Writing Feedback / My (Ever-Changing) Neighborhood - Windows on Williams [5]

I'm kind of at my wits end. Due today, help would be very much appreciated.
WOW essay prompt: Please describe your neighborhood and how it impacts who you are (no more than 3,000 characters).

The hazy early memories I have are set in China. My neighborhood as I knew it consisted of a tiny room filled with dingy, towering furniture and the strange sounds of the Ningbo dialect. I was three, and my mother's long hours at work left me in the care of an old lady next door. Instead of tea parties, I held book club meetings and read to my closest friends, Miss Barbie and Mister Banana-shaped Pillow. At an early age, I learned the value of knowledge and solitude.

When I turned seven, I moved to a new home near an army training site. Soon, the reason for its attractive price tag made itself known. Each day, I woke up to the morning bugle at six o'clock sharp. I walked to school along a crowded street, choosing my steps carefully among industrial debris and holding my breath in the sawdust-filled air. It was even more dangerous to navigate after school, so I waited to be picked up. One by one the other children left, pocketing their toys, hands held by mom and dad on each side, smiling wide as they jumped into their cars and drove away. I did not have their pretty toys, a car, or even a house, and my father was in a far-away land called America. As darkness fell I saw Mom's bike approaching. She rushed forward and hugged me tight, faced lined with exhaustion but always smiling at the sight of me. And though I did not have many things my schoolmates did, I was happy for what I had.

Now at seventeen, my neighborhood is a place I never thought I'd be ten years ago. I still wake up at the unearthly hour of six, still walk to school, and still lack many material comforts others take for granted. My single parent, now my father, still works late into the night, leaving me with the responsibilities for chores and cooking. But I now live on another side of the Pacific, an ocean that I had crossed 5 times by myself. I became fluent at the new language in less than 3 months. I moved more than 6 times and changed 4 school districts in the past 7 years. My guardianship switched from one parent to another 3 times. And I lived on my own for more than 2 months. Looking back, my life has led me to many unexpected places, but it has also prepared me for anywhere it will take me next.

What I have described may not resemble a neighborhood by traditional definitions. Perhaps the only constant is that my neighborhood isn't. My surroundings are my neighborhood, no matter what, when, and where. Others may think that my life is made of too many broken pieces, fragments of a picture that can't be whole. From my prospective, however, the opposite is true. This mosaic of memories and moments pieces together the person I am, and I would not change it for the world.

Word count: exactly 500/500 allowed.

I'm not sure how to feel about this piece, having rewritten this many times but never quite feeling satisfied with it. I hope it's not too irrelevant to the prompt, because I've reconsidered it many times but I truly am more of a migrant, and I don't feel that any "community" has made a big impact on my life. I have more moving/adapting experiences, actually, but I decided to stick to three periods to make it less running-list-y. Not sure if that succeeded. To give you some background info that will go in the app itself, I currently rank top 5 in my school with 2300+ SAT. If this info makes the essay better or worse, please do tell me. I'm fighting for a balance between bragging and making my essay interesting...

Please (constructively) criticize away! I'll read back, promise :)