This is what helped me survive middle school

I will start off with saying that I did not go to a traditional middle school, from 4th grade to 8th grade I went to a catholic school but for the sake of this blog I will call my school from 7th to 8th grade middle school.

It would be around the sixth time my family moved and I would go to new a school. I for one was happy since I didn't have many friends at my last school due to everyone thinking I was weird. New school, new people and I was thinking I could finally make some good friends but I would soon find out that that wasn't the case. The new school I was going to attend was Holy Family Catholic School in Whitefish Bay Wisconsin, I was a bit nervous standing around on the first day of school looking at all these people that I did not know. Some people said hi to me and asked who I was and other stuff like that since no one knew who I was. For those of you who don't know most Catholic schools don't have classes over 30 students and all the kids grew up with each other so everyone knew everyone. I walked into my new class room and was introduced to everyone and stuff like that. I did talk to some people and everything seemed to be going well but that wasn't until everyone found out I played video games. From that point on everyone in my class that I was weird for playing video games.

I never hid the fact I played video games, it was part of who I was and I was proud to wear the title of gamer but to them it was so strange to see. I tried making friends with them but it didn't seem to work since I was that weird chick that played video games. I played on the sports team but that didn't help at all since I was mostly a bench warmer and at lunch I sat with the eighth graders at the time since it seemed they didn't find me hobby strange at all. Everyday after I did my homework and told my mom that my school day I was fine, I walked into my room, turned on the Nintendo 64 and went into my own little world. My brother's dad just give him an Nintendo 64 and both of us played it but I played it a lot more then he did. Playing the Nintendo 64 was really my only way to escape from the crap that was school well besides talking about how much I hated school with my parents but that can only go so far.

Well seventh grade ended and eighth grade came along, I was still going to school with the same people that didn't want anything to do with me. It was the same thing all over again, go to school, go home, play video games. This year wasn't to bad compared to seventh since I started going to church and the youth group there was full of game and I finally found some friends that didn't find me weird for playing them. Sadly when I wasn't at youth group or talking with my parents how much I hated school I was playing video games. Mainly one game in particular The Legend of Zelda Ocarina Of Time.

I know I have played this game over 100 times and I enjoy everything about it no matter how many times I replay it. In all honesty this game is what made me proud to be a gamer and turned me into the gamer I am today. No matter how bad a day I was having at school, no matter how much the other kids made fun of me, I knew that waiting for me at home was the land of Hyrule waiting for me to discover all it's secrets and discover it's beautiful lands. It was something I always looked forward to since when I journeyed to Hyrule all the insults and stupid names I was called seemed to not exist anymore, here in that land I wasn't the weird girl who played video games and most importantly I wasn't an outcast since that is how I really felt.

I did play other video games but Ocarina Time holds a special place in my heart because it helped me get through middle school. I did have more troubles growing up and for me talking about my feelings is really hard but for me video games will always be there to let me escape from it all. Talking about it only went so far for me but sitting in front of my TV playing video games for a while always made me feel better and not so alone in everything. Though middle school was extremely bad for me I honestly feel that video games helped me a lot during those two years I was in school.