friends and the whole ten years that I spent my life in Canada. I was going to have to adapt to a new world where things are much different. Also I would lose my relatives and probably see them only once a year.What I’m trying to say here is that I wasn’t happy about what was about to change.

     Things did get better because my parents promised me that when we got to Tucson, they would get me a garden railway and set up a whole miniature town for it. I was a bit happier but I was still depressed. When it came time for school to end at my last year in Canada, I was excited because it was vacation time but still sad. We spent our last days in Canada getting ready to move to Tucson and doing things like emptying the house into the moving truck and packing some sleeping bags because our stuff wasn’t going to come till the days after we had arrived in Tucson.

     On departure day, I was way more exited than before because I was going to get to see my new house and a new country. The plane ride went very well because it was like I was going on vacation. It was a seven hour long flight to get to Tucson from Montreal, but when we finally got here. We had to rent a car because our other car was in the moving truck. When we got to my new house I was very excited to see what the inside looked like and I was surprised at the size of the house and how big and spacey a house could be. All four of the other homes I had before were very small and crowded. That was an improvement.

     This house was the best house that my parents could have bought. Still the house came with some bad things; our back yard was infested with plants and our first water bill was very very high because the previous owners had not turned off the irrigation and had let it run to feed the numerous plants that don't belong in the desert. What we did is ripped all the plants and shrubs out and instead we but tarps and rocks to prevent from plants to grow back. Then my parents kept their promise and bought me the garden railroad and a little town to go with it.

After we were all set up school started and I went to Fructendler for my fifth grade. My first few weeks were hard because I had to remember a lot from when I was six, when we went to Arizona for a year. My English was not very good at that point. Still after a while I got used to the rhythm of Tucson but during the year, some sadness came and went because I missed my relatives and friends. It all got better after I spent the next summer in Canada where I saw my friends and relatives again. Throughout the next years I went to TCDS to go through middle school. It was a great experience because three years of school was the longest period of time that I ever spent at one school. All of the other schools I only spent one to two years or less.

     All these new thing have helped me grow because I learned new traditions, different clothing, different laws and hospitality. Just moving to this country has made me realize that there isn't only one great thing in this world and that seeing new places is almost always the way to go. But still to this day I could never say that one country is better than the other even if it were true because they each have their ups and downs.

     To this day I still miss not being in my home country but much less than I did when I had just arrived because memories of being in America are just as important as those from Canada. Although time goes by and I am very happy to have immigrated into a new country because it was a great adventure for my family to come to America.