The Story of Ivan Ivanavich (Warning: long)

There once was a man from the Ukraine named Ivan Ivanavich. Now Ivan and his family were dirt poor, in fact they were so poor, that they had to sell the cockroaches and rats they found in their hovel to make some spare change to to feed their many family members. One day Ivan decided it was time to travel to the United States to try and have a better life and he managed to get aboard a ship to the States. Now his journey on this ship was miserable, he was down in the bowels of the ship, which was flooded with rats and feces, but he bunkered down and gave it his all to survive this terrible journey. But one day he hears commotion above, they had arrived. Ivan walks up to the topside of the old ship and sees the New York Harbor. He stands there amazed seeing such a beautiful sight. Ivan starts his life in New York but he doesn't have a significantly better life. He lands himself a gig of selling old newspapers. He goes through garbage cans and find old papers and manages to sell them to people in the poorer part of town. He makes slightly more spare change, but not really enough to live a better life.. In his spare time he decides to start free diving in the bay. He goes there each day, and started to get really good at it. One day, an owner of a Circus spots him diving and is amazed at how good he is. He offer Ivan a job at his circus of doing performance diving. Ivan eagerly accepts and begins his career as a circus member performing amazing high jumps into really small containers of water. After a few months of doing this he suggests to the owner one amazing jump to wow everyone. The Owner agrees and rents a ship much like the one Ivan arrived in and placed the smallest container yet. The radio and tv crews arrived to spectate the event as well. The day arrives and Ivan begins his climb up a massive tower, and the ship is pulled into place beneath him. Ivan is very nervous but decides it's go times and jumps from the massive tower. As ivan descended, a sudden wave pushed the ship ever slightly throwing off the alignment. Ivan falls straight through the top of the ship, and the spectators all gasp and cry out. There is a dead silence, and amazingly, Ivan emerges from the hole in the top of the ship. Reporters are shocked and race to Ivan asking "How on Earth did you survive that!?" Ivan looks to the reporters and says "Throughout my life I have been through many Hardships."