Reader Response Exp.

Ronan Stone

Ms. Asuncion

English 9 Honors, Block 1

12 October 2016

February 22, 2011

If you’d asked nine-year-old me what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d probably say a-l-o-t, of stuff. First, he would probably say that he wanted to be Batman. Later he’d probably change his mind, over and over and over. Then he’d wind back up as Batman. Yes, I wanted to be Batman when I was nine. Who didn’t?

In 2007, my family decided to leave the US and move to New Zealand. For those of you who don’t know where that is for some reason, it’s about 100 miles south of that that thinks-its-so-cool-but-it-ain’t-really continent known to some as Koala Land, and to the rest as Australia.

If you ask my parents why they decided to move to land-down-under-the-land-down-under, they would say that it was to raise their children. The public schools in New Zealand perfect if you have little kids.

When we moved, I was more excited at that point than I had been in my entire life. It was a unique experience. So, it’s no surprise that when I stepped off that plane at Christchurch Airport, I was consumed by a true sense of adventure.

Over the next few months, while my parents got all the important stuff in order, my two brothers and I acclimatized to our new home. We were later enrolled in a Catholic Primary School. For all y’all Yankees, primary school is elementary school. Then there is intermediate school, which is the British Commonwealth equivalent to middle school, and high school is high school.

Anyhow, this school were enrolled in was called Christ the King. Some of my fondest memories are from my time there. It was attached to a small Catholic church, run by two of the kindest and best men I have ever known; Father John and Monsignor Bill.

Father John was a tall, nice man, who was going a little bald at the crown. He taught our RE or Religious Education classes sometime. He also was incredibly kind.

When we first came to his parish, he went over to our house in Ilam, and gave us a New Zealand delicacy called whitebait, which is a small, white fish that tastes amazing.

Monsignor Bill was a small elderly, white-haired man with wire glasses. He had taken in an old grey cat, who we called Smokey Joe. Smokey Joe would wander around the school grounds, causing excited gasps from all the children.

Monsignor Bill would also feed a troop of ducks which sometimes came near the school. It was just another sign of his extraordinary kindness.

We spent roughly three years at Christ the King. Those could, quite possibly have been the three best years of my life. Then we had to relocate to the inner city, since my brother Duncan had graduated from Christ the King, and was now attending high school down there. We remained regular attendees of the church.

My new school was called Elmwood. It was a fun place. It was more like an American school, in the sense that it has not particular religion tied to it. However, I liked it almost as much as I liked Christ the King. In addition, Elmwood’s uniform much nicer and far more comfortable.

While at Elmwood I made to good friends. One was named Hugh Charles, and the other James. I can’t remember James’ last name, except that it started with a G and an H. You see, there was another kid in my class who funnily enough was named James G. So we had to call James (my friend) James GH.

Elmwood was a convenient spot for me, as it was right next door to Heaton Intermediate, which my brother Alaric attended. We’d walk home from school together.

It was at this time that we experienced our first earthquake. It was in September 2010, when it happened, and thankfully it happened at night. No one was hurt. For the next few months, we experienced some aftershocks, but nothing serious.

In late January 2011, my teacher, whom we all called by her first name, which was Caro, since Kiwis are, as they say, super chill, announced that we would be visiting Rutherford’s Den, a reconstruction of Ernest Rutherford’s lab. Since so many people were going, our class would be the last to go. We’d arrive there at around 1:00 PM.

I wasn’t to terribly thrilled, but hey, it was a field trip! It was set for February 22^nd, and life went on as normal, I even signed up for the soccer team. You see, at that time I was a good defender/golly in soccer. Now I’m equivalent to a lame duck.

Anyway, on Feb. 22, 2011, we went out from our classroom and waited at the bus stop. We waited, and waited, and would’ve waited some more if the bus hadn’t finally showed up; ten minutes late, of course.

When we finally jumped on the bus and drove. At around 12:40, it happened. We passing through a heavily potholed area, and the earth started to shake. Just some potholes I thought. Well, I was mistaken because seconds later I was sent hurling from my seat and into the window. Wouldn’t you just know it, an earthquake not six months after the last one.

And it was serious. Honestly, I take it as a miracle that we actually got out of their alive. It was like I’d been stuck in a massive clothes dryer on high speed. Then the bricks started to fall on the bus.

Honestly, and I’m not ashamed to say, I think I pretty much screamed my head off at that point. But we all reached Elmwood safely; and I was taken home by my dad. Turns out, that was a huge disaster. Over a hundred people died, and much of the inner city, where I lived, was in ruins.

Luckily, for us, our house was a relatively new building, ‘earthquake proof’. That earthquake proofieness (?) didn’t stop about 90% of my family’s belongings ending up strewn all over the place. But we were lucky. Most of the nice, brick houses on our block were totaled. I saw people literally look in disbelief at the wreckage of their home, which they had seen intact not six hours before.

We had no power, toilet capacity, or really anything for almost a month. Some really gross things happened over that period of time, and I’m only going to say that we had to buy ALOT of garbage bags over that month.

It was at that time that my mom and dad decided to leave New Zealand. It just wasn’t the same place anymore. You see, after the earthquake in Christchurch, we realized what would happen. The whole of New Zealand was just one big mess waiting to happen. My adopted country was in the ring of fire, which means that there were seismic faults everywhere. So, almost five years since we came, we left New Zealand for America. I had to say goodbye to everyone I had known in the formative years of my childhood.

The US is different from New Zealand. The academics are more rigorous, and attitude is different. Not that I don’t like it, it just is a little odd, or was at least for me upon my return. There were these things called smarthphones, and tablets…

Anyway, when I look back on my short time in New Zealand, I have to say that apart from its sudden end, I enjoyed those years down there. I am almost fully in the American mindset now, five years since my departure, but I have a confession to make. I still cheer for New Zealand in the Olympics and every other international sporting completion. However, my most heinous crime is that I firmly believe that American Football is almost infantile in its roughness, when compared to some good, old fashioned, New Zealand Rugby.