Bedbug Narrative

Out of all difficult situations I personally encountered, nothing ever reached the insanity of my room's bedbug infestation in my junior year. Unfortunately, my family could not afford a bed bug exterminator. With a single mother who makes less than $30,000 a year and a brother in college, hiring an exterminator was a choice we could not afford. Consequently, our circumstances left us with one remaining option: annihilating the nightmares themselves. Ultimately, with the bedbugs originating in my room, it became my responsibility to eradicate them. For nine months, I dry-cleaned weekly, vacuumed intensively, spent countless hours of research, and carefully spread fine, white CimeXa powder in every corner of our condominium. But those nine months would be impossible without my persistent determination to complete the extermination. …show more content…
Although my family migrated to the United States when I was two, I did not speak English fluently for a long time. My time in ESL as an elementary schooler reflected years of isolation from my peers, leaving me and a few others as outcasts from the classroom. In three years, my English improved, but interactions with my classmates were limited. Even though I managed to garner some friends, I felt a wall of detachment every time the ESL teacher came to pick me up from English class. After second grade, I decided to switch elementary schools, determined to make it through the school year without ESL, become friends with my classmates, and maintain my friendships. Because of this decision, two of my best friends and I have celebrated a nine-year anniversary of our friendship. We will be going on our separate ways after high school, we might not be as close as we are in the future, but knowing I made two good friends for nine years is a dream a five-year-old me would never have