My name is Neal Bhasin and I’m 10 years old and I am going to tell you a different kind of story. At my 10th birthday party, we had a game truck and a laser tag game at my house. After that, we went to have some cake, then we went to play dodgeball. Reader, before we move forward, we have to go backwards.

A couple days before that, we had to buy the dodgeballs from the store for the dodgeball game. The problem was we had to find out where we could find the dodgeballs. But all the sports stores didn’t have them. I was really nervous that we couldn’t get the dodgeballs for the party, and it would be a total disaster for the party. Luckily my mom had one of my school’s coach’s number, and she called him up to get the dodgeballs from the school. Finally we got the dodgeballs from my school then took them to my house. Now I’m here writing for you about my life.

I’m going to go back to my 9th birthday. We had a party at Lazer Tag and this time it was actually at the building instead of at my house. It was a fun party with all my friends and my family members. The next school year I was scared for my first day of school. Then I found out that I was in Miss Asker’s homeroom, Miss Ochoa’s reading, and Miss Roth’s math class. During that school year’s winter break and last year’s spring break, my family and I went to Mammoth and we skied. It was fun skiing in Mammoth, but after 11:30 the slopes got really slushy. Then during spring break we went to Snow Park, Salt Lake City, Utah. We skied there and I did a jump that was there. It was really fun going through the air. Later that year during the summer we went to Australia and New Zealand. We went to many different types of places like Auckland, Queensland, Queenstown, New South Wales, Sydney, Cairns, and Rotorua. We had a lot of fun during our trip seeing all the ways that our culture is different than Australia’s.

Now I’m going to go back to my 8th birthday. Reader, I’m going to put in some spice in the story to change it up a little. I was scared for the first day of third grade, until I found out I was in Miss Kaplan’s homeroom and reading and Miss Roth’s math class again. During the school year it was very fun and one of my friends came to me for advice about his girlfriend. Because he didn’t know what to do, I told him to back off a little bit and he did and it’s working out fine with him and his girl. That same year, I kept on getting injured and so I kept on going to my school’s nurse’s office. When my mom got all of these nurse’s slips back she thought that I really liked one of the nurses there, but no, I didn’t. It was just what they gave us crackers and the best flavored Gatorade — fruit punch.

During winter break we went to India and I met the rest of my family. We went to different parts of India like New Delhi and Mumbai. We went and watched a cricket game: India versus Pakistan. We went to my mom’s and her brother’s school and met one of her college friends. The friend had a daughter that was about my age.

During the summer of 2011, when I was 6, we went to Peru so my brother could show off his Spanish skills to my mom. We went to do some shopping and my brother was able to bargain and translate. We were getting ready to go on a hike up the side of a mountain to this thing called The Sun Gate. We started off like it was a nice smooth trail and me and my dad went farther and farther up the hill and people going down were so impressed by this little kid going up the hill. And so many people asked me how old I was and I said, “Six,” and they said, “Wow, how young you are and you’re going up this hill.”

We went up this trail farther to The Sun Gate and my dad took some photos standing in front of The Sun Gate.The Sun Gate was so beautiful I cannot describe it. I can’t even remember it, just it was beautiful. We decided to go back down around 12:30. We started heading down and it was a lot harder going down than coming up. The sun was going farther and farther and farther down. Finally, we reached the end of the trail around 7:50 while the sun was setting. Reader, that is all I want to say to you this time.

To be continued…