The Start of Something Great

Hey, everyone! So today concludes my summer break. Tomorrow classes begin and it goes back to business as usual. Even though I’m sad summer is ending, I’m super excited to start my classes. For the fall semester this year I am taking, ASL (American Sign Language), Writing and Reporting the News 1 (my next required journalism course), Philosophy and Feminism, and lastly, my Honors course, Race Matters.

I have decided to take a leap out of my comfort zone and be a peer mentor for incoming freshman in the honors program. This is not something I would usually do because meeting people for the first time is super nerve racking for me because I never know how they will react to my disability. When I was assigned my three mentees, I emailed them right away asking them to tell me a little about themselves and in turn, I told them about myself. When typing out my short description of who I am, I only spent a sentence or two about my disability because I didn’t want it to overshadow who I really am. I told them that I have a physical disability and that my voice is hard to understand, but over time they will get the hang of it. I sandwiched it between things I like to do and what I am going to school for. By telling my mentees about my voice and disability, it made me much more comfortable and took away some of the fear of meeting them for the first time because they already knew kind of what to expect. I’m really looking forward to meeting them and getting to know new people.

When thinking about going back to school, anxiety starts to rise in my chest. Although I am looking forward to going back, it’s the thought of change that causes the anxiety to rise. The summer has only been three months, so you would think it wouldn’t be that big of a change, but it’s leaving the comfort of my home and changing my routine that makes me anxious. I have had so much change in the last couple of years, not that I ever liked change, but it’s extra scary now. My senior year of high school was a reck, my freshman year of college was getting back on my feet, and this year, I hope is the start of something great.

One of my friends told me that she believes that this year will be our year. That the stars are alined and great things will happen. And I believe her. So here’s to a great year ahead. Shine on my lovelies.